GREEK TRAGEDY [PERCY JACKSON A.U] ✓

EPILOGUE (PART ONE)

SOMEWHERE IN THE SEA OF MONSTERS; SIX YEARS AGO

With grapevines wrapped around her wrists and ankles, tying her to the mast of the ship, Althea Knight felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin.

It had been her idea to listen to the sirens sing, and she had insisted upon it, even when Percy begged her not to. It's dangerous, he'd told her pleadingly. Thea, they make you want to throw yourself overboard and drown yourself. Please don't.

But she was strong-willed to a fault. It didn't matter how much he urged her to go below deck with him and plug their ears with candle wax. She was going to find out what the sirens had to say.

In the myths, they showed you your greatest desires, the thing you wanted most in the entire world; but they also showed you the reason you wouldn't get what you wanted.

And Althea was determined to know how she could royally screw up her life this time.

So she waited, with plants of her own creation binding her to the ship, and listened.

At first, and for a while, really, there was nothing else to be heard other than the sound of the waves crashing against the ship, over and over again in a pacifying rhythm that nearly put her to sleep.

It was in that half-asleep stage that she first began to hear the singing. The sirens sang a lullaby that calmed her but at the same time agitated her. She began to jerk against the vines, violet eyes drifting shut.

The voices became clearer the sleepier she got. They spoke in languages she couldn't understand, words soft and inviting and warm. For a moment, the sweet voices nearly sounded like her mother, so eerily similar to the song she used to sing to put Althea to sleep when she was a child.

It sounded so much like her mother's voice that she began to fight harder against the vines, struggling to find her.

But the vines, supposedly controlled by her, would not budge. Despite how hard she tried to will them to release her, they remained steadfast around her wrists and ankles.

Hey, Knight!

The voices suddenly came together in perfect synchronization, immitating the speech of someone who had betrayed her.

"Luke!" She yelled above the crashing waves. "Luke, where are you?"

Right here, Knight.

The vision began to materialize as his voice rose above the sound of the water, and she saw him clear as day, standing in front of her wearing a fancy suit. He held his hand out to her, as if he was about to lead her off.

Come on, Thea. You're going to be late.

She saw a version of herself that she didn't recognize—older, taller, and more filled out, with a scar across her neck as if her throat had been slit. This version of herself wore a long, white gown, with her hair done up nicely.

I'm coming, I'm coming. But if I trip and face-plant while walking down the aisle, I'm blaming you.

Althea startled at the sound of her own voice, just deeper and more mature sounding.

And then she realized she was watching her own wedding day.

Promise I won't let you fall, Thea. Just grab my arm, and we'll be fine.

She watched with wide, violet eyes as the vision of her walked a ways away, where an older version of Percy stood, also wearing a nice suit. It looked like he was crying, for his green eyes swum with tears.

Just when she reached him, the vision changed, and she saw herself in a different setting.

Having grown up in Manhattan and the various buroughs of New York City, it wasn't hard for her to identify it as the Williamsburg Bridge, although by the looks of it, there was a battle going on.

She saw herself, older, but less so than the first vision, and Percy, fighting side by side, their swords moving in near perfect harmony.

A girl with dark brown hair that she recognized from the Hermes cabin—not a daughter of Hermes, however. This girl was unclaimed—fought on Althea's other side, except she was using a set of rings to produce what looked like...magic?

And then, suddenly, a throwing knife hurtled through the air, spinning and spinning and spinning in the dark-haired girl's direction. Althea caught one glimpse of it and, without hesitation, leapt in front of it, intercepting it right in the throat.

It was only when the dark-haired girl turned in horror to face the Althea in the vision that the Althea tied to the mast of the ship realized it was Lizzie Sloan, a girl she'd only spoken to once or twice in passing at camp.

"Damn it!" The Percy in the vision shouted as he knelt at her side, his hand applying pressure to the wound on her neck that gushed blood with every beat of her heart. "Come on, come on, come on. Please, baby, stay with me. Will! Help!"

She didn't respond, simply choking on her own blood.

"Will!" He shouted again, screaming now as he called for a medic. "Damn it, Thea, why d'you have to be so fucking self-sacrificing?"

literary parallels 😗✌️