I don't sleep, I wait. I wait for the first sound of muffled crying to reach my ears, then I get of my bunk and walk towards it. Most often its one of the younger kids, desperately trying to hide their shaking and their tears. They latch onto the first thing they see, I just have to make sure it's me.
Tonight it's Caleb, my heart curls painfully as he turns his young face toward me and buries it in my chest. He was seven when he came here, he was nine when he saw his first death, and he was ten when he was in his first war.
He had always been quiet, before he was claimed to be one of us we assumed he was an Athena kid. But his quietness didn't stem from a quiet assessment of the world around him, no, his quietness stemmed from him just being a child. The same child that was thrown into a war that he had no choice but to be a part of.
I loved my mother, Hecate, so I chose to fight, but I knew it was never just for her. These children had no choice. The older campers were bravely fighting for their godly parents, why should they do any different. The oldest campers of course, were on their own quest, far away, leaving the rest of us here leaderless, unsure.
They say Percy made it better for us, but I don't think I've seen any proof the gods care for us at all. If they did maybe they would get someone other than children to fight their battles for them.
After the battles, did they care about their children that had come home utterly destroyed? Of course not, they were gods, they had better things to do, like make more of us.
There is shifting behind me, a whimper rings through the air, and I feel the next oldest camper pass, tonight is a bad night. There's no reason, there were too many deaths for anyone to celebrate their anniversary, but almost everyone, save those that cry alone, is lying curled into someone.
Trying to fit something into the void left by the war.
I can feel Caleb's breathing slow, his pulse no longer fluttering beneath my fingertips as I place my hand over his heart. "Hush, you're safe now", I whisper to him. It's probably a lie.
I often think about what I would do if the gods started another war. I would take as many children with me as possible, and run.
In the first war, before all the Romans and such, they called all those that ran cowards, they shut them out when the returned, only to feel their hate grow as they watched them sleep peacefully, while they writhed at night, screaming at unseen horrors, crying at everything, hating everything.
By the time of the second war, there was no hate left for these campers, just the remnants of envy. We all knew there would be no escape across the earth, the Romans arrival cutting off our last chance to save ourselves.
We honour the dead, we regret their sacrifice, we wish we could feel their peace. We wish we could lie dead with them.
I didn't go home after the first war, I stayed here. My dad wanted me home, the camp had sent out a letter, and he was worried, but I couldn't go home. I couldn't face him. I couldn't pick up the pieces and move on. I needed to find control first.
I think I might go home at the end of this summer, I think almost everyone will, but I don't know if I can return next summer, I don't know if I can return to the first place that ever made me feel at home.
Just as his shaking stops, I feel mine begin, I try to smooth down his hair, I try to control my rapidly beating heart they way they taught us to, but I can't, I can never find the control, I can never be in control.
I hold Caleb closer to my chest, desperate for a way to ease the panic and grief that's swelling inside me. It does nothing, looking at his sleeping face, so still, only deepens my belief that I'm truly alone.
The kids can suffer, that's why we made this roster, the eldest camper find the first crier and then the second eldest and so it goes on, until some nights, we are all lying together, desperately trying to find comfort in one another.
But no one cares for us, we can't expect it from the younger kids, they need us. Though we love to deny it, we long for our parents, the earthly ones that know nothing about what happens at this camp, and the godly ones that never seem to care. We were let out of their arms too early.
For what comfort can the broken give? I'm not a child, I don't have any right to show my pain. I understood what I was getting myself into, I chose this. Though maybe there was no choice to make, how many times were we told that the gods needed our help, that they couldn't fight this alone, that this was our fight. All those words sounded right at the time.
If I could do one thing, I would throw any remaining traces of ancient Greece into oblivion, I would watch the gods fade along with the hell they so desperately deny is a part of them.
There are things I'd miss of course, my sisters and brothers, camp, or more specifically, camp before. I look down at the sleeping child in my arms. I wouldn't miss this.
Caleb wasn't the only child before the war, we all were. Sure we'd trained, sure periodically they would release wild monsters into the forest for us to hunt down, but that was a joke, far from the war that came later.
That doesn't forgive the fact that we were children, but we're not anymore.