Fear of Erebus

The Insanity Within

I found Perseus about a mile away from camp, walking at a determined pace, eyes glaring intensely to the north- to Alaska.

"Hey, wait up!" He rudely ignored me and kept walking. "I said; wait up!" I teleported behind him and grabbed at his shoulder, already anticipating his wild swing to my head. Instinctively I caught his hand and twisted it hard behind his back, before kicking his legs out from beneath him. This foolish mortal was really starting to piss me off, as I grabbed a tuff of his unruly dark hair, and levelled a silver dagger just under his jaw.

All he did was laugh.

Honesty, it was more of a morbid chuckle. "Always so rash." He tilted his head slightly, testing my patience and I let the knife piece his skin. "You can't kill me, goddess. You need me." Well, this is an interesting development, and here I was fooled into thinking that this oh-so-special Son of Poseidon was different from all the other egoistical men of the world. Guess I was wrong.

I removed the dagger and kneed him in the back, hard enough to force him to the ground. He chuckled again, as if he knew something I didn't- I had previously tried to read his mind, surprisingly with little to no success.

I sighed as I watched him grasp at the dirt, letting it run through his fingers like sand. "What happened to you, Perseus." I wasn't really expecting him to answer.

"You know what happened." His voice had become rough and dry, suspiciously like it sounded when I had found him half-dead in the woods.

"Indeed." I plainly agreed, as he slowly and hesitantly hurled himself to his feet. "However, it does not give an explanation to some of your actions and behaviour. You are giving very few reasons for people to trust you, and you should know better then anyone, that a war cannot be won without trust." He stayed silent for a moment, glaring out north- as if it would give him an answer.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

He frowned at me. "Down there," he spoke the word with a hatred that could barely be rivalled with, "I was broken. They ripped me apart and sewed me back, ripped apart, and sewed back- a constant wheel of pain, until I could no longer feel it."

"So your saying you've developed something similar to Congenital analgesia? You know, Apollo could help-" There was a bark of laughter at that.

"Apollo?! He can barely save himself!" He stopped abruptly, upon noticing my confounded glare. How could he know something like that? He immediately resumed his trek to Alaska.

"Perseus."

"Look, the sooner I get to Alaska, the sooner I can stop this war and save your-"

"Perseus!"

"WHAT?!" He suddenly stopped, and whirled around to face me. "Seriously? What do you want?!" I stared blankly. He looked as if he was contemplating between walking away or really giving me a go. "You know I'm trying, right?" I gave him a curious look, he just wet his lips. "But everything's just falling apart around me; Poseidon, Annabeth. I'm just trying to do... something good."

He walked off, defeated, and I really wish I could have held in my sigh. I quickly jogged up next to him and gave him a sideways glance.

"You know, if you keep up your current pace, the war will be over before we can even get to Alaska." I grabbed his upper-arm and we teleported away.