A warm wind shuddered past the plastic curtain by Percy's hospital bed. Hospital bed? Percy thought to himself. Why was he in the hospital? Ever since he'd learned who and what his father was, Percy hadn't set foot in a hospital. He hadn't been all that fond of doctors in the first place, but demigods didn't really like to make trips to the ER. Trying to explain to a concerned nurse how you obtained a sword gash in your leg wasn't exactly easy. And besides that, ambrosia and nectar worked just fine.
Percy wracked his brain for any clues. The last thing he remembered was heading to the underworld with Nico Di Angelo. Nico had had a plan to defeat Kronos.
"Kronos!" Percy yelled, jumping out of bed. How long had he been out? Was it already past his sixteenth birthday? He looked around his room for any sign, a cell phone, or a calendar, or a newspaper.
He found a medical chart on the end of his bed. The words in front of him swam. Doctor's handwriting was absolute murder on dyslexic kids. He found the date at the top, nearly dropping the clipboard.
"August 20th," He said out loud, almost to try and convince himself he had read it wrong.
Percy had missed the deadline. His friends were probably all doomed. His stomach turned as he thought about all the demigods at camp. His parents in the city. His best friend Grover. He thought about Annabeth. Tears burned his eyes as he thought about the last time he had talked to her. They had fought about something stupid, Percy being dense and Annabeth being stubborn. Percy had never told her how he felt and now he doubted he would get the chance.
Percy reached for the phone next to the bed hoping maybe to be able to try Annabeth's cell phone, but as he brought it to his ear, he heard only silence. No dial tone, no busy signal, nothing. He knew that the Titan had wanted to destroy humanity, but if Percy and this hospital were still standing, he thought maybe Kronos hadn't yet gotten to his master plan. Percy grabbed the courtesy message pad by the phone. The letterhead at the top told him he was still in Los Angeles.
A crash outside his door startled him into dropping the pad. Then as he thought about it, that was the first noise he'd heard since he had woken up. If he was in a hospital in Los Angeles, shouldn't it be alive with sound? Percy finally took note of his surroundings, finding none of the machines running, the bed next to his empty and unmade, and the florescent lights overhead had been long dead.
Percy's uneasy feeling got worse, turning his empty gut hard. He opened the closet by his bed and found the clothes he'd been wearing the night he left with Nico, jean cutoffs and a plain white t shirt. They smelled musty, liked they'd been hanging there for weeks but Percy figured anything would be better than a hospital gown. He quickly pulled them on, breathing a sigh of relief when he found Riptide in his jeans' pocket.
He uncapped his sword and held it in front of him as he cautiously approached the door. Percy always thought that line about being "too quiet" was so cliche, but that's exactly how the halls of the hospital felt. He scoped out the floor he woke up on. Every room he passed was empty. The nurse's station was completely abandoned, even though the sunshine outside told him it was probably around noon. Had Kronos really wiped out the entire country that fast? And if he had, why leave Percy?
Percy turned as he heard the dragging of feet. He lowered his sword, seeing it was just a small girl at the other end of the hall. He knew she wouldn't be able to see Riptide anyways, but he didn't feel right brandishing a sword at a kid.
"Hey," He said softly. "What are you doing in here all alone?" The girl didn't answer, but she shuffled towards him, keeping her head down. Something about her gait wasn't right. She walked as if her leg was broken, but the pain didn't seem to bother her.
"Are you okay?" He asked as she kept steadily approaching. Her head finally snapped up and Percy couldn't stifle a scream as he saw her face, flesh rotting off and bone exposed.
He didn't have time to think about what to do next before an arrow sprouted from the girl's skull, knocking her back onto the ground. Percy clutched his hands over his heart like an old southern belle. He couldn't believe what he'd just seen. Sure, his dad was a god and he fought monsters on an almost daily basis but walking dead girls? That was well above his pay grade.
"Nice shot, Frank," a boy's voice said from behind where Percy was having his near heart attack. "Apollo would be proud."
Percy's ears pricked up at the god's name. He had just been saved by halfbloods. Unfortunately, that wasn't always a good sign. He turned, seeing a small group. Clearly Frank was the big guy with the bow and arrow. He had two blond boys with him, but that's where the similarities ended with those two. One was thin, pale, and crazed looking, while the other was very handsome and tall, with strangely familiar blue eyes and a golden sword.
