The Unknown (A Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

26. The Pronoun Games

I'm alive!!!!!! Hallelujah! *cricket* What, no one's celebrating? *cricket* Rude. 

So I've finally finished my exams (for now) and despite being exhausted, I have written a chapter because I'm such a greaaaaaat person *cricket*

Enjoy and appreciate the title of this chapter. 

Percy

A day passed, then another and then several more.

Then days congregated into weeks and into months and then dragged into years; one, two, three.

I knew it hadn't really been three years in the mortal world-Annabeth had told me once before that times were different in magical places-but it sure as Hades felt like it. Perhaps it had only been a day or a week, or at least that was what I hoped: my friends would've rescued me by the third year, right?

I mentally scolded myself. Don't think like that. Annabeth will find a way if I don't.

Pain shot through my hand and pulled it away from the walls of dagger-sharp rocks on either side of me. Crimson trickled from a cut on my calloused palm. Soon the blood would congeal and dry until it was brown and flaking, and the wound will scab and scar to join the many others.

I wiped the blood on my tattered jeans and tried to lean forward further, only for the Celestial bronze chain to yank me back again, attached to the other wrist which had been chafed against the godly metal, my skin now raw and bloody. The pain was biting and throbbing all at once, but I had begun to think of it more of a distraction than anything else.

I had tried to hack through the chain with Riptide, which Echidna hadn't bothered to disarm, though she no doubt had regretted the few times I had the strength to fight back. But the chains remained unyielding and the bitch always managed to kick me back to the ground, sneering in that awful way of hers.

Right now, the pen in my pocket felt like a kind of anchor to the mortal world. That was where my home was; my mum, Camp Half-Blood, Grover and Tyson and all of my other friends. Annabeth. Not where I was chained up in semi-darkness, breathing in an atmosphere that burned my lungs and blistered my skin, while Echidna planned her next session.

I thought of Will, who had appeared a few weeks ago. At first, I thought I was hallucinating-okay, maybe I'm not coping as well I thought I was, I had almost said out loud when he first materialised, his body ghostly and transparent.

And then he had disappeared, a wave of deafening silence and loneliness once again sweeping over me. Until Echidna entered with a malicious grin, a forked tongue sliding over her fangs as she gripped the new instrument of pain.

I remembered standing up as much as I could, the chain pulling at my wrist like an insistent toddler, as I drew out my sword. "What do you want with me?" I had demanded, though my voice was still hoarse from screaming from the last session.

Echidna had studied the object gripped between her taloned fingers, pretending to examine it with interest. "It is not what I want, or you'll be begging for death by now, little hero." She had cackled, her reptilian eyes flashing with glee. "No, no, my mistress needs you alive for now."

I had swallowed thickly. "Who?"

The Mother of Monsters had then grinned and flicked the barbed whip at the ground. I hid a wince. "You've met her once before and soon you'll meet her again." Crack! The whip tore Riptide out of my hand and it clattered to the ground, way out of my reach. I had felt hot liquid oozing down my arm.

Then it had begun.

I pushed those memories away with a shudder and tugged at the chain, once again. I had to escape.