Okay, a couple of warnings before we proceed.

1. This is over seven thousand words long. This was not my intention. I was going for something short.
2. It's a full story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. However, the plot--especially the ending--might make sense to me and only me. It might be one of those things that works only in my head. If so, if I didn't drop clear enough hints through the story, I'm sorry. I honestly just wanted to write something and get it out there.
3. It h… Continue

It started with a fear of water. Innocent enough. Bleeker and Davey, me, four years old, a kiddie pool, and a bucket.

I coughed all night, and then came down with a cold. The cold became strep throat and I was sick for a week. That's the most vivid of my early memories: lying in bed, trying not to swallow.

Hydrophobia: Fear of Water. Not to be confused with rabies. Also known as Aquaphobia.

To this day, I don't swim. I don't like beaches, pools, lakes, or even large puddles. Taking a shower i… Continue

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“Percy, are you ready?”

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For a long time after, I had the same recurring dream.

The air currents pulled me through the tube, suction funneling me down under the water and along the seafloor. Green and blue light flickering on my skin. When I inhaled, it was like trying to breathe in a gust of wind. It was like a child's worst nightmare of a waterslide; a strange endless ride down an oversized birth canal that was twisted into reverse, a reverse evolution in which I was returning to the water of mankind's proto… Continue