"You okay, man?" The handsome blond asked.
"You're a demigod," Percy said stupidly.
"So are you," The blond said, pointing at Riptide with his own sword. "I don't recognize you from Camp, though." Percy stared at the boys. He didn't recognize any of them either. Camp Halfblood had plenty of kids but Percy had been going since he was twelve years old. He knew at least everyone by first name. Unless these three had shown up in the time Percy had been here, but they seemed too well trained, too old to be new campers. How long had he been out exactly?
Percy's hand tensed on his sword as more footsteps approached. Two girls came up the steps by the broken elevator, carrying armfuls of gauze and scratchy hospital blankets. They paused at the sight of Percy on the ground but Frank gave them a reassuring nod. One girl was very small, with wild cinnamon hair and the other was not much bigger but her piercing black eyes gave her the demeanor of someone three times her size.
"Reyna, Hazel," Frank said, "this is our new friend, uh, I didn't catch your name."
"Percy Jackson," Percy said, his voice shaking.
"Well, Percy, I'm Frank and this is Jason," Frank said, pointing to the boy with the golden sword.
"My name's Octavian," the thin boy said, shooting a glare at Frank for not introducing him. Frank rolled his eyes.
"You said you're from camp, right?" Percy asked. All five nodded. "You have to tell me what happened, with the war and the prophecy?"
The five other demigods looked at each other, confused. How could they not know about the war? That's all anyone at camp talked about since the Battle of the Labyrinth. Even if they were all new, they must have heard about it.
"What are you talking about?" Octavian asked, his tone toxic like Percy was bothering him. The little one, who Percy assumed was Hazel, looked at Percy sympathetically.
"We don't know anything about a war," She said. He looked at them, now just as confused as they were.
"Well, what about Annabeth? Do you know where she is?" Percy asked. "I've gotta talk to her. She still hasn't forgiven me for disappearing last summer."
"Annabeth?" Jason asked.
"Yeah, Annabeth," Percy said. "You know, smart, blonde, gorgeous, carries a wicked scary knife, won't shut up about landmarks? Annabeth Chase."
"Dude, I've been at Camp my whole life and I've never met anyone named Annabeth Chase," Jason said.
"What do you mean you've been at camp your whole life?" Percy asked. He was sure he would've seen this kid before, he looked like the kind of guy all the Aphrodite girls would've been after, the popular type, not someone who could blend into the background. "How could you not know Annabeth? She's been at Camp Halfblood longer than anyone."
"Camp Halfblood?" Reyna asked, eyeing Percy like she didn't quite trust him.
Percy rolled his eyes, a little exasperated. "Yes, Camp Halfblood, what other demigod camps do you know of?" He asked sarcastically.
"Well, for starters, Camp Jupiter," Jason said. "The camp we're from. We've never heard of a Camp Halfblood."
"Camp Jupiter?" Percy asked. "Are you a bunch of astronomy nerds?"
Jason looked slightly offended. "No, like Jupiter, Jupiter. You said you were a demigod? How do you not know Jupiter?"
"Uh, I know it's the biggest planet in the solar system," Percy said. "Thanks, Bill Nye." He thought to himself.
"Not the planet, the god, you dumbass," Reyna said, annoyed. "Obviously, he means the god."
Percy wasn't all that great at school, but he'd paid close attention to mythology since he had discovered they actually existed and wanted to kill him. He thought for a moment. "I think I remember. Jupiter is Zeus, right?"
"I mean, you aren't wrong," Frank said, holding his bow close to his chest, looking at Jason.
"Whatever, can you please just tell me what happened with Kronos?" Percy asked, holding his hand to his temple. This entire encounter was making his head spin. "He's why everyone is gone, right?"
"Do you mean Saturn?" Jason asked.
"What's with you guys and the planets?"
"What's with you and the planets?" Jason asked.
Percy hauled himself to his feet. He was quickly growing tired of this game. "Listen, all I know is I left my camp, Camp Halfblood, a few days ago and the next thing I know I'm here. Kronos, Saturn, whatever you want to call him, had an army ready for me to turn to sixteen so he could attack Olympus. Now this place is abandoned and it's August 20th, which is two days after he was going to attack and I'm apparently still standing. What the hell is going on?"
"Well, I can tell you one thing," Jason said, any annoyance leaving him, quickly replaced with sympathy. "It's well into October."