The Sea and The Moon

Chapter 22

I was just about to summon my knives when I heard a deep masculine voice in my head.

Do not, my love. Do not risk your life for me, Percy said sternly in my mind. I was too fixated on saving him that I hadn't even realized what he had referred to me as.

Despite what Percy had told me, there was no way that I would ever allow harm to come to him. He was my one lifeline. The single person that I had left. Without him, I was nothing. So I summoned my knives anyways and charged the creature in front of me in a hopeless attempt to free my hero, my savior, my love, but before I could even run ten steps, Apollyon smirked at me and gave me a wink, before vanishing along with Percy in a column of shadows.

I watched in horror as remanents of his shadow travel floated to the ground and dissolved into fine black dust. Almost immediately, I was hit with immense emotional pain, so intense that I couldn't even stand up straight. Once that first tear broke free, the rest followed in an unbroken stream. I dropped to my knees pressing my palms to the floor, as I began sobbing, shards of my broken soul flowing out of my eyes in the form of liquid.

The rest of the gods looked on in shock, many of them had tears in their own eyes as well, but it was nothing compared to what I was feeling at the moment. The outside world was fuzzy around me and I couldn't hear anything as I felt myself slipping into a state of depression and heartbreak. I was barely aware of the warmth of Hestia's embrace and the fiery droplets falling down her own face. It was like I was completely dysfunctional, already lost in the land of misery. More figures gathered at the edge of my vision, but I couldn't make any sense of who they were. Like I was floating a mile away from my body.

By now, the front of my shirt was completely soaked by my unrelenting tears, but it didn't make a single difference to me. I could have been in the center of a volcano, and I wouldn't feel the heat, for my tears would hold it at bay.

I faintly felt somebody pick me up and hold me close to their body, flashing me off somewhere. I felt them place me on a bed, pulling the covers over my head before walking away, out of my view. The lights were turned off around me, although it didn't matter because it was like the lights were out already. In my conscience.

I didn't know how long I lay there, but eventually, my body ran out of liquid to cry. I slowly let sleep overcome my sense and my consciousness ebbed, but not before I prayed to the higher being that Percy would come back to me safely. Please, he is everything to me. Please, let him be alright and let him come back to me. I don't know what I would do without him. And then my mind went into free fall, swirling with the beautiful chaos of a new dream. But this chaos was dark and murky, not beautiful in any way, shape, or form.

Dark faces shrouded my vision and obscured my view. Haunting images swirled past my line of sight before disappearing in the peripheral of my vision, only to be replaced by one even more disturbing and dreadful. My Hunters lying motionless on the ground with wounds on every inch of their bodies. My family bloodies and battered, at the brink of the endless abyss of the afterlife. A million ways that Percy could die.

Suddenly, everything disbursed like a flock of crows being chased by a hawk, only to be replaced by something even worse. Percy lay by my feet, blood coating his body like clothing. My eyes widened in horror as I tried to help him to his feet and hug him, but found that I couldn't. I was forced to watch him lie on the floor dying, all alone in the dark. I tried to call out to him, but nothing happened as I attempted to force my mouth to form words. It was like I was watching a movie, sitting in the back row of the theater. My body wanted desperately to cry out to the man on the screen, but of course, he wouldn't hear me.

Percy groaned and my face relaxed at the fact that he was still alive, but instantly, it went slack again, paling rapidly. Behind Percy, the door slid open creating an abrasive screeching noise as it inched open to reveal a dark figure cloaked in blackness.