•| THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT A/N|•

•|The reason I haven't updated is because I'm insecure about this chapter. People reacted poorly on Wattpad and I lost about… 100 readers if I look at the difference in reads of chapter 27 and 28. So when that happened, I was suffering a blow to confidence and a bit of anger. By publishing now, I am taking huge leap of faith. So, please, I beg of you, please don't hate and read the ending A/N.|•

•|Also, I hope you are not skipping to the Percy POV because you miss him.|•

●| DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN MAZE RUNNER AND/OR PERCY JACKSON |●

●| PERCY #27 |●

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My blurry eyes could see the smudge of yellow hair, army green and cream. My eyes felt covered in grime and clouded with tears. I wondered what the heck was floating in the periphery of my vision. Was that colourful blob a part of the background or was it a person?

The blur got thinner and thinner until I realised it was disappearing behind a door. It was someone. Or something.

My throat clenched, a wire choking me. I gripped the bed sheets, the sweaty blankets. I tried to heave myself up, but found I couldn't move. For a heated moment, I thought I was dead. I yanked at the sheets, trying to sit up. I panicked, my fingers clawing and feet jerking.

My blood buzzed as tears of frustration boiled in my eyes, my muscles trembling.

Annabeth, my mind kept calling, like a lost and scared child. My mouth gaped open, but my feverish mind was too frantic to make sense of what I said, if I said anything at all.

I craned my neck forward as I heard a bang, making every nerve in my body scream for mercy. The blurs bended together and I imagined the twisted face of a monster. Its fangs dripped with blood, yellow eyes too big for its broad face.

I snapped my body, fingers stretching for Riptide so much that I swear if I went any further my bones would disconnect.

"Get away! I'm armed!" I threatened, my voice strangled. I knew that, with me having no freedom to defend myself and no Riptide, my threat was useless, even if I was a bloodthirsty Furie. I deformed my fingers into a three fingers claw, my biceps bulging as I tried to get it over my chest, an action that would have been useless whether or not I used it to guard my soul.

There was no hope. I was going to die. Like there was no hope for all those people and monsters I killed.

I released my muscles, my body cold already. "So how are you going to kill me, huh? You've strapped me to a bed to slice me up. I don't blame you. I deserve it. Do it now, get done with the dramatics and get done with me. Finish me." My voice was dead too, my glassy green eyes staring at the ceiling blankly.

I let my head loll to the monster, who was advancing slowly towards me. It was still indistinct, but my bitter imagination drew in the details. Blood dripping from teeth. Greedy and glistening cat eyes. White skin. Blond matted fur stacked onto a grotesque head.

I continued to stare death in the face, but not really looking. My mind dully took in the details, but it slid off my grim acceptance like slime.

The figure gained more definition as it advanced towards me. Wide grey eyes, clad with dirt coloured clothes and blond hair that was spun into a bun peered over the top of her head. The bridge of her nose was taped down with a course bandage and her arm was hanging in a sling.

"P-Percy?" A cautiously gentle voice whispered. It was fake, it was all fake. But it was real, it was all real. Everything I saw was real. But I was convinced it was a illusion, drugs eating up my brain and spitting out horrible visions.

But I felt the course fabric of bed sheets, the sting of the air, the pinch of my wrists.

Was I awake? Or had the visions completely enveloped me to a point I would hallucinate everything to the finest detail?

"Annabeth?" the name crumbed in my mouth. Was that how I sounded? So weak and vulnerable?

She came closer, her tan skin wrinkled around her eyes as she smiled with watery relief that flowed out from her eyes. She launched herself at me, her hand curving around my shoulders as if she wanted to hug me. Her disabled hand pummelled into my nauseous stomach. I lay stock still, wishing I could wrap my arms around her and rest my fingers on her spine, enjoying the warmth of her against me.

She was in my arms - well, on my chest due to these stupid ties - and she was I alive. I was alive. Everything was okay.

Except it wasn't.

I was so light with joy that the terror hit me with its full force sent me crashing into Earth and six feet deeper. My mind didn't have time to think further, my body responding by thrusting my chest out and my chin whacking into her shoulder.

"Not her too! Anyone but her! Not her, not her, not her..." I chanted, not aware of how crazy I sounded.

I squeezed my eyes, my heart squelching painfully in my chest. I didn't want to watch. Not again. Never again. I had learnt my lesson.

But I had also learnt that I can't avoid it, whether or not I closed my eyes. Even if I scooped out my eyes out. No matter what, I would always see them die.

"Percy! Percy! PERCY! JUST WAKE UP! SNAP OUT OF IT, NOW! STOP NOW! CALM THE HERA DOWN!" Her voice was high and hysterical, so much confusion and pain in it felt like it shattered both my body and ear drums.

A hand stung on my cheek. My neck gave a pop that sent heat burning down the nape of my neck.

I opened my eyes, still blown with insanity and disbelief. A sweaty palm clamped on my jaw. Annabeth jammed her face forward, making her lips crash onto my lips.

I curled my lips shut, reeling my tongue from my teeth. I wouldn't kiss her. It was all fake. It would just make everything I knew I was about to see, more real. See the Flare entered her mind, driving her over the edge and spiralling her into a death worse than Tartarus.

She continued to force her lips onto mine, her eyes were closed, her face desperate. My arms arched within its binds, stretching to shove her away, but eventually my adoration of her warmed my limbs into surrender.

If this was the last time I was going to see her, at least I had this kiss. My lips softened as we kissed slowly. I wished for my hands to be released so I could bury my grubby fingers into her hair that smelled like air freshener.

I felt a peace settle through me, a sense of rightness I had been beginning to forget. I would never forget this, her, everyone, what he had done...

