Flowergirl, Percy Jackson

002. The Call of the Wild

002───────ஐ〰ฺ･:*:･✿the call of the wild

  THAT NIGHT, THERE WERE NO NEVER-ENDING BLUE SEAS AND OCEANS, NO DEEP SKY. There were no wings from her back, no kind-but-cruel men watching her fall, shock in their eyes. There was no sea-green or sky-blue, no burning hot wax scarring her back or any heat. There was no sun. Only darkness.

  It wasn't the type of darkness that came with the night, the kind of darkness that night-owls like Annabeth Chase thrived off and everybody else slept in. It wasn't darkness like the deep, light-less murk of the sea, which Percy Jackson flourished in. It was just...nothing. An abyss she was falling into, a void she was engulfed by. 

  Is this what death is?  The question blooms on her lips, but she does not dare to ask, for fear of the answer. 

  Pain and suffering, salt-streaked lines running down her cheeks, fire-hot tears that brand her skin. She can see nothing, hear nothing. She is nothing. But if she is nothing, how can she feel? She must be someone. She must be alive, for is she can feel everything. She does not know what she feels, but it is something. 

  Her body is splitting in two. It feels like something is being ripped from her body, or perhaps her soul, as the two have always been closely entwined. Part of her body is melting away, the other part is drying, burning. 

  "Am I dead?" She asks the empty darkness. It is strange. Never before has she been able to speak in a dream before. Never has she remembered who she was. Never has she been sentient enough to think in coherent sentences. Ironic that it is the most painful of dreams that she can remember like this. The one that she would prefer to forget, to be someone else.

  Even the effort of asking takes too much; it is too much. Her jaw aches; blood runs down her chin. Her hand rises, about to wipe the blood away, but it is too heavy. Gravity pulls her hand down — and then her head, until she is lying on the ground. It tries to pull her deeper, but the floor — earth —whatever is below her — resists, and now she is being torn in two. Wouldn't it be easier to fall through? To give up? "I must be dead."

  Must you?

  She isn't sure where the voice originates; perhaps behind her, above, below. But once it starts, it seems to multiply, until they surround her, calling for her to listen. 

  She has no choice. She listens. 

  This is not death. This is life. 

  " How?" This is the worst pain she has ever felt; the idea that it is what life is, the notion itself is laughable. 

  This is pain. Death is peace. 

  "No," she whispers, and the voice seems to laugh, until she listens closer and realises that it is not laughing, but crying, and now she is crying with it, sobbing into the floor that she cannot rise from. "No. That cannot be." 

  The voice falls silent, cogitating an appropriate response. Her pain grows deeper — it seems to stop sobbing for a moment.

  Do you feel that?

  She feels a number of things. None of them pleasant. 

  Help me. Help me and I will end your pain.

  She opens her mouth to ask why, ask how, ask who she is speaking too. Where is she? The voice rumbles, as if it can hear her. But how can it? It is formless, senseless, a void.