This wasn't supposed to happen.

You were the one that the Oracle said was supposed to die.

Or was did the Oracle mean something else?

And now, Clarisse was here, seated with her back leaning against a wall in a building you guys were sent to with her stomach bleeding out from a monster attack.

Her electric spear on the floor—sparking from the tip—from where she dropped it from the impact of the attack, blood at the tip of the spear, and the room filled with coughing and hisses of pain from Clarisse.

You were both enemies. But you chose her for a quest. You both became frenemies - and maybe started turning a little more as time passed. Glances a little too often, and the more touches.

You thought you were going to be the one to die.

But during the attack, before you could blink, Clarisse was on the floor, and you could process one thing—Clarisse got hurt.

One moment, she was fighting the Chimera with swift, and quick moves and then—suddenly you blink, and she's against the wall hissing and having a large fatal gash on her side.

And that was what made fear course inside your veins, panic washing over you as you saw Clarisse in that position.

Never would you have thought Clarisse would ever look weak, the thought almost seemed impossible, but until you saw her. Face contorted in pain, blood staining her side and through her clothing—that was when you started to panic.

Suddenly, those scenes in Netflix films where the main character had their lover dying in their arms seemed to make sense a little bit more.

And in one second, you were immediately right by Clarisse's side, trying to get the bleeding to stop, pressing your hands against the wound, whatever you could in attempts to make the bleeding falter.

You hated the way Clarisse's face contorted with pain every time you failed to stop the blood, you didn't care if stopping the blood meant giving her the most hell-worthy pain though. You wanted Clarisse alive.

Tears brimmed at the corners of your eyes at the thought of her dying, of this quest being the last time you saw her. Of going back to camp alone without her.

How would her siblings react? Having to go back alone if you succeeded? How would you get through life without her mocking smirk and chuckling?

You had only succeeded in staining your hands with Clarisse's blood and getting winces and hisses of pain out of her.

"I'll be fine..." Clarisse managed to breathe out in between her noises of pain, but it didn't matter when Clarisse was dying. Denial was the way Clarisse tried to get through this anyways.