Chris Rodriguez- Demigod

He watched the people walk by. He watched their sullen faces, their empty eyes, their broken stance. It was like looking into a mirror, one that reflected thousands of images. Different people, but the same crushed soul.

They had been strong, they had been proud. They had been invincible.

And from the rubble the defeated emerged. They stared at old memories and couldn't remember. They collapsed under guilt, for the living, and for the dead. They felt pain and despair. They turned to death as a better option. They made promises they couldn't keep. They were lost, turning to drugs for guidance. They fled in the night. They melted into the memories, never returning. They said things they shouldn't have. They felt nothing. They did nothing.

Chris watched them go. Like watching the most depressing parade ever. A bunch of dead men walking.

They'd given up.

"What's the point?" They wailed.

"Why do you still try?"

"There's nothing left."

With every cry another joined them. They walked out of the houses melding into the crowd. Wizards, mortals, demigods. It didn't matter. There wasn't a reason to go on anymore.

"Don't you dare, Rodriguez." She whispered in the back of his mind. "Don't you even."

The broken, fragile, faces blurred, the world slipped. Chris's only anchor was the support column of the porch he was standing on.

The scene unfolded, one not much different than the one he had been watching.

Hundreds of people were meant to walk this trip, in safety, before any attack happened, before any lives were lost. Hundreds of people, and less then fifty were struggling on the uneven ground.

A dirt road in the middle of a forest. People crying, limping, being dragged. Wailing heart breaks. Everywhere you looked, was despair.

"Chris." A voice whimpered in his ear. "Chris, promise me."

He heaved a breath. It shook his chest, sending spikes of white hot pain across his chest. The oxygen hitched in his throat, coming out in painful choking coughs.

"Chris, I can't lose you."

Chris hissed the air through his teeth. His chest hurt so much. He was so tired. So sleepy.

"Chris, please."

"Don't ask." He begged, though it hurt. "Please."

He knew exactly what she would say. It wasn't fair. She knew him too well. He owed her too much.

"Just promise."

His soul seemed to evaporate. Tired empty tears started falling. He couldn't do it. The words were thick, and heavy in his mouth. Even if he wanted to say them the pain was to much. Like a poison spreading through his veins, very slowly, very painfully.

"Chris." There she went again. She stopped, the empty bodies passing around them. She had him leaving heavily on her, Years of demigod training stressed through her muscles. Years of threats and bullying that made up the Ares cabin. Years of time spent with siblings, that were now broken or gone...gone farther than she was willing to.

And in the time that she forced him to look into her face. Into her eyes.

And in that time, Clarisse looked vulnerable.

"I can't." Chris whimpered. "I can't."

"Chris, Swear to me, on the Styx you won't give up? That you'll hold on until we get to safety?" She let a tear slide down her face. Chris's chest ached, and it wasn't because of the bullet wound almost directly above his heart.

The tears came down like a waterfall. Too many. She let herself be too strong for too long. A mournful what'll escaped her mouth.

"I'm the last." She said. "I'm the last Ares child. The only one not training in the arena that day. Chris...I have no one." Her knees were shaking. Chris felt everything falling apart. He couldn't do it.

"You are the only thing left, for me Chris." She cried. Clarisse cried to him. Chris's breath hitched again. The short shallow puffs of air, sounding like a frantic gasping of a choking person. A person choking on pain, on the verge of giving up. Every second felt like he was living on borrowed time, every breath like a his last.

The only thing left.

The screams didn't seem too unrealistic. They didn't sound different than the ones that haunted their nightmares. They weren't full of passion, they were empty caucuses, like the patrons they belonged to.

Clarisse didn't look away. She stared into his eyes begging for the promise, she would never get. A promise he couldn't give. A swear that destroyed so many, an I-love-you in one of it's many forms.

Then she didn't move.

And she never moved again.

A agonizing scream as something heavy hit her back. Chris fell off her shoulder, but he barely felt it. He saw the light flash out of her eyes. The last thing she would ever see was him refusing to promise her.

She landed on him, Chris struggled screaming with tears running down his face. Blood stained the cloth wrapped heavily over his chest, bleeding though. The pain felt like a razor blade.

Over them a Cyclops, crazed, rampaging monster swung an axe. Inches from him, tantalizingly close, a heat of the moment, where running and surviving should've been the only thing on his mind, but instead Chris kept screaming, he kept laying there bleeding out.

He didn't make the promise. But he felt the weight of the world like had collapsed on top of him.

The Cyclops fell backwards, The golden arrows lodging in his head. It didn't disintegrate. The body lay there. Right next to Clarisse's. Right next to him. Will Solace ran over to him.

The voices blended together, Chris didn't hear anything. The pain went pass being physical, pass being just emotional. It hurt to think, his soul screamed.

"Clarisse!" He yelled. She couldn't just be dead. She was the last. He was the last. Her only thing left.

So what did he have left?

Chris's fingers dug a grove into the column. The idea struck through his thoughts.

She asked too much of him. He never made the promise. He owed her everything. They had to drag him away. Will kept yelling at him to stop, that he was going to bleed himself out if he kept going.

If only he had.

The faces swirled together. A mixture of memories, of the now, of tears, of ghost pain that sent swallowed cries stinging his throat.

Chris kept his eyes open. He stayed awake until they reached the city. He kept going, afraid to close his eyes and see his own failure displayed so deeply.

He watched their small band of survivors almost collapsed with relief. The town was theirs. Supplies for years, enough for thousands of people, a fresh start. To leave the past behind.

All Chris saw was a city too impossibly big, a ghost town. Then he let his eyes close.

"Chris, why are you still fighting?" Someone said from the crowd slowly moving upstreet. "It's time to give up. There's nothing left."

Chris stared at them. He had kept his eyes open, he had stayed awake. But he hadn't kept that unmade promise. He felt his throat dry, like sandpaper, and his eyes burn with unshed tears.

The promise had been "we". When we make it to safety.

"I can't."

"You're all I have left."

She didn't move, she never moved again.

A swear that destroyed so many, an I-love-you in one of it's many forms.

Clarisse had never made it to the city.

Chris took the first step off the porch. Then another. Then another. Then he joined the crowd of broken souls waiting to give up. Standing in line for the final blow.

"I can't Clarisse. I can't keep going."