Unnnedited. Also huge AN at the end.

Chapter 25

Every bone in her body was throbbing. Annabeth figured that's what she got for sleeping on hard rock.

Well sleeping was kind of a generous word for last night. Instead of sleep she dozed on and off. Startling at the slimmest of sounds and glancing over at Percy to make sure he was still there.

When the sky above her gleamed a dusky purple through the little square Carl showed up whistling his usual tune. Without even glancing at Annabeth he tossed a glossy flutter of pages through the bars and went on his merry way. Swinging his abominable jangle of odd brass keys.

Thalia was instantly intrigued.

"I never get mail." She strained against her chains to get a better look.

Annabeth eyed the slightly curled thing that looked so displaced on her cell floor. Magazines belonged in dentist waiting rooms and hair salon parlours, not a 'research facility' that held mostly teens captive.

It smelled funny. Like fresh ink on a grocery store aisle floor. Perhaps sensory underload was messing with her. All she could smell in this place was the faint hint of iron, and the sweat of her fellow inmates. In comparison to that, of course a magazine would smell funny.

The picture of some happy fat mayor on the front seemed normal however.

Pensively, Annabeth glanced at Percy wondering what he thought of it. Should she approach it? Pick it up? She didn't want to do anything they expected her to.

What would happen if she just left it alone?

Percy's deep green eyes were intensified with his dark furrowed brows. For a few moments he stared at the bundle of papers before looking at her expectantly. Reading what she was going to do rather than offering her any advice.

"Here Thalia." Annabeth scooted the thing over the ground with her foot delicately. With one smooth motion she had it folded in half and had it through the bars. "It's your lucky day. You've got mail."

"What, you tryna bribe me into liking you?" She asked with challenged eyes. "Because if you are, it will totally work."

She cackled when she scooped up the thing with both hands. The jangle from her iron links echoed around the cells from her excited trembles. In seconds she was submersed in its pages.

A ripple of sadness pricked Annabeth. So much excitement for something so small.

"Lets see how they respond to that." Annabeth said triumphantly.

"You should've given it to Grover instead of Pinecone face over there." Percy said with a weak smile. "That would've really put a wrench in their gears."

Annabeth's heart did a little twist. It was good to see even an inkling of Percy's old smile.

"Well giving it to Thalia has the added pro of keeping her occupied and quiet for at least half an hour. Such a toddler that one."

"Aw go stuff it you shoddy onion peels," Thalia snorted gruffly. Turning on her butt to face the wall while still enraptured with the pages in her face. Hiding herself behind the wall of her blue feathered wings.

Annabeth chortled. Yeah, a real toddler.

When she glanced back at Percy, he wore an expression that wreaked of suffering. The greens of his eyes shimmered with held back emotion and his tense shoulders were wound back. Like an invisible leaden blanket was burning through his skin and taping down his wings.

"What's wrong? What happened?!" Annabeth's brain flared with alarm. A violent cold jolt when down her wings. Thoughts of drugs, of death, of torture ping ponged around

Percy just shook his head softly. Overcome.

"You have no idea what it's like seeing you like this," he whispered.

The bar's icy poke dug into her hands as she gripped them tighter. "I do. It's what I feel looking at you in here."

"It's really not," Percy said. "It's… I was probably going to end up here anyways. But you… watching you go from a girl who couldn't even look her mother in the eyes to… to this Queen who figures out how to fly and takes on a government agency, and who still defies them even while being imprisoned hurts. You're here because of me, and you shouldn't be. I would give anything to see you free."

"Percy stop. This isn't your fault."

"If you never met me, you wouldn't be here-"
"If I never met you I'd probably be married to Octavian right now. I'd be on some isolated island being miserable. I'd still call my mother 'Ma'am' and I'd be carted around as Octavian's new pretty arm piece. You have to understand that out of all the places in the world, right here is where I want to be and you can't change that. I want to be next to you okay? Even if we are in a prison."

