This idea just struck me. Let's see where it leads!

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Percy

It was all wrong here. This place... no, this wasn't where I belonged. I didn't belong in a madhouse like this one.

I've been sent to many different... places. Many boarding schools have suffered through having me as a student. Heck, I even went to military school. Now THAT was an accident to remember...

But an insane asylum? Really?

They should have known that I wasn't insane. I had PTSD (still do); that's all. I didn't suffer from schizophrenia, I'm no pyromaniac (like SOMEONE I could mention [Leo]), I don't feel mad urges to strangle innocent people with certain characteristics (unless they're monsters, but then they aren't innocent)... what did I do to deserve this torture?

It was the nightmares, it had to be. Those damn nightmares that wouldn't go away... They used to go away. They used to stay away, dormant, always there but not overpowering. It was different now, though. Now there wasn't someone else keeping them away. Now my mom and stepdad were gone and couldn't comfort me. Now Annabeth wasn't here to keep the fear away.

That point in my thought process was usually where I broke down into screams, shivering and moaning between each great expulsion of breath. Annabeth wasn't there. I would collapse and freeze up or thrash and kick. Whatever I did, it guaranteed damage to something, whether that something be objects around me or the floor or myself or those around me.

... Okay. So maybe thinking I was crazy wasn't that much of a stretch.

Where had Annabeth gone? When did they realize she was gone? Why was she gone? Who had done this? What could I do? How did I even let this happen in the first place? These questions haunted me. I often muttered my answers aloud, losing sense of everything around me. I retreated into my own world, a world where everything could make sense if I searched hard enough. A world where no odd glances affected me. My own little world...

Maybe I really was crazy.

Still... I certainly wasn't as crazy as some of the inmates- oh, sorry, patients- here at Herald's Asylum.

There was the old man from Kansas who had lost his leg in a car accident. He'd also jostled his brains a bit and from then on thought he was a war hero (which he was) from the Trojan War (which he wasn't).

There was Mildred Greene, who had somehow, through "perfectly logical reasoning," convinced herself she was a tree and refused to eat and had to be "watered" and hooked up to several IVs all the time.

There was the little boy in the 2nd Ward who tried to kill his own parents because they had "fire for hair and snake eyes." Though I couldn't really blame the kid for that one. I've met my fair share of people with fire hair and snake eyes. I suppose that alone was enough to put me in this place, too, even though I actually wasn't insane for seeing that stuff. One of the hazards of being half Greek god.

This kid was different, though. His parents were redheads with green eyes, both of them. He had blonde hair and brown eyes. He just felt an inexplicable urge to kill people with red hair, or green eyes, or both. Not monsters, just regular people. Completely crazy. That's what he was. Totally insane.

However, even the craziest of the crazies were said to have nothing on the golden spirit from the 15th Ward. The 15th Ward was reserved for the incurable and really awful cases. The golden spirit was said to be the worst of the worst. It was violent, it was terrifying, it was impossible. It was unstoppable... almost. They'd restrained it, but it had taken ten of the burly "doctors" to hold it down so they could keep him from hurting people.

No one knew what "it" looked like. Just that it was gold. Was it a boy? Was it a girl? Was it even human? No one would say anything.

"Just be careful, kiddo," said one employee. "If you're lucky, you'll never lay eyes on it. The Devil, that one is. Nearly pulled my arm off once. We've never even been able to examine the thing. Got it locked up for good."

I tried to take comfort from that. If I was lucky- and that was a really big "if" right there- I would never have to suffer through seeing it. I would never know the terror of witnessing the golden spirit having a fit, thrashing and kicking, wild and feral, worse than any monster I'd ever faced because it was probably human and I wouldn't be able to do anything, not really. Dangerous.

If I was lucky, I'd never see it.

Of course, I'm never lucky.

After a while, I was deemed incurable. I wasn't responding to treatment. If anything, it was getting worse. My nightmares became night terrors. I was moved to the 13th Ward.

After destroying half of the 13th Ward in a fit of terror, I was placed in the 15th Ward. An incurable and awful case, worse than the Trojan hero, the tree lady, the boy who saw some people as monsters and felt the urge to destroy them. They had hope. They might recover. My hope was slowly waning.

When I nearly killed a nurse, thinking she was Gaea, I was locked up. For good. I was just too dangerous.

That first night was agony. The nightmares were even more torturous than usual, as I was restrained by leather bands. I couldn't fight the monsters in my head when I was restrained. I was trapped, slaughtered over and over again by my worst nightmares, all while Annabeth called out to me from the distance.

When I finally found Annabeth, I discovered, to my horror, that her face was a blur. I no longer remembered what she looked like.

I awoke, gasping and sobbing, desperately trying to pull my arms out of the restraints, calling Annabeth's name. My body was drenched in sweat. I was shaking, even as I calmed down.

"You okay?"

I started, looking desperately around to see who had spoken.

"Hey, quit jerking around! I can't free you if you're moving like that!"

I froze. The voice... it was rough, unused, scratchy. Like the owner hadn't spoken properly in a while. A... male voice. Not very old, not very young. Just... a male voice. Pure and simple.

A heard a quick snap, then another, then two more. I was free.

Immediately I sat straight up, jerking my head towards the voice.

I don't know what I was expecting. A doctor? A mad scientist? A ninja? A rescuer? Well, it certainly wasn't what I got.

The boy was about half a foot shorter than me, sturdily built and evidently in shape. He wore a black jacket, tight fitting black leather pants, platform boots, and white gloves.

What really struck me, though, was his hair and eyes. Golden, both of these attributes, like the sun. Even his skin was a light shade of the color. And I was in the 15th Ward. There were only four other occupants of the 15th Ward. None of them could possibly have this golden appearance.

The golden spirit.

He smiled, a strange half smile that looked relatively sane, but there was a look in his eye that I recognized from my own eyes. Cracked, like a broken mirror. The combination smile and cracked eyes made him look... dangerous. There was no other word for it.

The golden spirit held out his left hand. "Nice to meet ya," he said indifferently. "Name's Wraith."

End of Chapter 1

. . . Well, that was fun.

That was an experiment, people! But. . . I think I'll continue it. Who knows? Maybe it'll become something good.

The word of the day is SOMETHING I'M NOT GONNA CHECK RIGHT NOW!

Love ya! lulu