Opaque (Wiki Contest: March 2013)

This one-shot story is written for the Percy Jackson Fanfiction Wiki Contest: March 2013 and is written by Storm wolf01.

Final Word Count- 1, 562.

Characters

 * Charlemagne Gwyn- the mute daughter of Hesychia
 * Charlemagne's father



She stands, unmoving, on the pier. The girl, with her ragged, soiled wear from long, tiring days of use, and her midnight-blue eyes, shattered like her soul. She watches, quite alone, with an expression that cannot be placed, as waves roll, glass-smooth, to shore, slapping the sand with roaring, gleeful laughter before pulling back…back to where they belong…somewhere in the vast, shining sea…

''And where does she belong? ''Her face tightens, distorting with an indescribable pain, as hands, unseen hands try to drag her back to the shadowy world of mocking laughter…of fires that swallow everything until there is nothing more…and a voice that always calls to her tauntingly—

Charlemagne… 

''Charlemagne. ''

''Charlemagne! ''

She closes her fist, refusing to open them; long, sharp nails dig into her skin, trying to stand her ground, to hold on…

She starts shaking. No. No! Hadn’t she left her past behind, kept it in an unmarked drawer in her mind, buried deep inside her so that it is never to be stumbled upon again?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Yet it keeps on haunting her. Always escaping the bars and walls she had attempted to put up against it. Why can’t it leave her alone in peace? Isn’t it enough that she has to face the present and its unpredictably cruel whims on her own, without a place…a person that she can call ‘home’? Isn’t it enough, that she is already afraid of what is to come, of what is to befall on her, without the past torturing her like what they did to her father…Her father.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Right then and there, she loses her grip on her sanity.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Memories flicker. Then flash. Before her eyes, the sea transforms into a great forest of pine. She is on a cobblestoned path, winding her way across columns of trees, their feathery leaves brushing her cheeks. She is walking towards a place, an unknown place, but something in her heart tells her that this place will hold everything she ever yearned for…the answers to her questions. But she stops in her tracks, as a strange feeling overwhelms her, eating away all other emotions. Very slowly, she turns. And there it is.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The house. With its wide porch and door painted silver. Gleaming blue and amber in the sunlight. Her heart leaps with joy and her feet starts running towards the building…her house, her ''home. ''It isn’t destroyed after all; it is perfectly pristine. Maybe Father would be inside, reading the paper, very much alive. They could be together. Be a family again.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">…But to her horror and despair, the house explodes into little more than ashes. The black smoke twists in the air and forms a bloody, mangled face. Her father. But he is unreachable, withdrawn farther and farther away from her outstretched fingertips…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">As her insides are being ripped apart until they could no longer be repaired, the scene shatters into a million sparkling diamonds—

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Now she is in a tightly enclosed room draped only in darkness, short of breath, eyes searching frantically for an escape that doesn’t exist, and she is struggling, fighting against the walls that seem to close in on her, ready to crush her…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">And then she is bathed in blinding, warm sunlight. She is running, running, bare feet slapping the concrete. She is finally out, finally free—

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The setting shifts once more. A cloudy day. A soft carpet of grass, tickling her ankles. People huddle together, their eyes filled with contempt and malice as they zero in on her. Their whispers hang in the air, only to turn in her direction to attack, as deadly and sharp as knives.

<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;text-indent:.25in">''<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Freak. ''

<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;text-indent:.25in">''<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Mental. ''

<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;text-indent:.25in">''<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She shouldn’t be here. ''

<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center;text-indent:.25in">''<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Ignore her! ''

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">As she walks around the bizarre collection of cabins, tears pooling in her eyes, she tries to understand why she doesn’t belong in the only place where she should have been accepted for who she is….Is it because she was born mute, that she couldn’t control her insanity, or that she came from a fierce and troubled past? Did that make her too different? So different that she has to be ignored, talked about behind her back, laughed at? The camp will be her new home, they said. She could have a family again.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Are those all just one big lie?

