Hi everyone,

This is my new story. It is just an experiment so it is probably going to suck. I know, it has been done before, bla, bla, bla... I just wanted to know your opinion on where to go with this.

Does Percy meet Annabeth, Thalia and Luke?

Does Percy survive on his own until he is led to camp at age twelve?

Does Percy meet one of the trio (Annabeth, Thalia or Luke)?

Other?

Please respond via PM or review.

With best regards,
SharkAttack719

Percy 1

The Night of Horror

Cars honked from street level, eager to urge their way through late afternoon traffic. The skyscrapers of Manhattan loomed over our building, lit up in the dark of the late winter evening.

Gabe hadn't come home yet, but his beer stench still lingered among the building. At just seven years of age, I didn't know the horrible things that happened when I wasn't there. All I knew was that Gabe would beat me up if I ever told mom that I funded his poker games.

However, over the beer stench, I smelt cookies. My eyes widened as I jumped from the couch.

"Mom! Are you making chocolate-chip cookies?" I peered eagerly at the counter. Sure enough, there were blue chocolate chip cookies sitting on the counter. They were fresh and steam rose from them.

"Special treat tonight," my mom smiled.

Just before I go further, I'd like to introduce my mom. Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.

Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.

The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.

Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid. Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was younger, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard.

But other times, like when it was just my mother and I, we had wonderful times together. We ate blue chocolate-chip cookies and told stories to each other. Usually, my mother and I talked about Greek mythology a lot.

She told me the stories about Zeus, Poseidon and Hades and how they defeated Kronos and the other Titans. She described the punishment for Atlas, who had to hold up the sky for eternity because he was the strongest Titan and Kronos' general. I always ended the story by saying: So that's why we call maps atlases.How I forgot every time the story got told beats me.

She moved forward from the times of the gods to the times of humans. The first story was the story of Pandora's pithos. In school they always said "box," but for some reason, my mom always called it a pithos.

As the story finished, I always grumbled about why Pandora couldn't have let out Elpis or "hope."

After Pandora, my mom told me the story about Herakles, otherwise known as Heracles or Hercules. She told me about his brute strength, his ripped muscles, and his twelve labors. Personally, I thought that he was the most impressive hero ever to live in the world. I mean, he killed the Nemean Lion with a club and his bare hands, destroyed a Hydra with ease, captured a deer that the man-hating goddess protected, captured a giant boar with a net, cleaned extremely dirty stables, killed metal birds, wrestled a fire-breathing bull, tamed flesh-eating horses, stole the girdle from the Amazons (who were supposed to be fierce fighters), captured Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the underworld (yeah, that's right. Underworld), and take the gold apples of the Hesperides.

For some reason, though, my mom had a tinge of bitterness in her voice as she spoke of him. It was so slight, that someone who didn't know my mom well wouldn't catch it. I, however, knew my mom very well.

She acted as if he'd done a very bad thing in his life.

She told me about Odysseus and Achilles and the Trojan War, Jason and the Argonauts, Bellerophon and the Pegasus, Theseus and the Minotaur, Orion and Artemis, and then finally, my namesake, Perseus.

What Perseus did was pretty amazing. He slayed Medusa and cut her head off. Plus, he was the only hero who got a good ending. Even Hercules, with the amazing things he did didn't get him a nice, happy life.

My attention snapped back to the present as I saw my mom bring the cookies to the kitchen table. She glanced at the clock. It read five-thirty.

"Can I eat the cookies now?" I eagerly asked.

My mom shrugged. "I don't know. Canyou?"

I pouted. Since I was a little kid, my mom tried to teach me proper manners and how to be polite for my future. Unfortunately, because of my ADHD, I tend to be "inconsiderate" and "rude" at times.

"MayI eat the cookies now?" I corrected.

My mom smiled. "Yes, you may, Percy."

"Yay!"

I dug into the delicious were buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Then my senses kicked in. My hair stood up on end and my head darted back and forth, trying to see what was creeping me out.

"Honey, what's wrong?" my mom asked. There was a pleading look in her eyes.

"Nothing," I answered quickly. Maybe a little too quickly.

There was a look in my mother's eyes that I didn't recognize, but as fast as it had appeared, it washed off her face. She smiled sadly. "Everything is going to be all right, Percy," she said.

I nodded along with her, but I couldn't help but get the feeling that something big was about to happen. I glanced outside and noticed the thunderclouds. I frowned. There were no thunder clouds on the weather channel.

"Mom," I said, "why are there thunderclouds out there? The weatherman said that there wouldn't be thunderclouds."

Frowning, my mom got up from her seat from the kitchen table and walked out toward the balcony. I followed her. Sure enough, when we got out to the balcony, there were thunderclouds that were not on the weather channel.

"That's peculiar," mused my mom. "I wonder what-"

She cut herself off. It was for a good reason, as well. There was a sudden change in the mood of the air. Before, everything had been normal, but I could sense this strange humming below me. It was almost as if something was charging below me. As time slowly passed, the humming grew more intense.

"Mom? What-"

A sudden change in the winds occurred. It was like a squall. I looked at my mom, scared for my life. I turned to enter the apartment, but the door slammed shut and I couldn't open it.

