A Crown of Golden Leaves: A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

Caput XII: Into the Dark

"I dreamed I was a butterfly, flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?" – Zhuangzi

Caput XII: Into the Dark

FOR the first time in years, Percy dreamt of Rachel.

No, shut up— it wasn't like that.   It was actually one of those weird dreams, the ones when everything seemed to be right in front of you, and yet at same time everything was far away.

He had been having these types of dreams since he was a child, but he wasn't entirely sure if they even were dreams.  He had dreamt of Rachel's death months before it even happened, and he used to dream of Annabeth when he had been a child, before his mater drowned and his dreams had been replaced by nightmares. 

He had forgotten about them, the dreams he used to have for over a year, until... until he had been flogged for defending her, so she wouldn't have to take the fall. Annabeth had been standing over him that night, and he had remembered them then.  She had been in the same position as the Annabeth in one of his dreams. Her eyes had been worried and her face pale, and he had said the same thing both times.

Stay with me, please.

He hadn't understood it when he was younger; he had just passed it off as a strange dream.  It had been easy to think it was nothing too; after all, he had quite a lot of strange dreams.  Still did, as a matter of fact... 

Like this one.

He looked at the woman more carefully.  She was walking into the white mist that was descending upon the clearing, coming from somewhere ahead of him.  She had to be the woman who had been his best friend and fiancé.  Her red hair was still that same shade that reminded him of fire, and her hips rolled in the same tantalizing way as she strutted away from him.

"Rachel?" he called out, his voice strangely hoarse.  She looked over her shoulder, green eyes bright, and smiled at him.  It was a sad sort of smile though, the one she gave him just before her head had fallen back, and her eyes had glazed over. 

That was when he began to run after her, his heart leaping into his throat. Was she still alive? Maybe this wasn't a dream.  Maybe he could save her, unlike last time.

The dryads seemed to decide they had a personal vendetta against him.  A branch scratched at his face when he ran past it, and roots seemed to pop out of the ground.  He pushed them aside with his arms, trying to keep Rachel in sight as she kept gliding through the forest, her red hair swaying across her back.

Something sharp suddenly caught his back, and a scream tore its way out of his throat.  He stumbled to the ground, instinctively reaching behind to touch his back; it seemed to throb. Now, normally, it wouldn't have caused him so much pain, but it had caught him by surprise and the wounds he got from that flogging.

Something warm and thick welled up on his hands and he swore. They had reopened again.

He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. In, out, in, out, he chanted to himself, trying to stop his heart from thumping so hard. He needed oxygen so that he could think clearly. His back was bleeding, which meant he had reopened the wounds he acquired from that flogging.

Which was Annabeth's fault, he thought, then pushed it away. It wasn't her fault. Well, it was, but he didn't blame her. He shouldn't blame her. She still felt horrible about it.

Okay, he told himself. The pain kept coming in waves, which was new sensation. Generally, it hurt immediately (like, a lot a lot) and then gradually eased up, or it was numb at first, then it began to hurt. The pain flared up, then went numb, then flared up again. It really, really hurt.