The Aftermath

Annabeth was tired. She felt she had been killed, then drained and filled with an embalming fluid made of liquid lead. She hadn’t eaten in almost forty-eight hours and she could almost gauge how pale and green her complexion must have been through the varying degrees of both disgust and pity she received in the looks of mothers and their children in strollers as they passed her by.

But she didn’t care. All she cared about was the fact that Percy would be here soon. She felt a hunger for him different from the hunger she felt in her stomach. This hunger took precedence, and that was the only reason the nearest coffee shop hadn’t yet run out of all their delicious-looking scones.

Then, after what seemed an eternity, she saw him. She saw his jet-black hair, his sea-green eyes, his cute face, with its permanent laid-back expression plastered on like some tattoo. She thought that she would feel relief, feel happiness. But she realized with a start that her left hand had just tightened its grip subconsciously on her bone dagger.

Wow, she thought, trying to reprimand herself for not trusting a person who was obviously Percy. Now I’m afraid of the love of my life…what has the world come to?

And yet, the knuckles on her left hand did not become any less white with pressure. In fact, she drew the dagger out of its concealed sheath.

“Annabeth!” the boy-who-looked-like-Percy exclaimed. “Sweetheart! Oh my Gods!”

The boy, who nonetheless still looked exactly like her Percy, ran towards her. She paled even lighter in fear as he got to top speed. This didn’t feel right.

He slowed down as he saw the look in her eyes. He frowned.

“Annabeth?” He asked, his seal-pup eyes boring into her with unknown confusion. It seemed as though neither of them recognized the other.

Annabeth’s lips wanted to fly open, to scream his name in exaltation, to rejoice in having him return. But her brain was quicker than that. She blocked the impulse without emotion. This boy had to prove he was Percy.

“Hey, honey bun,” Annabeth greeted, forcing a smile and a pleasant tone. The words scraped out of her dry voice like they were tipped with metal spikes.

The boy laughed. Percy would never laugh at a stupid pet name like that. He would have been mad. This thing in front of her was definitely not her Seaweed Brain. But if the monster in front of her (and she assumed it was a monster, but her mind was thinking of one other, even scarier option) wasn’t Percy, where in the world was he?

Annabeth felt her bodily activities simultaneously speed up and slow down. Her brain accelerated to light speed while her heart beat slowed down. She felt a calm satisfaction in being able to just think. She had a puzzle in front of her. Food didn’t matter. The monster in front of her didn’t matter. All that mattered was the puzzle. Who was the thing in front of her?

“Honey?” the monster asked, and Annabeth started to get annoyed.

“Cut the crap, you filthy beast. Who in Hades are you?”

The monster dropped the fake-confusion ruse. Percy—no, the thing, snarled. It changed. It transformed into the other option Annabeth had been thinking about in the back of her mind. Annabeth inhaled sharply and felt fear that she hadn’t felt since Tartarus. This was the god that had violated her. The god that had ruined the greatest thing she had ever had: her relationship with Percy.

She thought about running, but if her memory served her right, she was sitting in front of a god. Running wasn’t an option. She stared into the tall blonde god in front of her, and in her weakened state, she was paralyzed. Her mind stopped thinking. She was cut off from her only resource. Her grip became limp on her dagger. The god smiled.

“You might know me, sweetheart. I was the god you were screaming on top of only a few days ago…no? C’mon, baby, you must remember me!”

He was toying with her, and grinning while doing it. Annabeth felt like crying, felt like beseeching the mortals around her for help, but they probably couldn’t see him. Or they might see him as a little boy who she was crying to. They probably thought she was crazy. She certainly felt like she was going crazy. She probably looked like she was crazy. And who could blame her? The last week had been, you guessed it, insane.

“Rapist,” she spat, trying to sound intimidating. “Wait until Athena hears about what you did to me.”

But he just chuckled, musing, “That old bat? She can’t do anything. I’m the god of unrequited love…I was simply performing as a force of my nature.”

He held his hands up like he was trying to look innocent of a crime, but his smile, simultaneously attractive and murderous, dripped with evil. She feared his blinding white teeth like they were fangs.

“Unrequited love?” She accused. “Rape is being called ‘unrequited love’ on Olympus? Did Zeus give you that line, you snake? Or were you just jealous he got so many girls pregnant who didn’t want to be?”

The god, who she now knew to be Himeros, one of Aphrodite’s offspring, lunged at her, grabbing her wrist and making her cry out. He leaned into her hear and muttered,

“You should have carried that child, girl. It would have been three-quarters god. Those children are special.”

“I wasn’t going to have your bastard,” Annabeth muttered back.

Then, she drew her dagger and slammed her hand back. Even though she was weak, the drakon-bone blade struck the surprised Himeros in the stomach, and he was forced to release her wrist.

Schist, Annabeth thought. Now I HAVE to run.

And run she did. Her feet flew under her with unprecedented speed, and she thought she was getting away from him. But she turned a corner and there he was, his smile mixed with a little more of that (thankfully) unattractive and ugly snarl. She smiled sweetly.

“See, I wasn’t going to ever carry that child, you hell-spawn. I wasn’t going to have the bastard child of a bastard god!”

Himeros growled in anger, but as he prepared to launch himself at Annabeth, he groaned in pain, falling clumsily to his knees. Three prongs stuck through him, like he had been stabbed with a, well, with a trident.

That’s when she realized that, in fact, he had been stabbed with a trident. And Percy (she hoped) was the one wielding it. His black hair was messed up, and his sea-green eyes were full of fear. Fear that didn’t subside after he saw Annabeth.

“Piper!” He ordered. “Charmspeak this guy into submission. Jason, secure Annabeth!”

She realized that she had been about to fall on her face, but Jason caught her.

“Hey, Annabeth,” he said softly, reassuringly, “good to see you. Percy and you need to have a talk, eh?”

“Yeah…” Annabeth mumbled, as she was passing out. Just before she faded into unconsciousness, she saw Piper bashing Himeros with a sword, cutting his face so it would never be attractive again. Then, she smirked for the first time in a week as she saw Piper bury him in hams from her cornucopia.

“Percy…” She murmured. “Where? Percy?”

“I’m right here, Wise Girl,” he whispered, kissing her forehead as he came into view. “I am never letting you go.”

But as Annabeth finally dripped into slumber, she saw the god break free of his meat prison and come blasting around the corner, filled with rage. But Annabeth was too tired to see what would come next.

The last thing she felt were a pair of strong, familiar, and nightmare-inducing hands on her hips. She realized that all she wanted was for this thing to be over. She realized she wanted to just give up on life itself. She finally broke down in her dreams. She cried and cried. She knew she wasn’t going to like what she saw when she woke up.

Notes

Hello, people of this site! I have been gone for far too long! But it's okay, because I am back now, I think. I'm on Spring Break until the 1st of April, which is completely awesome, so I should be updating everything relatively soon. As always, leave a comment if you liked it or if you want to give me suggestions!

Enjoy,
Grafon