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Percy knew one thing as he walked with Akhlys toward the grove of poison. Only one of them was getting out of there with what they wanted.
He could see it in her eyes. She was planning to betray them. He didn’t expect anything else. But she was a goddess, and that scared him. He had fought gods before, sure, but this was Tartarus. Anything could happen.
Besides, he felt awful. His throat burned from the fire water. His entire body was in constant, mind-numbing pain. He felt like passing out on the ground and lying there as the monsters tore his body to shreds. He felt like giving up.
But he couldn’t give up. Not when he had to protect Annabeth. Not when he had to get back to his other friends who were depending on them to close the Doors of Death. Not when the entire world was depending on him to save it once more. If he didn’t have anyone depending on him, he most definitely would have given up. He didn’t see the point in trying to save just himself anymore. Too much effort.
Akhlys didn’t help. She practically radiated misery and sadness and suffering. Or, at least he assumed she did. Honestly, it didn’t feel any different from how he usually felt. His self-esteem issues were worse than hers, frankly.
As he trailed behind her, he kept having to avoid the poisonous plants that sprouted from wherever she walked. The ground felt like it was slimy and wart infested, like the big toe of Tartarus, where all the disgusting things were. At least it illuminated the way for them to go to certain doom.
Finally, the fog dissipated, and they found themselves on the edge of a large, pitch black chasm. Percy tried to resist the urge to look down, but it was difficult. If Tartarus was hard to resist, this was worse, like it was sucking the life out of him. He forced himself to take several steps back. He could see Annabeth doing the same.
Meanwhile, as she turned around. Akhlys looked- excited? How excited could misery be? She had stopped crying, at the very least, though she was as ugly as ever.
“Here we are.” she leered. “The edge of Tartarus. Can you feel it, calling to you?”
“Uh, great,” Percy said. “What is it?”
“Chaos,” Annabeth muttered, her eyes widening. “We’re next to Chaos and Night.”
“Impressive,” Akhlys groaned. “Yes, we are next to the realm of Night, my mother, the earliest darkness. Below… well, you don’t want to go there. It is the realm of my father, Chaos. Can you feel the nothingness? How close you are to death? Already, you are fading.”
Percy wasn’t sure what she meant by that before he looked at his hands. His fingers, instead of being tan like they usually were, seemed to be silvery. In fact, they were pure mist, white and billowing all over. As he looked down, he saw that the smoke wasn’t coming from the chasm- it was coming from him. He was becoming the Death Mist. He could feel himself weakening as his entire being seemed to fade.
“Oh gods, Percy,” he heard Annabeth say.
Percy looked up and suppressed a scream. Annabeth looked like she had died.
Her blonde, frizzy hair was stringy and gray, like she had aged hundreds of years. Her usually mahogany skin was devoid of color, drained until it was pure stone. Her eyes were sunken in and sallow, similar to Akhlys. Smoke surrounded her, making her seem like she was an illusion.
He had always been terrified of Annabeth dying. It came with being a halfblood. But seeing her appear as if she were actually dead… that was deeply unsettling.
By the way she was looking at him, he assumed that he looked the same way. He pulled a strand of his hair. Instead of being curly and black like it usually was, it looked wilted and murky gray, like three month old soup. He shuddered and tucked it behind his ear.
He saw how Annabeth was looking at him and suddenly felt bad. She looked so terrified and scared, and he just wanted to comfort her in any way he could.
“Hey,” he said, putting on his classic, joker, fake smile that he always used in situations like this. “I’ve looked better. Don’t worry, I’m alright.”
“Oh, you most certainly are not alright,” Akhlys crooned, her eyes widening and her smile contorting.
“Yeah, I know that,” Percy stated. “But we’ll pass unseen to the Doors of Death?”
Akhlys shrugged. “If you’ll live that long. Did you really not expect me to betray you?”
“Nah, that was pretty obvious,” Annabeth snapped, getting into a defensive stance. Her fearful expression had disappeared, instead replaced with determination and anger. “But we’re not going down that easy.”
“Are you sure about that?” Akhlys mockingly asked. Her gnarly fingers cracked and contorted as hundreds of poisonous plants sprouted: hemlock, oleander, poison ivy, all of them creeping towards Percy and Annabeth, sending toxic fumes rising into the already deadly air.
“You see, the Death Mist is not simply a disguise,” Akhlys informed them with a creepy grin. “It is a state of being. In order to fully express this gift I have bestowed upon you, you need to be dead.”
Percy had been threatened before with death, but this time, he felt furious. Rage bubbled within him, threatening to spew. He had walked through literal hell to get here, and now he was going to nearly die again. He wanted to scream.
Instead, he calmed himself and pulled out Riptide. It was as misty as he was, but he hoped it would work the same. He needed to keep a level head in order to stay alive. To keep Annabeth alive.
