Percy felt like he was under the effect of a complex illusion. There were lots of things that were perfectly clear in his head, and then the very next moment, everything was strange.
He remembered the cold steel when his back was pressed against it, the feel of his sword in his right hand, and both of his arms tightly wrapped around Annabeth.
But the very next moment there was nothing with even a remote semblance of that feeling.
He vaguely remembered what had happened, but could not be too clear about that.
He remembered feeling light-headed, his arms giving off a translucent glow, and the horrendous feeling of his arms passing right through Annabeth like she was a fragment of his imagination.
No, it was more like he had two pairs of hands, one pair was still holding onto Annabeth, her back pressed against his chest. He could still smell her, or more like, the ash that covered both of them.
One pair of his hands was holding Annabeth, and the other one was turned upward, he was inspecting those, as if this was the first pair of hands that he had ever seen.
It was a strange feeling. And, the feeling was growing stranger and stranger.
He brought those shadowy hands of his closer to his face and tilted his head sideways to look closely.
And, then he was falling to his left.
What?!
He looked to his right reflexively. But, he was there too.
He tried reaching out to his body, his real body. Not what he was right now.
With a surprising speed and lightness, he was next to his body, but half of his body protruded right out of Annabeth.
It is not her. I am the one who this is happening to?
He looked closely at his body, and there was no movement. He could see Annabeth's chest rise and fall slowly, but his showed no movement.
Was he dead?!
No, he saw his fingers twitch just now.
He was alive. But, he was strange.
"Annabeth. Annabeth! Wake up!!"
His voice was left unheard. But, he was not too disappointed. He was alive and Annabeth was too.
When she wakes up she will fix this… All I need to do is wait.
He tried to look at himself, or his new body that was floating.
Yes, he was floating.
It was more like hovering a few inches above the ground, but it was still floating. Just like ghosts in the movies do.
Well, it is not too bad.
Now, Percy had lived a long life. Percy had done things that no one else in the world could even imagine.
They won't even dream of those things.
He had even taken his girlfriend out on a date to the literal pits of hell. They had eaten dragon stew, had drunk fire, danced around curses, stolen vampire legs, and even rode on the shoulders of a giant. It was Titan. But, it still counts. And, all of this was in hell.
Sure there were some rough times, but Percy was as resourceful of a boyfriend as a girlfriend could ever ask for.
A perfect gentleman.
Also, he had lots of regrets in life. Not the kind of regrets that people have that they refer to as mid-life crises or something. Or anything along the line that would make him want to end himself.
He might have committed some suicidal actions, but he himself was not suicidal.
The gist of the things that he should not have said that "This is not too bad". The very action in itself was suicidal.
He shouldn't have said that.
But it was too late yet again. Just like all the times he had raised red flag himself, and just moments later had suffered for it.
He suffered this time as well.
Ahh…
One moment, he was floating, and the next moment he was being rocked left and right. Everything was spinning.
The elevator was dark, yet he started to see stars, he was feeling that dizzy.
And, then there was dark once more.
Splash!
A wet splash, and then there was cold.
He was in the water. That much was pretty easy to guess.
And, the second thought was that he was drowning. The water that he was in was dragging him deeper, and he was having trouble breathing.
It was not that he could not breathe at all, but it was getting more and more difficult. The deeper he was dragged down, the more water control was being receded from him.
The hell?!
He flailed his arms and legs wildly, but to no avail. His head grew heavier. And, then he saw a large-toothed whale.
An orca.
With the last straw of strength he had left within him, he pointed at the orca.
'You, come here!'
He commanded. The orca did not move for a while. And then it flipped over on its back and dived lower in the water.
Percy then felt a heavy thump on his back, his back bent backward with the force. He was approaching the surface water quickly.
It is not the way I wanted. But, thank you, dear orca. I will even even give you a beautiful name and some roasted fish as gift.
They were still moving towards the surface rather quickly.
Percy drew his hand back, and patted the orca on the head.
'Buddy, I know you are trying your best, but slow down a bit.'
Percy really wanted his new and big friend to slow down, but it did not.
Breaking through the water, Percy was flung high in the air. And, the he inhaled deeply, for the first time since he was in the water.
He looked to his sides. There was water for as far as he could see. He was in a sea. And, it was night.
And the he started falling down. He looked down at the approaching water to calculate just when he will need to hold his breath. But…
"Y-You damned fish!"
The orca that had flung him in the air was down there waiting for him. Now, his heart would have swelled with joy had there been a sea and lots of sea animals awaiting for him out there just after he escaped from Tartarus.
But, things were too different from his dream of a prodigal return. The sea that awaited him was trying to drown him and the sea animal was also there, just with its mouth open to chow down his body.
"I am no fish food?!"
He turned his entire body sideways and missed the mouth of the orca by quite a bit. And as quick as he could, he tried swimming away from the cursed orca.
But, the foul beast gave chase. It dived down into the sea and once again pushed his body high in the air from downside. Once again, turned to dive away from the orca, but this time its mouth turned alongside him.
Suddenly there was a cold feel of air, and the fire blew out of the orca's mouth.
