He saw himself floating, deep underwater — motionless, peaceful. His body drifted gently in the current, bubbles escaping his nose even though somehow, impossibly, he was still breathing. The light above shimmered through the waves, but then thunder cracked. He looked up to see the calm surface replaced by a storm — thick black clouds rolling in, lightning flashing like cracks in the sky.
Then the ground beneath him groaned. It split open, the ocean floor tearing apart to reveal molten fire and searing lava below, as if the sea itself had peeled back to expose the mouth of hell.
"Perseus Jackson."
The voice rose from the pit — cold and ancient, twisting through the water like a poison. It made his bones ache, his nerves twitch.
"Hail, the Conquering Hero!" the voice mocked before breaking into cruel, echoing laughter.
Percy flinched and turned — and saw a replica of himself.
His clone's eyes snapped open in panic, bubbles exploding from his mouth as he thrashed upward. The other Percy kicked, fought, clawed at the water — but the harder he swam, the faster he sank. The laughter below only grew louder.
"They don't make heroes like they used to, eh, son," said an old woman's voice from the depths.
"You should have died in Tartarus, Percy," another voice hissed, male this time — hard, hateful. "You'll be dead in sixty seconds."
Then came a third voice, frantic, pleading. "Hurry, Percy! Please, please, please!"
Percy's pulse raced. He wasn't the one swimming, but it felt like it. Every desperate kick, every gasp for air mirrored in his chest.
"Hold on, Seaweed Brain."
A girl's voice cut through the chaos. Warm. Familiar. It froze him. He knew that voice — somehow he knew it.
"You're not getting away from me that easily."
The clone strained harder toward the surface, and then he saw her — the girl. Her hand outstretched, smiling despite the storm above. She wore an orange T-shirt and jeans, blonde hair tucked into a Yankees cap.
"You're such an idiot sometimes," she said, laughing softly. "Come on. Take my hand."
He reached for her — or maybe his clone did. It didn't matter. Both of them did. Their fingertips were inches apart when a bronze sword slashed through the water.
"Get back! No one touches her!" a new voice roared — protective, furious.
Before Percy could react, something cold wrapped around his legs. His lungs screamed for air as he was yanked downward.
The clone was still there, still above him, still reaching — but not moving to help.
Percy screamed his name — his own name — begging for help. The clone looked down.
Their eyes met.
And the clone's once-green eyes burned red.
The voice from the pit laughed again, louder, as the fire below surged upward — and then—
He woke with a violent gasp.
Ceiling. Room. Darkness.
Percy lay still, chest heaving, the sound of his heartbeat drowning out everything else. It took five long minutes before the tremor in his hands stilled. Nightmares had become a part of his life — annoying, terrifying, familiar.
Then came a knock.
His mom peeked in from his room door, smiling softly. "Morning, hun'. Breakfast is ready."
He must've looked shaken because her expression quickly shifted to concern. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah, Mom. Just, uh… not used to waking up this early again, y'know?"
Her frown deepened. "You don't have to go today, Percy. I can tell him you're not feeling we—"
"No!" he said too fast. "No, I do want to go. I'm fine, really. Just need to wake up, eat your world-famous breakfast, and head off to be tortured."
That earned a chuckle and an eye-roll. "Boys," she muttered fondly as she left.
When the door clicked shut, his grin fell. He sat up, rubbed his face, and dragged himself to the bathroom. His reflection looked back — messy hair, pale skin, tired eyes.
He leaned over the sink and whispered to himself,
"Fear is an animal. Let it free, and it'll attack you. Tame it, and it'll never dare raise a paw."
His uncle's words. Weirdly enough, they worked.
Breakfast smelled amazing — his mom's eggs and toast were divine, but the peace didn't last. A knock came at the door, and she froze mid-bite.
She stood up, went over and opened it. Seeming resigned to do so.
As it opened, it revealed his Uncle Al standing there, smiling like he'd just won something.
Percy groaned internally.
His Uncle Al had been around since Percy was seven — some distant relation to his dad, though neither his mom or his uncle ever clarified how. He looked enough like his dad that Mom once called it "a family resemblance." Whatever the connection, Percy had long since decided that side of the family were probably spies or supervillains.
Uncle Al was built like an ex-soldier and acted like one too — except British, louder, and with worse jokes.
From day one, Percy's life under him had been chaos. Running, swimming, climbing, boxing, and more running— the man's idea of "bonding" was boot camp. At eight years old, Percy had snapped and told him he wanted fun, not death by exercise.
Uncle Al had introduced him to dodgeball that day.
He quickly hated as his uncle never missed a single throw, and made him still attempt to dodge the ball.
Still, he'd taught Percy what he'd assume his uncle learned while he served in the military, or passed down by his spy/supervillain family, stuff like— survival, tactics, tracking, swordplay, how to stay alive in any situation. Half the lessons made no sense back then, but they stuck.
Then there was Kale — Al's daughter. Tall, graceful, lethal. She looked nothing like her dad, which meant her mom must've been gorgeous, because Kale was that. Gorgeous. Percy hated how easy it was to notice that. She was intimidating, confident, the kind of person who could silence a room by walking into it. Every time they hung out, people made way like she was royalty.
And she knew it.
She'd take him to fancy restaurants, charm the staff, and somehow they'd always leave without paying. When he asked how she did it, she'd smirk and promise to "teach him."
Her version of teaching involved lessons like how to lie convincingly, how to read a room, and, disturbingly, how to flirt as a distraction, and how to seduce someone for information.
