Welcome to my first one-shot! This short stuff is written for Worldwide Suicide Prevention day, as said in the summary. This story deals with love and loss and suicide, so read at your own risk. I'm not saying there are some unbearable scenes here, just...

Anyways, I wish you get the message of my story!

Way to Elysium

"Aw, Annabeth, aren't you tired of this place? We've gone here for like, a bajillion times, for gods' sake." Percy whined as he and Annabeth went to sit down on a bench that had this huge tree behind it. Annabeth chuckled lightly, playfully punching his arm.

"Of course, Seaweed Brain," she said in between laughs before they finally sat down. "The tree here is where you engraved the initials of our name, right?"

Percy looked back on the tree, where he could clearly spot the letters carved into its rough body: PJ then below it was an infinity symbol and beneath the infinity symbol were the letters AC. Seeing it made Percy laugh. It was a year ago – when he and Annabeth were sixteen – when he carved those things into that old tree. It was on the day Annabeth finally became his official girlfriend. Percy could still remember how happy he was during that time.

Annabeth and Percy had known each other since they were twelve, and back then Annabeth viewed him as a stupid boy who used sarcasm as a defense mechanism (which was sort of true). Percy remembered arguing with her almost all the time, but without Annabeth knowing, that stupid, sarcastic boy was falling for her…and hard. So when they finally became a couple, he was so happy he dragged Annabeth to Central Park to their first date and etched letters and an infinity symbol to the tree that was as old as the park, if he might add.

A stupid 12 year old grin spread across his face as he turned to look at Annabeth. He stared straight into her eyes which were as deep grey as the heavy clouds, and held both of her hands. "You know, Wise Girl, I think this spot here is our paradise. This is where our infinity started. And I want our infinity to continue even in the afterlife – in another paradise where we are together."

"You finally said something sensible, Seaweed Brain,"

"Yes. Yes I have." Percy grabbed her waist and pulled her close, and kissed her with such love that he almost believed they were actually infinite. The kiss lasted longer, and Percy had more time to think about this young love that he and Annabeth shared.

Yes, he had fallen for this girl so hard. He had fallen for those perfect golden curls that tumbled down her shoulders, he had fallen for those grey eyes that shone like the brightest star in the night sky, and yes, he had fallen for those smart mouth of hers which in the beginning pissed him off to no end but suddenly had become endearing.

They had infinity now – in that place they preferred to call their earthly paradise. And he refused to believe that it could be broken. Yes, even in death they would find each other and live together in Elysium.

They broke apart, breathing heavily from the prolonged kiss. But they were grinning like idiots, and no one would have understood why.

"I love you, Annabeth," he spoke softly into her ear. A giggle came out from Annabeth's lips, and she leaned close to his ear, too.

"I love you more, Percy." She whispered.

And at that moment, Annabeth Ridley Chase and Percy Jackson were infinite.

Percy sat up immediately in the middle of the night. Beads of sweat traced their way to his neck. There was a wild look in his sea-green eyes. Why? Dreaming about everything only made everything worse. He couldn't sleep without having to remember…

She was gone.

The dreams would never bring her back to him. The infinity…the infinity was broken…it was broken way too early. He clutched his blanket tightly to his chest, shaking his head to try and clear his head.

Nothing was clear.

Everything was smudged, and blurry, and goddamit everything was unfair! Percy clicked the light open and breathed heavily. Then his phone rang and he quickly grabbed it – for a moment thinking it was Annabeth calling. When he found out it was only Rachel, his friend in high school, who was calling, he turned the phone off and leaned back against the wall.

And then he remembered again.

She was gone.

He remembered being at the funeral, wondering why it happened. He remembered feeling so empty and unable to cry during the funeral and then almost dying of sobbing when he got home. When people grieve, they require time. Some people might get over after a couple of weeks, some months, and some a full year. But there are people who never got to move on, and Percy believed he could be one of those people. After all, how could he get over the death of the only love he had?

It's been two weeks now, since her death…and Percy had yet to get over the shock. It got harder and harder each day, when he is forced to open his eyes and drink in the reality when he does. And every day was a nightmare. He would wake up to hearing the news talking about a seventeen year old girl who jumped off a building, he would go to school and find everyone staring and whispering about him, and the newspapers' headlines weren't so comforting themselves.

Seventeen year old girl jumped off from Cerulean Industries building. Reason for suicide still unknown.

And Percy didn't know why, too. Annabeth Chase would never do those sorts of things. No, she just couldn't. They swore infinity together, didn't they? In fact, she was the one who dragged him into actually making a vow together. Why would she break it first?