Percy didn't look heartened. His eyes fell to the floor. "You'll change your tune once you go through a full day of activities."

"No I won't." Annabeth stated harshly. "I love you Percy. That's not going to change."

A clink of noise reached her ears from the prison doors, and Carl practically materialized with a disgusted look on his face. Sneering his little mustache upwards.

"Ew, teenagers."

"Ha! I know right? Gross." Thalia chimed in absentmindedly before flicking over to the next page.

Annabeth couldn't have cared less. Something fierce was thrashing in her. A sense of protective defiance or an enraged boil of confidence perhaps. It was overpowering and seeped into every crevice of her mind. The moment Carl had unlocked her she snatched his keys and ripped out of her cell. By some grace in luck she opened Percy's cell with the first key she tried and stomped in. Her white wings swelling upwards in her wake.

Carl was just reaching for his tiny remote when she grabbed her boyfriends confused and discouraged face and connected their lips.

Time was no longer a concern.

Broiling, airless, passionately she clutched him to her and kissed with every emotion she had. Percy surged forwards at her touch but with a snap of his chains he was held in place. All he could do was tilt his head and accept her. Between the fire in her stomach and the burst of feathers winding up her chest she could feel the hot burn of a tear sliding off Percy's cheek and hitting her thumb.

She held him tighter.

Just when she thought that even the stars couldn't reboot the moment an electric pain ripped her back and forced her to her knees with a raspy cry. Filling her blood with lava and shearing her skull until a deep thronging ache settled in. When the brunt of it released she lay with her head lolled against her chest breathing back the stings pinging around her lungs and fighting her paralyzed wings off the floor.

Percy was saying something but she couldn't hear it. Everything grew distant again. Everything was blurry. How foolish of her to think she was regaining her senses quickly. Passing moments felt like seconds, but when she finally blinked the blurriness away she was no longer in the cell block. It was like she was on a TV show that just transitioned to a new setting.

There was a large round steel table in front of her. Shining with her warped reflection and situated in the middle of a clinically white oval room. With a gasp Annabeth pivoted around. Comfortably enough the other three were sitting at the table with her. Platters of food in front of them. But how did she get here? Why did it keep happening? She could feel the panic swell into her heart and she looked at Percy pleadingly.

Percy looked back but said nothing. Hurt lined his bagged eyes. Desperately she made a grab for his hand but he pulled away solemnly.

"Touch isn't allowed here," he said quietly. "Please don't do that to yourself again."

Quell the panic. She tried to tell herself. Ladies don't panic.

The room had no doors, her mind had the usefulness of pointing out. Beneath her, the white stainless floor melded upwards into the wall so there were no seams, no corners. What was more was she couldn't tell where the light was coming from. Why was this place so bizarre? Why?

Feeling choked she edged just the tiniest ways closer to Percy. Still eyeing every aspect of this new strange room.

"Careful," Thalia waved a plastic fork at her. "You wouldn't want to end up like Luke with all this rule breaking."

"Luke?" Annabeth squinted at the platter of mush in front of her. A deep chasm of buzzing reverberated in her brain. "What do you mean 'end up like him'? I saw him yesterday. He's fine. Although I'm at a loss as to why he's here."

Percy jerked suddenly like someone had stabbed his ankle with a pin. When he turned to look at her his eyes were clouded with terror.

"Annabeth-"

"Ooh no," Thalia laughed, rocking back on the metal bench. "She's been zapped one too many times. Memory is always the first thing to go when they're zapped."

The colour was gone from Percy's face. A sickly yellow pallor painted his cheeks as if he were on the verge of vomiting what little he had eaten from the plate.

"We talked about Luke last night. Tell me you remember talking about Luke, what Thalia told us."

Annabeth crumpled her face back, thinking it was all a joke. "We didn't talk about anything last night. We just went to sleep."

Percy set his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. A deep visible tremble rocking his shoulders and echoing down his spine. Forcing his midnight wings into a tight fold on his back to try and hide it. Annabeth's heart was pinching. What had she done to him? Tentatively she reached out, but Percy jolted back.

