A/N HI! New story up!
Disclaimer:
Me: *grabs PJO characters* Mine!
Rick: ...
Me: ...
Rick: ...
Me: *hands them over reluctantly* Fine! They're yours. Play nice! *watches carefully*
Camp Log
Everything was fine since the Winter Solstice. But there's something wrong. There's always something wrong.
23rd of May - attack on CHB. 25th of May - Campers fall ill, especially children of Demeter. Another attack.
26th May - Camp Jupiter visits have stopped.
27th May - all demigods are now required to stay at camp for the summer session until next winter.
30th May - Children of the Big Three can no longer participate in normal scheduled activities.
I will not be leaving for Camp Jupiter.
Written by Annabeth Chase.
***[]***
I wish I noticed it sooner.
The sky was a murky grey, the kind I would say would be Zeus's shaken-up smoothie spilled all over the hemisphere. Well, that's what my girlfriend said it was.
I sat on my front porch, the rain and wind completely hacking at the wooden stilts of my cabin. The ground was still cracked and dishevelled from the rising of the dead. Not far from here, was probably the Long Island Sound bashing itself against rocks and angering every sea monster there ever was.
The world felt a rocking cradle – every time I tried stepping off my porch, I felt so sick that I just retched all my guts out. It was stupid. This was stupid. Just as my quest finished, the second Titan War, another was planned for me. No one's saying it, but I know they expect me to save them this time. Just like Annabeth's quest for the Athena Parthenos, it is my fate. But after this, I'm sure.
It will be the last.
My home, my place of recognition, lay before me in shambles. The magical campfire illuminating the night sky flickered feebly, but occasionally lifted to six feet in the air, before shrinking into brown-mud coloured flames. The workmanship of Cabin Nine, I thought, a hopeful inspiration. I felt a twinge of guilt. Some were sitting on their wooden steps, like me, ready to back up the night patrol.
"You're in no shape to fight, Percy," she said firmly.
"50 other demigods are suffering," I protested, "and I have to sit here? You need me. The camp needs me."
"Stay here. That's all I ask. Then, when it's over, we'll see about getting you out of here."
As the pine trees around me crackled and hissed away smouldering flames, a loud yell echoed through the camp.
A girl about 13 stormed out of Cabin One. Her face was stony and her fists were clenched, her long blonde hair whipping behind her. "Maya!" Jason yelled. "Maya, don't do this!"
He tripped over the wooden steps and landed flat, face in the mud. I ran to Jason's side. "Who's that?" I ask, trying to concentrate on not to puke, "Is she…?"
"My sister," Jason gasps, wiping mud from his cheeks. "We need to stop her." He grabs my arm and leads me down the gravel path to the other cabins. We pass a temporary medical tent and a demigod with a bandage on his right eye. He stares at me. I turn away, the memory burning in my mind. The girl, Maya, stops at a black, obsidian door. She raps the door so hard that the crows that are resting on the neighbouring pine trees squawk in surprise and fly away. BANG BANG BANG "HEY!" She shouts.
"What in Hades-" Nico exclaims, throwing open his cabin door.
Jason runs up to Maya and tries to pry her away from the cabin. Maya freezes to the floor, her green-blue eyes locked into the necklace of jewels Nico has around his neck. "Maya?" Jason whispers.
The commotion has awoken other campers in the other cabins. They spill out, anxious to have a reason to get out. Lou Ellen, from Hecate sidles up to me and whispers. "What's going on?"
I wave her comment off and look at Maya's frozen face. Her eyes contort with emotion, like swirling storm clouds. Then, as quickly as she froze, she shook off the daze. She gasped for air and her face became pale. She stumbled to the floor, crouching as small as possible, letting a single tear drop fall.
"OK, people, it's way past curfew! You know the rules!" I announce to the crowd gathered around the Hades cabin. I hear groans of resentment. They eventually disappear by group until it's just Jason, Nico, Maya and me. Nico and talks to Jason, not at all miffed by Maya. She turns her face into her knees in shame. Jason nods at me; we can handle it from here.
An hour later, Rachel turns up at my door.
"It's getting better out there," she reports, "not one monster attacks in ages."
"You do know that it's bad luck to say that right?" I say.
She huffs. "Whatever." Then she bites her lip. "Percy, it's Ella."
"The harpy?"
"Yes, the one who memorized the Sibylline Books. She's just been repeating this verse over and over again. Tyson has tried to make her quote something else, but she just won't stop murmuring it!"
"What is it?"
Rachel drops her voice to a whisper. "Chiron told me specifically not to tell you or the rest of the seven. He doesn't want you to be involved anymore."
"Why?" I whisper.
"Just listen. This is it.
Cry of the damned will summon a child
Born of powers, great but wild
One will save those in infinities
The balance will be, at last, at ease."
"It doesn't sound like a prophecy."
"It's not. It's a verse from a poem, can't remember the name but it's a poem about the Greek heroes in general, like a rulebook for them."
"So they've been following that verse all that time? There's never a Greek hero associated damned unless it's to do with-"
"I know, Percy!" She shouts. She looks around and drops her voice to a whisper. "Don't tell anyone." She gets up from the fishing chair she had plonked in and went for the door.
"Percy," she whispers, "one more thing. Chiron said… That it's not referencing to current heroes."
I look at her in confusion.
"Don't you get it? It means that it would be a new camper, undetermined or determined, we're not sure. It's not going to be you."
A/N Listen to this: Across the Lines by Tracy Chapman
"Choose your side,
Run for your life.
Tonight the riots begin..."
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