The wind increased speed, growing and howling with discontent. Fear shone in my mother's eyes. She quickly reached into her pocket and pulled out a cheap ballpoint pen. She held it out to me. "Take it!"

"What?" I yelled confused.

"It's a powerful weapon, Percy," my mom said. "Uncap it and it will keep you safe from the monsters!"

"What monsters!"

"Percy. You're the son of a god," my mom said, shocking me to the core. "You probably don't believe me, but you're Poseidon's son."

"That's impossible!" I cried.

"Remember what I told you? The gods sometimes fall in love with mortals, and have children with them. Your father didn't get lost at sea. He isthe sea. Protect yourself, Percy," my mom explained.

"Why are you telling me this? We can escape. Fire escape!"

My mom looked at my sorrowfully...well, as sorrowfully as you can when you're being pushed by a huge wind gust.

Finally, the wind overcame me and pushed me, hard. I grunted as my back collided with the railing. My head reeled back and I almost got knocked unconscious by the blow. In my hazy vision, I saw my mother get knocked over. She landed with a painful grunt.

In the sky, lightning crackled between the thunderclouds. The cars and pedestrians of the street below were flopping like fish as the wind pushed them onto their butts. This was worse than a hurricane in terms of wind speed. It was almost as if Zeus himself was mad at me.

"Percy," my mom croaked. "After World War II, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon swore a pact to never have children ever again. They swore it on the River Styx. You're an illegal child. Hades and Zeus will take any opportunity they can to kill you. You have to get to safety. Your father will protect you. He will guide you."

"Why can't you come with me mom?" I said.

"I- I just can't, honey," she said.

More lightning crackled in the sky. Then, there was another shift in presence. This time, it filled me with dread. The dark and the shadows seemed to get closer to me, as if they were trying to suck me in. Ghosts shimmered in my vision.

"Mom! Ghosts!" I cried.

My mom's eyes were closed and her lips moving silently, as if she were making a prayer. Suddenly, the ghosts disappeared from my vision and the shadows jumped away.

"Thank you, Lady Persephone," my mom muttered.

I glanced back up at the sky and saw lightning flashed in the sky, illuminating the top of the Empire State Building. For a second, I thought I saw a giant mountainous palace above it, but I must've been hallucinating because there's no way that a mountain could float above the Empire State Building. I've never seen it in any of the atlases.

My mom shrieked. I swiveled my head to her and saw that she'd been lifted up, and thrown over the side of the railing. She managed to grab onto the top railing just in time.

An image flashed in my mind. There were two men, grappling each other seemingly to fight for control. One of the men was wearing a pinstripe suit, and the other was wearing beach shorts and a Hawaiian looking t-shirt.

The man in the pinstripe shouted, "Choose. Either the boy, or the mortal!"

The image dissipated and I grabbed my mom's arms. I was still too small and weak to pull my mom up. Instead, I cried at the top of my lungs: "MOM!"

I don't know if it was luck or what, but the wind suddenly stopped a split-second before I yelled. My outcry caught the attention of those on the street. A lot of them gasped and pointed up. I saw a few of them call 911.

"Go, Percy. I love you. I'll always be in your heart. Right here." She pointed to my heart with her free hand. Lightning struck the building next to us and debris flew everywhere. A piece of debris lodged itself in her left hand and she let go, tumbling three stories into the solid cement pavement.

"MOM!"

Nobody was under her to catch her.

"MOM!"

I sprinted down the fire escape to my mother's limp body. Sirens were heard in the distances. A couple of strangers walked up to me to try and comfort me.

Another vision passed flashed in my eyes.

The man in the shorts and t-shirt glared angrily at the man in the pinstripe suit. "What did I ever do to your daughter?"

"Hades is after her!" the suited man replied. "You think I don't care about her safety."

"Hades was after my son too!" the t-shirt and shorts guy yelled. The vision disappeared after the casual looking guy punched the suited guy in the jaw. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

You're Poseidon's son, my mom had said.

I pulled the ballpoint pen out of my pocket and looked at it. Head east, a voice said in my head. I looked south toward the Empire State Building. I remembered the mountain that was top of there, and I had a suspicion about the fact that my father might be up there, giving me warnings to stay away.

So, defying the shouts and cries of bystanders, running away from my mom's dead body, I ran east, into Brooklyn.

By the end of the night, I reached a small neighborhood where there were plentiful alleyways that I could duck in and out of. As I got ready to sleep, I rolled up in a ball against the wall of the alley and sobbed until I fell asleep. I sobbed and sobbed as nightmares haunted me that night, reminding me of this night of horror.

But now, I'm on the run.

Hey everyone,

This is just an experiment. It is probably going to suck. I know, it has been done before, bla, bla, bla... But I need your opinion on what I should write next. Send me your thoughts by PM or by reviewing.

REMINDER: DO NOT GIVE ME THE ENTIRE PLOT! JUST TELL ME HOW YOU WANT PERCY TO GET TO CAMP. VIA ANNABETH, THALIA & LUKE OR BY HIMSELF OR WHATEVER YOU WANT.

With best regards,
SharkAttack719