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Many people describe Perseus Jackson as intimidating, stunning—even godlike. They follow him blindly into battle, his confidence a blanket amongst the -child- army.
Hope-bringer, they call him.
Percy Jackson never really liked his appearance, not really. He does not understand why many call him beautiful, a face Helen of Sparta would envy.
Neither did he understand why they thought he was a hero. He was no hero, he only did for the better of others, the things many would do but he was able to because he had the chance.
The pit made everything worse.
Percy could not stand mirrors, glass and reflective surfaces after Tartarus. If he dove into the lake, it would be with his eyes trained on a nearby tree.
He was too scared to see himself. Every dream, every nightmare. Scared how every time he blinked, he would see a sword through his stomach. He would not die like a mortal or demigod.
He would disintegrate into golden dust.
He would die a monster.
Percy Jackson is a coward. Perhaps all those years ago his Annabeth had a point. Now he was not hers, but she was still his.
He was a monster, was he not?
He had wished for misery, he had razed armies, killed, killed killed killed-
Maybe Tartarus was his homeland.
The demigods' and gods' trust was far too naive and sheer.
Would he bleed red? Does he bleed gold? Or does his blood slip out black? Would he bleed at all?
Perhaps he had always been a monster. The pit reinforced it.
Perhaps it had been his true form, underneath the mockery of heroism.
Perhaps the world should go a day without him, he would save everyone the time. The time they could use to find out what he really was.
Perhaps he would be exiled, banished, murdered.
And maybe, he would deserve it.
His hands stain a crimson red, but really, whose blood had it been all along?
The blood of his comrades every time they watched their family slaughter and be slaughtered? The blood of his enemies every time they begged for mercy at the edge of his blade?
So he cut.
He relished in the pain it gave him. Would he feel anything better anything at all, better than the sweet sting?
He needed reassurance he was alive. Mortality without morality was a killer disguised as a victim.
That was what he was, was he not?
Would his blood continue to stay red? Would he dissolve? Would he tarnish all that he had ever known?
Would he be hurt in one of his spars with Clarisse, only for the blood to come out black? Would she scream? Would she kill him?
Maybe, that was what he deserved all along.
He should not be with these innocent children. Not with all these deaths he caused. He should not carry them with the hands that choked, fought, destroyed.
Pure innocence should not be tainted by the likes of he.
Hero worship was a lie.
It had always been "Perseus Jackson, Son of Poseidon" but maybe he just wanted to be "Percy, Son of Sally Jackson" but now he could not, could he?
Estelle should not have a killer in her childhood home. She was only a child he was one too.
The world deserved to continue without him disrupting everything.
The Pit of Monsters, indeed.
He would fall in every universe, wouldn't he?
Find his real form, the face of a killer, murderer, monster.