Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Okay. So, look. I was trying really, really hard not to think about Luke.

Which was, of course, like trying not to think about a yellow elephant that just stabbed you in the back. Ouch.

Every time I blinked, I saw his face – the easy, confident grin – the kind that made you feel like you're in on the joke – until it twisted, with the way it did in the woods, into something cold and bitter.

The memory of the pit-scorpion's sting was a phantom itch on my palm, a little reminder that my first real friend at camp had tried to make me into a demigod shish kebab.

So, when a trio of younger naiads surfaced outside with mischievous glints in their eyes and invited me for a midnight swim, I figured, why not? Drowning in my own anxiety in Cabin Three was a solo activity. Drowning in the sea, at least, came with company.

Not that I could actually drown. Perks of being Poseidon's kid… though I guess suffocating from awkward company was still an option.

I waded out. The Long Island Sound was cold, a shock that was better than any of Chiron's "Just breathe through it" lectures. The naiads – I never got their names, they all kinda blurred together – were waiting by the reeds, their laughter like the tinkling of water over stones. "The hero broods" one of them sang, splashing a curtain of water at me.

"He thinks too much," another chimed in, doing a lazy backstroke around me. "The water does not think. It just is. You should try it."

"Yeah, yeah," I half-heartedly grumbled, but I was already feeling the tension in my shoulders start to loosen. "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, braiding kelp strands or directing fish traffic or something?"

They just giggled, tugging at my arms and flipping their hair, which smelled like fresh rain and deep earth. They called me 'seaweed brain' about five times, which felt like copyright infringement since that's Annabeth's thing. But for the first time since I'd gotten back to camp, my brain got quiet, staring up the at the stars, letting the waves rock me. The water smelled like salt and secrets and a little bit like the way the air does right before it rains. It was nice. Peaceful.

Huh, I thought, my eyelids getting heavy. Dozing off in the sea is way more refreshing than my bunk. Why do we even have beds in a sea god's cabin? I should just get a waterbed. Wait, that's stupid – the whole cabin is basically a –

The change in the current wasn't a sound. It was a feeling.

A deep, cool shift in the current that had nothing to do with the playful naiads. It felt like the whole sea was exhaling, it's breath a series of tiny punches against my chest. The water pressure around me changed, becoming heavier, more intent. The playful naiads fell silent instantly, their laughter cutting off like a switched-off radio. They drifted back, their expressions suddenly nervous, deferential.

Two new figures emerged from the blackness of the deeper water.

They were naiads, but… more. More real. More there. One had eyes the colour of the deep-sea trench – a black so complete it felt like looking into a hole in the universe. The other's eyes were like the pale, luminous blue of water lilies glowing under a full moon. They didn't swim, they simply arrived, the water parting for them like a curtain.

"The son of the sea god carries a storm within him," said Dark-Eyes, her voice a soft melody that seemed to come from the water itself.

Lily-Eyes nodded, her gaze fixed on me with an intensity that made me want to check if I had seaweed on my face. "The deeper currents of memory are restless tonight. They whisper of old pains. We felt it. We came."

"Uh, thanks. I'm good, though." I said, treading water and trying to sound like I wasn't freaked out. "Just… you know, your average post-quest jitters, possibly-about-to-be-murdered-by-your-former-friend. Totally normal demigod stuff."

They didn't smile. Their expressions were solemn, ancient and deeply protective.

That's when I felt the first tug. A weird little jolt in my gut, right where I kept Riptide in my pocket. It came again, stronger. A definite, insistent pull.

Riptide was humming, a low thrum I could feel through the denim of my jeans, like my mom's cell phone on vibrate. Except, you know, less about missed calls from the school principal and more about my impending doom.

The older naiads noticed instantly. The Dark-Eyes's head snapped toward me. "No," she breathed, her voice turning sharp and alarmed. "It is too soon. The Current stirs."

"What?" I asked, but the pull was becoming a physical drag. The water around my legs began to swirl, lazy at first, then faster.

"Hold fast to him!" the Lily-Eyes commanded, her lilting voice now edged with steel.

The younger naiads surged forward, their small, cool hands grasping my arms, my shirt, my legs. They were trying to anchor me.

The drag became a vacuum. The water beneath me spiralled violently, roaring like a jet engine starting up right under me.

"Whoa! If this is some kind of underwater theme park ride, I want a full refund!" I yelled, kicking hard against the pull. It was like kicking a mountain.

The naiads held on, their faces strained with effort. But one by one, their grips were torn away. A small hand clutching my wrist was the first to go, then another. Dark-Eyes swam forward and wrapped powerful arms around my chest from behind, her strength shocking. "Fight it, young one! You must not go!"

But the pull was ancient and absolute. It didn't care about naiads. It didn't care about me. With a final, deafening suck, the last of their holds broke. Dark-Eyes's arms were wrenched away.

Just before the vortex swallowed me whole, Lily-Eyes's voice sliced through the churning chaos, not in my ears, but directly inside my skull,

"Stay alert, Perseus Jackson. See what is, not what –"

The world ended.

It became a torrent of churning, pressurized blackness. I was flushed down a cosmic drain, tumbling over and over, completely disoriented. There was no up, no down, just force and noise and the terrifying sense of being pulled apart.

THUD.

I landed hard on my side on cold, unyielding stone. All the air rushed out of my lungs in a painful whoosh.

I lay there for a second, just gasping, my ribs screaming in protest. The roar of the whirlpool was gone, replaced by a silence so deep it felt like a physical weight.

"Okay," I wheezed, pushing myself up onto my elbows. "Note to self, next time the mysterious, ancient water ladies with void-for-eyes show up and say the currents are restless, maybe just go to bed and take a good long sleep."

