Pollux-Demigod

It's an odd thing, feeling empty. It's an odd thing remembering having once felt emotions. Anger, Sadness, regret, happiness...Love.

It's a totally different thing to stare at a pedant, something you know has meaning, something that use to spark feeling in your heart, and not feel different. Like his last lifeline had been cut and he had floated away from a world of feelings.

A lifeline.

He stared down at the pedant, flashes of his life projected on the backs of his eye lids. He tried so desperately to feel something. Sadness? Hatred? Pain? Nothing. His heart was made of stone; cold, unmoving, incapable of emotions.

He glanced at Nyssa standing in the other corner holding her hands over her ears as if she could hear screaming in her thoughts. Guilt in her eyes. Pain in her words. Her thoughts constantly distracted by something she deemed more important than anything else.

He used to be like that. Used to care, used to feel. What happened?

Was it the death that started it?

Was it Castor's fault he was like this?

They were twins, why'd he go and get himself killed?

He'd cried that day, he remembered. He'd felt like half his heart had gotten ripped out. He'd been so distraught he couldn't talk. Castor had worn the pedant like a Good luck charm, he'd kept it like an undying connection between them. When he looked at it, he felt sad.

He looked at the symbol now and he felt...

Nothing.

He glanced over at the closed door where he could hear people moving, talking, working. He could he could move and act, but it was meaningless. Pointless, without caring for anything.

Like auto pilot.

He acted alright. He was more alive than most survivors who huddled in the empty uncertain houses, replaying the deaths, reliving the nightmares, refusing to leave an emotional punishment, but in a way he was more dead than all of them.

dead to emotions.

They could feel. Even though it hurt. Even though it was scary. They could feel something. Looking around he felt...

Nothing.

He laid his head down on the counter. What could he do to get back to the world of feelings? He didn't like the emptiness that he felt when the others cried and moaned or fell in despair. He didn't feel quite human any more. It wasn't the godly side of demigods that made them heroes, it was the human. That's what Percy Jackson had once told him.

He tried to live by it. But what could he do when his human side stopped feeling?

Did that make him less of a hero? Did that change the way he stood among the survivors here? Did it botch the memory that Percy Jackson left behind?

Thinking of the name of their leader, the one who fought for them, the one who died because in the end his fatal flaw really was fatal and he felt...

Nothing.

It was frustrating, but he didn't feel it. It was depressing, but he wasn't depressed. It was terrible, horrible, miserable, lonely, broken, irritating, annoying, hidden, botched, cruel, awful, horrendous, just plain lousy, thing that made him want to be desperately clinging to anything that could spark feeling in him but he felt...

Nothing.

And it made him slam his head on the wall or table or nearest object. It made him to cry when no one was around to hear anything. It made him silently scream for someone to notice there was something wrong with him. It made him alien. It made him different. It cut him off from the world of his friends, even if it was a world of hate and pain.

It made his little lifeline thin out.

It made him wonder why he was still here.

The door on the other side of the room opened with a click, and a healing wizard stood in the doorway looking grim. Her hair folded neatly behind her blue silver headband, her eyes alight with a dark passion to keep living. He didn't need to look to know the light in his eyes were gone.

"He's losing the will to live." She reported monotone, hiding the desperate whine in her voice. "He's fighting himself. He keeps muttering "I'm sorry Alex." over and over and over. It's destroying him."

"We've lost so many." Nyssa breathed out, barely holding her own tears back. It wasn't an opinion, it was a statement.

"We need Will, but no one-"

"No!" Nyssa shrieked. She threw her hands over her ears, her eyes scrunched in pain. She fell to her knees, a sob escaping her lips. The wizard froze, her eyes searching for a clue on what to do. She licked her lips, her eyes closed and when they opened the light was dimmer.

Her own will to live was sipping away.

She left. The door closed with a thud. Nyssa huddled closer to herself shaking.

He stood there. He watched the scene unfold. He watched as a guy lay on his death bed from smoke inhalation and dehydration fight to either live or die. He watched Nyssa break down slowly breaking from the inside. He watched as a wizard began to lose a will of her own. He watched as they're own Survivors were taken cruelly by this guilt and madness and began taking themselves out.

