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"Help me,"
The voice that called out to Will was quiet, barely louder than a whisper.
The young son of Apollo turned towards it, hands shaking as he laid eyes upon the demigod. He couldn’t tell whether they were on his side or one of Kronos’ army; it wouldn’t matter either way. Laying eyes upon the boy, Will knew instantly there was no hope of saving him.
His chest had been torn apart, guts spilling onto the floor and landing on the smooth stone with a wet smack. A hand clutched at the gaping wound, deathly pale from lack of blood.
The boy looked up at Will, eyes desperate and pleading as he tried to keep himself together. Will felt sick, frozen in shock and horror as he watched.
After Michael's disappearance not death, he wasn’t dead Will had been left at the hotel with a few other campers. They’d all been either younger or the same age as him, scared out of their minds, all turning to Will for some sense of leadership, some semblance of order amongst all the chaos.
Will had done the only thing he could think of, his mind muddled and confused with terror for Michael, Austin, Kayla, and all his other siblings, still somewhere out in the battle.
He’d grabbed every vaguely medicinal looking item he could get his hands on, dragging them outside of the hotel and setting up a first aid stand.
Keeping the younger kids by his side had been an easy enough task. Will made sure to keep them occupied with anything other than thoughts of the current war raging a few blocks down the road, making them cut bandages and mix ointments.
He’d sent the older kids out scouting, scanning the area for monsters and bringing back any injured demigods who were too injured to walk.
All the while, he’d tried to reassure himself that it wasn’t as bad as it looked, that it would all be over in just a few more minutes, that he’d see Michael shoving his way determinedly through the debris with a bright grin on his face not dead, not dead, he wasn’t dead.
It hadn’t even been too bad at first.
A few sprained ankles, a snapped wrist, and the occasional punctured lung. Nothing he hadn’t fixed a thousand times before.
And then suddenly it was cracked ribs and infected cuts, gouged-out flesh and missing limbs.
Will wasn’t sure when it got too much-
probably when he’d had to walk back into the hotel to vomit at the sight of an injured patient
-but it didn’t matter.
He’d steeled his nerves every time, sat up a little straighter, and ignored the fact that he was moments away from passing out.
Will wasn’t sure when the injuries got too much, but he was acutely aware of the moment he shut down entirely.
The boy had been staring at him, begging Will to help, and Will didn’t know how to tell him that there was no way he would live through his injuries.
He didn’t know how to turn him away, how to tell him that he would need a miracle to keep himself alive…
In the end, he didn’t need to.
Before he knew what was happening, the boy had keeled over in front of him, slumping to the ground with a thump.
Will sucked in a breath as the boy's hands came away from his stomach and a mutilated mess of blood and guts slipped free from the gaping hole in his side.
He was dead the moment he hit the ground.
Will hadn’t even known his name.
And then suddenly, there was a hand on his neck.
Will whirled around, fingers flailing for the small dagger he’d armed himself with, realistically he knew it would offer nothing in the way of protection, but Will took comfort in the false sense of security.
He raised it, his breath catching in his throat as he took in the sight of another desperate demigod, grasping towards him, towards life.
She fell, hard.
Watching her die, Will felt a whimper escape, unbidden from his throat.
But it wasn’t her that caused his visage of calm to crack and falter.
It wasn’t even the tiny boy from the Athena cabin dragging the beaten, bloody body of his elder sister and dropping it in front of him, sobbing for Will to do something-anything.
It wasn’t even the sea of demigods that clamored towards him, all screaming and pleading and begging for him to help, for him to save them until Will could no longer tell ally from enemy, friend from foe. Until he wasn’t even sure if such arbitrary concepts still existed.
“Help!” they screamed as they stretched their hands out towards him, like men in a desert reaching out for an oasis only a few steps ahead of them.
Will couldn’t make out their individual pleas over the cacophony of screams. Yet, through it all, his expression remained blank and impassive.
He’d stared ahead, unthinking. Unfeeling. Trying to get his breathing back under control.
He almost managed it too, almost managed to comprehend the scale, the severity of what he was seeing, what he was dealing with.
Almost…Until he felt a hand clutch tightly to his sleeve, and he turned his gaze downwards, half expecting to see Michael standing firm with his warm, reassuring presence.
“It’s alright, Will,” his brother would’ve said with his bright, familiar smile. “I’ll take care of it.”
Instead, his eyes met Gracie’s.
She was small, too small to be anywhere near a fight like this. At only 10, she was the youngest demigod to attend the battle. Her eyes were wide and pooling with tears.
“What do we do?” she whispered, her voice cracked and wavering.
She sounded as exhausted and as unsure as Will felt. He looked at her for a moment, meeting her desperate gaze with his wide, unseeing eyes.
He turned his attention towards the floor, only for a moment, before he lifted his head once again. Staring into the sea of bodies still fighting to reach him, to reach life.
It was her face.
The image of her tear-streaked cheeks, and the knowledge that he didn’t know.
Lee was dead, and Michael was dead, and Clarisse wasn’t coming, and he didn’t want to die. He wanted to go home, he wanted to turn 14, like he was supposed to in 3 days, he wanted to see his mom, or his brothers, or anyone older than him.
But they were all dead, buried under the rubble of that bridge that would be forever collapsing in his head for as long as he still lived.
He turned back to Gracie, who threw her arms around him, the oldest person here, the only one who could offer any semblance of comfort and security.
How did he tell her it was okay?
How did he convince her this would all end when he wasn’t even sure himself?
Gracie cried into his bloody shirt, tears staining it, as behind them, the screams of the damned grew louder and louder.
And finally. Finally. Will began to sob.