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flightfoot · 5 years

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Last Days of a Meat Puppet Chapter 3

Darkness.

Movement.

Heaviness.

Color blurs past

getting closer

before passing by.

Images resolving.

Walls. Floors. Doors.

All gleaming.

A stop.

Movement forward

but more slowly.

Lines of gold.

On the other side

a blob of color.

A figure.

A person.

A boy.

Young.

Not moving.

Laying on the ground.

Wrong. This is wrong.

Sound reverberates.

The sound - not just any sound - resolves.

Gains meaning.

IT’S TIME

YOU WILL BE SENT DOWN IN THIS MORTAL BODY

YOU MUST DEFEAT PYTHON

RECLAIM THE ORACLES YOU NEGLECTED

WITH NO HELP FROM THE GODS.

ONLY IF YOU SUCCEED

ONLY THEN WILL I CONSIDER RESTORING YOUR DIVINITY

YOU THINK THAT YOU DESERVE TO BE WORSHIPPED ABOVE ME?

REMEMBER THIS.

I AM YOUR FATHER.

I AM YOUR KING.

YOU EXIST BECAUSE OF ME.

YOUR CONTINUED EXISTENCE IS DUE TO MY MERCY.

CROSS ME AGAIN

AND THERE WILL NOT BE ANOTHER CHANCE.

Some slight twitching.

Barely a response.

Barely a reaction.

But the boy’s alive.

ANSWER ME.

A slight groan.

More twitching.

But no words.

A low GROWL.

The boy turns into sparks of light.

So, so few sparks.

Dim.

Fading.

Nearly extinguished.

They surge forwards.

Then-

contact.

Soul shard touches whole soul, a godly soul.

Pushed, forced into this mortal form.

The essence is SHOVED into the space where a whole soul used to reside.

Filling the spaces left by Zeus’s malice

by his violence against the innermost parts of this being.

Yearning for completeness, for the missing pieces of himself

the shard makes do.

This other soul is similar enough.

It connects with the newcomer, using the soul to fill in the aching gaps-

And Lester is aware.

But not just him.

Apollo’s there too.

He’s barely conscious. Apollo’s had his my? essence slowly, painfully, painfully slowly - drawn out of him, his consciousness shrinking, contracting, until he and his memories could fit in the remaining essence, then repeated for months. No ambrosia. No nectar. Only one visitor.

Zeus. His my father. Only a few times. Only to draw out more essence, and to taunt.

No one else came. No one else could.

All that existed was Apollo, the net, and his slowly fading memories.

Maybe Zeus was right.

Maybe he did deserve this.

Faces flickered past.

Daphne. Hyacinthus.

Both dead because of him.

Scenes he could not fully remember.

People he should know, but who he could not recall.

A man with his knife at another man’s throat, pleading for help.

Hands around a drowning man’s throat, keeping him underwater as he struggled.

Only a handful of the guilt he felt, only the ones who bubbled up to consciousness.

So, so much more below the surface, hidden beneath layer upon layer of distraction

of willful ignorance.

A facade so thorough, it fooled even the owner.

But not anymore.

No one remained to hold back the tide.

He wasn’t needed.

No one had come for him.

Would anyone even care if he were gone?

Images flickered briefly.

A woman with a kindly expression, cradling her to his chest.

His beloved mother.

She would care.

A young girl with cold silver eyes, looking annoyed and exhausted, but also relieved.

She is the very first person he ever sees.

His (sometimes annoying, but precious) twin Artemis.

They would care.

The images sputtered, then died.

Desperately he tried to cling to them, to the two people in his life who somehow, for some reason, STILL wanted to be with him.

They slipped away.

He’d justified his need for his continued existence to himself by telling himself over and over that he was gorgeous, that he could not deprive the world of his beauty.

That everyone loved him, that they’d be worse off if he was gone.

That he was a GOOD PERSON, who deserved to be alive even when so many others had ceased to exist.

Zeus’s punishment had laid it all bare to him.

The world did not need him.

The world did not love him.

He was not a good person.

He would have given up long before, if not for Artemis and Leto.

But even his desire to exist for them, so they would not have to mourn his passing, was dying out.

It kept him alive for all those months in that prison.

But that was all it could do.

And even that was fading with his memories of them.

I pulled back from Apollo’s consciousness, just a little. I couldn’t separate too much, or I’d lose my sense of self again. But enough to escape the spiral Apollo was trapped in.

I couldn’t remember much. Couldn’t quite feel what I should. From connecting with Apollo, I had realized that *I* - what *I* was left - was just a fragment of a person. Just a remnant of once was.

But I knew that Apollo didn’t deserve to fade.

He’d screwed up, no denying that. He’d done some terrible things, and ALLOWED even more horrible things to happen, things that even now he didn’t realize the horror of.

But beneath all of that, beneath his indifference, his arrogance, his selfishness, his guilt, his sadness... we weren’t so different.

I had easily connected with his soul. Even with my barely functioning memory, I could tell that while Apollo’s soul wasn’t my own, beneath it all, we were similar where it mattered most.

If we had switched places, would I be like him, and him like me?

I didn’t know.

But it gave me hope.

I saw no way to save myself, but perhaps I could save Apollo.

Perhaps he could right the terrible wrongs I had seen in the background of his memories.

Children fighting to the death against monsters.

People cursed and killed because they had the misfortune to be in the crossfire of a spat between gods.

Apollo was not innocent in this.

But he was not a monster either.

I could feel it in the depths of my soul.

He could help the children.

He could help the innocents.

He could be a better person than he thought he was.

And, maybe... maybe that was good enough.

For now, though, I had to focus on keeping Apollo alive.

I’d seen the monsters he’d be facing, the dangers that awaited him in the mortal world.

Without his powers, with barely any will to live left, he’d be easy pickings.

