Chapter Text
They ran.
Behind them, there were the howls of the hounds, the flapping of bats' wings, and the sounds of fighting that followed them.
Grover shouted, pointing ahead. "After that, they can't get through!"
But that didn't mean they wouldn't stay there, waiting for her to come out again.
They were patient, they had chased her this far, they hadn't given up.
"Ouch!" Annabeth stumbled.
A seven-year-old, the only reason they were going to this Camp.
She and Luke had gotten by so far; they didn't need a Camp approved by fathers who had abandoned them to their mothers' care.
Fathers who didn't care about them.
Hermes's words meant nothing; Zeus's dreams even less.
"Let's go!" Luke held Annabeth, losing his speed.
Annabeth was seven, and he, they, couldn't leave her there, but she had slowed them down.
Luke was the wind, she was the lightning, yet they couldn't run too fast, or Annabeth would be left behind.
Even now, Annabeth couldn't run anymore.
Luke looked at her, and she knew what she had to do.
"Go." She ordered, taking her spear and Aegis, and saying. "I'll hold them off, buy you all some time, enough time. I'll meet you inside the Camp."
Luke looked at her, knowing it would be the last time.
There was no help in sight.
"Go." She repeated.
They had to go, otherwise it would all be for nothing, and she refused to let it be.
Luke, Annabeth, and Grover ran to safety, while she remained, a last stand, standing between the monsters and her friends.
Protecting them for the last time.
They reached her.
Bites, scratches, screams, so much noise, so much pain.
Her blue eyes looked up to the sky.
Her father watched her die and he didn't care.
And then...
The tearing flesh became leaves, her hands and feet grew into roots, and Thalia's eyes widened as her father's final action transformed her into a shield.
At a military school, miles from Half-Blood Hill, a seven-year-old boy woke up screaming, feeling his flesh tearing and blood pouring onto the ground.
His sea-green eyes were terrified. His mouth gaped open as Thalia took her last breath.
***
Only a few days had passed since that vision, and things had gotten worse.
Heroes couldn't find their way home; heroes were killed, betrayed, abandoned.
Prophets spoke too much and were cursed, abandoned, blinded, and destroyed.
Percy just wanted to run away, to abandon himself, to give up everything.
He couldn't take it anymore.
If he didn't get help, he would lose everything.
He would lose himself.