Percy was, for the millionth time for the past two weeks, was angry, and confused, and pissed at particularly no one. Maybe he was mad at the world, or Annabeth, or himself. And maybe he was mad at himself for not stopping her. He spent two weeks on rewinding the time Annabeth was alive. He kept on dreaming about the last time they went to the Central Park. Heck, he even remembered that last call with her, no matter how painful it was. That call was an hour before…before she…before she slipped out of his grasp and went to their sworn Elysium ahead of him.

And the most painful of all, he never understood why.

The night she called, everything seemed fine. And he regretted not knowing that everything was not fine. Now he wished he could bring back time and undo it all.

And then Percy Jackson went into the phase again: staring, and thinking, and not aware of his surroundings anymore. He didn't even know that he was ripping the blanket off already. He was going off farther into the dreamscape, where he was just thinking, and rewinding, and regretting everything.

Sometimes he wished he would just not wake up. The phase had been going on for almost two weeks now, and it was draining him. The feeling of loss was always in him, and he knew at that time that nothing could take it away from him.

"Percy! Oh my gods, what are you doing?"

The shout made Percy snap back to reality. He jerked his head towards the door where his mother, brunette Sally Jackson, was standing over, watching him in horror. Percy stared at his hands and realized the blanket was ripping in half. He immediately released it from his hand while Sally hurried over and hugged him. Percy was astonished that he just sat on the bed, wide eyed.

"Honey…I know it's hard," his mom spoke in between sobs. She was the most pained person of all to see him like that. But she understood him. She had also experienced losses, and Percy was amazed that his mom really stood up and stayed strong. Yet…there were times she spoke like her. And Percy would suddenly remember her. And…

"Mom, I don't know what to do anymore," Percy admitted, a batch of tears breaking out from his usual bright sea green eyes. "It's like I'm in a black hole and everything is just the same wherever I go. But then I couldn't get out of it."

Sally held on tighter to him. She ran her hand down his raven black hair and comforted him with optimistic words. But Percy could tell his mom was also trying not to break down. She had always treated Annabeth as her real daughter.

"Don't worry, Percy. Whatever has caused her to make her decision, I am sure she's happy now and down in Elysium, watching us." She said.

"But that's the hardest thing, Mom, to know that she's there right now while she isn't even graduating from high school yet. I don't want to lose her, Mom, I honestly don't."

"I know, honey. The hardest part of dealing with loss is letting go and moving on." She explained, pulling apart from her son and staring into his eyes. "But eventually, you'll find yourself free from the pain."

The next day, Percy got off early and went back to the root of the memories – Central Park. Somehow, the advice of his mom urged him into going back and trying to let go of it, one last time. It was Saturday, so he had free time. He casually walked over the bench with his hands in his pockets. As he walked closer, old memories started to resurface. They weren't really old. In fact they only happened a few weeks ago. Only everything was starting to fade from his memories. Now they were starting to come back to him, and he started missing the times when he and Annabeth would walk around and talk. He laughed. Now he wished he could bring back even the simplest of times.

Yet he couldn't.

Annabeth Ridley Chase was gone – dead.

Percy brushed off some leaves before sitting on the bench. Then he turned to see the tree again. The letters were still there, as if nothing bad happened, as if Annabeth was still alive and their infinity wasn't broken. PJ, infinity, and AC didn't seem to connect right now, he thought.

And the realization broke him, broke him more and more inside. Every time he realized that the one person he loved most was gone, the hole in his heart kept growing…

Then the phase started.

He didn't even know how he got there, only he found himself before her tomb again. Percy knew that the phase was getting worse, and when time passed he would never be able to control it. But he let it. He let the phase destroy him. Annabeth made her way to Elysium, he needed to go with her.

The next thing he knew, he was kneeling down before her grave, and crying his eyes out.

xox

Rachel wasn't the least surprised when she found her friend at the cemetery. She wasn't surprised that he was kneeling there either. She walked solemnly towards him, dropping the flower she brought before the grave, and knelt down beside Percy.

"Hey," she spoke, but Percy did not seem to notice her. He was only staring, and staring with those empty sea-green eyes that made Rachel frown and worry. She saw what he was staring at: the letters engraved to the stone: Annabeth Ridley Chase. Rachel understood why Percy was like that. To lose your childhood best friend and girlfriend to a suicide you never understood will kill you slowly inside. Percy must have been going crazy trying to find out why Annabeth did it. Even Rachel didn't know.

After all, Annabeth Chase was the smartest student in Goode High. Her grades never got below ninety-four, and her parents were kind and loving, she had good friends and the best boyfriend a girl could ever have, plus she was born into a fairly wealthy family. What could be the reason?

Now, the people she left were wondering. Crying. Mourning over her death time and time again. Just like Percy Jackson.

"It's funny that she ended up having her name etched again," Percy said finally, although his eyes were still fixed on the letters. Rachel flinched upon hearing her best friend's voice. They'd been at school for two weeks but he never uttered a something more than 'Yes' and 'No' and 'I don't know'. "I once did that with our names to a tree, and I guess she's just continuing it." He continued, with a frown forming on his forehead.