Percy was extremely surprised. But left with no other choice, Percy brought his knees to his chest, and somersaulted down in the sea, barely avoiding the flames of flamethrower-equipped-orca.
'I wanted to give him roasted fish, but this thing dares try to roast him.'
If he had any control on this sea, he would have thrown a hundred hammer-head sharks at the fire-orca by now.
Percy tried to exert all his strength on the water around him to try to propel him forward, and away from the mutant fish that spew out fire like it was a water jet.
He had tested it out himself, in the Camp Half-Blood lake, he could swim faster than any Olympic swimming champion. But, now his speed was slow. It wasn't really slow. He was still faster than any kid his age could even dream of.
And then he had a reminiscence of all the weird things that had happened to him to him in the span of only a few minutes.
He was a ghost. He did not have his water powers. He was in a sea in which he was drowning. The water of the sea was strange. And, unlike any other sea where he could easily find out his current location, there was no way of doing that now.
It was the sea that was the root of the problem.
And not to forget, there was a fire-spitting whale that wanted to chow down on Percy Jackson's roasted flesh.
'Guh! Bastard stop now.'
He turned sharply to the right to steer clear of the way and escape the whale's hungry maw.
"To hell with this!?!"
It was not the first time he had fought on the sea. Although, things had ended not in his favour every time he fought on the sea, this was his turn to break that record series oof failures.
He stopped swinging his feet and stretched his arms wide to come to a halt. And, then, rushed back in the direction of the whale.
The whale did not stop with its pursuit and kept on moving his way, seemingly even faster as Percy was headed in the direction of the whale.
Just like that, there was a distance of less than 10 meters between them. The whale opened its mouth to swallow Percy whole.
Exerting all the influence that he could over the water around him, he used the water as a foothold to jump I the air, right above the whale's head, and then…
Bam!
Percy socked the whale on its snout as hard as he could. And, the again, and just one more time.
Bam! Bam!
The whale buckled strongly under him, it was thrashing wildly. Either out of pain, or to shake Percy into sea and gain another chance to make seafood out of him.
Percy clung to its back tightly.
After few more attempts of trying to shake Percy off of its back, the whale stopped at once.
'Is it calm now?'
-Ehh, No!
With Percy on its back, the whale dove down into the sea, and kept on swimming deeper and deeper.
The deeper they went, the more Percy understood about the sea.
The 'Sea' was not a sea like Percy had ever been in. The better way to put it into words would be that this particular sea was not under the Spear of Influence of his father. Also, it was under the control of someone else.
Even in the Sea of Monsters, Percy had been able to use his Water abilities to some extent, despite it being some-what out of Poseidon's influence.
But here, Percy's control was less than what it was in the Sea of Monsters.
However, by no means did it mean that his powers were not working. It was just too slow.
Perhaps, that was why he could breathe in the sea for the first few minutes when the whale had dove down in the sea. With time, the pressure on his chest kept on increasing, and he knew that he would not be able to keep up with this much longer.
The whale under him was no buttery and cute flower-fish. It was monster just like the ones that liked to kill and eat fellow demigods like him.
Percy could have killed this orca-like monster by now, not easily but surely. However, then he would be left stranded in the idle of a place that he did not know, which ultimately was a sea that Percy had no control over.
That in particular was the most ironic thing for Percy.
Give it to his bad luck, the monster was his only companion.
He was still holding on the whale, but he knew that if left be he would be the one at a disadvantage.
He was holding on to the back of whale with what could barely be called a grip. And, Gods! This whale monster was slippery.
An idea came to his mind. A foolish idea. But, still one.
He slowly slid back on the whale, away from the white bloated patched that were right above its eyes, by a length of nearly four arms.
He kept on sliding his hands over the surface of the whale's back searching for the thing that could perhaps be his salvation, and he found it eventually.
The Blowhole.
Now, what Percy just did was not something that he could ever be proud of. If the seafolk was let to know about what he just did, Percy will be left aside as only the Bum-prince of the sea, one who liked abusing sea creatures.
Also, it could even be phrased as an act of animal cruelty.
When the three judges of Underworld would judge his soul, this act will surely be counted as one of the most heinous crimes committed by him.
Percy pushed his hand in the blowhole of the whale monster, and started scratching at the muscles on the lower end of the blowhole.
Whheeiiooooo…
A shrill cry rang out in the depths of the sea. And the whale started to buckle fiercely, even more so that the first time.
It was tossing and turning, flapping its fins to ease its pain. But, Percy did not stop.
Then he pulled on the sides of the Blowhole with all his might, and the whale started to move towards the surface with astonishing speed.
Percy knew exactly what the whale was attempting to do. It was trying to get him off his back by slamming him into the sea under its entire weight. But Percy did not let that happen.
Just when the whale was approaching the sea surface, Percy pushed down on the muscles of the Blowhole, and the whale slowed down.
A few more pulls and pushes, and he was breathing again.
On the back of a monster, in the midst of sea, the Son of Poseidon felt lost.
"Tch… This stupid rascal created many problems for me. Now, I will put your stupid hide to some good work."
Under the vestige of the stranded Son of Poseidon, the whale creature trembled in fear.