Where am I?
I was sleeping and then… wait, I'm just dreaming. Then why am I staring at myself? Why am I high up in the sky? I look down and see I'm, well, the other me, standing in front of two girls, both around 14. I can't see them very well, we are all casted in a shadow. I look above them and see what exactly is causing the giant shadow. Above the girls and I was the biggest hellhound I have ever seen. It is growling at us, and I automatically knew it was trying to kill us.
I saw my other self pull out my bow and arrow and aim one at the beast. I shoot, but the arrow hits the monster's teeth and bounces right off. Then one of the girls steps out from behind me. She has an old fashioned looking sword in her hand, all decked out with jewels and stuff. I look at the girl. She is beautiful, she had long light brown hair that went down to her mid-back, tan skin, freckles, and her eyes, I couldn't tell if they were sky blue or… grey?
She whispered in my ear, and somehow I heard her say in a soft, gorgeous voice, "Distract it. I'll take care of the rest." She then ran off behind me into the forest that surrounded us. I saw myself pull back another arrow, then let all hell loose. I shot arrow after arrow, none of them seeming to penetrate its thick fur. The hellhound seemed as if it was smirking, showing how invincible it was.
Just then the girl who left came out of the forest from behind the hellhound and began to roll under the beast but before she could stand up and stab it, the beast saw her, and before I could yell at her, the beast jumped, planning on coming back down and squishing the girl.
"No!", I screamed as I sat bolt upright in my bed. My bed! Nicholas Olliver Burns, son of Apollo's bed. Nic's bed, nowhere near a giant hellhound. I breathed a sigh of relief and swing my legs over the edge of my bed. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and headed toward the showers. I liked waking up early, no wait for the showers and I got to take my sweet time. After a long 25 minute shower, I got dressed in a pair of jeans and a Camp T-shirt, and pulled on my favorite yellow Sperry's. I walked back into my cabin.
Will Solace looks like he just got up, his hair a mess and him leaning against a wall, eyes half closed. He weakly smiled. I walked over to him and asked if anything was wrong since he wasn't looking so hot. "Well, I think I'm sick. I'm just gonna sit the day out. Will you lead the cabin today?" I smiled and practically screamed "Yes!" Will laughed as he crawled back into bed. "Would you please do the honors?" "Oh, of course", I replied. I turned from his bed.
"Alright, Apollo Cabin! Get up! Our father is in the sky, hence we must get up!", I yelled to all my siblings. I saw lumps on each bunk bed moving a little, but nothing more than that. I knew what I had to do, Will used this trick during times like this. "Last one up has trash duty for a week!" That got them up. Everyone was immediately making their beds or sprinting for the showers. I laughed at their rush. Breakfast started in an hour! The other cabins never get up this early, but all of us being the children of the sun god, we got up pretty early.
Everyone was now in line for a shower stall. I'm about to walk out and practice my archery for a few minutes, when I hear a moan and I see a lump move on the bed nearest me. I turn around to see a small figure curled up under the blanket, with nothing but her head showing. Her dirty blonde wavy hair cascading over her pillow, I move it all back to the back of her head and pull back to blanket to find my baby sister, well, half-sister, curled into a ball.
"Gotta get up, Sofey. All the showers will be taken soon." I tell her. I hear her mumble something as she tries to pull the blanket out of my hand. "Sofey-girl, you gotta get up. Everyone else did. What did you say?" I finish as she mumbles something again. She finally opens her amber eyes, almost identical to mine.
"I said", she tells me in a very high pitched, 7 year old voice, "I don't want to take a shower and do I have trash duty?" she looked at me with pleading eyes, "no, you don't have trash duty. But you do have to get up and get dressed. Come on", I say to her as I picked her up bridal style and took her to her trunk. She laughed as I spun her around before her down. She smiled then turned and opened her trunk, pulling out clothes and heading for the bathroom. I smiled and grabbed my yellow cuffs off my bedside table.
My dad had given me these special cuffs for my 12th birthday, 3 years ago. As I said, the cuffs were yellow and had a golden sun shining on the outside. I opened one cuff and locked it into place on one of my wrists, and did the same on the other. I walked down to the archery range. When I got there, I tapped my cuffs together. I heard a soft clank and next I knew I was holding a bow already loaded with an arrow. I started shooting.
After about half an hour of satisfying practice, I walked back to the cabin. All my sibling were now wide awake and were doing their chores quietly, having noticed the sleeping, sick Will. I went over to my bunk and started making it. After a while the bell rang, telling the camp breakfast was ready. "Time for breakfast, my dear cabin! Line up!" I went to the door and watched as the cabin lined up behind me. I lead my cabin to the mess hall, looking around at all the other cabins, sleepily moving toward the mess hall next to us.
~~~~Skipping Breakfast~~~~
Our first class, Sword fighting. We were all pretty good at it, but of course archery was more of our thing. Then on to arts and crafts. We all walked out , laughing at our paint fight, which got all of us looking like multicolored flowers. After a quick clothes –change, we had free time. I was planning on practicing my archery more, but instead I was met by Connor Stoll once I stepped out of the cabin.