"Percy…"

"Mom said I should let go, but it turns out I couldn't. Y'know, Rachel? The hardest thing about this loss is waking up every morning and looking at my phone to see if she'd texted me but remembering that she's gone. It's…"

A single tear slid down Rachel's cheeks. She shared Percy's sorrow. Annabeth Chase was her girl best friend. They used to talk about how funny the other girls were trying to catch the boys, they used to shop to death just for the sake of experiencing it, and even Rachel couldn't believe that she was gone all of a sudden.

Rachel wiped the tear from her cheek. She had to stay strong for Percy, if she didn't then who would? Then she noticed Percy's odd behavior. He tackled the gravestone and clutched it tightly while whispering things like 'you couldn't be gone' and 'tell me why'. Rachel immediately sprang to her feet and grabbed Percy away from the stone – to no avail. The flowers she brought were crushed by Percy's knees. It was a terrible sight.

"Percy, what in the gods' name are you doing?!" she yelled while she tried to pull him. Percy shook his head vehemently, and that could have been the last time she ever had a normal conversation with him.

"Annabeth, tell me why! Why did you go?" Percy demanded. He was flailing and fighting against her that Rachel gave up and only watched everything with horrified eyes.

Then a series of rambling started.

Percy Jackson was losing himself. It was as if something possessed him. It was terrible, real, real terrible. He was aware that his best friend Rachel Dare was there, shouting his name, trying to jar him back to the reality, but then he realized that this was the reality.

The reality was that Annabeth Ridley Chase was under that stone, and she would never come back. The reality was that he was going damn crazy.

Rachel gasped. "Percy! Stop that!" She forcibly grabbed his left hand and didn't let go of it. He found out he was biting his fingers, unaware. "Oh gods, Percy, goddamit! Get yourself together. You know now how Annabeth's death impacted you. Now, seeing you like this is the same to us!" Rachel stopped abruptly to breathe. "They found a note, Percy. From Annabeth."

Percy looked up at Rachel – the note getting his full attention. He slowly let go of the gravestone. "A…note?" he asked. Rachel dug through her handbag and fished out a small yellow paper and handed it over to him.

"The police found it in her room. It was stuck on one of the pages of Annabeth's book. We don't know what to make of it, but I figured you could."

Percy's hands were shaking as he gripped the paper. There was Annabeth's final goodbye to them, and Percy was both nervous and pained. Then finally, he read the note.

'We've always dreamed of going to a paradise in the afterlife together, remember that, Percy? Well, I just took the shortest way there.' I'm sorry, Percy, that I have to go without you. You might be asking why, but some things are better left unexplained. If you see this I hope you know that I love you. You might think that our infinity is broken, but to me its not. I will love you even in death. And I want you to know that I lost my way to the earthly paradise. So I went to another paradise instead. Percy, all I want to say really is I love you. I love you a thousand times. ~Your Wise Girl, Annabeth

He expected tears to come out. They didn't. Instead he was left feeling so hollow, and empty, and unsure. Reading Annabeth's final note to him was harder than he thought. The letters floated on the paper – and Percy was positive it was not because of dyslexia. He was just so…dizzy…from it all. His chest hurt like he had been stabbed, his eyes were weary, and everything was cold and dark.

Percy Jackson wanted to rest.

When people grieve, they take time. No one knows when it will end. Some might just cry a little and move on, some might take months and years to do it, but there are some people who have been impacted so much that they never got to move on. It just shows that there is no paradise in death, only grief. And the only way to a real Elysium is to live your life to the fullest because after death? There's none.

'We've always dreamed of going to a paradise in the afterlife together, remember that, Percy? Well, I just took the shortest way there.'

Percy Jackson started screaming.

xox

I hope you got the message. I purposely didn't explain Annabeth's reason because I want you all to know that not all suicides are explained. In fact, some of them do not want to be explained. Just like Annabeth here. And Percy has to deal with the knowledge that Annabeth left without giving him a reason. It ended kinda bitter, right? That's because I'm also trying to show the reality that not all people who experienced the loss would get over so fast. Some, like Percy, get depressed and anxious and pained.

This story is dedicated to all of you out there who suffers the excruciating emotional pain. If you want someone to talk to, I'm here. You can always PM me. Maybe the purpose of me writing this is to tell everyone that we cannot find peace in death. Yes, it might be hell here on earth, but dying would be worse than that. There will be people who grieve, and just like Percy said: 'there is no paradise in death, only grief' and 'the only way to a real Elysium is to live your life to the fullest because after death? There's none.'

Thaks for taking the time to read! And remember, stay strong! There are people who love you so don't give up just yet.

Love,

CodeNameWiseGirl