I'll be here forever

chapter 70 | Calypso

When I was able to open my eyes again, he was gone.

My eyes adjusted slowly, taking in the rock right in front of my face, and the little ant that crawled along it. My eyes then found the tall trees in front of me, full and green. My gaze swept the vicinity, and to my satisfaction, I found nothing to be threatening.

He was gone. I sighed in relief. His dark figure was gone, as was the ripping agony of fire burning through my veins, and the icy cold emptiness that had followed. He was gone, but he was still there, his crazed laugh still ringing in my ears, the malicious glint in his eyes reflected in the glaring sunlight. I shuddered, and to my relief, found myself able to- I wasn't dead.

My mouth was dry, my lips cracked, and as I sucked in a much-needed breath, I felt them rip apart and start to bleed. My muscles ached, a dull, throbbing pain, but the pain was welcome. I found myself laughing, an exhaustedly hoarse laugh of relief.

I wasn't dead.

Every jolt of pain that arced through me, the uncomfortable feeling of my spine pressing into the earth, the blood I could taste on my lips- every bit of it let me know that I was alive. I was so sure that I had been about to die there, motionless and completely at his mercy.

But I didn't. And if I wasn't dead, that meant that Leo might not be either.

The sun shone down on me, warm, trying to help ease the images from my brain, and as much as I appreciated the help, it didn't work. I blinked away the bright and used all my willpower to try and move my body, wincing at the terrible aching in my insides.

I shifted over only slightly, and something poked into my back. Hard. I winced and decided listen to the aching in my bones and give up on moving. I couldn't even lift my neck, it was so sore.

But I slowly became increasingly aware of the dead silence surrounding me. Not a bird, a cricket, or a breeze rustling the leaves. Just silence.

"Leo?" I called, my voice croaking and dusty, only comparable to a door to an attic that has sat unopened for decades. My vision spun as I heard my own wrecked voice, realizing that it was the only sound. The silence, in return, started to eat away at my tiny crumbs of hope.

But if I had survived, maybe he had too. Maybe his dad had saved him, or maybe he'd been faking it all along, trying to work out a strategic escape plan. Yeah, that had to be it. Leo was creative like that. But I'd have to punch him for scaring me so badly.

"Leo?" I called again, a little louder this time, my voice no less raspy, the sound echoing through the clearing. Still, no answer.

And then I coughed, covering my mouth with my fist out of habit, my body convulsing, my lungs aching and sore. After the coughing fit faded to only a rasp in my throat, I pulled my hand back and blinked in surprise, seeing it covered in blood that definitely hadn't been there before.

That wasn't good.

"Fuck," I breathed, wiping my blood on my jeans, wincing as I tried to roll over once more, failing again. Whatever was poking into my back didn't shift in the slightest, and maybe even dug deeper into the hollow of my spine. I winced.

"Leo?" I called, my voice as loud as I could manage it. It cracked and broke, but echoed through the clearing the same, the wind carrying his name through the trees.

And still, there was no reply.

I cursed under my breath, only coughing more. I felt something wet trickle onto the corners of my mouth- reaching my hand up and wiping it away, I saw only a streak of red.

That was really, really not good.

When I had lived on Ogygia, naturally, I got bored very easily. Hermes secretly supplied me with any books he managed to sneak away, which meant they were mostly books on how to tie knots and pick a pocket and place stickers on packaging correctly. But one lucky time, he was able to slip me a stack of Apollo's medical textbooks- and I read them so many times that I could probably cast a bone fracture in my sleep.

The textbook section that had scared me the most were the internal injuries. Those ones always terrified me. External injuries, like a cut, you could stitch up and have it be good as new. But internal injuries were nasty. You couldn't see them, and you were never quite sure how bad they were. It could be a simple jab to the stomach, or it could be irreparable brain damage and organ failure. One of the most worrying symptoms of really bad internal injuries, usually a result of incredible blunt force trauma, was blood coming out of the nose and/or mouth.

Looking at the blood that I kept coughing up, I supposed I checked that off.

"Leo!" I called once more, almost angrily, although it didn't sound that way because of the way my voice croaked out of my throat.

Where was he?

Because if I had survived, there was no way he wouldn't have survived too. Knowing Leo, he probably had Festus fixed up again already, and was on his way back to come pick me up.

That had to be it. He had to have been getting Festus- there's no other way he'd leave me.

I coughed some more, feeling more blood leak out the corners of my mouth but ignoring it, cursing in between each breath as I steeled myself to roll over on my other side, so I didn't choke to death, and so that this stupid stick that was poking me in the back would finally give me some relief.

And oh, yeah. I had some extra ambrosia in the pocket I was laying on, which, if I could reach it, could help me not die.

So I placed my hand against the ground and pushed- I pushed hard, feeling a sharp pain jab through my muscles and elbow, but I did my best to ignore it and the pokes of little rocks and sticks in my back as I rolled to the other side, exhaling harshly. My vision was fuzzy, and it took a moment and a couple blinks for my sight to clear up and adjust.