The Half-Blood Project

27- Memories Rising

Luke Castellan

Memories are the one thing I have little control over. They come and go, like waves crashing on a particularly rocky shore, they spill over onto the bits of sandy land, soaking the grass and sand. The memories of everything, everyone, every drop of blood that has spilled from my body. 

Memories are the one thing that I have no control over. 

And I wish I did. I want them to go. I wake in the middle of the night, clutching the sheets, trying to push the nightmares from my mind but they stick stubbornly to the surface and I want to claw them out with my bare hands. 

The worst ones are of my family. Not my mother or the one time I met my father, not the people who call me a brother by serving Kronos. No. They are of Thalia and Annabeth. The streets, living under so many different names and facades it was impossible to remember them all. Graduating with Annabeth, she was sixteen, I was eighteen a the time. How we kissed twice before I turned. How Thalia left us and made me so angry that I wanted to just end all the pain she had caused us.  How she still manages to make me angry even though I'm sure she's dead. 

Where has family gotten me though? My mother is insane, I haven't seen her in years, my father is a dead-beat god who I never see, despite being the god of communication, the irony of this makes me scream. Thalia left, Annabeth distanced herself from me. 

Family is nothing at this point for me. 

And so when the nightmares come in those crashing, unstoppable force, the waves of agony and despair, I think of everything but family. I think of destroying Olympus, brick by brick. How in just a few weeks I'll be testing out my new form as a Titan. 

Kronos knows I'm the one that will be his best host. 

Over fifty mortals and demigods have hosted Kronos and the only one that lasted was a son of Demeter who hated plants. That was more ironic than anything I've ever seen. 

I will be the last one to host him before he assumes his true form. Dying does not scare me in the slightest. I am only doing the work I am fated to do. We have all duties to fulfill to the gods or ourselves. Mine happens to be to a Titan of time. A Titan who will show no mercy to the gods. I hope he starts with Hermes. A slow painful death will suffice. 

But those stupid half-bloods grouping together to band a resistance against us. How stupid. I'll kill them one by one. Starting with Percy Jackson. The only one I'd even think of sparing would Annabeth. She is only confused because I am not there to guide her. 

August 18th. That's when Kronos plans to storm the castle, plans to kill the gods, and tear all of it down. 

And no-one can even think of stopping us. 

Maybe, in the end, I'll forget. I forget what happened to me. The pain, the heartache and the anger. The anger that fuels me endlessly. As long as I stay mad, I can push myself to the greatest.

And maybe in the end, I won't remember.