i got boulders on my shoulders

you don't remember much of anything from Before. you were too young, you guess. but you remember the lawyers. the first one came when you were little, told the two of you your parents had died and you'd be going off to a boarding school. you remember liking the boarding school, even if the boys were...a bit tense. you almost don't even notice, but it creeps up. it's like they know before you do, something about you doesn't line up with them. you don't dwell on it. you can't. maybe a small part of you knows, but you can't conjure up how. it's behind that block, you think. trying to remember your parents brings up nothingness. there's no telling what else is back there.

from the boarding school, you and bianca are brought to...a casino. but it's not like the sort of places people wag their fingers and mutter about. this place is full of kids, some your age, but most of them older. there's some adults, sure, but they don't pay the two of you much mind. you're in there a while, about a month you think. someone comes to collect the two of you, and from there you go to military school. it's...much more structured. you're not sure if you like it all that much. everyone around you is strange, from the way they dress and talk to the references they make.

you're not there long. a year, barely, and then things start happening. things are following you, watching you both. and then they're attacking you. and the lawyers are back. not that they ever really left. they stopped by every now and then when you were at westover, and again after bianca graduated. it seemed like they just always knew. then they're ushering you into a car, telling you it has something to do with the trust and your parents' will and a place and-- you don't keep up, honestly. they bring you both to-- to a college, which worries you. you're only sixteen. you're nowhere near graduating from westover yet, which means bianca is going off by herself, which means you'll be alone too with these whatever the hell they are probably still coming after you and you don't know how often she'll be able to call and the two of you have only had each other since you were kids how are you supposed to--

exceptions are made. whispers are exchanged. and you're told, ultimately, you're staying too. you're sat down for orientation, and that's when it's dropped on you. the whole thing. you're both...demigods. so your dad is a god. or your mom? you can't remember. would you even know? the lawyer is long gone, and it takes, like, a couple of hours after orientation. the claiming is freaky, even you have to admit that, and you're both ushered into the hades cabin. you meet a few other siblings --your dad's one of the Big Three, which you learned means there shouldn't be a bunch of your half siblings running around-- and...well, you've never had this much family before. you don't really know what to do with it.

some mothers weren't meant to have children, and you think yours is definitely one of them. oh sure, she takes care of you. she never lets you forget that. the roof over your head, the clothes on your back, the food in the kitchen, that's all her. she's also the wine in the cabinet and the door slamming in your face and the empty chair at your third grade play. she had better things to do that night. so you learn not to rely on her for anything more than the bare minimum. you grow up lonely. so you grow up loud. you're loud and disruptive, and you turn everything into something to be laughed at. the words on the page float and hurt your eyes, so you play up how much you just can't read. you learn when people laugh, it's almost like they like you.

so school is rough. you spend a lot of time in trouble, not that your mother ever notices. after school detention becomes essentially an extension of your week. and, really, you don't mind it. it gives you an extra hour or two out of the house. and by the time you're out, the buses are long gone, which means you have to walk to an actual bus stop, and those schedules never line up just right, so that means more time out of the house and-- so, yeah. it's not much of a punishment to be left to your own devices. you learn the bus schedules and you learn when the bakery around the corner puts out fresh batches and will let you snag a deal on the older stuff and you learn which bus drivers will feel bad for you when you forgot your card for, like, the millionth time.

you scrape by, just barely, and for your 18th birthday you get...dropped off. there's little to no explanation. your mom tells you to get in the car, and you do. the drive is eight hours long --twelve with traffic and stops for gas--, and it's probably the longest conversation the two of you have had in...probably ever? she comes clean, about all of it. she never wanted kids, which, duh. you knew that. but your mom has some weird old fashioned hang ups, hers or her own mother's you're not sure, so when she had you, well. she had you. so bare minimum it was. she's not good at being a mom, which, again, you knew. but it's almost cathartic to hear her admit it. she warns you, your dad isn't exactly great at being a dad, either. he'd contacted her, once, and you have a vague recollection of a voice on the other end of the phone, but not much else. anyway, he contacted her once, and that was it, really, so. don't expect anything great.

this only opened the door for more questions, and by the time the two of you get to long island you're pretty sure she's actually lost it and this is the part where the two of you move in with some cult or whatever. but she pulls up, and you blink at the sign, and...the letters change, and not like they usually do. you can read these ones. camp halfblood...college? college? this has to be a cult. but if it is, well. your mom only gets out to hand you a couple of bags --if she missed anything important just have someone contact her and she'll send it up, she says-- and awkwardly hug you --has she ever hugged you completely unprompted? you're not sure-- and with a take care of yourself in there she's gone.

you're quiet. that's something a lot of people tend to notice. or, rather, a reason you go unnoticed. you don't mind it much, though. you're used to being on your own by now, and you prefer it, for the most part. there are worse options. you should know. you'll take people blinking in confusion when your name is mentioned over learning to make yourself small, hoping no one sees you're there, even if whatever words they have to fling at you are nothing compared to what you'll go home to. being invisible just feels...safer.

