The Omnitrix holder and the lighting theif

Well I am A fugitive now

DON'T BE A SILENT READER 

Percy Pov

I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera. The truth? My only thought was: Protect Amara 

A whiteout of bubbles. I sank through the murk, sure that I was about to end up embedded in a hundred feet of mud and lost forever. But my impact with the water hadn't hurt. I was falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through my fingers. I settled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of my stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage — beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags — swirled up all around me.

At that point, I realized a few things: first, I had not been flattened into a pancake. I had not been barbecued. I couldn't even feel the Chimera poison boiling in my veins anymore. I was alive, which was good.

Second realization: I wasn't wet. I mean, I could feel the coolness of the water. I could see where the fire on my clothes had been quenched. But when I touched my own shirt, it felt perfectly dry. I looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter.No way, I thought. I flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi.I grabbed a soggy hamburger wrapper out of the current and immediately the paper turned dry. I lit it with no problem. As soon as I let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag. Weird.

But the strangest thought occurred to me only last: I was breathing. I was underwater, and I was breathing normally.

I stood up, thigh-deep in mud. My legs felt shaky. My hands trembled. I should've been dead. The fact that I wasn't seemed like . . . well, a miracle. 

But then I freaked seeing amara was not near me, I quickly swim around finding her till I saw her on the sea ground lying down. I immediately went to see and was surprised to see a water bubble over her mouth and nose allowing her to breathe as I saw her breathing up and down. She is alive and her wounds are healed up.

I  took her in my arms and held her close as her hair float around in the water. I imagined a woman's voice, a voice that sounded a bit like my mother: Percy, what do you say?

Urn . . . thanks. Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid. "Thank you. . . Father for saving her

No response. Just the dark drift of garbage downriver, the enormous catfish gliding by, the flash of sunset on the water's surface far above, turning everything the color of butterscotch.

Why had Poseidon saved me? The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt. So I'd gotten lucky a few times before. Against a thing like the Chimera, I had never stood a chance. Those poor people in the Arch were probably toast. I couldn't protect them. I didn't protect amara. I was no hero. Maybe I should just stay down here with the catfish, and join the bottom feeders.

Fump-fump-fump. A riverboat's paddlewheel churned above me, swirling the silt around. There, not five feet in front of me, was my sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.

I heard that woman's voice again: Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you. This time, I knew the voice wasn't in my head. I wasn't imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar.

"Where are you?" I called aloud.

Then, through the gloom, I saw her — a woman the color of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just above the sword. She had long billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like mine.