Resurrected

Tommy's POV

I had to get out of there. Ugh, I mean, I’m happy for them and all for hitting it off, but I wasn’t going to be in there for a another three hours as they just bickered about the good and evil of this world until time ran out.

I was starting to feel awkward about Ethan. I mean, he is like a brother to me, but he has been looking at me weird over the course of the last two days. And not weird in a bad way. Weird in a ‘I’m attracted to you’ way. Maybe Alex could change that. I’m hoping Alex can change that. I want to fall in love with someone, not the other way around, whatever gender they may be.

So yeah, I did end up storming out of the Infirmary, but I needed to think. I walked over to a bench and sat down, trying to get my thoughts into a logical order.

Kronos, I thought, how to beat Kronos.

I thought about my fight with Clarisse, and how it was like I could use the Force, straight out of Star Wars. First off, that was crazy. Second, I didn’t even want to contemplate getting that angry again except at one person: Kronos.

I thought for a while on that bench, thinking about every possible situation. I thought about Charlie’s problem, about Ethan’s. Every time I thought about them, I could never find a way to beat them. I guess that’s why Kronos is revered as a master planner. He takes his time. He knows every outcome for every input situation, like points on a graph. All he has to do is work a plan around that graph, and he’ll be fine.

After another hour of thinking, the conch horn for dinner blew. I cursed loudly, angry that I had gotten nowhere in my thoughts before dinner.

“What’s the trouble?” asked a pleasant voice behind me. I turned around to see Annabeth, in a Camp t-shirt and cut-off jeans, wearing a coral necklace over the shirt.

“Nothing much,” I grumbled, “It’s just that I’ve been trying so hard, in my thoughts, to come up with a way to beat Kronos, but I can’t. I don’t know why.”

“Don’t worry, Tommy,” She soothed, “everything will be okay.”

“I envy you, you know,” I responded bitterly.

“Why is that?” She asked.

“Because you don’t have to worry about the trivial matter of your soul being sent back to Tartarus.”

Annabeth muttered something under her breath that sounded like, “It’s not like it didn’t deserve to be there in the first place.”

“What’d you say?” I asked, angrily. I could feel my temper, so short, rising up in me like a white-hot wave.

“Nothing,” she said, walking away.

“I'm not finished talking, Chase, don't you walk away from me!”

She turned to face me, opening her arms in a challenge, “Or what?”

“That’s it!” I shouted, “I’m so sick of you and Jackson acting like royalty because you were on the winning side of everything!”

I drew my sword. I knew Kronos had me under his reigns. It was all too late.

Annabeth’s face paled as I advanced on her. Instinctively, she looked around her, and, not finding anyone to help her, she looked at me again.

“Aww, poor little baby doesn’t have her boyfriend around to curb that pretty mouth, does she?”

I kept moving forward, calmly hunting her. I was in a blind rage. She frantically fumbled for her dagger, and then realized that she wasn’t wearing it. I smiled evilly.

“No pocketknife either? Wow, I didn’t think a demigod could ever be so unprepared. How in Hades did you get through all those famous quests? Did the enemy just give you their weapons because you forgot yours?”

She then stopped, standing her ground. If she was going to fight, her body said, she was going to be brave. Wrong choice.

The curse that Kronos handed me upon being resurrected, the Rage of the Styx, came alive.

She stepped inside my guard and tried to punch me, but I flicked my hand aside and she went flying, crashing into a pine tree. She got up dazed and picked up a branch, wielding it like a club. She swung it at me but I put up my hand like a cop stopping traffic and the branch-club paused in mid-air. I smiled again.

Then, leisurely, keeping my hand up, I swung the blade towards her abdomen. She barely had time to react. She dropped the club, still hanging in the air, and jumped out of the way of the blade, tripping on one of the tree’s roots. She landed on her back and frantically tried to crawl away.

So this is what all the slashers in those movies feel like, I thought, chasing their screaming prey through some horribly produced movie.

I calmly stalked towards her, and as I brought up my sword to strike her down, an arrow hit me in the sword hand. Then, a huge form crashed into me, and I could hear a girl’s war cry.

Clarisse, I growled in my mind, Wait, then who shot the arrow? Clarisse couldn't hit a target with a bow if it were three feet from her arrowtip!

But the girl fighting me wasn’t done. No, she started pummeling me, and I whipped around, kicking her off of me. She flew back with too much force, an amount of force I shouldn’t have been able to produce. Then I tried to look at her, and it wasn’t Clarisse, it was Silena. But why was Silena fighting me?

Another arrow flew at me, but with immortal speed I flicked it aside with my hand. I could see Chiron behind the bow, his face stoically calm, but concerned. I turned around and flew at Annabeth and kicked her in the chin, and she blacked out. As I raised my foot to kick again, an arrow hit me in the back, and I seized up.

“Annabeth!” Chiron shouted in worry.

“Tommy!” Silena shouted, looking at me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, all I could do was see in front of me, feel the blood rushing down both sides of my shirt.

“Chiron, what the heck!” Silena accused of the centaur as they all rushed forward. I was lying, skewered, two feet from Annabeth, my rage gone. I reached for her face, touching her lightly.

The blood on my fingertips from touching my arrow wound made liquid red spots on her face, her eyes closed.

I felt sick to my stomach. How could I turn on Annabeth like that? She had been my companion in the Infirmary! She had waited with me for hours, trying to get Ethan and Percy to stay alive.

Then I looked down at my chest, and almost fainted. A brown-wood shafted arrow with a bright bronze tip was sticking out of my chest. As I breathed in, I could feel the blood rising into my lungs, and I coughed blood.

Now I knew how Ethan felt.

But then I blacked out, and I didn’t wake up again. August 16th, the day of my second death. I had failed to redeem my soul, and I had had fifteen days left to do it.

Notes

OH MY GODS DID TOMMY JUST DIE?

Anyways, enjoy!

-Grafon