??? POV
The sky was ablaze—not in the way of a gentle sunrise or a painter's romanticized dusk, but with a consuming, ravenous inferno that devoured the heavens themselves. It pulsed with unholy flames, writhing and convulsing like a living thing, a beast tearing at the fabric of existence. And yet, despite the fire's omnipresence, there was no warmth—only a chilling emptiness that gnawed at the bones, an absence of comfort that made the cold all the more unbearable.
Below, the sea lay frozen in a cruel, glassy expanse, its surface jagged and treacherous, stretching endlessly to the unknown horizon. It was not the ice of winter's gentle embrace, but something far worse—so cold it burned, so cruel it seared through flesh like molten metal. To touch it was to invite agony, to challenge fate itself to strip away one's humanity piece by piece.
The wind howled, carrying with it the tormented cries of forgotten souls, their voices lost in the gales that ripped across the frozen wasteland. It was an ancient wind, older than memory, filled with a fury beyond reason as if the very breath of the world had been turned against those who dared stand upon this cursed land. It was not a whispering breeze nor the roar of a storm—it was a force, a wrathful lament that scoured everything in its path, erasing, consuming, obliterating.
And the stars—ah, the stars. They did not shine with their usual celestial grace, nor did they wink down from the heavens like playful guardians of the night. No, they bled. Every twinkle, every flicker, was not a glimmer of light but a slow, deliberate death. Their illumination dripped like venom from the sky, staining the void with their sorrow. The droplets of their agony fell upon the land like cursed rain, each drop laced with ancient malice, carrying a punishment more severe than death itself. Those unfortunate enough to feel the star-blood upon their skin would suffer—not for a moment, not for a lifetime, but for eternity, bound in torment until the end of all things.
This was not a place where life thrived, nor where time flowed in any conventional sense. This was The End. The palisade of existence. The border between what was and what would never be again. It was a place that should not exist, yet it did.
It was the end of the world. The last threshold. The conclusion to all things.
And something stirred within it.
A lone figure stood at the edge, where the world ceased to be and the abyss yawned wide before him. It was a gaping chasm in reality itself, the final threshold before oblivion. The abyss did not merely exist; it watched back. It whispered in voices long forgotten, in tongues older than the stars. It pulsed, not with light, but with an eerie anti-light, an inverted glow that seemed to consume rather than illuminate. And he simply stared into it, unflinching, as if daring it to take him.
His eyes—ever-shifting between an ethereal violet and a blood-red glow—betrayed no fear, only a distant, almost resigned curiosity. The wind howled against his form, tearing at the tattered remains of his long, war-torn cape, but he did not move. He did not waver. The cane in his right hand, gripped firmly yet without tension. Its silver linings and golden trims had once gleamed with pride, yet now, they dulled with age. His gloved hand, riddled with scars, curled slightly over the handle as if it had known both the gentle grasp of wisdom and the merciless grip of battle.
A mask, sculpted in the likeness of a crow, concealed his face—a haunting visage of a creature caught between life and death, between knowing and unknowing. Behind it, his silver hair flowed wildly in the relentless wind, strands whipping like lost threads of fate unraveling from the loom of destiny. His aristocratic suit hung on his frame like the remnants of a forgotten past, an echo of an identity once held with certainty.
And behind him, mere steps away, stood another.
A boy.
The same silver hair. The same posture. A reflection—yet distorted, incomplete. Different.
The boy's stance was uncertain, shifting between the strength of resolve and the hesitation of doubt. His gaze, though mirroring the man's in color, lacked the same weight, the same depth of knowing. Where the man stood as an immovable force against the abyss, the boy seemed caught in its pull, teetering on the edge of something far more dangerous.
One had lost his way.
The other had lost himself.
The wind carried their silence, stretching the moment into something infinite. One did not turn to the other. One did not call out. There were no words to be spoken, no explanations to be given. Only the abyss, and the two who stood upon its edge, waiting.
For a moment, the boy hesitated. Not because he lacked the strength to step forward, but because something far deeper, far older, had rooted him in place. A cold, unshakable fear—the kind that did not come from battle or bloodshed, but from the grim realization that the figure before him was no mere man.
He was staring into the ruin of what he could become.
