The Half-Blood Project

33- Boiling

Percy Jackson

The world spins uncontrollably beneath me as I stare at the cyclops in front of me. He's small for a cyclops too, roughly six-foot, most cyclops is eight or nine feet tall by the time they are twenty. His thick, tangled hair is messy, twigs, pieces of paper and matted with a sticky liquid that looks like blood. 

"You're a son, of Pos, Posideon," I whisper and pick up Riptide and I see a flash of fear through the cyclops eyes but once I shrink the sword back into a pen, he relaxes a little, and I sort of feel bad that he's so afraid of the sword, the bronze. He keeps eyeing the knife on the sheath, Annabeth's, eyes flickering too and fro nervously. 

He's expecting us to kill him. 

"Tyson, right?" I looked at him and he nodded. I'm still in awe of how young he is. I've never seen a small cyclops, a teen cyclops. But Tyson looks like he can hold his own, with stocky arms and gigantic feet, size fifteen I bet. 

"How long have you been down here buddy?" 

Tyson gulps and looks around, a beat of sweat trailing down his forehead and cheek. "It was winter when I came down here. Snow everywhere." He whispered, as though he was afraid to talk loud and break the tunnel. 

He's been down here since winter. It was summertime. 

"Why don't you come with us, for now," Annabeth spoke up and I glared at her. We didn't know if this cyclops was truly dangerous. We didn't know if he would turn on us or not? Being cautious was our only option right now and we were wasting time talking to a cyclops right now. 

"Would that be okay?" Tyson's voice cracks and I feel a wave of emotion roll over me. Was he truly harmless? Would he turn on us? I didn't know. I don't like not knowing about the enemy if this young cyclops is the enemy. 

Annabeth looks to me, I can never, ever depict what is going on in her stormy grey eyes or what she means when she says something that isn't fact. Girls are confusing, complicated pieces of a never-ending puzzle of confusion. 

I sigh and nod. "Yeah, as long as you listen to us, you're good." 

Tyson brightens and scrambles off the wall, I didn't see it before but there's a bronze shield, it's round and polished, it reminds me of Are's shield back in Colorado. 

"Nice shield," I note, pointing to the scratched surface of the bronze. Tyson if he can, brightens even more and slings the shield behind his back easily. 

"Made it myself." Tyson gives a toothy grin and I can't help but smile back, his smile is like a disease, once you catch it, you can't catch it. 

I sigh and walk off into the dark of the spiraling tunnel in front of us, not ready to face anyone but the darkness in front of me, my three friends trailing behind me. 

----

"So Tyson, how'd you get those nasty scratches?" Annabeth's quietly from behind me and I can hear Tyson shift on his feet uncomfortably and the shield scrapes against the slick brick walls. He probably is scared, scared of telling, reliving those bad memories of before. 

I don't care how he got them. They aren't my problem, just like my scars aren't his problem. I wouldn't want them to know how I got the one that goes from my hip to my chin or the ones that look like I'd been hit by a glass bottle or cut by a razor. 

Those are my stories, my scars and I don't think I'd want to tell anyone. Not even my cousins know what all Gabe used to do, they know he was abusive, but not to what extent. 

"A sphinx. A mean one." Tyson says in a low, but carrying voice that makes me shiver. I didn't know monsters attacked other monsters. I'd seen some, but I didn't know.