Who We Used to Be

Chapter 3

Thalia stood with Nico at the front of the crowd of remaining demigods. She had lost track of her sisters throughout the battle, and now she was purposely trying to push the lack of silver she saw in the crowd around her to the back of her mind. She felt the loss of so many. Her hunters, fellow sisters, the demigods, her family. The only solace she had to keep her from breaking down was her cousin standing next to her now and the familiar head of bleached blond hair across the crowd that she recognised as Jason.

She stood up from her crouch where she had ducked down along with all the others behind the forcefield of power that the Olympians had erected last minute upon the explosion. It was massive, and though her ears were still ringing, and her balance still completely thrown for a loop, Thalia forced herself to stand up and look around.

Dust still floated through the air and blocked her vision. She couldn't see a thing, no matter how hard she strained.

Slowly and cautiously, others around her began to stand up too and join her in looking around.

"Is she gone?", a younger-sounding girl called from the back of the crowd. Her voice rang out in the deafening silence and echoed everybody's thoughts.

Is that it?

Is it over?

Did we win?

There was no movement.

All Thalia remembered was Percy, that stupid, stupid Kelp Head facing off against Gaea. He had been losing, he was about to be decapitated and then he had taken out this sword. There was a huge storm. Poseidon was just barely able to erect a bubble around them before the full effects of it hit, but Thalia could see just from looking at the piles of yellow dust all around her how deadly it had been. She could have sworn she saw a glint of pride in the old sea god's eyes.

And then there were the voices Horrible, horrible voices and they just wouldn't leave her alone!

Tears came to her eyes unwillingly, and she angrily blinked them away as she frantically tried to remember what had happened next.

There was nothing. She couldn't remember. Only an explosion, a massive explosion.

Zeus waved a hand and called the winds to him, blowing away all the dust that still hovered in the air and blocked their vision, exposing the full effects of the damage that had been caused by the clashing of a primordial goddess and a single demigod.

She didn't have time to even wonder how that was fair or even possible before panic gripped her heart in its vice-like grip.

She had lost Luke, she had lost Annabeth, most of her sisters were dead. She couldn't lose another family member. She wouldn't be able to stand it.

"Percy!!", she screamed out into the silence, a little bit of her panic slipping into her voice.

There was no answer. Nothing but the suffocating silence.

The explosion had blasted a huge crater in the ground. Trees, grass, bushes. All were uprooted and gone until all there was left was a strangely perfect circle of dust. But that crater was shallow: the explosion had occurred up in the air, away from the ground so it didn't cause as much damage as it could have.

Her vision tunnelled, and suddenly all she could see was the smaller, deeper crater just a little ways away from the main one. That, and the crimson red blood.

Oh how she hated that colour. It marked the end for so many of her loved ones' lives. So many innocent, pure people who deserved to live. Lives cut short by the stupid, selfish, power-hungry acts of others.