~Personal Torture Rooms~

Percy stared in horror at the bloodied knife and the beautiful girl in front of him. His worst fear had been realized; he’d betrayed his friends.

All around him, everyone he knew was dead. Some had not a mark on them, but their glistening skin said that he had drowned them.

Percy wept and died a little inside as he watched his deepest, darkest fear come to life.

This isn’t real, he tried to tell himself, this isn’t real.

But it was hard to believe that when he stroked the face of his girlfriend, lying pale and beautiful in death, killed by none other than himself.

All the others, lying still, lifeless, completely gone. His gaze drifted to the knife and he wondered if it would hurt more than it did now if he were to plunge it into his stomach.

This isn’t real, he reminded himself. It’s a vision. Wake up. Wake up! WAKE UP!

Percy Jackson’s eyes opened.

He was in the small room. The fountain was gone. The passage was open again, or perhaps it was a different one.

Nevertheless, he bolted down the hall to a hopeful reunion with his friends. All he wanted was to get away from that place.

Annabeth’s reflection stared back from everywhere. All she could see was herself, from every angle. The mirrors pointing out every flaw and everything she hated about herself.

‘No!’ she screamed.

No matter where she ran, no matter which we she turned, every imperfection was clear as day, standing out amongst all else.

‘Somebody help me!’ she pleaded.

But no one came. She was completely and utterly alone. No one came to help her, none of her friends cared.

Think logically, she commanded herself. Don’t panic. Do what you do, child of Athena.

She was a child of Athena. She was not to be taken down by this.

She looked herself straight in the eye and smile, panic fading. She breathed deep and focused on all her faults, releasing all her frustration.

‘I don’t CARE!’ she yelled at the mirror.

The glass shattered in threw out in every direction. Annabeth hit the deck, her arms shielding her face from the impact. When she looked up, she was alone in that terrible room. The marble temple that had induced her fate was gone, another tunnel in its place.

Annabeth glanced back; there was no other way out.

‘Anything’s better than this place,’ she decided, muttering under her breath.

She started down the corridor, not even looking back when the passage closed behind her.

‘What are you wearing?’

‘You look like a rag doll!’

‘Aphrodite could never be your mother!’

Piper covered her ears, ‘Shut up! SHUT UP!’

The taunts did not cease. Indeed, they grew louder, echoing in her mind until she was sure it was really her friends who mocked her.

She was growing steadily insane, and she knew it.

‘Stop!’ she tied using charmspeak, but the power would not come.

‘You can’t use charmspeak, you aren’t a real daughter of Aphrodite!’

The Wilderness School in the background towered over Piper, reminding her of Mist induced days. If Jason never was there with her and Leo, what did happen for all those months. Did she have other friends? Maybe another boyfriend? What had Hera taken away from her with her great schemes?

Sanity slipping, Piper tried to envision life before this crazy quest, back when Jason wasn’t a betraying jerk. Or was that just the magic of the lost bow?

Her father screamed at her, ‘You are no daughter of mine!’

Piper collapsed to the ground in a ball as people started piling around her, suffocating her in a mass of bodies. They pounded her with their fists, screaming insults while her mind deteriorated.

When the timer buzzed, Piper didn’t wake up.

Grover screamed with Juniper.

His girlfriend was slowly melting. All around, dryads were dying as there trees burned and the roots rotted away. Vaporous clouds filled the air, poisoning whoever was left. Few humans wandered the marshy plains, throats clogging as they slowly died, toxins killing them.

Grover wanted to cry. He didn’t know how things had gotten this bad. How could it have gotten this bad? Humans couldn’t destroy the earth in one day.

The Council of Cloven Elders lay dead in front of him, the old goats twisted and pale, as pale as a satyr could get. Their lips were tinged purple, their fingernails red and bloodied from scratching at their faces as they gradually perished.

No, the satyr thought, I have to believe in humans.

It was his choice, to believe that humans could turn life around. This was the fate of the world if humans continued down the path of pollution. The air would fill with toxins, the earth would crumble, thousands of dryads would perish.

I do believe that humans will survive, Grover thought desperately. They will save the planet. The wild will thrive.

He hung on to that belief as strong as Peter Pan hung to his belief of believing in fairies. He trusted humans and demigods. All he had to do was know that this wasn’t real.

The satyrs eyes shot open and he breathed in the smell of dirt. He peeled his face from the floor and climbed to his hooves. Without thinking anything, he trotted down the corridor, not even registering the fact it hadn’t been there before, or that the mystery tree was gone.

Frank closed his eyes. His friends and family’s voices rung in his ears.

‘It’s all your fault!’

‘I hate you!’

‘You failed me!’

The last one was the worst. It came from every direction as more and more people repeated it

You failed me. You failed me.

Frank already knew he’d failed Hazel. She could be dead, and it would be his fault.

Frank knew this was a test, but he couldn’t seem to shake it. Their voices embossed themselves into his head where they would haunt him forever, no matter what the outcome.

He clenched his fists, trying to blot out the noise. He was no use to his real friends if he was trapped inside his fears. He focused as Mars had instructed him to do and breathed, concentrating on the surface and the real world.

This is my fears, he told himself calmly. I fear them and they will overcome me.

Mars was about more than war; he was about duty and strength. Frank had to be strong to return to his friends. They needed him; he was the concrete!

Breathe, he intoned.

The floor suddenly felt hard against him, and Frank knew he had succeeded.

He breathed a sigh of relief and got up, ready to race down the passage he knew would be waiting for him. But instead, he got another surprise.

A cloaked figure, dressed entirely in black blocked his path. Unable to tell if they were male or female, Frank was left to resort to basic interrogation.

‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

The figure regarded him carefully, shaking their head slowly. Frank stared as hard as he could, as intimidatingly as he could. But the figure showed no signs of fear.

Frank tried to push past them, but they held up their hand and he froze, not able to move.

‘What are you doing? Let me go!’ he shouted, his lips pressed together as they commanded power over him.

The figure shook their head again. They moved forward and panic started in Frank’s heart. They touched him on the forehead and he sunk to his knees, consciousness slipping.

The figure looked him in the eye, though he couldn’t see theirs. His vision blurred as he found himself once more trapped in the realm of his worst nightmares.

You would help them on their way, a soft voice said. Playtime isn’t over yet. Oh, what mischief I can cause!