[ Clarisse lets Syd go, watching as she disappears behind the pet store and heads for who the fuck knows where. She enjoys a brief, singular moment of relief—that's over, weird as it was—and then, as she's turning to walk in the opposite direction, pain explodes in her head, sudden and sharp enough to make her gasp and raise her hands to her temples.
It subsides, a little, and she begins to walk. Sort of aimlessly, at first, but as the headache grows, thudding and nauseating, behind her eyes, she decides that home is the place to be. Her heart is racing and thoughts are flitting here and there, strange thoughts, things she shouldn't be thinking about.
She's gonna die. The realization comes all at once and it scares her, the suddenness and surety of it. She's gonna die if she doesn't find that girl, and she has no idea where she went, and she'll die here in this horror town where she barely knows anyone and her mom doesn't even know she's here. She'll just be another demigod who disappeared and they'll all think she probably went out fighting some monster, because that's how it should be, but actually she just had a bad fucking headache.
The apartment building looms ahead. She skips the elevator, because that's one of the first things you learn. Take the stairs. She makes it up to the second floor and has to stop, crouching with her head in her hands. Deep breaths that don't feel like they're even reaching her lungs. She lashes out blindly with one hand and punches the wall, trying to jar her brain back to what it's supposed to be doing, but all she can think about is strawberry fields and her dorm room back in Arizona and the mark of Daedalus. ]
cw uhhh panic attack description i guess?
It subsides, a little, and she begins to walk. Sort of aimlessly, at first, but as the headache grows, thudding and nauseating, behind her eyes, she decides that home is the place to be. Her heart is racing and thoughts are flitting here and there, strange thoughts, things she shouldn't be thinking about.
She's gonna die. The realization comes all at once and it scares her, the suddenness and surety of it. She's gonna die if she doesn't find that girl, and she has no idea where she went, and she'll die here in this horror town where she barely knows anyone and her mom doesn't even know she's here. She'll just be another demigod who disappeared and they'll all think she probably went out fighting some monster, because that's how it should be, but actually she just had a bad fucking headache.
The apartment building looms ahead. She skips the elevator, because that's one of the first things you learn. Take the stairs. She makes it up to the second floor and has to stop, crouching with her head in her hands. Deep breaths that don't feel like they're even reaching her lungs. She lashes out blindly with one hand and punches the wall, trying to jar her brain back to what it's supposed to be doing, but all she can think about is strawberry fields and her dorm room back in Arizona and the mark of Daedalus. ]