crow's calling - Percy Jackson (2)

chapter two

    You're dead anyway.

Wren Kelley had a thing about drowning. And given that it had already almost happened to her twice on one singular quest, it felt as though the Fates were just pulling a mass cosmic joke on her at this point. She could almost hear them laughing as they held their scissors up to the piece of undoubtedly frayed thread that signified her life with a sinister 'third times a charm!'.

Hitting the water felt like smacking against a slab of concrete. It was brutal and hard, but nowhere near as shocking as the freezing cold temperature of the river. It tore the air from her lungs, forced ice into her veins and turned her limbs rigid. The force had been so shocking that Wren lost her grip on Percy and began to sink deeper into the water.

What was even worse was the wailing that filled her ears. You'll never survive this place, they taunted her. They mewled in her ears, pried at the back of her mind with a symphony of despair that began to overtake the last of her senses and beckon her to the lifeless floor of the river.

A hand wrapped around her wrist, causing Wren to jolt in fear because maybe the voices had physical forms. But no, it was Percy trying to pull the both of them back up.

Wren couldn't see him, but she could feel him there. And suddenly she didn't want to die.

Their heads broke above the surface, only to be smacked in the face with a dense sulfuric air. It mattered not, they gulped back the air that had been stolen from them upon impact.

Wren thought about that time on her journey to Camp where she and Luke almost drowned - which really gave her tally number four on the 'almost drowned this many times' meter. When the two demigods had broke through the surface all those years ago, Luke had hastily pulled them in the direction of the riverbank and to safety.

Riverbank. Land. There has to be land.

Wren whipped her head to the side, squinting in adjustment to the dimly red lighting, trying to catch a glimpse of just how far they were from the shore. Though she almost sunk right back down when the whirlpool Percy was using to buoy them up began to weaken.

"Go sideways." She said, almost croaking as the air stung in her lungs, "We have to get to the shore."

He met her eyes, nodding the best he could, but Percy looked on the verge of unconsciousness. It was almost like the nymphaeum - instead of strengthening him, helping him, it was as though the water was sucking every bit of his strength and will dry. It became harder to fight through the water then, the combination of the voices in crying in her head and Percy's weakening strength making it a struggle for Wren to pull them against the current to the shore.

Everything is pointless, and then you die.

"Pointless." Percy muttered, teeth chattering from the desperate cold before he stopped swimming.

"Percy!" Wren shrieked as she grabbed the boy, her own body pulling back down into the water before she could push them back up. It was a cosmic joke if she'd ever see one - Wren Kelley tries to prevent her... tries to prevent Percy, the son of Poseidon, from drowning, thus drowning herself and dying in the process. "Percy! It's the water - you have to ignore it! Annabeth will kill me if I let you drown!"

"Drown." He said if he thought it was a good idea, or maybe it was just the only idea left.

No!