He's serious. He's dead serious.

But she couldn't remember. Of all the things that happened the day before, she could last recall seeing her reflection wink at her and then being strapped back into her shackles. Strangled, she looked from one fellow prisoner to another. Settling her gaze on stony eyed Grover who had clearly face planted a few times into his food based on the mush stuck to his cheek and forehead.

Is that what I'm becoming?

"Eh, don't focus too much on it." Thalia waved off while ruffling her big blue wings with importance. "I've seen dozens be medusaed and none of them are really very aware of it so it's a painless process."

"Medusaed?" Annabeth's throat felt dry.

"Yeah. Go statuesque. Leave home with the lights still on. Pebble brained. Stony eyed. Wifi down if you will."

Thalia took a moment to poke Grovers face with the butt of her fork as far away as she could and let him shift back into place like memory foam. Demonstrating how out of it he really was.

"See? He's a vegetable."

"Speaking of vegetables, it's better if you scarf down your food now," Percy shifted her platter closer to her chest kindly. A scared twitch still flicking in his fingers. "It's one of two meals of the day and you really need it."

Numb-minded, Annabeth took his advice and started eating what she could. Not registering any taste in the mush she thought was mashed potatoes, and was shocked to find that the peas were banana flavoured. The mystery meat tasted just like fish, but was the consistency of steak in some areas and jello in others. It seemed that every time she blinked something different and odd was in her mouth, and all that she really knew was that it was apparently 'food'. Tears welled in the back of her eyes. Was her tongue out of wack too?

While munching away she persisted in finding a door. Any door. A simple flawed line in the perfect blank white melon they were sitting in would suffice. But nothing caught on her eyes.

Tempted to ask Percy, she leaned towards him again but he only leaned away. Masking his clear getaway attempt as him charitably trying to feed Grover some food. Ensuring that they didn't touch at all.

Annabeth's chest felt like it was withering slightly. For a moment she felt the desolate hopelessness breach her walls and leak into her heart.

No.

She was going to get out. If not out of love for Percy than for her loyalty to Piper. And if not for Piper than to purely spite Octavian and her Mother. She was going to get out.

When she gulped down her last portion of 'food', a deafening crunch shook the room. It sent ripples through the tin cups of water, and clattered the platters against the steel table. In unison, Percy and her jumped. Automatically she reached for his hand but shied away and cursed herself when she remembered. It thorned her heart to be distant but what choice did they have?

On the other side, Thalia looked bored and Grover slumped back into his remaining food like a scarecrow without enough straw to keep him upright.

Did they not feel it? Am I making stuff up inside my head again?

But Percy was glancing around with fervent eyes. He felt it too. Timidly, he scanned the smooth slope of the walls until he finally settled on something right behind them.

A crack. Spiderwebbed in the wall and dented inwards as if something bulky had cannonballed the other side. Crumbs of debris were still sprinkling down into a small white pile on the floor.

"What is going on," Annabeth breathed. She didn't know why she was feeling so panicky, so flighty. Had Percy not called her a queen a few hours earlier? Why did she feel like the court jester trapped in a cloud of his own laughing gas. Where was all the courage she had built going into this mess?

I'm still me. She soothed with a steadying breath. It's okay. I can do this.

Slightly rocky, she stood from the table and confronted the crack, trying to appear calm. Every atom of her body felt like it was resisting. Like her own soul was a little fish darting around her form, trying to escape. From behind her Thalia started cackling in her typical arrogant tone and it made her falter. She clenched her fists, held her breath and then finally reached out.

When her fingers made contact with the crack, a chunk of wall crumbled away and made a head sized hole. Beyond was light.

"What is this?" She stepped away. Her doubt getting the better of her again.

"Ha, welcome to prisoner life," Thalia said dryly while making a clown nose out of some mush and sticking it on Grover. "Get used to it."

