Chapter 1

"Uuuuuugggggghhhhh", I groaned. What happened? All I could piece together was a big explosion, then nothing. It's not like I was not used to nothing, but this felt...different. I was able to open my eyes, and sit up a little bit. I looked around, and was instantly terrified. Not of the wreckage and debris of what appeared to be a skyscraper, but of the fact that I was on the top floor...however high it was, looking down at the tarmac streets, hundreds of feet below. I recoiled, and dragged myself over to the middle of the room. I felt something under my hand. I looked down, and saw that my hand rested on a hat; a colored rasta cap to be exact. Suddenly, as if touching the hat jogged my memory, I remembered everything: I was Percy Jackson, the son of Poseidon. I was up here with my friends Grover and Annabeth trying to stop the titan Kronos. I remembered someone, Kronos's body host, begging me to give him the knife I held. I refused. Then Kronos went all KABOOM! And now I'm here.

Tears filled my eyes when I realized what the rasta cap meant: Grover was gone. I couldn't believe it. My best friend, just simply...gone. That's when I remembered even more: We were here with about forty demigods; our friends from Camp Half-Blood. Where were they? I wondered. My train of thought was lost when a voice from behind me muttered "Ow". I jolted around and saw Annabeth, lying on the ground, her hand on her head. I quickly got up, and ignoring the pain, made my way over to her. "Annabeth!" I stammered. "What happened? Are you okay?!?!"

"Fine...I think", she answered. "You?"

"For now, I'm good. Do you remember anything?" She suddenly sprang up and started attacking me.

"YOU STUBBORN IDIOT!!!" She yelled. "IF YOU JUST GAVE LUKE THE KNIFE THEN NONE OF THIS WOULD'VE HAPPENED!" She was banging on my chest now. "WE COULD'VE...SAVED...EVEryone…" She sank down and started crying. "We could've saved everyone, Percy," She sniffled. "We...failed." I crouched down, and met her eyes.

"Annabeth, if we really did fail, and it is our fault, then at least we tried." Okay, worst. Encouragement. Ever. Her head dropped into her legs.

"But we...we failed. It's game over. We lose." She cried.

"No, we did not. We're in the endgame, now. The war is not over." I was just beginning to become aware of the heat. I mean, it was a summer morning, but it felt like Death Valley. "Hey, did someone crank up the heat?" Her head shot up. She seemed hyper-focused on the wall across the room.

"Percy, we're...we're not in Kronos's endgame." She sounded fearful.

"Then what part of the war are we in?" I asked. She shook her head.

"Percy, the war is over. We're in the world's endgame." Okay, if I wasn't scared before, I was now.

"How can you be sure?" I asked.

"Look outside, Seaweed Brain." I did, and it didn't help my mood. Most of the buildings were gone, demolished by what I could only imagine was fire; all the buildings were blackened with ash. I stepped away from the window.

"What...what did he do to my city?" I gaped. Annabeth, fighting her pain, made her way over to me, ang hugged me tight. I was pretty sure she would break my ribs. Tears filled my eyes.

"We did what we could." She reminded me. I wiped my tears, which stung my face. Annabeth looked up at me and smiled.

"What?" I asked.

"You look like a racoon", she snickered.

"A racoon?" I asked. She rolled her eyes.

"You have ash on your face. Along your entire eyeline", she told me. I wiped around my eye with my hand, and it turned ashy black.

"Fine for now", I confirmed. "Right now, let's get out of this building,"

"Agreed", Annabeth said. We used all the strength we could muster, and we made our way to the stairwell.

"Wish the elevator worked." Real bummer. You couldn't at least have kept the elevator working, Kronos?

"Same, but we can make it down the stairs", Annabeth assured me. Her hand slipped into mine, and we made our way to the ground floor.