00 | Hero of a War
| Percy Jackson |
We won. Gaia was dead and the war was over. But at what cost? I looked over the battlefield and hero’s bodies scattered all over the place and gold dust was scattered all over the place from the monsters who were dead...Well sent back to Tartarus
I look over to Gaia one more time, just in time to see the last of her turn to dust, Riptide clattered to the ground as it fell out of her where her heart used to be and onto the floor, I picked it up and shrank it back into pen form before walking around like a lost little child my eyes scan the crowd looking at the burnt or mangled bodies and guilt swells in my chest as the sea of dead bodies never seems to end, some of them died with missing limbs or even a served head and I had to avert my eyes, most of the fallen were my friends and they didn’t deserve to die.
I suck in a breath when I see familiar grey eyes amongst the hundreds of lifeless and dead bodies on the ground and my legs find themselves running towards her, my heart was beating so fast I could barely feel it and my stomach felt its familiar tug as bile rose to my throat but I pushed it back down because none of that mattered now, all that mattered was her.
My Annabeth.
Her hair was soaked with mud and clumped together at the back of her neck and forehead. Her grey eyes that were once so stormy and bright was now lifeless and glazed over like they didn’t have any life left in them and they didn’t. She was gone. The only person who kept me grounded to this world was gone and I could’ve saved her...But I didn’t.
“I love you” Her words echoed in my head alongside the image of blood, pooling out her head as she was slammed into a Greek column, by none other than Gaia herself and I burst sobs until I eventually calm myself down
But upon seeing her again, I felt tears form in my eyes as I cradled her lifeless form and rocked back and forth as I sank to my knees. I didn’t even notice the blinding light that flashed behind me as I was still holding onto Annabeth, hoping that it was a crude joke and Annie would wake up any minute now and hug me back...But it didn’t happen
Suddenly I felt hands wrap around my shoulders, trying to pull me off Annabeth, but I wouldn’t let them, whoever it was, and I barely registered what I was doing or how I was doing as the ground began to shake and the sky turned an overcast grey and the more the person tried to yank me away from Annabeth the more the ground shook until I couldn’t help it anymore and fell into the mud still clutching onto my lover.
“Perseus you need to control yourself” The voice boomed and I now recognised the person who was trying to help me to my feet as Poseidon or my father, I was going to yell at him and say that I didn’t know how to but before I could, I black out and crumbled my body over Annabeth’s who was still as lifeless as ever.
* * * *
“Do you think he’ll be awake anytime soon? Percy Jackson, Saviour of Olympus has been asleep for five days” A voice boomed waking me from my slumber, but I refused to open my eyes because I didn’t want to because what was there to see anyway, my friends lying dead on the ground everyone I ever cared about all in the Underworld including my girlfriend with me being the only one of the seven and a couple of my friends from camp left?
“Do not worry little brother” Poseidon assured Zeus “The child will wake when he wants to, as he is not dead and surely just exhausted from the physical strain of the war and the mental strain of seeing the majority of his friends dead, that is except a few and he has also lost the most important person in his life, except his mother, the sweet child of Athena, Annabeth Chase” Poseidon voice is a mere whisper but I still have to choke back a sob when I hear her name
“He is awake!” Zeus’s voice booms throughout the halls of what I assume is Olympus
“Son, are you alright?” Poseidon asks me and I nod, even though it was clear to just about everyone in the room, that I wasn’t alright but they didn’t push me the gods knew better to push me for answers right now especially after I have just lost so much
“Well, we’re glad that you’re awake Peter Johnson now can we get on with the wish giving thing?” Mr D says I’m not surprised he’s here though before the start of the war Zeus had called up all gods major and minor up to Olympus.
“Wish?” I ask almost letting my anger seep out of me. How can they expect that I want a wish? After all that had happened, they want to reward me with a wish? How was that even fair, after all that happened all I wanted to do was go home and go to bed
Dionysus rolled his eyes and I glared at him but he didn’t seem fazed by it, and said “Yes Peter Johnson, as you are a Hero of war, we as the Gods have to grant you one wish and it has to sworn of the river Styx that we will not break the wish unless you say we can or you die”
“So what will it be, Hero of Olympus” Zeus bellowed as thunder rolled in the skies
I wince at the title that Zeus has just given me, after all, I am no hero, I couldn’t even save those close to me and because of my fatal flaw the guilt of every one of my friend’s deaths, whether in this war or the last war in eating me up inside, so with one last shaky deep breath I speak my wish “I wish...” I trail off looking at the Big Three Gods each in turn “I wish to cut all ties with Olympus and anything to do with both Roman and Greek and any more gods out there”
They all looked stunned but in turn, they all nodded and a crack of thunder was heard as the all muttered “We swear on the River Styx” and I walk out of the throne room of Olympus after taking one more look at my father’s crestfallen expression.