Normally she'd have a biting comment to fire back but nothing came. She supposed her head was still a tad fuzzy from the zap she got. Or maybe she'd used up all of her fight on the second day.

Now that's a depressing thought.

Searching for support, she glanced in Percy's direction. The least she expected was a nod, or a probing look. Instead, he kept his head down staring at his platter. Pointedly ignoring her. It just added to the weight in her heart.

"Alright wimps." Thalia stood up and cracked her shoulders, then neck. "Watch the pro."

Without hesitation, she vaulted over the round steel table and shouted an indiscernible war cry as she charged forwards. Annabeth stepped sideways just in time. Tucking her blue wings back, Thalia met the wall and it gave her no resistance. She barreled through with an ear splitting crack while still screaming some banshee mating call. A dazzling light spilled in from the gaping hole she left followed by an uproar of voices. Breaching into a cheer in such an abrupt wave of noise that Annabeth's hair stood up against her neck. When her vision adjusted she could make out a sandy ground, and bleachers lining the back wall. Towering wooden bleachers filled with people.

Thalia was jumping around, hooting, trying to get people to chant her name. Waving her arms in the air and flapping her huge blue wings to stir up the sand.

Annabeth turned and walked back to the table. She grabbed the collar of Percy's jumpsuit and tugged it softly, making sure that her fingers never brushed his skin.
"Come on. We're in this together. Remember?" she murmured.

"No," he said. Wings slumping even farther down. "You're in this because of me."

"Okay well you can either mope around because you can think that, or you can stand beside me and try and figure out how this place works." She would've held her hand out to him at this moment. She would've given him more of a gesture besides her hard look and her new no-nonsense attitude. But she couldn't.

Grimly, Percy got to his feet. "What about Grover?"

"There's nothing we can do for him. Let's just try our best to understand this place today, okay?"

Gratefully Percy used his thumb and forefinger to hold the sleeve of her jumpsuit. Sharing a quiet smile with her that tickled her chest with warm bubbles.

But there's something behind that. She could see it in his eyes. A deep pitiful knowledge. A look parents give their children when the kids proclaim that the world is nothing but beauty. It was as if he had already succumbed to the hopelessness of this place.

Together they walked out through the gap, and into the pit of a towering stadium ceilinged with lights. Forty stories worth of faceless spectators cheered at them. Annabeth was so enamored with the shifting crowd she barely registered the hot sand wedging between her toes.

She was going to ask why she couldn't make out any one person in the mat of humans when Percy stiffened.

"Ahahaha. I like this activity!" Thalia was running around and strangely swinging a battle axe and a sword. One in each hand. For some reason her eyes were trained in front of her as if she were chasing something worth killing, but nothing was there.

"Okay, so don't go near her," Percy said warily.

"Maybe we should just go back into the… egg?" The melon room now made sense. It was a perfectly formed egg. Technically speaking they had just hatched out of it, and it was situated in the center of this arena. Inside, Grover was still face planted on the table.

"Now what?" Annabeth's brain already felt substantially fried. Why did she think she could figure this out again?

"Usually someone comes out and explains what you have to do." Percy filled in.

"And this is normal?"

"Yeah pretty much. There's something new everyday."

"Like?"

"Like jungles with swinging alligators, or a pirate ship that's sinking in sand, or talking dolphins who are too busy accounting, or a city street filled completely with sheep. You usually have to find something or fight something, or play something-"

"You need to catch light," A voice said over the crowds through an untraceable speaker system. A jarringly familiar voice.

"Flab face." Annabeth sneered. The old baldy was smugger than the cheshire cat. Seated between arrogant Octavian and a continuously bored Carl in a special viewing box on the bottom level. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here."

The crowds went silent. The waving limbs fell to their sides. Annabeth squinted at the masses again trying to make out one person, one face, but she couldn't.