I was on a wide, flat platform of dark, polished rock. The only light came from Riptide, now uncapped and glowing in my hand, casting long, dancing shadows. The light reflected off walls that weren't really walls - they were a maze of dark, gaping tunnel mouths and jagged rock teeth.

Perfect. Exactly the kind of homey vibes I was hoping for. A giant, angry rock shark that really needs a dentist.

Riptide's glow pulsed softly, almost like it was… excited.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, shaking the sword. "You and your brilliant ideas. You're officially grounded. No more unsupervised swimming with you."

I picked a tunnel at random – the one that seemed least likely to have something drooling in it. The passageway sloped downward, the walls covered in faded carvings of simple, peasant-y lives. Basically, medieval Facebook. It was boring. Weirdly boring.

Then I heard it.

Voices. The low, constant murmur of a crowd.

I followed the sound, my grip tightening on Riptide. The tunnel bent around a corner, and I stopped dead.

It was a town square. Cobblestones, crooked houses, a dry well. And it was packed with people in rough-spun tunics, holding tools – scythes, wood axes, meat cleavers.

For one second, I thought I was saved. They looked so… normal. Like extras from one of Gabe's boring historical shows. I actually felt a wave of relief. I lowered Riptide a fraction.

"Hey! Hello? I'm kinda lost. You guys wouldn't happen to have a map, would you? Or a vending machine? A cola would be seriously amazing right now."

A woman stirring a pot over a cold fire looked up. A man sharpening a scythe paused. One by one, they all stopped their murmured conversations. The silence that fell was heavier and more terrifying than the noise had been. It was the silence of a held breath before a scream. Like a classroom of sixth graders when the sub announces a pop quiz.

And then, as one, they turned to look at me.

There were no eyes.

Not really. Just dark, empty sockets filled with a smouldering, ugly red light, like the ones in Ares cabin's boar heads. Their faces, which had seemed so normal a second ago, were now twisted into identical masks of pure, mindless hatred.

The low murmur returned, it wasn't speech anymore. It was a wordless, guttural growl of rage. The sound a mob makes right before it tears something apart.

"Okay, seriously," I said, backing up a step. "What's with the glowing eyes? Is that a village requirement? Because it's a bad look."

They raised their tools and advanced. Not a charge, but a slow, inevitable press forward, like a glacier of malice.

My heart tried to punch its way out of my throat. My demigod lessons had covered Furies and Minotaur, definitely not torch-and-pitchfork convention rejects.

I raised Riptide, the bronze blade gleaming. "Okay. Not the talkative types. Got it. Bad day at the farm, I guess."

The first guy lunged, He was a big dude with a rusty hatchet held high. I didn't parry. Luke's training – a fresh, painful sting in my memory – kicked in,

Don't meet strength with strength. Redirect.

I sidestepped, and his own momentum carried him stumbling past me, right into a woman wielding a meat cleaver. They went down in a tangle of limbs and snarls.

That's the good news. The bad news was there were about thirty more behind them, and they were all now moving toward me

A pitchfork jabbed at my face. I ducked, feeling the tines whisper through my hair. I swept Riptide low, and the bronze blade passed through the wooden handle like it was air. The pitchfork head clattered to the cobblestones. The villager just stared at his now-useless stick, then glared at me with even more hatred and lunged – this time, teeth first.

"Whoa! Personal space, dude!" I yelped, shoving him back into the advancing crowd.

This was very, very bad. They didn't feel pain. They didn't get discouraged. They just kept coming. A rock flew past my ear. Another caught me on the shoulder, and I grunted in pain. I was fast – my reflexes were pretty much the only thing I had going for me – but they're endless. I was a decent swordsman, but this wasn't a duel. This was a meat grinder.

I backed up until my shoulders hit the cold, rough stone of the dry well. Nowhere else to go. The circle of hate closed in, tools raised. I didn't want to hurt them - they still looked like people – but I also didn't want to get turned into sushi. Guess which instinct was winning.

Think, Jackson!

And of course, it was Luke's stupid, traitorous teaching voice again that answered in my head.

Aren't you a son of a sea god! Water doesn't just crash. It flows. It finds cracks.

What's the crack here? The air's thirsty, the well supporting my back's empty. But underneath…

Well. Literally.

I slapped my hand against the rough stone rim, forcing down the panic in my chest. The villagers were almost on me, their hot breathless anger a physical dream. But I could feel it. Beneath the cobblestones, past the dry shaft, deep, deep down… the steady, patient pulse of groundwater. A huge reservoir of it, just hanging out down there, waiting.

I answered it. Not with muscles - those were useless against thirty murder-happy medieval farmers, you're not trying to kill.I just wanted to… douse the fire.

"C'mon, don't fail me now," I muttered.

The well shuddered under my palm. A faint vibration hummed through the stone, a deep bass note you felt more than heard. Then, with a sound like the world cracking open, water exploded upward.

It wasn't a trickle. It was a geyser. A column of water roared out of the well like a bomb had gone off at the bottom of the ocean, blasting the front-line villagers off their feet. I was soaked instantly, the cold a shocking slap.

The water hit them, a torrential, drenching wave. It soaked their clothes, plastered their hair to their skulls, streamed over their faces. And something… broke.

The single-minded fury that had animated them shattered. The glowing red light in their eye sockets sputtered and died, leaving behind just empty, confused darkness. Some lowered their weapons, looking around at the sudden downpour with dazed expressions. A woman with a sickle shivered violently, looking down at the weapon in her hand as if she'd never seen it before. The wordless growl was replaced by murmurs of confusion, fear, exhaustion. They were just… people.

Scared, wet, confused, soggy people.

