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your blood spatters the floor.
it is red.
blonde hair and green eyes, and everything's fading. you spout out words that you can't even remember. all you want to do is shut your eyes and pray that Hades lets you in. that he at least gives you a shot at Ashpodel. because you were not a hero — far from it, but you don't believe that you truly were a monster. they promise and they look at each other as if they held the moon and stars and you let out a croaky, breathy chuckle. it hurts to laugh and you wheeze and suddenly you remember a girl with blue-black hair and electric blue eyes that set every part of him alight. a splattering of freckles and a sarcastic tone and a laugh that was more beautiful than Aphrodite herself. and then your chest tightens and you're pretty sure it's not because you're dying.
you heave, and they look down on you and you ask the girl (blonde hair, grey eyes, seven years old with a hammer) if she ever loved you. she hesitates and you wonder why you ask because you know that she could never love another but the boy (blue-black hair, sea-green eyes, penchant for trouble, twelve years old with scars that didn't come from monsters — well, greek ones anyway) and so you nod. and then you see defiance in the boy's eyes and you make him promise. he swears it.
you start to fade in and out and you wish that you could just go, because hades is so near. its darkness almost envelops you, and its comforting, like the hugs you never received. and suddenly, there is no darkness. you are fourteen and the girl with blue eyes that could light up the night as if you were the moon, and you want nothing else. she is battered and tired and broken, but you want nothing more than to pick up the shards of her and kiss every single one until they heal. she's lost her kid brother, a boy who looks exactly like you, and maybe that's why she loves you. but you don't dwell on that, because she's yours.
and now your fifteen and the girl is gone. the new girl is eight. she has blonde hair and grey eyes and she's smart. her smile is bright, but not as bright as those blue eyes. you know that this girl loves you, but your chest is hollow. you cannot love her back, and maybe you would feel sympathy, but how can you feel without a heart?
and suddenly, you're nineteen and a boy comes to camp. he's bruised and he sleeps for three days. he wakes up, and rumours say that he screamed himself hoarse for his mother. you try to avoid him at first, because this reminds you too much of the girl with blue-black hair. and then he trips on the steps to the hermes cabin and you have to. you look at him and you see how he's closed, withdrawn. he has bruises and cigarette burns and scars that looks like glass shards and you know that there is already a monster in his life.
and then, you're twenty-two and dying and you think this might be the happiest moment of your life because you know that they are all safe and the monster in the boy's life is gone.
with a dying thought, you think that maybe you are a monster. the girl with blue eyes holds it and your chest is hollow. and what is a monster if not heartless?