Death is Escape

Shade appeared. He had been walking around in the forest when he had seen Jacob. He had spotted him working with dangerous chemicals the other day. The word he had carved on the tree was enough to clue the son of Pluto in about what he was going to do. In a blink of an eye, he shadow-traveled and grabbed a hold of his wrist.
"What the he'll do you think you're doing, Jacob?"
Shade looked into his eyes, his own hazel ones blazing.

Jay, you kill yourself far too often in the AT board.

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Katie had been following Jacob for a week.

Why was she following him around? Well, that's an interesting question. Recently she'd noticed he'd been a little...what was the word? Strange? Quiet? And sometimes he'd suddenly have a mood swing for no apparent reason. A little worried, Katie tagged Jacob around a bit. For awhile, nothing appeared to be happening...

Monday came and passed. Then Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday.
Then it was Friday. Katie, unbeknownst to Jacob Loure, Katie had been hiding in the workshop that day while Jacob worked on...whatever it was. Nearly knocking over several poisonous chemicals, ducking behind carts whenever Jacob looked her way, Katie managed to stay hidden the entire five hours¹ he was in there. When he left, Katie ran to the place where'd Jacob had been, and turned pale when she realized what the son of Athena had been messing around with. The labels on the containers listed several chemicals, some of which Katie knew were deadly. What the hell was he doing?

The next day, Katie silently shadowed the demigod without revealing what she was doing. During swordfighting practice she coincidentally ended up as his partner. At Archery she practiced at the target right next to Jacob's. She found reasons to pass the Athena Cabin Table as much as possible during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Jacob wouldn't be able to do anything without her knowing...

Except, she got caught up explaining the principle of Capture the Flag to some Mars kid who obviously did not like the 'no maiming' rule. She lost a few minutes there. Unfortunately, they were extremely valuable minutes...

It took her another few minutes to find Jacob, and she saw what he was holding in his hand. The pill. Shade had grabbed his wrist, demanding to know what Jacob was doing. Katie felt relieved for a brief moment...then Jacob switched the hand that was holding the deadly pill, and popped it in his mouth before Katie had time to even think.

By the time she processed what had happened in her mind, it was too late. Jacob started coughing in the few seconds it took Katie to run over.

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¹~I just randomly guessed the number, since you said a 'couple of hours'.

Katie's eyes widened. Oh gods. She was too late, much too late...angry now, she wanted to blame someone. The Mars kid was the first person that popped into her mind. If it weren't for him, she wouldn't have lost Jacob, and she would have been there to prevent him from committing suicide. "You idiot," she growled, saying the first things that came to her mind. "What the Hades were you thinking?" By then, Jacob had started flailing wildly. Effects from the poisonous pill, Katie assumed.

Her mind flashed back to the first day she noticed Jacob was being strange. Tuesday, a few weeks ago. In the Mess Hall. He'd abruptly stopped laughing and joking along with his half siblings, the rest of the Minerva and Athena children. For a moment he looked...scared? Whatever, Katie couldn't exactly find the word at the moment. But then he shuddered, and excused himself, leaving the mess hall in a hurry.

A god messing with his mind? Gaea messing with his mind? Well, someone on Gaea's side messing with his mind? Katie had no idea...but that seemed to be the most likely explanation. After all, Jacob seemed to be sudddenly acting weird for a moment, out of the blue...as if someone were talking to him...in his head...

"What's up?" Jacob's voice snapped the daughter of Aphrodite back to the present day. Right after that, Jacob began laughing, and Katie instinctively took a small step away, a teensy bit nervous at the strange, slightly crazed look on Jacob's face.

Wasn't Shade Roman?

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Medic. Katie mentally kicked herself. Why didn't she yell for help earlier? Or, why didn't she tell Chiron when she found out what Jacob seemed to be planning? She was an idiot. Now she understood why daughters of Aphrodite were typically labeled 'brainless, vain, and self-centered'. She didn't think she was vain or self-centered {usually} but at the moment she felt like the most idiotic person in the world.

"I'll go get an Apollo kid," Katie said, when there was seemingly no response to Shade's frantic yell for help. She knew it was no use, and that Jacob would end up dying either way...but at least Katie could say she tried, even if it was too little, too late. She took off running and threw open the Apollo cabin door. No one was there. Cursing in French, English, Ancient Greek, and Latin under her breath, Katie remembered that the Apollo kids had archery at the moment, and the archery range was all the way at the other side of camp.

(BTW, You can never kill yourself too often. )
Jacob coughed again, this time a dribble of blood apearing on his chin. He could barley feel the affects of the pill. "Hmm?" he looked at the son of Pluto. "Oh. Well, there's a crazy man in my head telling me to kill myself." He said it completley seriously, with no sarcasm. He didn't even notice how insane he sounded. "But it's not going well, because all the pill is doing is working like ipecac." Almost as if on cue, Jacob threw up all over the ground in front of him.

"Hey Kate," Jacob said bubbly, sticking his tongue out. "Bad news. I don't think the pill's gonna kill me." He gave her a sad look. "Probably just give me some brain damage. But don't worry." He smirked. "I brought a back-up plan." He reached down the back of his shirt.

Jacob listened to Katie's voice. It seemed to calm him. He slowly put his hand down. As he choked onc more, he stumbled to get up. He latched onto the tree for support. He glanced back to look at the other two. "I-I..." he started. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking..." But as he looked at the tree, he saw the words Goodbye. Then everything came back. He sighed. Hugging the tree, he kicked Katie in the shoulder. He didn't enjoy hurting girls at the best of times, but he had to make an exception. Hoping to catch her by surprise, he grabbed a Glock .44 pistol from his waistband.

Jacob's gun flew out of his hand. "Ah!" he yelped. He quickly leaped for the gun. As he grasped it, he got an idea. "Keep away!" Quickly, he threw the gun to Katie. "Ha!" he laughed. "Try and get it now, Shade." He honestly didn't realise the stupidity of his act.

As Jacob struggled, he tried to reason with Shade. "I'm probably never gonna be the same!" he spit out. "The pill's probably disolved half my stomach. I'm always gonna have brain damage. Why won't you let me put myself out of my misery?" Knowing that Shade would never let him, he picked up a rock. It was shharp at the tip, the shape of a deadly raindrop. He spun around, whipping WShade in the face with it. Not aiming to hurt him, just put a gash on his cheek.