Pretty Poison ━━ Percy Jackson

001 . . . Late Spring

"I'm Percy. You?"

"Aileth," she answers.

(Such a pretty name for a pretty girl. He drags her away into the distance, and he memorizes the feeling of her hand in his.)

SCENE ENDS.

PRESENT DAY.

Aileth has always known about monsters.

          I. She's five when a one-eyed man takes a seat across from her at the local diner. She's all alone— her mom's gone to the bathroom and her dad is at the counter ordering food. He says something that sounds like hello to her, like any normal and polite person would. He has a strange Greek accent and Aileth thinks it's weird that there's only one eye in the center of his head, but she doesn't say anything about it because she thinks it's rude.

He asks her why she's on her own. She tells him her parents are nearby, points to her dad at the counter. The man looks surprised at the word parents and she almost feels bad for him because she thinks it's because he has none. He asks her how she feels about being dipped in salsa sauce and then tries to kidnap her.

Aileth's dad stabs him in the heart from behind and he turns into gold dust. She convinces herself it's a fever dream and goes on with her day like it's nothing.

          II. She's eight and there's a one-eyed man in a trench coat that follows her and Percy to school. He looks eerily similar to the man at the diner, Aileth tells Percy she's seen him in a dream before. He sits at the back seat of their school bus and stares through the classroom windows at them. The teachers threaten to call the police and he shows up at Aileth's doorstep with a pan and a knife.

He gets knocked out and thrown into the garbage incinerator by her father. There is gold dust in the hallway the next morning.

Her father explains it to her: Monsters, he calls those creatures— beings that have crawled their way out of the dirt and into the dust-paved streets of New York, straight from Hell and hungry for flesh. He gives her a knife and teaches her how to slit their throats; Aileth kills a hellhound in the elevator and the kid next door asks what the poodle ever did to her. 

He forgets about the incident two days later, but she learns that she can see things he can't. Her father calls it the Sight— a curse or a blessing, she doesn't know. The monsters only seem to come for her because she can see them.

          III. She's twelve and her math teacher is trying to murder her and her best friend.

It goes as such: they're on a field trip, Nancy Bobofit picks on Grover because she's miserable and attention-seeking, so then water pounces out of the fountain and drags her into it. Mrs. Dodds, in all her infinite wisdom, decides that this is clearly the fault of either Percy or Aileth because Percy is dry even though he should be drenched and Aileth thinks it's funny, and takes them away so she can transform into the stuff of nightmares Disney animators craft their monsters after.

Mrs. Dodds tells them, they've been giving her problems— and when neither Aileth or Percy manage to formulate a proper response, she turns.

Her eyes become a torn open mess— burning embers glittering in the craters of her skull, husks where her eyes were moments ago. Fangs, sharp and pale as bone like the talons stretching from her fingers, tear past the rust of her mouth— a dried crimson that resembles the torn-open stomach of a sacrifice. Her jacket melts into large, leathery wings like that of a bat's. The flesh rips, mangled open. Aileth covers her mouth to stifle a scream.

Transformation complete, Mrs. Dodds kisses her teeth, grinning, and lungs.

It's the worst day of Aileth's life. She lets herself scream this time, dodging as her math teacher reaches out to slash at her— "Are all math teachers like this!?"