But when he slashed as Akhlys, his sword moved through her like smoke. This only elicited a mirthless laugh from her.
“Oh, perhaps if you’d had more time to master this form, you would be able to fight me,” Akhlys drawled. Her eyes narrowed. “But I fear that any fight against Misery will be hopeless.”
Her fingernails extended into deadly talons, her teeth sharpened into fangs, and she lunged at him.
Hey, maybe because I’m made of smoke, she won’t be able to hurt me, Percy thought.
How wrong he was. She slashed at him with her claws, raking across his chest. He cried out as searing pain exploded on the area. Blood dripped from the wound, drained of color. He backed away, but she continued to advance. It was only because of Annabeth yelling in her ear that he survived.
Akhlys whipped around and growled. She lunged at Annabeth, but Annabeth was quicker. Percy figured it was all the extra training she had received, because she moved like a demon. Rolling, dodging, somersaulting- she was a natural at it.
He then realized that she was trying to buy time for him to do… something. That something would come later, but he needed a distraction.
“Hey happy!” He stupidly yelled.
He figured that she would brush it off, but she looked like she had been called a slur (which Percy could imagine, as he had been called slurs many times). She ignored Annabeth and began advancing towards him, her jaw unhinging and her spine elongating. It made him want to throw up, but he continued to look her in the eye. She couldn’t see his weakness.
“Cheerful!” He continued to scream. “Delightful! Joyful!”
“I will kill you slowly,” Akhlys growled. “I will sacrifice you to my mother!”
“Cuddly!” Percy continued to yell. “Pleasant! Huggable!”
“Death by being chopped into a thousand pieces!” Akhlys rasped.
“Uh, hey!” Annabeth yelled from afar. “Grins! Cheerful! Over here!”
Akhlys’s attention was entirely on Percy, though. She stalked towards him, her eyes narrowing and her hand’s talons lengthening even more, until it was almost the length of Riptide. The poison flowed toward him, leaving him stuck on a mini island not much bigger than a shield. He watched as his backpack dissolved from the poison. The air around him seemed to smoke, choking him. He sank to his knees, drowning in misery.
And all he could think of was all of the misery he endured.
At four, his mother married Gabe Ugliano, who abused them for eight years, beating him up, hitting his mom, stealing her earnings, threatening to kill them, even. He had been kicked out of every school he went to because of powers he couldn’t control, thought delusional and crazy by his teachers.
At twelve, he thought his mother had died, and he was sent on a quest to recover a weapon he hadn’t even stolen in the first place. He managed to rescue his mother. They even killed Gabe.
Then, he was manipulated and quite literally molested by Luke, who he thought was a hero, and who twisted his mind into thinking that the abuse was normal for years. Then, Luke had betrayed all of them and tried to kill him.
He had been sent on countless quests following it, all leading to more misery. At fourteen he was captured by the Titan Army and again tortured by Luke and even forced to hold up the sky for a day. He had nearly died from blowing up Mount Helens and was cursed to fall in love with Calypso.
Then, he was forced to fight the Titan Army at sixteen, lost so many of his friends, and was forced to kill Luke, who he still mourned even after all the hurt he caused. And after a few months of happiness, he was kidnapped by Hera to save the world once again.
And now he was here, stuck in literal hell. Being killed slowly by a lake of a thousand poisons.
A lake of poison…
From the back of his mind, an idea emerged. If poison was partially water, then couldn’t he control it? He had extracted water from Jason’s lungs. Maybe he could force the poison back.
With renewed strength, he concentrated. He concentrated so hard, something inside him shattered. He gasped, feeling newfound energy seep into his bones. He imagined the poison going back.
The poison receded. The air hummed with energy. Akhlys’s face dropped.
“What- what is this?!” She shrieked, suddenly terrified.
“I thought poison was your specialty,” Percy snarled, white hot anger hitting him. With a wave of his hand, the poison began rapidly flowing towards her.
She gasped and stumbled back, sobbing, tears flowing down her cheeks. More water for him to use. He imagined her lungs filling with water. He imagined her choking, drowning in her own tears. He outstretched both his hands. A wretched gurgling sound came from Akhlys as water began to seep from her mouth. She choked and retched, but the water kept filling her. The poison was beginning to burn her feet and hands, and she let out a gurgling scream of pure misery.
For some reason, controlling the poison was remarkably easy. It was like the thing that shattered in him had been holding him back. He could reach his full potential. At the same time, he felt broken, empty.
It didn’t matter, though. If it meant surviving and saving everyone, he could do it. Damn his soul. The world mattered more.
“Percy,” Annabeth’s voice came. He turned his head a little bit.
She was standing behind him. She didn’t look scared. She looked intrigued, curious.
“How are you doing this?” She asked, staring at the deteriorating body of the goddess.
