Chapter Text
The Lost Tides
“All great beginnings begin in the dark.” - Anne Lamott
(Percy POV, 9 years old)
Mom didn't stop building; she never really stopped for the weather. She knelt beside me in her yellow sundress that was already soaked through, helping me stack sand for walls that kept collapsing. She always said our castles needed to be strong enough to make the gods jealous.
I never knew what that meant, but I really liked how she said it.
At times her hand would press down on a tower normally, yet the sand seemed to respond to her touch. It was just for a second, almost like it was breathing under her palm, yet when I blinked hard it had already stopped. Maybe I was just imagining it.
The rain, that had progressively gotten heavier, kept hitting my face.
That’s when the thunder came. It wasn’t the crackle kind, more like a growl that rolled across the beach in one long rumble. The sky turned purple and sick-looking in a way that made me believe this was a nightmare.
"Mom?" My fingers dug into the sand, sand which suddenly felt rougher.
Yet mom was still staring at the ocean. Not the way she usually looked at it, which was a loving gaze. This was different, she looked afraid.
That scared me more than the thunder and the purple-ly nightmare sky.
She grabbed my wrist so hard that it started hurting. "Percy, you need to run."
I froze. I had never heard her voice do that. It sounded like when she talked about Dad, the one who left before I was born. Something had cracked in the way she was speaking.
The water pulled back super-fast, faster than any tide I'd ever seen. The sand under my feet went cold as something huge moved under the surface. It was long and dark, causing the wave to rise up like something underneath was pushing it.
It burst out so fast I couldn't even scream.
Sand hit my face and stuck to my wet skin. Unexpectantly, Mom had also decided to shove me hard at the same time. I fell backward on my back with an aching pain coming from all around me.
"Go!" she yelled. "Go, Percy. Don't look back."
While I was slowly clambering up, I tried to listen to her instructions. Yet… I looked anyway. Kids always do.
The monster was taller than the Coney Island carousel mom had taken me on yesterday. It was scaly with a mouth full of yellow teeth dripping green slime. It smelled like dead fish and something worse. Something that made my stomach twist.
"Mom!" I shouted.
The tail snapped out and wrapped around her waist. The action lifted her like she weighed nothing. Her hair stuck to her face while she turned to look at me.
Her lips moved, and I couldn't hear her, but deep down I knew exactly what she said.
I love you.
The tail yanked her under, the ocean following closely behind.
The water swallowed everything. All that was left was just waves and rain and empty sand.
I waited. Knelt there until my knees hurt. In that time, the rain turned freezing. My clothes stuck to me, the wind made my teeth chatter, and there were a thousand more things that would’ve made me whine. But none of those things seemed to be the reason that something in my chest felt too tight, like it was going to burst.
"Stupid ocean." I kicked the sandcastle. It collapsed into nothing but that didn’t seem to cool my burning throat. "Stupid."
"It's not the ocean."
I spun around so fast my shoes slipped. I almost fell.
A girl stood behind me. Her appearance made me believe she was maybe twelve or thirteen. Her hair was short and stuck to her head from the rain, but her eyes reflected light wrong. They were dark but looked silver at times.
Her hoodie didn't look normal thanks to the rain sliding off it in thin shimmer lines.
“Who are you?” My voice sounded small and clogged, like I was speaking through mud.
She crouched beside the ruined sandcastle. Her fingers touched the broken towers and the sand twitched a little. Maybe that was the storm, maybe not.
“Perseus Jackson. Your mother knew this day could come,” she said. “She made preparations.”
“She is coming back,” I said. My chest hurt. “She always comes back.”
“No,” the girl said. Her voice sounded sad in a way I did not like. “Not from this.”
She looked at my arms. “Look.”
My skin glowed faint blue-green and the light. I rubbed at it but the glow stayed.
“The sea recognizes you,” she said. “Others will too. Monsters follow that kind of scent.”
“I did not do anything!” My hands were shaking. My tears mixed with the rain as I tried to wipe them away with the back of my sleeve.
“I know,” she said. “Monsters do not care.”
She stood and held out her hand; her palm was rough and calloused. “Child, Artemis offers you safety. Her Hunt can hide and teach you until you are truly safe.”
I stared at her hand. I just wanted Mom. I wanted her to come out of the water and laugh and say it was all a mistake. I wanted anything except this.
“Why should I trust you?” My voice shook so much it barely came out.
“You should not,” she said. Her face stayed serious. “But if you stay here, you will die.”
A siren wailed somewhere far behind us, barely audible under the rain. The boardwalk lights flickered, dimming to tiny sparks.
The ocean hissed behind me, low and angry.
I took her hand.
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