They dropped their tools. The weapons clattered uselessly on the wet cobblestones. The illusion of the town square wavered, their edges blurring. Seeing the town fading into mist… weirdly, it did not shock me. After the Lotus Casino and the Underworld, it was almost routine.

Illusion? Where did the thought even come from?

The dark tunnel I'd entered from reappeared behind them. One by one, they turned and shuffled back into it, disappearing into the darkness until the square was empty, silent, and gleaming wet.

I finally collapsed to my knees, gasping, sweaty and drained, like I'd just run a marathon while doing complex math problems in my head. That had taken every ounce of concentration I had.

Then, a soft, clear chime echoed through the dripping square, like a single note from a glass bell.

Where the centre of the mob had been, a single item now lay on the cobblestones.

It's a conch shell. Great. My prize was basically fancy beach decor you could buy at a thrift shop in New York. Except… it glowed. And hummed with the kind of power that whispered one word in my bones, Poseidon.

The world dissolved again. No whirlpool this time. It just… unravelled. The cobblestones, the wet ground, the air itself – it all turned to mist and then to nothing.

I was spat out with a splash into the shallow, mucky water right behind my cabin and came up sputtering, knee-deep in muck. I was soaked, my side ached from the landing, and I was pretty sure I'd swallowed something with too many legs. Clutched tight in my hand was the warm, glowing conch.

"Ugh," I groaned. "I'm so done with express travel. Next time, I'm taking a Pegasus."

The water in front of me shimmered, and the two older naiads surfaced. Their eyes immediately locked onto the conch, their expressions a mix of relief and sad reverence.

"You returned," Dark-Eyes said, shattering the silence. Her voice was flat, stating a fact that seemed to surprise her.

"Mostly in one piece," I agreed, holding up the glowing conch. "And with a souvenir. What's this? A participation trophy?"

Lily-Eyes bowed her head slightly. Her voice so faint I almost thought I imagined it. "Aegis breath…"

Then she glanced up and her luminous eyes serious. "A reward. For passing its trial."

"The dungeon gives, and it takes," the other added ominously.

Dungeon? That's a dungeon?

No. Nope. That's for video games. And nerds. You're telling me Camp Half-Blood has… dungeons? Like, actual monster-filled, treasure-dropping dungeons?

"Look, no offense," I said, my exhaustion making me bold,"but I just got back from the actual, literal Underworld. I've had my fill of damp, dark, and deadly, for like a lifetime. I was promised a summer of volleyball and blue cookies. Not…this." I gestured vaguely with the conch at the now-calm lake.

"This force has appeared before," Dark-Eyes said, her voice firm and final. "Long ago, when this camp was still young. It opened a path."

"A path to what? More pitchforks? Fantastic. Sign me up for the next tour." I snapped, my anger bleeding away into deep, bone-weary exhaustion.

Lily-Eyes leaned closer. The water didn't ripple around her. She just… moved. Her face was inches from mine, and her gentle breath smelled of deep ocean and cold stone. It cooled the shell of my ear. "It tests more than your strength, Perseus Jackson. The dungeon sees your heart. It feeds on forgotten things and gives form to old sorrows." Her voice dropped to a whisper that was almost a caress. "Beware the deep pull."

With that final, cryptic warning hanging in the air between us, they both sank beneath the dark water without a ripple, leaving me alone in the silence.

I stared at the spot where they'd vanished. "Beware the deep pull," I muttered to the empty night. "Why is it never 'Hey, enjoy this nice, warm, pizza'?"

Too tired to even process their sea-witch warnings, I squelched my way back to Cabin Three. The place felt too big, too empty. I placed the warm, glowing conch on my nightstand. Its faint light was weirdly comforting, a little piece of the ocean sitting there in the dark.

I didn't bother changing. I just face-planted onto my bunk, the smell of saltwater and cold stone clinging to me. My last thought before a black, dreamless sleep dragged me under was a simple, desperate prayer to any god who might be listening,

Please, no more dungeons.

For once, the gods seemed to be listening. No tunnels. No mobs. No angry villagers.

Just deep, quiet water in my dreams, and a faraway song – soft, wordless melody that felt familiar, like something I'd heard once in a dream a long time ago and had almost, but not quite, forgotten.

End of Chapter 1

Chapter Text

It's the best sleep I'd had in weeks – which tells you everything about what my nights had become. No old bearded men wrestling like petty kids. No mobs with pitchforks and creepy empty eye sockets. Just deep, black, dreamless quiet.

So of course, it didn't last.

I found a stray drachma near my window – cool – and trudged down to the beach to make an Iris-message.

The drachma spun into the mist, and the air filled with the scent of our Manhattan apartment – baking cookies and my mom's lemon dish soap. Her face shimmered into view, the lines around her eyes crinkling as she smiled. "Percy! Sweetheart, when are you coming ho - "

- break us break us break us -

The whisper wasn't just a sound; it was a physical sensation. A needle of ice slid behind my eyeballs, sharp and clean, making the homey image of my mom's kitchen flicker like a bad signal. The smell of cookies soured into something like burnt sugar and brine.

"Shut up, shut up! Stop whispering everything! Jeez!" I clapped my hands over my ears, like that would help.

On the other side of the rainbow, my mom's smile didn't just vanish, it shattered. Her face went slack with a kind of shock I'd only ever seen once before – the day she thought a hellhound was about to kill me. Her eyes widened, hurt and confusion warring in them. "Perseus Jackson!? What did you just say to me, young man!?"

"Mom! It's not you, I meant the - " I started, but the whispering intensified, a chaotic jumble of hisses that drowned out my own thoughts.

"Percy…" Her voice softened, but it was laced with a worry I knew all too well. "Are you getting enough sleep? You look pale."

