WORLDS BEYOND ( pjo )

𝐢: voices howling in my head

It was darkness.

That's all she remembered about from before she woke up.

The darkness and void stretched for as far as she could reach, but she felt everything. Too much, one might even say.

The place she remembered was so infinite, it was so close to nothing, completing the whole circle of life. She could hear so much, all of the world-shattering screams, and it'd sound like silence. She could feel so much, the stings of a thousand painful needles, and it'd feel like she was an intangible mass weighing nothing. She could sense everything, the senses of billions of people, and her body wouldn't register a thing.

It felt endless, the time she'd spent there. It wasn't even like it was just one reality she was seeing; all of them, all the strings of reality that had accumulated over the last few millennia, all the quantum realms had merged into one and every single mind, thought, action, reaction had reflected onto the darkness of the place. Everything cast a shadow on her abstract being, even though she lived in darkness. If you could even call it that.

It wasn't darkness in the sense that everything was clouded with blackness, no. The sheer nothingness of the void was so concentrated that it felt like the personification of oblivion, even if Kia could see everything. It was so close to nothing, that it happened to simultaneously be everything.

Kia had tried to keep herself sane with her own thoughts, trying to pick apart the things she'd seen, but it proved fruitless. Because one, she didn't have enough time to think and two, she had no idea what she saw. She was sure that if she saw a face in one of the violent flashes that mugged her every second being in that place, she would never be able to identify it even if it were bludgeoning her to death.

It felt horrifying, the fact that she couldn't even turn to her own thoughts as salvation. It felt as if she'd been robbed of something that was truly meant to be hers. From what she could remember of her past, she'd always hated the thought that someone might be able to read her mind. The possibility angered her as well as made her upset; the intrusive thoughts she had should not be able to be read by others.

Being dissected like some experiment was the most terrible thought she'd ever had. Higher beings poking at her existence and playing around with her like some frog in a high school classroom, it maddened her to an unfathomable extent.

That was what infinity felt like. She was sure she couldn't handle a second more of it and yet, it went on.

All until she woke up.

She thought of how grateful she was to have finally gotten out of that hellhole, but even that wouldn't get rid of the bitterness she felt. Why did she have to go through that?

Staring at her comforter, her fingers crinkling the sheets, she looked up to her right, where a boy was sitting.

He had wisps of sunny blonde hair falling an curling affectionately around his face, drooping downwards from leaning forward and perfectly beautiful tanned skin. A healthy splash of freckles rested across his cheeks and his nose, along with a few less-prominent ones around his face. Light crinkles surrounded his eyes, implicating that he smiled a lot and his lips were pursed slightly and eyes closed in a pensive expression.

He'd seemed to realise he was being stared at, turning his head in a little more of a welcoming direction and opening his eyes to reveal breathtaking blue eyes, ones that reminded Kia of the Circassian Sea.

"Hey," he said, smiling kindly at her.

The smile felt oddly comforting, like the gentle grasp of a loving mother, despite this boy looking like he was no older than thirteen.

He scribbled down a few more things in his professional-looking clipboard and looked back to Kia as if waiting for her to ask something.

"This is Camp Half-Blood, right?" she settled for asking.

He nodded, looking pleased that she'd remembered that little detail. "Yeah, it is. It's a place for—"

"Demigods," she cut him off. She realised how rude that must've been and so she added, "Sorry."

He shook his head, "No problem. I'm Will. Will Solace."

Cocking her head confusedly, she asked, "Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Like, 'the name's Bond. James Bond.'"

Will looked perplexed for a moment before chucking out a bout of laughter. Kia couldn't help but smile and feel warm at the sight, he was really just a kid.

When he stopped laughing but a lingering smile still prevalent on his face, he scooted closer in his chair to the bed. "How are you feeling?"

She looked down at her arms, making sure she was really here. Upon finding no signs of the alternative, she met his gaze.

"Just a little disoriented," she admitted, fiddling with her fingers. It seemed silly to admit such a thing when a child like him (like she was so much older, she was, like, fifteen), who she assumed to be some sort of medic, had seen much more gruesome wounds and sights, all the while she was sitting there, whining about waking up from her gods-know-how-long nap.

But all he did was give her a sympathetic look and say, "Makes sense, you've been asleep for, what Chiron tells me, about five years."

Kia must've visibly paled, because Will placed a featherlight hand on her shoulder, bringing her attention back to him.

"Hey, don't worry," Will said tenderly. "It wasn't your fault. Plus, it hasn't been that long."

The two spent the rest of the evening talking to each other normally, as if the world wasn't at the brink of war and nothing was wrong. Just two kids, talking about their lives. It wasn't before long that Will had to leave and go back to his cabin, pulling up his hand in a happy little gesture of goodbye.

Now, there she was, leaning against the headboard of the bed, gazing listlessly at the wall, her mind running a thousand miles per hour. Who knew being able to think properly for the first time in what felt like forever would be so stressful?

Surely, the world couldn't be that bad, could it?