"Eeehh! Long time no see wrinkle brain! Man you look more and more like a blob fish every time I see you. You could get a job at the aquarium as the 'hideous fish mascot'. Because ugly fish like to be represented too y'know?" Thalia strolled up to the box in a surprisingly good mood. The battle axe resting on her shoulder, the sword held low in her other hand. Keeping her wings casually unraveled, giving a powerful aura even Flab face could see.

Percy and Annabeth joined by her side but kept out of axe swinging reach.

"Why they don't just kill you already is a mystery to me," Flab face growled with a scowl of deep hatred pegged right at the blue winged girl.

"That's cute. My wings give me scientific value so they won't. But if this-" she held up the battle axe warrior queen style, "- were real, I would kill you in six seconds flat."

A seething venom erupted in her voice on the turn of a dime. Bipolar almost. Annabeth thought she was joking again but the deep rooted loathing in her hooded electric blue eyes made it clear.

If she were ever given the chance, flab face would be ribbons.

Also, what did she mean by 'If this were real'? It was hard to wrap her head around those words. They were real. They looked real. Did Thalia know otherwise?

"Poo poo darling," Flab face wasn't intimidated.

"Cut this balderdash," Octavian hissed. "Let's get on with it. Now."

"Agreed. You-" Carl pointed at Annabeth. "You have to catch light in that box over there."

The box must've been behind the egg because that's where his finger was directed. Plus, Annabeth didn't even want to begin to decipher what he meant by 'catching light'.

"And you better be quick about it. Because as long as you're trying to catch light-"

"- Your pretty little boyfriend and Miss Bloodthirsty over here will be fighting to the death." Octavian cut in with a malicious happiness. "While I hold his remote and set it off any. Time. I. Like. LET IT BEGIN!" His voice echoed.

The crowds threw screams of delight into the air. Somewhere way above in the towers of people, a conch shell was blown amongst the claps and chatters. It released a harmonious lingering note that filled the stadium with even more enthusiasm.

Annabeth's heart felt like ash. Shocked, she shared a final look with Percy before he spasmed with a cry of pain and withered to the sand.

Octavian started laughing.

Hey guys. This is kinda different. I've been trying to update more because of quarantine and all the stuff going on in the world right now. For a while, I think I was doing pretty good. (I hope I was?)

Until last month. Right after I updated Papercuts I got some life changing news. Nothing that impacts me directly or anything. I'm not dying, I'm good. But the news almost completely crippled my family for a while and it just loaded a crap ton of stress onto my shoulders. For a good week after that I had to seriously consider giving up writing altogether because it felt like something in my life had to budge. Not only did I have to consider giving up writing, but my writing itself was affected. I literally couldn't write. It wasn't writers block, I was just too stressed to even put words on a page. I couldn't even answer PM's because words wouldn't come to me. That was really jarring because Fanfiction is my escape.

I'm not writing this note because I want you guys to freak out, or worry over me. I just want you guys to know if I suddenly up and disappear, it wasn't because I lost interest, or don't care. It might be because I just can't. Life for me from now on is going to be different. It might get even more stressful. (Which I really hope not because I can't stand to lose any more weight or hair.) But I'm going to try and stay active on here because writing is good for me. I need this creative outlet.

Now, that being said, I'm away from home for two weeks and have been able to de-stress enough to write this chapter. I was thinking I'm going to pause working on my other stuff for at least the two weeks and to really try and get the creative juices flowing again just make a one-shot. Something goofy, something cliche, something probably unoriginal, and bad and completely out of my style. Just let me grab a handful of super popular kinda cliche fluffy tropes and mash them all in together.

Like maybe a High school Soulmate AU where Percy's the popular guy, Annabeth's the nerd. They hate each other and (yup, you guessed it) suddenly they find out they're soulmates. Maybe give it an ultra cheesy title like 'I would die for you' just for the kicks of it?

What do you guys think?

(Remember to follow me if you want a notification for if/when I post this hot trash one-shot)

(Also also, if you're for me making a trash- fun oneshot, list some cliches in your review. I'm in dire need of inspiration right now. :)