And he felt....

Nothing.

He got up and left the waiting room, opening into the sun. Mid afternoon heat shriveled up the world but he didn't feel anything but the emptiness. The pendant danced in his fingertips, displaying emotion out of his reach.

He walked aimlessly through the town. An occasional person would walk by and they would make eye contact. He would see the lights of their soul flickering. He would see the scars of the memories carved deeply in them. He would look away, diverting his eyes, knowing their was nothing he could do for them, or that they could do him.

He glanced at the pendant, the symbol burned into the back of his eyes. Thoughts of Castor still in his head, thoughts of emotion in his mind.

A heart of stone.

A broken lifeline.

Left adrift in a land void of emotions.

"Katie, Please!"

He watched yet another scene unfold as a familiar demigod charged out a door nearly slamming into him. Her eyes were puffy red, her voice hoarse, like every word was hurting her. Tears stained her cheeks with red. Her face easily recognized, and yet she was just as alien as him.

Travis appeared in the doorway, a pleading look written on his face. Pleading for his own sanity. "Stop! For old times sake-!"

Katie whipped around. "Forget it, Travis!" Despite her attempt to stay strong he could detect a waver in her voice. "The stuff you remember is gone! I don't know you! I don't know anyone here! There is no us! And the sooner you realize that the sooner we can move on."

Pollux strolled past them the rest of their argument drowned in his haze of emptiness. He'd always thought that they had been a cute couple, Travis's insane way of asking her on dates by pranking her, Katie's high pitched, angry screams when she scolded him. But bonds like this were broken, sometimes they were broken beyond repair.

He use to laugh as he watched them, he use to smile. But yet, he felt...

Nothing.

He stopped down another street, the air fresh with sobs. He listened, pinpointing the painful weeping. The heart wrenching wails that filled the nights louder than any other. The strongest of the wizards, shattered.

He stood outside a doorway catching a rare glimpse of Hermione, curled into a tight ball. He wasn't sure she'd moved since she'd heard of Draco. Harry would've normally come to see her, to coax her from her nightmares, but he hadn't seen him a while. No one had seen Harry in a while.

He kept walking, looking anywhere but the pendant. The houses were decorated like a friendly neighborhood, but empty of children and families. Shops stood lazily still waiting for an owner to cone and open it up. The only shop that had been open now stood out like a sore thumb.

Charred area, barely a metal frame left in tact. A lone figure stood on the sidewalk not moving an orange rose her hands, her white-blond hair shifting gently in the breeze. Orange marked symbols colored her simple jeans and T shirt.

Lou Ellen mouthed words silently, her feelings numbed. But not to the point of Pollux's. She would face the pain later, she would feel the relapse of her silent goodbye in just a little time.

This time he didn't stop.

This time he knew what he would feel, if he did.

Nothing.

He wasn't naive enough to think it would've changed. He was too far away to feel again. Too far away to spark the emotions. Too far away to have hope in ever coming back.

He looked down at the pendant. The symbol rough under his finger tips. The cool metal smothered against his palm. Percy died on enemy territory, Annabeth joined him down there. Leo committed suicide, Thalia and Nico where missing. Nyssa was breaking, Will had disappeared. Hermione was shattered, Harry was gone. Travis and Katie were fighting.

What could he do? He was barely human anymore.

He wasn't sure he was a survivor anymore.

No feelings. No anger, no pain, no sadness. No laughter, no happiness, no pity. He'd never feel love, or trust, or heartbreak. He'd never have to worry, or be nervous, or play his facade. Pretend to okay, like he'd ever will be. No responsibility, No longing. No guilt, no madness...

His thumb circled the coin like pedant rim. He could let go. He could turn away from the idea and memory of feelings. He could find his way in the dark emptiness. He could stop groping for a reason to feel something and accept that now was just existing.

No Regret.

He let the pendant drop from his hands. It hit the sidewalk with a metallic ring that cut across the silence like a knife. It laid there and he walked away. And he felt....

Nothing.