Never Again

Chapter 3 - Percy

A/N this chapter is kind of depressing, sorry

All in all, the nightmare was fairly standard, as far as these things go. The knowledge of that did not make it any more pleasant during it though, particularly since I was not aware it was a nightmare until afterward. The only thing that made it worse than average was that I could not wake up.

I was falling, the darkness around me so complete that the only sensations I was aware of were the hot rushing wind in my ears and the absence of light so deep that it seemed something , or someone, was actively taking the light out of the air. Except there was something missing that was far worse than the missing light. Annabeth. She wasn't here, and selfishly, so selfishly, I wished she was.

I fell and fell and fell and fell, down and down and down until time was meaningless, and all sensations of falling felt like I was reclining on a bed of hot, humid air. At some point, between one blink and the next, I realised that the darkness had become slightly less total. I was able to see my feet as they flailed around me as I tumbled through the air. With a creeping horror, I knew I was about to land, but in my dream-state I was powerless to stop it, no more than an observer in my own body.

I was in the River Cocytus, and presumably I must have saved myself somehow, but I had no memory of that part. Or anything really now, all I knew was misery. The abject, unassailable kind of misery that can only come from supernatural sources. The voices around me wailed and sobbed and moaned and whined and entreated, begged, pleaded. They said join us Percy Jackson. They said we feel your pain and you can feel ours. I resisted. The misery lapped around my neck, spitting into my eyes and nose, tickling the base of my ears, but I resisted. I tried to think of happy things, tried to repel the misery that awaited me if I failed. Annabeth, I thought, Mom, Paul Blofis, Grover. The voices pulled at me, loosening the threads of my sanity, a thin weave held together by those who I loved and who loved me back. I floundered desperately, hopelessness beginning to kick in as my feet failed again and again to find purchase on the bottom; it may as well have been made of smoke for all I could touch. I began to tire, my treading of water becoming sluggish and weak as the waters of the Cocytus crept further around my ears. I knew that the only way I would be able to control these waters was if I was to give up completely, to give in to the voices that pleaded for my allegiance so desperately. Of course, if I did that, I would have given up and be unwilling and unmotivated to control the waters around me.

My bones began to feel weary, my muscles shivered and my neck ached from craning to keep it above the water. My dream-self was about to give in, and no matter how much I screamed and struggled, my consciousness could not affect the dream. I was powerless but to watch my own collapse. Slowly, the waters inched first around my mouth, and then my nose, oozing up my forehead as my floundering became ever more ineffective. And suddenly, I was drowning. Sheer panic filled my bones as I felt the water press in against my lungs, yearning for entry into my bloodstream, my soul. I resisted, the water pulling me head over heels as I flailed. The pressure in my lungs grew, and I knew I could not hold on any longer, not with the voices in my ear begging me to give in and everything biology screaming at me to breathe. My dream-self could not hold on any longer. I gave in, and the water rushed into my lungs, choking my throat, and flowing coolly, miserably down into my lungs. I coughed, trying to dispel it on instinct, but part of a cough is inhaling again, and the only things left for me to inhale was more water. Blood rushed in my ears, giving me a momentary relief from the voices begging me to give up on life, to join them in misery, because what was life even worth anyway, what is the point of living now only to die again later? Black spots floated in my eyes, encroaching on my vision, stealing away the last few glimpses of life I could be sure I'd get.

Now, see, this is where one would usually wake up from a dream. In the moments before a grizzly death, or when your lungs feel like they're going to burst from the water you keep inhaling, you wake up. And the thing about nightmares is, always, in some deep part of your subconscious, you know you're going to wake up. As I lay in that dream, drowning and choking, I kept waiting to wake up.

I didn't.