The man was more than a warrior, more than a survivor. He was something carved out of suffering, shaped by endless sacrifice, and hollowed by time itself. He was The Man Who Grieves—not just for those he lost, but for those he had taken with his own hands. Not in cruelty. Not in hatred. Solely in mercy. A mercy that had become his curse, a kindness that had turned to rot in his soul. He had spared them suffering, yes—but who had spared him?
He was The Man Who Severed His Own Fate, the one who had walked into prophecy not as a hero, but as a casualty waiting to happen. He was the one destined to stand alone at the end of all things, the one burdened with the weight of the world's ruin and worse—the one who had lost himself long before the final toll had rung.
The world had named him many things. Savior. Monster. Betrayer. Martyr. He had been all of them, and yet none of them had been truly his.
He was the man who had died a thousand deaths and still kept walking.
And the boy feared him—not just because he knew what this man had done, but because he understood, deep in his bones, that this was no stranger.
This was him.
A reflection cast forward in time. A warning etched in flesh and shadow. A whisper of what will be, should he falter.
The abyss called to them both, but only one had learned how to answer.
The man, standing tall against the howling winds, turned his head ever so slightly, as if he had known the boy was there all along.
And in that moment, the boy wondered—was he staring at his future, or had the future finally turned to stare back at him?
"Who are you?" the boy finally asked, voice barely above a whisper.
The man exhaled, a sound neither tired nor relieved, just... there.
"That no longer matters." His voice was steady, devoid of the weight one would expect from someone who had clearly carried too much for too long. "What does matter is—what will you do?"
The boy blinked. "What will I do?"
A bitter chuckle from the man. "Do you think you were brought here to listen? To watch? To simply stand at the edge of destiny, waiting for it to consume you?"
The boy clenched his fists. "I don't believe in destiny."
"Then why are you afraid?" The man's head tilted slightly, those eerie shifting eyes piercing straight through him.
The boy opened his mouth to respond, but the words never came.
The man continued. "You say you don't believe in fate, and yet every step you take, every choice you make, is bound by the very threads you claim to reject. You walk a path carved long before you were born, guided by whispers of things meant to be. And yet, you resist. You hesitate. Why?"
"Because I want to be me."
The man was silent for a long moment.
"And who is that?"
The question stung more than it should have. Who was he? Was he the choices he made? The burdens he carried? Or was he simply another note in a song that had been playing since the dawn of time?
"Do you think fate is something that demands obedience?" the man pressed. "That it is a prison, locking you into a future you have no control over?"
"Isn't it?" the boy shot back, frustration creeping into his tone. "What if everything I do leads to one outcome no matter how hard I fight it? What if—"
"What if you were never meant to fight it?" the man interrupted, stepping forward.
The wind screamed between them as if the world itself wanted to intervene.
"You treat fate as if it is something forced upon you. A chain. Even so, have you ever thought that perhaps... fate is nothing more than the echo of your own choices? That destiny does not control you, but rather, follows you?"
The boy furrowed his brows. "Then why do people fear it?"
"Because people fear the idea that their choices matter." The man's voice did not waver. "It is easier to believe in an unchangeable future than to accept that you are the architect of your own ruin."
The boy's heart pounded in his chest.
"If fate is a river," the man continued, "then you are the one who decides whether to drift or swim. You are the one who chooses how deep you sink, or if you rise above the current."
The boy swallowed. "And if I don't like where the river leads?"
The man finally smiled—not with joy, but with a knowing sadness.
"Then build a bridge."
For the first time, the abyss at the world's end did not seem so terrifying.
"Who are you then?" the boy asked again, more firmly this time.
The boy stood frozen, something clawing at the edges of his thoughts, whispering that he already knew the answer before it was even spoken.
The man sighed, slow and tired, "You ask as if you don't already know."
The boy's heart skipped a beat. He had known. Deep down, he had always known.
"You're me... aren't you?" he whispered, the weight of the words settling in his chest like an anchor.
The masked man nodded once. "In another time. In another life. A version of you that walked a path full of regret. One that I wish... I could've walked differently. One I wish I could have done better than... worse." The boy's breath hitched.
"You're lying," the boy muttered, shaking his head, as if denying it would make it untrue. "That's impossible."
"Is that so?" the masked man replied, his tone steady yet unyielding like a blade sheathed in velvet. "You've caught flashes, haven't you? Fragments of memories that don't belong to you. Echoes of lives you've never lived, yet they cling to you as if they were your own. The phantom sting of wounds that never marked your skin. The weight of grief for strangers whose faces haunt you, though you've never once crossed paths. Tell me, how do you explain that?"