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She opens her eyes. In a haze of tears, she sees the sun and the azure sky. She tastes the sea air on her lips, as salty as her tears. She hears soft murmurs and the louder cries of lonely seagulls…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She is back at the pier and she is on her knees, still shaking so terribly. A ring of people surrounds her and she raises her head to look at them, each one of them, her face a mask of stone, unreadable. The waterfall of tears on her cheeks could have been a joke.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">They are all girls. Beautiful. Rich too by the looks of them. Flowing hair, doe-like eyes, full red lips, glittery make-up, designer clothes. They own it all. They don’t need to fit in, to make themselves feel wanted. They are already the perfect piece to complete the puzzle. The puzzle that she didn’t belong into.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Freak,” one of them hisses. Then they all sneer, their pretty faces contorting, revealing the ugliness behind them, the cruelty. A dull ache finds its way inside her, but she only stares at them, couldn’t speak, emotions hidden, palms and knees planted firmly on the wooden deck. Of course they don’t know, they don’t feel the anguish she carries, the loneliness she had to endure. They don’t understand anything, anything about her. But it never truly mattered for them.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She sees their immense disgust at her quivering form. And then she feels the powerful hands on her back, shoving her with too much force…she hears their harsh, ridiculing laughter piercing the morning air as she teeters at the edge of the pier…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">And plunges into the sea.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The currents immediately snatch her up and toss her back and forth. Cold like a thousand volts of electricity arcs up her body, paralyzing with a screaming agony, tearing her flesh apart. She is pulled farther and farther away from the pier, but she is helpless against the sea; she couldn’t fight it. It is too rough, too greedy, too unyielding… She can only watch with fear as a foam-capped wave tower over her...

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She couldn’t help but admire how it crests so beautifully, and how it turns a shimmering emerald hue as it strikes the sunlight.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Then it bears down upon her with a now-blackened wrath, its hissing syllables and garbled roars pounding in her ears. White-tipped claws envelope her, pulling her down with a might that leaves her gasping for breath, down into the sea’s deep chambers where it hides its treasures…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The world is green and disfigured and she could see nothing ahead, nothing but a faint silhouette. Can that be the shadow of Death waiting for her, motioning for her to come? She opens her mouth and almost immediately pain explodes inside her like hot swords ripping apart her flesh, her soul, her own will to live…and she is screaming soundlessly, wanting the pain to go…to just be gone—

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">But her lungs are failing her, crushed between cold, watery fists. She is flailing around but she has nowhere to go…How cruel the world is, how heartless—all she wants is to have a home, a family. Is that too impossible and laughable a wish to be granted? Now she is left to the mercy of the sea…drowning…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Suddenly, bright lights flood the sea, sending long rivulets of rainbows in every direction, filling the body of water with a beauty and a grandeur it never knew it had. And the girl floats, hunched over like an ancient woman, staring, mesmerized.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He emerges from the lights, a figure somewhere between human and ghost, black-haired, blue-eyed like the girl before him. Face unscathed from flames or blades. Wearing clothes of pure white. He slowly makes his way towards her, with a little smile on his face…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Charlemagne,” <span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">He calls out to her. And in that moment, she recognizes his voice. Time and space mean nothing now, as she lunges forward and sinks into the man’s surprisingly warm embrace. ''Father. ''Her heart swells with joy; her worries vanish. She does not want to let go, not now, not ever…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">But it is her father who pulls away, words leaving his lips like gossamer-winged butterflies, as he plants a gentle kiss on her forehead. ''“You’re going home, okay, sweetheart? Just hold on. We’re going home.” ''And then he disappears into a shower of silver sparks, dancing before her fascinated eyes. She is alone again in the waters, but the pain had ceased long ago. Instead, sweet tranquility blooms from the spot where her father’s lips touched her forehead. She feels the world quietly slip away, along with the shadows of her past…She feels lightheaded as she lets out a breath, the sound like an angel sighing…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Before she closes her eyes, she sees her father, smiling at her, beckoning her to come home…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A coolness washes over her. She curls up like a child in her father’s lap, the waves rolling underneath her, taking her to the their place…to the place where they belong, somewhere in the vast, shining sea…

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.25in"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">She could have been sleeping.