Zeus had nearly broken his spirit. As he was now, Apollo would not survive.

Lester...?

Ah. Apollo had realized I was still here.

I felt him instinctively reach out to my soul, to the dregs of memories I had left.

I opened up the connection, let him see what I saw, let him feel what I feel. Let him perceive his memories through my eyes.

And he found my memories too. Ones I didn’t even realize were still there.

Mum, bringing me soup when I was sick.

Dad, helping teach me how to drive.

Tyrone and Tyler hiding very poorly during a game of hide-and-seek (I didn’t let them know that I could see them behind the curtain. I just walked on by, letting them believe they had chosen the best hiding place in the world.

Getting down on my hands and knees and giving Katie Pegasus-back rides (they were 20% cooler than ponies she said.)

Helping Cameron with his homework, vowing to be the best older brother possible to him, and the best friend.

I felt him realize, in the depths of his soul, that I was a person too.

That I wasn’t just fodder.

That the mortals he had so callously ignored, had dismissed as being less important than him, than the gods - that we weren’t as different as he liked to believe.

The guilt that he had tried so hard to keep at bay, to keep hidden in the depths of his soul, crashed down on him.

He’d failed SO BADLY.

They’d all failed.

How could they not have realized...?

No. They realized. They just pretended otherwise.

It was easier that way.

His despair nearly engulfed me.

I’m a terrible person.

I deserve this.

I deserve much worse than this.

SO FIX IT, I screamed at him. You know better now. You can change things. But not if you die here. Survive. Learn. Grow. If you think you’re a terrible person, then BECOME a better one. But you can’t fix your mistakes if you’re gone.

I could feel him begin to rally, feel him begin to change course. But it wasn’t enough. With his own existing guilt and insecurity combined with Zeus’s abuse over the past several months, he still didn’t have enough left in him to fight back. With time and support, I believed that he would recover enough to stand up for himself and for others. So long as he had some means to combat his depression, his guilt. Someone to shout back the voices when they got too loud, to help him fight off the voices, until he was strong enough to fight them off himself. Someone like me.

I didn’t have that time.

Through my Apollo’s? eyes, I saw Zeus reach down his hand and pick me, Apollo, us up. Everything was foggy, Apollo and I still adjusting to each other’s presence.

Then Zeus engulfed us in a fiery light.

The pain was worse than you could ever imagine. I burned from the inside out, Zeus’s flame targeting the last remaining scrap of my soul. Apollo attempted to shield me, to hide me from the flame by concealing my soul with the light from his own.

It wasn’t going to work. I could feel the flame licking at Apollo’s soul, causing him to scream as well. Perhaps Zeus didn’t want Apollo destroyed. But he didn’t believe that Apollo would truly sacrifice himself, put himself on the line to help save a mortal he’d just met.

I’d felt Apollo’s soul.

I knew better.

Apollo would burn to protect those he cared about.

I wasn’t going to give him the chance.

I was going to be destroyed. No avoiding that.

But I would undo as much of Zeus’s damage as I could first.

If I was going to be destroyed, some good would come of it.

I dove into Apollo’s memories, racing against time. I wanted to help reinforce his positive memories, suppress the ones of the abuse and suffering he had endured. I couldn’t. Anything I touched, anything I interfered with, was at risk of being erased by Zeus’s flame.

Instead I searched for his most recent memories, the ones that had finally broken him. These last few months did not need to be remembered. Zeus’ taunting would be for nothing. A twinge of satisfaction ran through me at that thought.

I found them quickly. Then I PULLED-

Pain. Boredom. Despair. And most of all

Loneliness.

Such utter loneliness.

My soul shuddered, and curled inwards. It hurt nearly as much as the flames had. No wonder Apollo had nearly given up, if this was the emotional pain he had been in all that time. I held on. Zeus wanted to erase me from existence? Fine. He would erase some of the pain he caused as well.

Apollo sensed what I was doing. We were connected. He knew my plan.

I felt my - no, his, I wouldn’t exist much longer, they were his now - mouth open as tears streamed down his face.

“Please,” he rasped, voice rasp from disuse. “Please just... just leave him alone. Kill me if you want. But leave Lester alone. This isn’t his fault. He doesn’t deserve this punishment. Please.”

Zeus simply glowered at him coldly, the flames intensifying. “REMEMBER. THIS IS YOUR FAULT. YOUR PUNISHMENT.”

He was blaming Apollo for my fate, for the cruelty HE was inflicting on ME.

You are not responsible for this, I thought at Apollo. Zeus is, and Zeus alone. Don’t let others foist off responsibility for their own cruelty.

Just tell my family what happened. Please.

I had a feeling that if he could, Apollo would be sobbing. I will. I promise.

I was done with my work. I couldn’t let Apollo face the flames any longer. Already I could feel them burning through me, burning through the memories I had left behind. Burning through the epiphanies Apollo had experienced while connected to my soul. Everything the flame thought was me, everywhere it thought I might hide, it would incinerate.

Apollo would not remember this. I didn’t see how he could keep his promise. He wouldn’t even remember that I existed. But I had to believe in him. I had to believe that he would come to the same realizations again, realize mortals’ worth. That he could fight through the facade he put up, through his own guilt, pain, and arrogance.

I had done all I could.

I moved out from Apollo’s protection, into the path of the flames. Apollo tried to wrap around me again in a futile, last-ditch attempt to save me. I would not allow him to do so. He’d been hurt enough trying to save me. It was my turn to save him.

Distantly I felt Zeus hurl Apollo off of Olympus, flames still streaming from his body as they burned up the last ashes of my consciousness.

I had helped save someone.

I had helped...

I...

...

#trials of apollo #lester papadopoulos #papadopoulos fam AU #zeus #apollo #fanfiction

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