- Percy -

- Percy -

- Perseus -

The whispers were echoing her now, twisting my name into something cold and alien.

"I'm fine," I lied, my voice tight. "Just… bad connection. Love you, gotta go!"

I swiped my hand through the rainbow before she could say another word. The connection died, leaving me alone with the sound of the waves and the toxic whispers still buzzing in my skull. Great. Now my mom thought I was a disrespectful jerk on top of everything else.

By the third night, the water in my dreams wasn't calm anymore. Shapes stirred beneath the surface. Things brushed against my legs – too slick, too cold, too many arms. Sometimes faces surfaced. Blurred, mouths moving without sound. Once, the mob came back, only this time their features had melted like wet paint. They staggered toward me, their voices echoing wrong, distorted, like they're speaking through water.

- break us -

I rolled over, half-asleep. "Breakfast? Yeah… I'm hungry too." My stomach growled in agreement.

- brEaK Us! –

That time, there was no mistaking it. Not breakfast. Not anything I wanted to hear. Not in the morning and certainly not in my dreams.

I woke up gasping, my sheets tangled around my legs like seaweed, my throat sandpaper-dry. And the conch? It was right there on the nightstand, glowing with that soft, stupid light. Sometimes it hummed if I got too close – a low, vibrational thrum that felt like it was trying to crawl under my skin. I couldn't tell if it was calling me or just straight-up mocking me.

By the fifth night, I'd enough.

At two in the morning, I stomped out to the shoreline, the conch burning a hole in my palm. "Alright, you overgrown paperweight," I snarled at it. "Time for a permanent vacation."

I wound up and hurled the stupid thing as far as I could out into the Sound. It hit the dark water with a satisfying plunk and sank without a trace.

"Finally," I breathed, a wave of relief washing over me.

Two seconds later, there was a soft bloop sound right at my feet.

I looked down.

The conch sat there on the wet sand, perfectly dry, perfectly warm. And humming. It was definitely humming, and it sounded an awful lot like laughter.

A cold dread, completely separate from the night air, trickled down my spine.

"Cool. Very cool," I said, my voice flat. "Cursed seashell boomerang. Exactly what I needed in my life." I snatched it up. This time, I put my whole body into it, every ounce of my anger and frustration. I spun and launched it like a discus thrower, watching it vanishes into the night sky over the water.

I stood there, waiting for the distant splash.

It never came.

Instead, I felt a gentle warmth bloom in my palm. I didn't even have to look. I knew. I slowly uncurled my fingers. The conch was there, nestled in my hand as if it had never left.

And it was utterly, terrifyingly silent. No hum. No glow. Just a dead, cold weight. The silence was a thousand times worse.

...

...

...

After a week of this nonsense, I was running on blue cookies and sheer stubbornness.

The sun beat down on the arena, turning the air into a thick, shimmering soup. The usual smell of dust and effort felt like it was personally trying to suffocate me. Clarisse came at me, her spear a bronze blur aimed right for my sternum. I managed to parry, but my arm felt heavy, like I was trying to swing a waterlogged tree branch.

- useless useless useless -

The whisper hissed along the edge of my blade.

Nice, I thought, my gear has an opinion now.

I growled under my breath, shaking my head to clear it, and that's all the opening Clarisse needed. Her spear butt slammed into my ribs with a sound like a branch snapping. I hit the sand, the air leaving my lungs in a dusty whoosh.

"What's the matter, Prissy?" she sneered, her shadow falling over me. "Get distracted by a butterfly?"

"Something like that," I wheezed, pushing myself up. My ribs felt like they were grinding together. "It was a really, really ugly butterfly."

I went on the attack, mostly out of spite. It was a sloppy, desperate mess. She blocked every slash without breaking a sweat. A low, infuriating hum started up behind my ears, a constant vibration that felt like the conch was trying to shake my brain loose. It was impossible to focus.

I lunged, putting everything I had left into it. And my hand just… quit. No warning, no spasm, it just decided it was done for the day.

It wasn't numbness; it was like someone had hit pause on the part of me that knew how to fight.

My fingers uncurled, and Riptide, my impossibly loyal, always-returns-to-my-pocket sword, clattered into the dirt between us with a hollow sound.

The arena went dead silent.

Clarisse stared at my sword, then at my empty hand. Her usual sneer of contempt was gone, replaced by a look of profound, almost clinical disgust.

"You drop your sword?" one of her brothers called out, confused. "He just… dropped it."

Clarisse didn't even bother to kick Riptide this time. She just stared at me. "Seriously, Jackson? Are you trying to invent a new way to lose? Because this is just sad."

"It's a new technique," I shot back, my voice thin. "Psychological warfare. I'm making you pity me to death."

She wasn't buying it. She just shook her head and turned away, lowering her spear. "Forget it. You're not even worth the effort today. Go take a nap."

The humiliation burned hotter than the sun. She wasn't just beating me; she was dismissing me. As she stalked off, I pushed myself onto an elbow and called after her, my voice raspy with sand and bitterness.

"Hey, Clarisse! Sorry to bore you. I'll try to bleed more entertainingly next time!"

She didn't even turn around.

...

...

...

Every night the whispers pressed harder. And – yeah, I hate to admit it – part of me wanted to listen. It was a terrifying thought, but the loneliness was worse than the fear.

Yup. I need a friend to talk to, ASAP.

Annabeth had left camp to try living with her father and stepfamily. So that left Grover.

I found him near the edge of the woods, practicing with his new reed pipes. The sound was… well, it still sounded like a dying goose, but it was a familiar, comforting kind of awful.

"Hey, G-Man."

