Heart Pierced - Kayla Knowles (1)

XXV. Awakened To Their New Reality

(A/N: This part.. oh boy. Is it ever a gut-wrencher because trauma and PTSD, ladies and gentlemen. You have been warned. Plus, references to another PJO fanfic this time by raspberryfanfics called "Aspen", centered around good old Sherman Yang. There are references to some A03 fanfics, which will be credited at the bottom of the chapter for you to view.)

I don't speak much about my childhood growing up, but in retrospect, I'm glad that my parents conditioned me to not be as emotional when it came to death, funerals, and such, because to be fair, I don't think it would help Kayla if her boyfriend was just broken as she could be.

Even though we all showed solidarity and unity during Grover's time at the emergency meeting of the council of Cloven Elders and during Annabeth's chat with that bitch Hera, deep down inside, everyone around me was suffering. It simply manifested itself in different ways.

That much was true. Everyone seemed a bit different after the battle. The only one who seemingly hadn't changed, despite the anxiety I would get from the what-ifs, was me. I didn't know how, I didn't know why, but somehow among those who had been awakened to their new reality, I was the one who was the most stable.

Out of all the cabins, I think it was safe to say that the Demeter and Aphrodite Cabins got hit the hardest with the PTSD. Silena and her sibling who Michael and I had saved from the two hellhounds that day back in January had always been a little unstable since then.. after the Battle Of The Labyrinth, they were definitely.. very unstable, to say the least. It wasn't even the middle of the first night after the battle before familiar screams from the Demeter and Aphrodite cabins had Beckendorf, Sherman, Travis, and a couple other campers, including Travis' brother Connor, barreling out the front door of their cabins and over to the two affected ones to calm the others down, harpies be damned.

I will admit, I was surprised that Sherman was even able to move that fucking fast. Then again, he was a member of a very dangerous mafia back in NYC before coming to Camp Half Blood, so I guess given that he had mentioned running from cops and what not, I guess he had built up the ability to do so.

Either way, by this point, roughly 5 days after the battle, it can safely be said that him and Miranda were even closer than before, since by now, she couldn't even sleep without him without having nightmares, much the same as Kayla being unable to sleep without me last summer. So he slept with her.. in his bed.. in the Ares Cabin. Clarisse and I, who slept with Chris and Kayla respectively, didn't even call him out on it at all. Travis and Katie were doing the same by now, with Katie sleeping in Travis' bed. Silena was sleeping in Beckendorf's bed by now, and Jake was sleeping in Michael's bed.

So yeah.. a lot of people, whether they were already in a relationship, were trekking down the same route as that of me and Kayla. Hopefully, a trip to Ogygia was not in their futures. Like seriously, I definitely hoped it wasn't what the Fates had in mind for them.

Percy and I, despite our differences, had established a bit of a friendship after the battle. The rivalry between the two of us, one-sided as it was, remained but in a diminished state to be honest.

After the battle, I think everyone was going through the process of a rude awakening and a final shattering of any hopes that they had of things going back to normal. Thanks to Luke, that would not be the case at all. Thanks to that traitor, war was now a reality. There hadn't been a war that concerned the world of the gods since WWII, and now here in the early 2000s, war had returned to the world of the gods. Only this time, it was a rematch between the Titans and the Gods.

With the knowledge that Kelli had given me, I shuddered at the prospects of the future should we win. Because if we win, given the knowledge that Gaea had monsters loyal to her attempting to raise her, and one of the giants alive and well in Alaska, it was almost certain to me at least that she would try to raise the rest of them soon, thus bringing on a second war between the gods and giants. Still, the rest of them were all down in Tartarus for now, at least that's what I thought. Just the bane of Hades alive in Alaska, there was no way that any of the others could be alive in our world with any other reason for their return other than wanting to avenge the defeat of the Titans should they once again lose to the Olympians, right?