Jackson here. Don't know who I am? Savior of Olympus? Son of Poseidon? Yeah, that guy. Now that I've got your attention, I'll tell you something about my trip downstairs.

It's like a big joke. A joke without a punchline. I thought after Luke, it might be over. I thought Annabeth and I might get a clean break for once in our lives.

Ha, ha.

Tartarus sticks to you. That's probably putting it mildly. It's more like something inside you that you can't get rid of – like a disease taking over your body.

Look, nobody ever really gets out of the pit. Not where it counts. You'll be on the lookout forever, waiting for the next monster, waiting for the day that you won't be strong enough. You can wave goodbye to sleep.

Hey, I've always been an angry kid. Not denying it. These days, though… it's a whole nother ballgame.

Savior of Olympus. That's what you wanted me to be, right? An obedient little hero. Go kill us a monster, Perseus. Go slay us a Titan. Go fix our problems. And I listened, didn't I? Right up till the moment I fell in after my girl.

Annabeth. That was her name. Remember it. She died calling out for me. She couldn't even see. Thought that I had left her.

Oh, another neat thing about Tartarus: it makes a great training ground. All those years, I had these voices in my head, telling me to control myself, to practice restraint. It's funny how fast you forget that when the person you love dies.

There are a lot of things I've learned here, actually. Like Luke – he wasn't the bad guy we all made him out to be.

He had some pretty swell ideas, now that I think about it.

You ever heard the sound of a manticore choking on his own blood? They go slower that way than with the sword. That's a handy little trick I keep in my mind now. Sometimes, I wish they wouldn't turn to dust so fast. Sometimes I want to hear them scream a while longer.

So, yeah. You got your victory. You're welcome.

You may not like me so much when I'm fighting on the other side.