you're the youngest of three, by a wide margin. by the time you're starting school, your brother is almost out of high school entirely, and your sister is halfway through middle school. which is good news for them, because it means they're able to never be home, or find easier ways to duck out, to just not be in the way. you don't get the luxury. you're little, and you're clumsy, and you speak too loudly and play too obnoxiously and-- and, honestly, your father just doesn't like children. and he doesn't seem to like your mother, either. you don't think he likes anything.

you're still young when it starts happening, though. you still remember the first instance. you hadn't been trying to knock anything over. you hadn't been trying to make noise. but you turn and stumble back, and you knock into the end table, and when your arm flies out to catch yourself, the picture frame goes flying, and smacks into the wall. you freeze, terrified, knowing the scuff on the wall won't be waved away. but when your father comes in, angry, yelling, just knowing it was you, even as you stand, frozen, he-- he doesn't see you. he must not, because you're right out in the open, and he wouldn't pretend to not see you. but he doesn't react. anger morphs to confusion, and he picks up the frame himself, puts it back, muttering to himself about stupid kids and old houses and whatever else.

from there, it seems like you just stop being seen. people walk right past you, stumbling and confused when they bump into you, unable to parse out what just happened. as you get older, stranger things begin to happen. you mostly brush them off, however. the shadows stretching out too far are clearly just you misremembering, and there's plenty of reasons someone might suddenly be so tired. you are not the reason, because that's stupid. and impossible. you learn soon, though, that the realm of impossibility is not nearly as big as you once thought. you don't go to college right after high school. there's no money for it, and you never wanted all the fuss. you struggled in school, anyway, were glad to be rid of it.

but then you're at work, taking out the trash, and this-- this bird thing --you think it was a bird? you have no idea at the time-- attacks you, and this time while it seems to lose sight of you a couple of times, it doesn't leave you alone, and you'd be dead if not for serendipity. you think that's what it must be. from there, things spiral. talks of gods and halfbloods are-- they're ridiculous. impossible, even, because even if these things are real, they can't apply to you. you know your parents. they're not great, your mom too passive and your dad too easily agitated, but. but they're mortal. human. which makes you one too, right?

yeah, wrong. the truth comes out eventually, after the attacks keep happening. your mother cracks. she tells you the truth. your father isn't the man whose roof you've lived under your entire life, but a god. thanatos. which...alright, maybe you had to look him up. you could have cried laughing. of course. of course. if this absolutely insane story was going to be real, and your mom was being honest, of course you'd have the creepy death god for a father. the attacks were continuing, and it was putting everyone at risk. staying wasn't an option. you'd worried, though, leaving your mother along with your-- with her husband. but she'd all but pushed you out the door, shoving the money for a plane ticket into your hand and not letting you so much as protest.

you've known you were going to die young your entire life. or at least as much of it as you can remember. your mother was never the same after her meeting with the oracle, her attempt to take its place a failure. words and diagnoses were thrown around as you got older, and all of them were wrong. this wasn't the sort of mental illness you get from nature or nurture or lack thereof. this was a divine madness, a power greater than your mother could handle tormenting her with visions of death, of your death. she never tells you what she sees, but when the vision overtakes her and she screams, begs for your life, demands for any god that will listen to stop it, well. you know you will not meet a quiet end.

you've known you were going to die young, so you feared it in the beginning. you were an overly cautious child, even as you grew older and began caring for your mother, no longer simply existing within the chaos but trying to alleviate it some for her. in her more lucid moments, she was never fine but she was...better. she'd be content with a small task or busy herself baking or just talking to you, telling you about your father. you never had the heart to tell her you didn't want to hear about him. if he was so great, if he cared so much, he wouldn't have abandoned her. he wouldn't have left you walking on eggshells trying to keep her safe, trying to avoid whatever calamity she foresaw that would take you away from her.

you've known you were going to die brutally, so when the thing attacks you, not like any creature you've ever seen before, you think this might be what she saw. you thought maybe it was your punishment, for leaving her. you'd left two years earlier, cleaned what you could and made sure the fridge was stocked before leaving a note promising to be back later, you wouldn't be gone long, don't wait up for you and make sure to eat something. you felt awful lying to her, but. but maybe if she saw the note, she wouldn't remember it had been there for days. maybe she would be content to just wait for you. maybe it would end horribly. maybe you didn't care either way. you'd sacrificed a childhood caring for her, you could not give up the rest of your life.

you've known you were going to die horrifically, so when you stare down the dragon ladon, you think perhaps this might be it. this could be what your mother saw. this whole quest was stupid, and you regretted pausing your studies to accept it. but it had been handed to you by hermes himself, and that part of you that was still the little kid who just wanted his dad had jumped at the chance. of course, this feat had been done before, which was annoying, but it was better than nothing. in the end, you get nothing. nothing but a scar on your face and a claw, not the golden apple you were tasked with.

you've known you were going to die spectacularly, so when the voice comes to you in your sleep, you take the jump. a war against the gods is one you could never win on your own, no matter how many fellow demigods you could ever rally to the cause. but the titans? kronos himself? now there's an idea. so you do what he asks. you take the bolt, and the helm, though so far no one's even noticed that one. it was entirely too easy. laughably simple. the gods think themselves so mighty, they never even fathom something like this could happen to them. it would almost be enough to make you giddy. when the gods fall, it'll be your name in the mix. you're not stupid enough to think you'll be telling this tale yourself.