He stopped mid-squeak. "Percy! Hey! Just working on my, uh, searcher's license requirements. Did you know the dryads have a new composting initiative for the strawberry fields? It's really revolutionary. They're using satyr… Percy? Dude, you're swaying."

I realized I was listing to the side. I forced myself to stand up straight. "Huh? Yeah, totally. The trees are… whispery today."

He stopped chewing on his emergency tin can. "I said they're thirsty." His brow furrowed, his goat eyes full of concern. "Man, what's going on with you? You look like you've been chewed up and spit out by a Laistrygonian giant."

He led me to a nearby bench. That's how I knew it was bad. Grover only got this serious when ecosystems were collapsing or I was about to do something stupid.

"I can… I don't know, feel you're terrified," he said, his voice soft. He couldn't read my mind, but Grover's the most emotionally tuned-in person I knew. "What's happening? Is it… is it about the pit scorpion? Luke?"

I took a breath. "Grover, you gotta – okay, something happened," I started, the words feeling heavy and strange in my mouth. "So I was down at the beach, and this whirlpool – no, not like that – it was like a drain, and this stupid shell – "

As I tried to form the word conch, the low hum in the back of my skull erupted into a chaotic storm of whispers. They weren't stopping me from speaking. They were trying to drown me.

- He'll think you're crazy. InSaNe. A bURden -

- Just like the other one... the one you TruStEd -

- He can't help you. No one can. You're AlOnE in the DEeP -

The voices were sharp, venomous, twisting my own fears into weapons. My train of thought shattered. What was I saying? The image of Luke's face, twisted in a sneer, flashed in my mind. The memory was so sharp, so painful, I physically flinched. My voice died in my throat, the words tangling into nothing. I found myself staring just past Grover's shoulder, my eyes unfocused, lost in the echo of the psychic attack.

"Percy?" Grover's voice sounded distant. "Percy, hey. You still with me?"

I blinked, shaking my head to clear the noise. The whispers receded back to their usual tormenting hum. How could I explain a dungeon when its very existence was screaming insults inside my own head? It sounded crazy. It felt crazy.

"I..." I started, but my throat was dry. The resolve was gone, replaced by a cold, familiar dread. He would think I was losing it. He'd look at me with pity.

I gave up. The lie was easier. It was safer. I sagged against the bench, the fight draining out of me. "I'm just not sleeping well, man."

It was the biggest understatement since Gabe called himself a "handyman."

Grover's expression told me he didn't believe a word of it. He could see right through me. Then, he put a hand on my shoulder, and for a second, the simple, friendly gesture almost pushed the whispers back. But the second he let go, the cold rush of the sea and the whispers flooded back in, twice as bad. He looked at me, helpless, his eyes sad, like he wanted to fix it but didn't know how.

"Right," he said, his voice quiet. "You weren't talking to me just now, were you? You were fighting with something else entirely."

...

...

...Sigh

"Just… be careful, okay?" he said finally, his voice thick. "You don't have to do everything alone."

That's when I finally cracked and went to the Big House.

I had to try one more time. I had to go to the one person who was supposed to have all the answers.

I found Chiron on the porch of the Big House, sipping a cup of tea and flipping through some ancient-looking scroll like it was his morning paper. He looked up when he saw me, frowning like he already knew I was about to ruin his day.

"You look troubled, Percy."

"Gee, what gave it away? The bags under my eyes, or the fact that I'm basically starring in Aquaman: Horror of Atlantis every night?"

He didn't laugh. Chiron rarely laughed when I wanted him to.

The words just spilled out of me – a messy, desperate tide of eyeless mobs, cursed seashells, and whispers that promised to break me. As I spoke, the conch in my pocket pulsed, a single, sharp beat of heat against my thigh.

- silence us –

My breath hitched. I flinched, my hand instinctively going to the hot spot on my jeans. "Did you hear that?"

Chiron frowned, his brow furrowed in genuine concern. "Hear what, my boy?"

The look on his face was answer enough. He'd not heard a thing. I felt a cold knot tighten in my stomach. "Nothing. Just… nothing."

I continued describing my dreams and when I was done, I felt like I'd just dropped a Hydra in his lap and asked him to babysit.

Chiron steepled his fingers. His expression was… careful. That's never a good sign. A full minute passed where he just gazed out over the Long Island Sound, his eyes distant, like he was reading something in the waves that I couldn't see.

"Hello, Camp to Chiron?" I waved my hands in front of his face, breaking his staring contest with the sea. "I really need some help here. This isn't exactly a 'wait and see' kind of situation."

With a deep, weary sigh that seemed to carry the weight of centuries, he finally bestowed his great centaur wisdom upon me. "The waters that border this camp… they are primordial. They hold currents of memory and power that predate the gods you know. Not all tides answer to Olympus, Percy. And not all doors, once opened, are meant for us to close. Some doors hum with old hunger. Do not feed it."

…

…

…!?

"That's your answer?" I demanded, my voice rising. "Because what I'm hearing sounds an awful lot like: Congratulations, Percy, you've unlocked your very own personal nightmare dungeon. Have fun with that. That's not an answer, Chiron!"

Chiron's mouth twitched, which I think was his version of a wince. "It is the only answer I am permitted to give you." He looked at me, and for a fleeting second, his mentor's facade cracked. I saw a flicker of genuine fear in his eyes – not for me, but of what was happening to me. "For now, keep the conch close. Do not ignore it, but do not lean too far into it, either. These ancient things have a way of… unfolding on their own schedule."

Great. Classic Chiron. Answer without answering. I rubbed at my eyes, which felt they had been sandpapered. A part of me wanted to push harder, but another part was just too tired. The whispers were going to come back tonight anyway.

They always did.

