The Last Boeotian (Percy Jackson)

Chapter 11: I'm So Done With These Olympians

I hit crystal blue water with a smack. The impact hurt my head, but it wasn't long before the water soothed the aching pain. My eyelids were heavy and my body was tired. I had to force myself to slowly open my eyes and gaze around the water, searching.

There were pieces of wood that slowly began floating down towards the bottom of the sea, and a couple of demigods lied limp in the sea, suspended in the water. I twisted and turned until I could begin pushing my arms and legs to swim towards one of the demigods. I recognized him as Agori, the navigation boy. I pushed on his body, and he was able to slowly open his eyes.

I wrapped my arms around the larger boy, kicking up towards the surface of the water. I pushed his body up and began trying to carry him to a large floating piece of wood. He coughed and sputtered once we reached the surface, gasping for air. I helped him grab onto the boat shard and gazed back around. I could see Percy helping up others, leading them to large floating wood shards.

"You okay?" He cracked out to me as loud as he could.

"Yeah," I called back, helping someone pull themselves to a makeshift buoy. "You?"

"All good."

"What the Hades was that, Jackson?" A loud voice echoed. An unscathed Adrianne started swimming towards us with an irritated look on her face.

"What makes you think I would know?" Percy's voice was laced with sarcasm, obviously feeling done with Adrianne.

"You made it clear that it was your mission, and you're the holy son of the sea," she retorted.

"It's not my fault you-"

"Shut up," I called loudly. "This isn't getting us anywhere. We're nearly twenty miles from the coast of Georgia and acting like malakas isn't helping!"

"Woah, watch that mouth," Grover called from where he leaned against the boat piece, kicking his furry matted legs.

"Not helping," I replied loudly. "We have to figure out how to get back to land before we do anything else. Percy and I can get us a bit closer, but not for twenty miles. It would take all night, if one of us don't pass out first."

There was a long pause of silence, and the demigods all gazed at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

"What about Odysseus," Annabeth offered.

"Who?" I gazed over at the girl. My voice softened to a casual and airy tone. 

"Odysseus. His Boeotian countername is Polyaretos."

"Oh," I breathed out. "Okay, how is he supposed to help? He's more dead than we're gonna be in a couple hours."

"It's said that his ghost still travels the sea. You're supposed to be able to summon his ship with a golden drachma and the blood of Poseidon as sacrifice."

"Do you just come up with this stuff off the top of your head?"

"Daughter of the goddess of wisdom," she pointed to her head as if to say uh, duh.

I patted my pockets to search,but I could only find my pen. "I don't have any drachma."

The other five demigods and the satyr searched around to find nothing. There was quiet mumbling and the shaking of heads.

"How well can you swim," Percy asked.

"What kind of question is that?" I made a face at my brother. "You of all people are asking that?"

"I didn't know," Percy put his hands up in slight defeat. "I saw some of the bags fall in. Maybe we can go down and find drachma inside."

I nodded. "We can try."

Percy nodded at me. "Everyone else can stay here. Let's go."

I followed Percy down under the water, adjusting my eyes to the lack of light as I swam down farther. Every once in a while I would gaze over at Percy, checking if he found anything or had left.

I swam down, farther down the sea. I saw small fish and big fish and a few squid, some garbage from mortals, but nothing that belonged to the demigods. I looked over at Percy, who nodded at me and gestured to keep going.

The water was dark and dense, and the farther down we went, the larger the fish would become. My head was beginning to hurt from the pressure. I could see small pieces of wood suspended under the water from the boat, and more garbage, but no bags or cases.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I looked up at Percy. He slowly moved his other hand towards me to present an object, a dark silhouette that was hard to see near the bottom of the ocean. We had to have been a quarter mile down from the surface by now. I felt at it, then recognized my bag. It was still strapped shut and probably didn't lose anything. I nodded, taking the bag slowly from Percy's hand. He nodded back and began backing away, gesturing down again. I nodded and continued searching. I found shells and fish corpses and living fish and trash. I had to search through piles of garbage, disgusted by the amount of pollution.

I finally found a small bag- a messenger bag. The shimmering blade on the front caught my eye, leading me to pick up the bag. I turned back to Percy, tapping his arm with my palm. He turned to me, observing the bag. The older boy nodded before he pointed up, taking the bag in his arms.

I nodded in reply, following him back up to the surface.