“Poison is partially liquid, right?” He confirmed, smirking. “I do listen to you, sometimes.”
“Aww,” she said, giggling. She looped an arm around his waist casually and rested her head on his shoulder, like they weren’t killing a goddess.
Annabeth thought for a moment, before saying, “Percy? Do you want to kill her?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitating. “I want her to suffer like we did. I want to see how much misery Misery can take.”
“No!” Akhlys gurgled, reaching her hand in a plea to stop him. She looked in so much pain. Her hands smoked and wrinkled as the poison began burning through her. Water was leaking from her ears, nostrils, eyes, and pouring from her mouth. She fell to the ground and began convulsing.
How strange that Percy didn’t feel anything at the sight. In fact, he was just reminded of all the misery he had to endure. Years of it. And he couldn’t let himself truly feel his misery for any of it, because people depended on it. On him.
If he could handle all of that, she could handle this, couldn’t she?
“Can you control her ichor?” Annabeth questioned, playing with his hair. “Make her bleed?”
Percy smiled, somehow elated. Someone else would finally get to suffer like he did. “With pleasure.”
He focused on her blood, though it was harder. He struggled to do it, but couldn’t. He felt exhausted just trying. “It’s too hard.”
Annabeth considered this, before saying, “What about our blood? I can give some of mine-”
“No, it’s okay,” Percy interrupted. He put his right hand on his chest, where the wound was. “I can do it.”
He concentrated on his own blood. It was harder, but more seemed to shatter inside him as he drew out his own blood. The dark droplets levitated in the air. He pulled out more, though it pained him, as if it was taking oxygen from his lungs.
“Stop,” Annabeth said. “Don’t take too much.”
He nodded, and relaxed. The blood taken out swirled in the air. Percy considered what to do with it.
“I have an idea, but you might not like it,” Annabeth mused.
“Whatever you want, my darling,” Percy replied. He trusted Annabeth.
“Put it in her eyes,” Annabeth commanded, a mad grin on her face. “Make our faces the last she sees.”
Percy was unsure at first, but then he remembered that she tried to kill Annabeth. Maybe she did deserve it. He flexed his fingers, still keeping control of the poison. He held back the poison so that he could make her suffer more. With the blood, he sharply extended his fingers. The blood raced towards her. It hit her eyes.
The wail of pain that came after was music to his ears. Golden ichor poured from her eyes, as they were filled with blood, turning red and glassy. She clawed at her eyes with her steaming, half-melted hands. She looked like she was being ripped apart. It was glorious. Her screams must have been reaching the heavens. Percy hoped it did. He hoped the gods would see what would happen when they had broken a hero too much.
He looked at Annabeth. She laughed. “Do you want to keep going, or end it?”
“End it,” Percy admitted. “It’s draining me.”
She nodded. “You’ll need your strength. Now, how should she die? Oh! I have it.”
She let go of Percy and walked towards Misery. Percy parted the poison to form a path for her. Finally, she reached Akhlys. The goddess looked awful. Her emaciated form was still leaking water and ichor, forming a smoldering pool around her. Her dress was in ruins, her hair all burnt off, her face bleeding more than ever, her mouth still pouring endless water. Her eyes were ripped out, bits and pieces still stuck in combined with her blood, leaving mostly empty, hollow sockets. She choked occasionally, though she seemed to register that Annabeth was coming.
Annabeth squatted down beside her, examining the scene. “Oh, Misery. You think that you were the most powerful here? Well, looks like we were just more miserable than you ever were. I hope this is pleasant for you.”
She giggled before standing up and going back to Percy. Gods, both of them were losing it. Or maybe they had already lost it. He wouldn’t be surprised.
“Percy, darling!” She called out. “Make her explode.”
“Explode?” Percy questioned. He doubted he could do that.
“The pressure is already building,” Annabeth said with a shrug. “It would be easier to just release all the pressure.”
“Alright,” Percy responded.
He focused. He let the poison roll back towards Akhlys, but it wouldn’t matter. There wouldn’t be anything left to burn.
“Kill her,” Annabeth snarled. “Make her suffer like we did.”
He squeezed his fist and unleashed all of his misery on her.
The ichor hit his cheek. He wiped it away. Percy forced himself to look at what he had done.
There was no corpse. Only a mangled dress and a splatter of sizzling ichor and poison.
It hit him. They had killed a god.
He and Annabeth had killed a god. They were god-killers.
What had they done?
It was only then that he realized Annabeth was crying. He knelt down beside her and hugged her. He could focus on his emotions later. He needed to focus on Annabeth.
Her broken sobs turned to laughter as she started hysterically laughing at the sight. The laughing struck something inside him. The giggles began, and soon he too was hysterically laughing, not out of joy, not out of happiness, but out of pure misery.
They might have been alive, but they were dead on the inside.