I glanced down at the glowing conch in my hand. "Yeah. Fantastic. Can't wait for the 'unfolding'."

Leaving Chiron's porch with a head full of non-answers, I didn't even make it back to my cabin. The conch, as if sensing it now had my full, frustrated attention, began to buzz in my hand, like a trapped hornet.

After a few miserable hours of pretending to do camp activities – getting whacked in the ribs during sparring, "slipping" during rock climbing ("It really was slippery, Travis!" "Damn you, Percy!") and causing a minor panic during archery (let's not talk about it) – I gave up and headed back to the beach.

If anybody else had answers, it had to be the naiads.

The sand was cool under my bare feet as I trudged to the sea's edge. I held the conch out in front of me like it was a dead fish. For a split second, the thrumming in my palm didn't feel like a threat. It felt like… a question.

You still here? You ready?

Which was somehow way, way creepier.

"Alright," I muttered to the empty shoreline. "Fine. You two – Dark-Eyes, Lily-Eyes – you're there. You saw this thing get dumped into my life. So, what's its deal? Why's it acting like a possessed bolt?"

Nothing. Just the hiss of waves and the faint crunch of shells under my toes.

I tried again, focusing my will the way I did when I called for water. "Hey! Naiads! Your ocean's haunted and it gave me an evil souvenir! A little help here? Anybody"

A ripple passed along the surface, but it's too quiet. No dark eyes. No lily eyes. Not even the usual younger giggly naiads who liked to pop up and splash me when I wasn't paying attention. It's like the moonlighted-sea was holding its breath.

"Of course," I sighed, my shoulders slumping. "The one time I actually want an audience, everyone's on nectar break."

The tide lapped higher around my ankles. Absentmindedly, I waded deeper. The conch pulsed against my palm – warm, then hot, like a heartbeat speeding up. The whispers I'd been trying to ignore all week swelled, louder now that I was in the surf. I couldn't catch the words, but they curled through my head, slippery and insistent.

"Okay," I muttered, "this feels bad."

And then the pull started.

It wasn't the playful tug of the younger naiads. It was the same deep, vertical suction from the first night. It grabbed my legs first, yanking me off balance. I staggered, tried to plant my feet in the shifting sand.

A son of the sea god, about to be taken out by the world's pushiest undertow.

That'd look great on my permanent record.

But the conch was a brand in my hand, and the whispers spiked into a single, unified scream inside my skull. I didn't even have time to shout a decent curse word. The world twisted, the sky and sea folding into a vortex of darkness.

And just like that, for the second time in a week, I was flushed down the drain.

Someone really needed to install a warning label on these magical whirlpools.

End of Chapter 2

Chapter Text

The nauseating whirl. The gut-drop feeling like you're on a roller coaster that's just given up on safety regulations. Then the thud.

One second, I was choking on saltwater and the smug silence of a cursed conch. The next, I was standing in a hallway that looked like it was designed by a really depressed architect with a thing for nightmares.

The rough-hewn cavern from my first dive was gone. So was the sea. I was in a narrow corridor made of polished black stone – so shiny I could see my own confused, drenched reflection in the floor. Cold blue torches were stuck to the walls at intervals, burning without smoke and giving off a light that felt… hungry.

The air itself buzzed, a staticky, electric hum that grated on my teeth, like someone had left a radio tuned to a station that only played the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. My stomach did a little flip-flop of protest.

"Cozy," I muttered, my voice getting swallowed by the creepy, humming corridor. "Very minimalist dungeon-chic. Could use a potted plant. Or, you know, an exit sign."

Riptide was uncapped before my brain finished the joke. My fingers knew the drill better than I did. The conch, on the other hand, was a dead weight in my pocket. Quiet. Eerily docile. No whispers, no burning, no buzzing. For once, the little troublemaker was behaving.

Which, of course, made me instantly suspicious.

What are you up to… I thought, giving my pocket a wary pat.

I rubbed my temples, a headache already brewing behind my eyes. "Just peachy. Totally fine. Another day in this dark, Do-Not-Enter-Percy zone." I took a cautious step forward. The polished stone was cold even through my sneakers.

If I see another pitchfork – or hear another angry villager – somebody's getting a personal, pressurized deep-sea bath, courtesy of yours truly.

A few steps ahead, the corridor opened into a circular chamber. More of the same cold blue torches flickered here, but the effect was different in the wider space. The light didn't just illuminate, it pulsed. I watched one for a few seconds, and my breath caught.

The flame wasn't flickering randomly. It was pulsing in a slow, steady rhythm.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. A heartbeat.

The whole room felt like the inside of some massive, stone creature's chest. The humming was louder here, resonating from the floor, and I could feel the vibration through the soles of my sneakers. Long, twitching shadows danced like Hephaestus spiders, and every time the torches pulsed, the shadows seemed to shrink and grow, like the walls themselves were breathing.

And then I saw him.

Not a villager. Not a Minotaur. Just a guy – probably around my age – who looked like he'd been kicked out of wizard school for poor hygiene and a serious lack of friends.

Oversized blue robes that were two sizes too big, covered in chalk smudges and what looked like soup stains. Cracked spectacles perched on his nose. He was clutching a knobby, poorly carved wooden staff like it was the only thing keeping him from floating away.

And he was muttering.

A constant, frantic stream of equations and magical gibberish that sounded like the Oracle on a really, really confusing day.

"…inverse grid resonance, no – flux inversion – do not collapse –" he whispered, voice frayed. He was drawing shaky lines in the air with his staff, completely oblivious to me.

I tightened my grip on Riptide and cleared my throat. "Uh, Hey."

He snapped his head up so fast his spectacles slid down his nose, revealing wide, panicked eyes the colour of a stormy sky. He looked like a rabbit caught in a spotlight.