The boy swallowed hard.
He had dreams that bled into reality, vivid and unrelenting. Pain that gnawed at him, rootless and inexplicable, as if his very soul bore scars from battles he never fought. A hollow ache of loss so profound it stole the air from his lungs, yet its source remained shrouded in shadows, just out of reach. It had always been there, a silent undercurrent in his being, whispering to him from the depths, persistent, and waiting for the moment he would finally turn and face it.
"Why?" he asked, voice quiet but demanding. "Why are you here? If you're me, then what do you want?"
The masked man tilted his head slightly as if considering the question carefully.
"What do I want?" he repeated.
"I want to do what I was never able to. I want to offer you the opportunity that was denied to me. I want to see if you can rise higher, go further—if you can become everything I couldn't."
The boy frowned. "Better?"
The masked man let out a slow breath. "Every decision you make, every path you choose—it all ripples toward an inevitable end. I've witnessed where those roads lead. I've walked them. I've fallen because of them. And now, I'm here seeing that you're standing at the very same crossroads where I once stood."
The boy clenched his fists. "And what happens if I make the same choices you did?"
The masked man's fingers tightened subtly around the handle of his cane. "Then you'll bear the same weight I carry. You'll mourn for the ones you couldn't protect. You'll drown in regret for the chances you missed, the actions you hesitated to take... and the choices you left unmade."
The wind howled, a furious tempest swirling around them. Above, the stars flickered and dimmed, their light dissolving like ink in water. Below, the abyss stretched wide, its silent pull beckoning, inevitable and unrelenting.
"I don't believe in fate," the boy said, a stubborn edge in his voice.
"Neither did I," the masked man answered, his voice low and edged. "Not until I discovered that some roads, some destinies, cling to you like shadows—inescapable, inevitable, and heavier than you could ever imagine."
The boy's breath was unsteady. "Then tell me." His eyes locked onto the masked man's. "Tell me what you did. Tell me the choices you made. Tell me what went wrong."
The masked man hesitated, his silence stretching as he studied the boy with an intensity that seemed to pierce through the very air between them. For a moment, it was as though he was deciding whether to burden the boy with truths too vast to carry. Finally, his voice broke the stillness.
"Everything,"
"Everything just... vanishes, doesn't it?" he murmured.
"All that you are—all that you've ever been—erased in an instant, like a breath on glass. A faint imprint, gone before you can even grasp it."
His fingers tapped rhythmically against the golden trim of his cane, a nervous, almost unconscious gesture. "And now, any moment, he'll arrive. This Thaddeus, the one standing here, the one speaking these words... he'll fade too. The man I am now will dissolve, and another will rise in my place. That's how it's always been, isn't it? Thaddeus will always exist, but never as the same man."
"Because time moves forward," the man continued, his tone firm yet weary. "And so must I."
The masked man shifted slightly, his gaze drifting as though it could pierce the abyss. "We all change, endlessly, throughout our lives. We shed one skin for another, again and again. And that's not just inevitable—it's necessary. Change is what propels us forward, what keeps us alive."
He let out a breath, tinged with something between nostalgia and resignation. "But here's the truth: even as we transform, we carry fragments of who we once were. Every version of ourselves leaves behind an imprint—a shadow, a whisper, a memory that lingers, even as we step into someone new."
The boy's expression darkened, his voice edged with frustration. "So what? We just keep changing, leaving behind ghosts of ourselves until there's nothing left but hollow echoes?"
"No," the masked man replied, his tone gentle. "Considering even if the world forgets, even if time washes away the footprints of who we were, I will remember."
"You're afraid of what you are," the masked man said at last, his voice quieter now, like the low rumble of distant thunder. "Afraid of what you might become."
The boy's hands balled into fists at his sides, his eyes fixed on the ground as though it might anchor him. "I don't want to lose myself," he confessed, his voice strained, barely holding back the tide of emotion. "I've seen what power does to people. I've seen what it's done to you."
The masked man let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Power is a ravenous force. It doesn't ask—it consumes. And if you're not vigilant, it will devour everything in its path." He tilted his head slightly, his tone shifting, probing. "Still tell me, do you believe fear will be enough to stop it?"