Uncle Al, of course, approved once Kale mentioned it could be "useful for getting close enough to stab someone."
Percy had never looked at him the same way again.
"Morning, Sally!" Uncle Al said cheerfully as he stepped inside. He leaned around her to grin at Percy. "Morning, Jimmy!"
The way he dragged out the syllables — Jiiimay! — made Percy wince every time. His Uncle was the only person to call him by his middle name.
"Hey, Uncle," Percy muttered.
"Now, what's for breakfast?" Al asked, heading straight for the table.
Mom followed, arms crossed, jaw tight. She never liked Al being around, and Percy never understood why. Sure, he was weird, but compared to a missing-at-sea dad, at least the guy showed up.
"Sorry, Al," Mom said sweetly, "I only made enough for Percy and me. But you're welcome to go buy yourself something."
Al clutched his heart in mock agony. "You wound me, Sally."
Percy snorted. Al turned, narrowing his eyes playfully. "You know, kid, back in my day, I wouldn't have tolerated such disrespect. Seems I've gone soft."
"Yeah, soft as a grizzly," Percy shot back.
A second later, his plate disappeared.
"Mom!" Percy groaned as Al ate at it like it was a victory feast.
"Sorry, honey," she said, amused. "But here—take mine."
He opened his mouth to object, but Al slid his original plate back toward him, suddenly serious.
"I'm just messing around. But you need to eat — especially for what your mother and I have to tell you."
Mom froze. The color drained from her face. She turned to Al sharply, whispering something Percy couldn't catch.
His uncle just nodded once, and his mom slumped in defeat.
"Is it… something bad?" Percy asked.
She sat down slowly, exhaling. The look she gave him was full of guilt and something else — fear.
"It's about your father."
"What? What about him?" Percy asked, the words coming out sharper than he intended. Then a beat passed, and his brain finally caught up. "Wait—was he found?" His voice cracked on the last word, shooting higher than normal, and he wasn't sure if that made him sound anxious or hopeful. Probably both.
Sally hesitated, eyes darting toward his Uncle Al—as if silently asking him to handle this one. That wasn't a good sign.
"Kid," his uncle said, tone suddenly calm, almost too calm, "eat first. Trust me, you're not going to want to eat later when we tell you. So better do it now."
Percy opened his mouth to protest, but the man's eyes hardened—the infamous "drill sergeant look." He had seen that look countless times, and experience had taught him that disobeying it led to immediate regret and a workout that could make grown men cry. So, he shut his mouth and did what he was told.
He shoveled the rest of his breakfast into his mouth as fast as possible. It wasn't a lot, thankfully; his uncle had already stolen half of it earlier. He gulped down the last of his orange juice and wiped his mouth with a napkin, noticing how his mom's tense face softened—just a bit—at his effort to act normal.
"Done," he said, setting the napkin down and fixing his gaze on both of them. "Now, spill."
His mom opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her lips pressed into a thin line as she looked to his uncle, clearly unwilling or unable to start. Percy frowned. His stomach twisted, but not from food.
"Tell me, kid," his uncle said finally, folding his hands on the table, "what's the one similarity between the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian Wars, and every other Ancient Greek war that the Trojan War doesn't have? And really think about it."
Percy blinked. "What does that have to do with my dad?"
"Humor me."
He sighed and leaned back, rubbing the back of his neck as he thought it through. It was one of those weird questions that sounded like it had an obvious answer but didn't. So, he went with elimination, the same way his uncle had trained him to think when tracking or solving puzzles.
"Uh… the Greek gods interfered directly in the Trojan War," he said slowly, "but not in the others?"
His uncle snapped his fingers, grinning. "Correcto," he said—using Spanish for no apparent reason—and Percy couldn't help but squint at him.
"Right," Percy muttered. "Because nothing says Ancient Greek history like speaking a Latin descendant language."
Uncle Al ignored the jab and continued, his tone shifting from teasing to oddly serious. "After the absolute disaster that was the Trojan War, Zeus, in a rare moment of showing wisdom, decided the gods should stop meddling directly in mortal affairs. Made it a law. No more divine interventions, no more playing chess with human lives." He paused, leaning forward. "But, being the gods they are, they found loopholes. They always do. See, the law said they couldn't interfere directly—but it didn't forbid them from, well, fraternizing."
Percy frowned. "Fraternizing?"
"Fucking, having sex, doing the tango, having kids," Alastor said bluntly. "Half-bloods. Demigods. Whatever term you fancy. As long as the gods didn't raise them or openly claim them, it wasn't considered interference. Convenient, eh?"
Percy's mind was doing somersaults trying to keep up. His uncle's tone was so casual it made the words feel unreal. "Okay," he said slowly, "and this has something to do with my dad because…?"
Alastor grinned in that way Percy hated—too wide, too knowing. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms like someone about to drop a nuclear truth bomb and enjoy every second of it.
"Your daddy," he said with a smirk, "is Poseidon."
Percy blinked once. Then twice.
"…The fuck?"
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Not going to lie, I got sick, but I could still move my arms and I thought, hey, I could still write, but apparently I can't. I'm unfortunately just a man, who invested points into physical damage resistance but not magic resistance. I'm feeling a bit better, do I wrote this, took me 5 days. 2k words, 5 days. I know. Hopefully when I'm better I can actually produce what I said I would. In the mean time, I did say I'm going to edit the summary/synopsis and putting the the first 3 chapters into 1, so that's what I'm going to do.
Anyway, Hope you enjoyed this. Leave a comment or a review. Give me some feedback doesn't have to be long. But something.