"An intruder!" he squeaked. "Defensive protocol – activate! Mana channelling – don't fail me now!"

He jabbed the staff forward. The crystal at the top wheezed to life, sputtering blue. The torches leaned toward it like moths to a neon bug zapper. The air thickened, the hair on my arms stood up. Little shiny squiggly words – glowing words I couldn't read – bloomed on the floor, thin lines arranging themselves into a complex, pulsing circle.

So yeah – looks like a magic battery. But a battery that was about to overload and take the whole block with it.

"Whoa, relax!" I said, putting my free hand up in what I hoped was a universal 'I-come-in-peace' gesture. "I'm not here for a pop quiz. I'm just… lost."

His eyes were wide, showing a vulnerability so complete it was almost contagious. I noticed his fingers, calloused and stained black with ink, were trembling on the staff. This kid spent more time with books than with a sword, that was for sure. The sleeve of his oversized robe had a perfectly patched hole at the elbow, the stitching neat and careful. For some reason, that detail hit me harder than the frantic magic.

"Look, man, I don't know what you're doing," I tried again, taking a slow, deliberate step to the side. "But the light show is making the air smell like a lightning bolt hit a dumpster full of rotten eggs, and whatever that thing is," I nodded at the sputtering crystal, "it looks like it's about to blow. Let's just both take a breath before you accidentally vaporize us, okay?"

He didn't listen. He just screamed – a high-pitched, terrified sound – and chanted louder. A thin, shimmering shield flickered into being around him, as fragile-looking as a soap bubble, yet it glowed with a dangerous heat-haze intensity The crystal on his staff thrummed, the sound vibrating in my bones. In my pocket, the conch gave a single, faint pulse of warmth – not a warning, but a flicker of what felt like... interest.

If he finished whatever ritual he was doing, something told me it wouldn't just be annoying – it would be catastrophic. For me. For him. For this whole stupid dungeon.

None of them good options.

He wasn't a monster. He was all panic and pages, a fragile kid about to unleash something he could not control. For a split second, looking at his terrified, stormy-sky eyes, I didn't just see a threat. I saw a reflection – another kid, just like me, thrown into a world too big and too dangerous, making a huge, potentially fatal mistake. The thought left a sour taste in my mouth.

But there was no time for a demigod support group. I wasn't about to let him complete whatever doomsday device he was wiring into the dungeon.

Two steps. A flick of the wrist. Riptide sang through the humming air.

I didn't swing to hit him. I swung at the staff.

Celestial bronze kissed knobby, inferior wood.

Snap

The sound was shockingly loud. The crystal cracked like cheap glass, exploding into a shower of jagged, blue-tinged dust that sizzled on the floor. The bright, glowing circles on the ground blew out with a pathetic pop, like a birthday balloon. The oppressive energy in the room vanished instantly, sucked back into nothing. The torches on the walls slackened, their flames returning to a normal, creepy flicker.

The kid's eyes went wide with shock, then rolled back in his head. He pitched forward like someone had cut his strings, landing in a crumpled heap of blue robes.

"Whoops." I nudged the two pieces of his broken staff with my foot. They were just… wood. "Sorry, man. Pretty sure that's not covered by warranty."

I had to pause to admire his commitment to a colour scheme. "Blue's my favourite too, but you're overselling it, dude."

The kid groaned softly and curled tighter into a ball.

Sigh

Now I felt like a total Nancy. I knelt down to check on him – you can't just leave a guy passed out in a murder-dungeon, that's like Demigod Rule #3 or something – and reached out to shake his shoulder.

My hand passed right through him.

I yanked my hand back, staring at it like it had just betrayed me. "What the...?"

I blinked. He was still there, a solid-looking heap of blue cloth and messy hair. The blue torches flickered, their heartbeat pulse playing tricks with the shadows. Maybe I'd just missed.

"Okay, weird..." I muttered, and reached out again, this time with just my index finger, aiming for the centre of his back. I poked. My finger went straight through him. The illusion of his body rippled and shimmered like a heat haze where I'd touched, the image wavering for a second before settling again.

My heart started doing a nervous tap-dance against my ribs. This was wrong. All wrong. Slowly, hesitantly, as if expecting an electric shock, I waved my entire hand through the middle of his torso. The shimmering intensified, and for a disorienting moment, I could see the black stone floor right through his body. He was no more solid than an Iris-message, a flickering projection left behind in the dirt.

My neck prickled. "Right. So... not a wizard. A ghost? A magical answering machine? Creepy hologram guy, you still in there?"

I was all set to blame it on stress or weird torchlight when the dungeon decided to be 'helpful'. With a sound like a dismissive cough, two things dropped out of thin air and clattered onto the floor right where the kid's chest should've been.

The first was a small, smooth pebble the colour of a Montauk summer sky. It sat in my palm, pulsing with a warm, tired light. I tossed it gently and caught it. The weight was nice. Solid.

"So, what are you?" I murmured, rolling it between my fingers. "A magical mood stone? A nightlight for demigods who are afraid of the dark?" I tapped it against the hilt of Riptide.

Nothing happened.

I held it close to the conch in my other pocket. The pebble's warm hum didn't change, but I got the distinct impression the conch was sulking. It remained utterly, suspiciously silent.

Yeah, that's what I thought, I directed at my pocket. Don't get jealous now. There's enough Percy-in-mortal-danger to go around.

The second was a crumpled piece of paper, edges burnt, covered in fancy scribbles that made my ADHD brain want to take a nap just looking at it.

I smoothed it out.

Somebody had drawn the same weird symbol over and over in the margin – a trident twisted into a loop inside a circle. It looked wrong. Sick.