I forced myself to ignore all the negative emotions that made me want to break down. I filled my mind with things I loved about her, and only her. Her laziness when it came to her hair. How she always dreamed of making something permanent. I wondered if she had thought the same thing when we became boyfriend and girlfriend. The thought made me sad.

We deepened the kiss, our souls grasping each other starvingly. My lips tingled with joy, or were it her lips that were tingling? We were so connected that I wasn't sure. Was this how love felt? Was this how love felt before it was taken away?

She pressed the heel of her hand against my cooling heart as she eased away from me. She was staring evenly into my eyes, her bottom lip between her teeth and her eyebrows scrunched up. It was the look she always had whenever she was considering whether to slap me, scream at me, cry or kiss me. I was unsure which one would come first.

She hesitantly touched my face, like she couldn't believe I could be so distraught. My pasty skin withered beneath her finger tips.

"What's wrong, Percy?" she asked, her voice low and dense. I turned my face away, not wanting to see her face, that look, not to feel that love that would bleed my heart dry. Tears oozed from beneath my spiked eyelashes.

"Nothing," I said, my voice sounding flat to my ears.

I was starting to realise that this place - that this time I had found myself with Annabeth - could be real. Because so far, no blood had been spilt, no havoc, just a deep sense of melancholy and relief... My visions usually started to get morbid after two minutes... the time spent with Annabeth now felt like forever.

It was over. My terrifying coma had ended.

"Nothing's wrong," I muttered before I started to cry quietly.

Annabeth didn't say anything.

Her fingers brushed my wrists as she unlooped the leather straps and gently kissed the inside of my wrist. She did the same to the other, covering her cold hand to relieve the swollen shadow that was left by the confines. She did the same to them all, gently humming a song I vaguely remembered from...

Camp.

It was a word that stabbed further into my heart with every pump. Along with so many other names that soon I would have so many wounds running through my heart that I would start bleeding dust.

She must have heard me splutter, must have realised that my chest was starting to heave even more irregularly.

She stopped singing after that.

Annabeth tucked her fingers under my torso and lifted me up so my head rested in her lap. It was a position she always wiggled me into when we were relaxing in a tranquil moment, usually watching the sky turn an embarrassed red, like even Zeus was feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

She rubbed irritably at the shadow of my stubble that darkened the shallow hallows of my face. She always hated beards, for a reason I was too weary to remember.

"Percy? Are you okay, Seaweed Brain? Do I need to get you some water before you shrivel up like the old Oracle of Delphi?" she joked weakly, the undercurrent of curiosity and dread making me open my eyes.

I don't know how I managed to laugh, but I did, although the effort felt like someone was hammering all the oxygen out of my chest.

I tilted my eyes to meet hers. "They're all dead, Annabeth. I watched them die. They're never coming back." My face crumpled again, crying over the deaths of everyone I loved.

I saw the Camp being burned by campers with ravenous faces.

Grover being ripped apart and eaten raw by humans with the savagery and intent of monsters.

My mother screaming as she was beaten brutally to death by her saviour, her comfort and love, Paul.

Frank being locked up in a cage, screaming 'The fire's burning my soul! It's eating me to death!'. Frank had morbidly deciding to personify the fire that burnt his stick, eating away at the charred wood by nibbling the meat off his bones.

Blood.

Madness.

Death.

The Flare.

All this horror I shared with her. Annabeth gave a watery laugh, like she couldn't believe the irony. After all we had done to keep the planet safe, to keep its inhabitants, both good and bad, safe from the bloodshed of the gods. And the second we stumble, it all crumpled into a pile of ashes and debris. Murphy's Law, the Fates' plan.

The tears bubbled up in her throat and she sobbed into my chest as we, repositioning ourselves, held each other tightly. We held each other, afraid if we let the other go, we would both fall apart.

But we fell apart anyway. We exhaled and inhaled tears, the bubble of comfort not diminishing the anguish that swept up all rational thought and replaced it with emotions that made every cell of our bodies grieve.

We had never done this before. We have never held each other and just cried, together. We mourned in turns, relying on the other to help bear the weight of sorrow. Usually, we stood back to back in times of distress rather than chest to chest.

We had never lost so much in such short period of time. Or, as I knew, a long period of time that had passed while we struggled through the Maze.

"Who did it?" Annabeth growled guttery into my drenched shirt, but it came out in a choked cough.

I pressed my trembling lips to her ear, and with a haunted whisper said: "Apollo."

If possible, her breath hitched louder and faster, each wheezing breath making me want to absorb all her pain, just so I could see her eyes without tears, her smile without bitterness, and her stance without ware.

I wrapped my arms around her, my body gently rocking as I hushed her like the gentle breaking of waves.

"Percy... When did it happen?" she asked, voice muffled.

"I can't tell you," was my reply, my emotions becoming stormy as we breached this dreaded question.

She accidently scratched my skin as she hissed that I should tell her immediately, that she needed to know. Just because she was crying like a baby didn't mean she was weak like one.

I released my selfish arms from her body, my fingers holding her shoulders tightly, gently peeling her off my chest. I was looking her straight in the eye, both of them blood shot and said something that made me want to tear down the world with my bare hands.

"It was four years ago, Annabeth. We've been in the Labyrinth for four years."

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•| Yeah. I know. It's heart breaking. |•

•| I'm going to give you a spoiler that I hope will repair your damaged relationship with my fanfiction. Nothing that Percy saw was real. It was an illusion that the Creators planted in his head in order to break both of them down so they can study their brain patterns. Just like they traumatized all the Gladers.|•

•| *lifts arms up* Let the fruit throwing begin.|•

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•| Jamie Edge |•