#9 -A Percy Jackson fanfic-

Chapter 4

*There's one tiny winy spoiler of the Blood of Olympus. Just warning you ;).*

-

I close my eyes and take deep breaths, trying to slow down my heartbeat. It feels as if my mind is at war with itself. Anger, discipline, rational thoughts, guilt, longing, desire, doubt.

I think about the boy, Annabeth, Tyson, Chiron. I try to remember them, remember a time with them before I woke up in Tartarus. I find nothing, absolutely nothing.

Maybe they lied.

But the picture, the fact that ‘Percy’ is the only son of Poseidon. The reaction of Tyson...

I try to push all of my thoughts away, annoyed. I’m really tired of all this and I want to sleep. I shift on my right side, but almost immediately shift back on my back. My right hand is still in the Celestial handcuffs, the other end attached to the bed I’m lying on.

And, finally, I feel myself drifting towards sleep.

-

A few knocks on the door wake me up. I slowly open my eyes and sit up. My shoulder is sore from the whole night sitting in a weird position. I wince while rotating it a bit.

Someone knocks on the door, again.

“Come in.” I say. The door opens and Annabeth comes in. She has a small box with her.

She stops and awkwardly sits on a small stool next to my bed. “Hi.” She says.

“Hi.” I wait until she starts talking.

She clears her throat and looks at me. “I’ve brought some things with me. Those might help you remember.”

I sigh. Of course they won’t leave me alone, but I also really want to see what’s in that box. I gesture for her to continue. She opens the box and takes out a simple ballpoint pen. She holds it in front of me, but doesn’t give it to me.

“How would this help me to remember?”

“It is you-, I mean, Percy’s sword.” She says. Before I can ask how in the name of Hades she thinks a pen is a sword, she takes the cap off and the pen changes to a 3 feet long, Celestial bronze sword. On the hilt stands ‘Anaklusmos’.

“Riptide.” I translate it automatically. I reach out with my hand, but before I can touch it, she puts the cap back on and puts it back in the box.

“So you remember?” she says eagerly.

“No, I just translated the word that stood on the hilt.” I say with an emotionless expression. Her shoulders sag.

“Oh...” She gets a picture out of the box and holds it in front of me. On it stands a woman. She has brown hair with grey streaks in it, blue eyes and a very warm smile. She looks around her late forties and has a tray with blue cookies in her hand.

Blue cookies? I wonder what they taste like...

“Who is that?” I ask.

“It’s Sally Jackson, Percy’s mother.”

I stare at the picture. His mother, my mother? I really want to be Percy, because his mother looks so kind. I don’t even know what it’s like to have a mother, a family who cares for you. By realising that, I feel a pang of longing in my chest.

Before I even realise it, I say it out loud: “I... I want to meet her.”

A mother will always know her son, right? So if she sees me and is sure of me being Percy, then maybe I really am.