The main drawing was of this very chamber, with a bunch of arrows pointing to the centre. In messy handwriting, a note in the corner said:

ELY NOD E HRE — INVERSION FI WOLLAED OT CONVERG. RUN.

My stomach did a slow, cold roll. This wasn't just gibberish. It's instructions. And whatever an 'inversion' was, it sounded messy, painful, and like something I'd just barely stopped from happening.

The word 'RUN' was underlined three times.

I pocketed the glowing pebble and folded the note into my back pocket. I waved a hand through the shimmering spot where the kid had been. My fingers came away smelling like chalk.

"Hey, uh, sorry about your staff," I said to the empty air. I was officially apologizing to a ghost wizard's leftover trinkets. My life had officially reached a new level of weird. "Next time, get one from a better magic shop. The Hermes cabin has a guy. Tell him Percy sent you."

Great. Now I'm bullying holograms… Annabeth's going to kill me for breaking ghost tech

I got to my feet, Riptide still held tight. The whole corridor was almost silent now – just the faint, creepy whisper of the blue torches. The kind of quiet that makes your ears ring. But if I strained, I could hear it, a faint, fading echo of the wizard kid's terrified mumbling, like it had gotten stuck on repeat in the very stones of the walls.

I closed my fingers around the warm pebble in my pocket. It was the one solid, real thing in this place. Besides the conch, which I was sure was just waiting to start trouble again. And the note. And, of course, my loyal, trusty sword that had a bad habit of leading me into trouble.

Taking a deep breath… "Okay, what now?"

SCREECHHH

A sound ripped through the silence. A screech from the other side of the chamber, so loud and awful it could have broken Annabeth's concentration on a thousand-page blueprint.

It was a sound of pure, undiluted anguish.

The wall directly opposite me slid back with a grating rumble, revealing a narrow, crumbling corridor that I was one hundred percent sure was not on the original tour. This new tunnel was dark, and from it drifted a smell like old tears and damp stone.

Just my luck. What this party really needed was a screaming surprise behind door number two.

The dungeon was not done with me. That much was obvious. It had given me a puzzle and a prize. And now, for the first time, I had a pretty bad feeling about what it might want to play with next.

…

…

…

A cold wind, smelling of salt and distant storms, whipped the ends of his tail as he walked. The rhythm of his hooves a solemn cadence upon the damp sand. He had felt the rupture – a sudden fraying in the ancient weave of the lake's magic, and the subsequent void where a son of the Sea God had been only moments before.

He halted at the water's edge, his broad chest rising and falling with a heavy breath. His gaze upon the restless, dark waves, but he was looking at something much, much older. Though alone, the weight of countless eyes seemed upon him from the deep.

"Why this one?" he murmured, his voice a low rumble to match the surf. "The threads of the Great Prophecy already tighten a noose for us all. The waking breath of the Titan Lord stirs the Overworld, and his poison seeps into every crack."

He struck a hoof against the wet sand, a sharp, frustrated sound that was instantly swallowed by the waves. "And yet this… this Aegis… calls to him. It pulls him into the deep. Why does the loom of Fate weave a second, darker path for one boy?"

A presence disturbed the water's surface without a sound. The Naiad emerged, her eyes the pale blue of forgotten lilies. She reclined upon the waves as if upon a throne, her hair a flowing mantle of bioluminescent kelp. Her visage was primeval, carved by epochs of silent observation.

"The Keeper of the Deep Currents has been awakened," she intoned, her voice the soft, relentless pull of the tide. It was neither kind nor cruel. It simply was. "My Lady also turns her gaze to this confluence."

Chiron's expression hardened. "Your Lady has always been content to merely observe. To record the tragedies after they have passed. Her interest now is… unsettling. Does she seek a new entry for her great, grim ledger?"

The Naiad's eyes held a flicker of something ancient, a coldness that predated even the Olympians. "My Lady recognizes the echo of past tragedies in the threads now being woven. The King counts the swords pointed at his throne, while the Queen counts the cracks within it, neither looks to the floorboards beneath their feet. Even the Master of the Last Door feels this tremor and wisely does not answer the knock. This is a reckoning of salt and stone, Son of Gold, a game whose rules the Mountain has long since forgotten."

"This is not a game!" Chiron's voice was a low growl, the sound of grinding stone. "The Earth-Shaker's wrath will be a tempest if his son is harmed. A hurricane that will drown continents." He paused, and his next words carried a threat that was older and colder than the ocean deep. "But mine… mine will be the patience of the bedrock and the finality of the abyss. The boy is the key to the world's turning. He must be shielded."

Not again, his heart cried, a pain millennia old. I will not lose another young soul to that ravenous gloom.

"The sea does not shatter its own pearls, Ageless Teacher. It strikes them against the stone to reveal their strength. As for the Keeper… think of him not as a guide, but as a cold and distant star. A fixed point in the absolute dark by which a soul might find its bearing, but he offers no warmth and no light of his own." Her voice silencing the crashing waves of the Sound.

She tilted her head, a flicker of true fascination in her luminous eyes. "This one, however… this one may learn to navigate by a light he brings himself. This awakening does not alter destiny… it forges a new one."

A profound dread, colder than the deepest trench, settled within his chest. He knew the prophecy. He knew the colossal, world-ending burden destined for the boy's shoulders. But now… now the Moirai themselves seemed to be spinning a second, hidden thread.

One path led to the thunder of war against the Titans, a battle the gods themselves feared. The other led into the silent, crushing pressure of the primordial deep, into trails no demigod had faced since the gods walk the Earth.

But, both... both led to the same precipice – one that promised to unbind a sleeping Wound at the heart of creation itself.

End of Chapter 3