The boy looked up then, his eyes filled with uncertainty. "If I fear it, I won't lose control. I won't become... something else. Something dangerous."
The masked man exhaled. "I used to think the same. I believed that if I clung to my fear if I let it steer me, I could wield my power without it consuming me." He gestured vaguely, "But fear deceives you. It convinces you that restraint is control, that hesitation is caution. The truth? Fear only binds you. And when the moment comes to act, to truly define who you are, fear will make the decision for you."
The boy swallowed hard, his mind racing. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
The masked man stepped closer, his presence imposing. "Embrace it. Acknowledge that the power is yours—not something to dread or reject, but something to claim." His voice softened, yet carried an unshakable resolve. "Therefore if you don't, someone else will seize it for you. And that's when you'll become the very thing you fear."
The boy hesitated, his breath coming a little faster. "And what if I can't control it? What if I hurt someone?"
The masked man rested a gloved hand on his shoulder with a steady grip. "Then you learn. You stumble, you fall, and you rise again. Just as I did. Just as you will. Power doesn't make you a monster, boy. Fear of it does."
The boy stared at him, uncertainty warring with something else—something deeper. A spark, small but growing.
Hope.
The masked man studied the boy's face, searching for hesitation, for doubt. But there was none—only resilience, raw and unrefined.
"Then tell me," the masked man said, his head tilting slightly, a glint of curiosity in his tone. "Where do we begin?"
The boy's hands were no longer trembling. His fear was still there, lingering at the edges of his mind, whispering its usual warnings. But something else had taken root, something stronger. He met the masked man's gaze with resolve.
"From the scratch,"
The masked man let the words settle in the air, his expression unreadable behind the mask. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"From the beginning, then," he murmured, more to himself than to the boy. "Strip away the doubts, the fears, the weight of what others have told you to be. If you truly wish to master yourself, you must first unlearn everything the world has tried to make you."
He shifted slightly, his hand sweeping toward the endless, unbroken horizon stretching before them. "Let go of everything you believe about control. Let go of what you think power should be. A strong foundation must come before the walls can rise. And right now?" He paused, his sharp and deliberate gaze returning to the boy. "Yours is fractured. So we dismantle it. Brick by brick. Until all that's left is what's real."
The boy inhaled sharply. "And what if the truth isn't what I want to hear?"
The masked man let out a low, quiet chuckle. "Then you listen all the same. Power without understanding is chaos. Power without acceptance is a curse. You fear what you are because you've been taught to."
The boy nodded slowly realizing he had spent so long running from what he was, terrified of what he might become. Maybe, he had been looking at it all wrong.
The masked man turned to face him fully, his arms crossing in a gesture that was both firm and deliberate. "This won't be easy," he cautioned, his voice steady. "You'll struggle. You'll fail. You'll doubt yourself more times than you can imagine."
The boy straightened his shoulders. "I know."
A beat of silence. Then the masked man gave a small, approving nod. "Good."
"Then let's begin."
---
The boy turned his gaze toward the horizon, his thoughts heavy yet strangely light, like a page torn from an old book and left to drift on the wind. The sky, once a vast stretch of endless blue, was now painted in hues of fire and gold, a masterpiece crafted by the setting sun. It was the kind of sight that made the world feel quieter as if even time itself had paused to admire its artistry.
And there he was—Thaddeus.
His head barely peeked out, the wind tousling his hair as he leaned slightly out of the truck's open window. The cool evening breeze brushed against his face, carrying with it the distant scent of pine and asphalt, mingling with the fading warmth of the sun. For a moment, he said nothing. He just watched. Watched as the world rolled by in fleeting moments, each second dissolving into the next, never to return.
The truck hummed steadily beneath them, its wheels rolling ever forward, unbothered by the weight of thoughts its passengers carried. They were on the move again, chasing something unseen yet inevitable, a purpose set ahead of them like an unmarked path waiting to be paved.
From the driver's seat, Annabeth kept her focus on the road, though her eyes occasionally flicked to the rearview mirror, checking on the others. Percy, still lost in his own musings, sat beside her, arms crossed, brows furrowed in thought. Grover, curled up in the back seat, snored lightly, his head bobbing with every small bump in the road. The rhythm of the truck, the gentle vibrations of the journey, had lulled him into a dreamless sleep.
Yet Thaddeus... he remained awake.