"Chiron is calling a meeting for all the head of cabins! Do you know where Will is? He needs him there now!" Connor told me, out of breath from running there. "Will is sick and I'm the head for today. I'll walk to the Big House with you", I replied.
Connor huffed and turned around and began to run back, but I grabbed his arm and stopped him. "wow, I said walk! Look, all the other heads are walking!" I pointed out to him. He nodded his head in agreement and fell in line next to me. We walked in a comfortable silence until we were taking seats in the rec. room. Even though we didn't run there, we were still the first. I looked at Connor, Travis sitting right behind him.
"You guys know what's up?"
"No idea dude, Chiron just called it", Connor told me. Travis cleared his throat.
"Actually", he said, smirking at his brother," I heard someone went missing yesterday!" My mouth hung open in shock.
"Who?" I inquired.
"I don't know, my informer wouldn't tell me", he told me, looking disappointed at the memory. Everyone then came piling in. I looked around.
Clarisse was sitting next to Travis, who was trying to slyly grab her wallet sticking out of her pocket. Drew was admiring herself in a compact mirror. When she noticed me looking she smiled and did a little wave. I rolled my eyes and flipped my bangs out of my eyes. I usually prided myself on my good looks, with my platinum blonde hair, I grew so it looked kinda like JBiebs, amber eyes, very rare to mortals, but quite common for kids of Apollo, and my tan skin, but when it came to Drew, I wish I was as ugly as a Hephaestus kid, no offence. I saw Katie Gardner sit across from Travis and look him straight in the eyes as she told Clarisse what he was doing. Pollux, from the Dionysus cabin, came in after her and took a seat. As he sat, Jake Mason from the Hephaestus cabin came in. Unfortunately for him, he had to sit next to Drew to avoid sitting in Annabeth or Percy's seat. That's when I realized they weren't here. Neither was Nico. I didn't have time to think about it.
"Heroes!" Chiron called to all of us. Everyone stopped talking and faced him respectfully. "We are in the midst of a problem. And I am afraid I must assign a quest for this particular situation." He was about to say more when Rachael came running through the door.
"Sorry I'm late! I was trying to look into the future. It's crazy, I tell ya", she told us as she casually sat down in her plush seat next to Chiron. We all turned our attention back to Chiron.
"As I was saying…" his voice faltered at the end. He looked down and took a deep breath. This must be really big.
"What is it Chiron?" Katie asked, sounding concerned. All the heads started adding in, saying comforting things to support Chiron. Chiron looked up, then at Percy, Annabeth, and Nico's empty seats. He took one last sigh before saying,
"I am afraid Percy and Nico have gone missing." We all stared at him.
"What about Annabeth?" I asked, noticing her name was not mentioned.
"Ah, here is another difficult thing. She was apparently at the beach with Percy, when… well, I'll just read the note." Chiron pulled a piece of paper out of his saddle bag and began to read the messy, hastily written note.
Dear Chiron,
I have to go now or I may never find Percy again. We were at the beach when something, I think it was a hellhound, jumped out of nowhere. Percy tried to protect me, but the hellhound grabbed him and ran off! I think I saw Nico knocked out on the hellhounds back. I was running towards them… something hit me. I was knocked out and when I woke up there was no sign of anyone. I have to leave NOW while everything is still fresh. I will be back, with Percy.
Love, Annabeth
Chiron threw the note on the table, where we all passed it around.
"As you can know tell, Annabeth went after Percy. This happened almost a week ago. Annabeth has also been declared missing by the gods." Chiron was about to say more when Travis spoke up.
"Why hasn't anyone noticed that they were gone? It's been a whole week and nobody has noticed? Seriously?" He looked around the room as everyone shook their heads, coming to the same conclusion, no one has noticed any of the missing people's absence. I thought back through the week, sure I could remember seeing Percy while canoeing, or Annabeth reading somewhere, or even Nico randomly popping in and out of the forest, but… I can't. I don't remember anything.
"Ah, that is something I can explain", Chiron says, nervously shifting his weight from one hoof to the other. We all looked at him expectantly. "The gods did not want you to know of the disappearances. Therefore the Mist was used to ensure no one noticed", Chiron explained. We all stared in shock at Chiron.
Why was this held from us? We has all the right to know our friends were missing! Just as everyone was about to start talking at once, Rachael stood up. Her eyes were clear and green mist was coming out of her mouth. She then spoke in her creepy three person voice and she said the prophecy. (A/N please keep in mind I made this up, not the famous Rick Riordan!)
To find the three you seek
You must join the sun, moon, and garden with a blue streak
The demigods are hidden in each others domain
To find them is simple and plain
But you must fight Earth at the Son of Poseidon's shack
To successfully finish your quest and safely get back
We all stared, and before we could say anything, a mist formed in front of Chiron's face. He shook his head and focused on the image. We all saw through the mist to recognize Lady Artemis. In the background you could see a forest, with her hunters running around. They were yelling something, but we couldn't hear them. Chiron bowed in front of the mist.
"Lady Artemis", he said.
"Thank you Chiron, but there is no time for formalities. My Lieutenant, Thalia Grace, is missing. We cannot find her anywhere", Artemis told him in a rush, looking around the Iris message, seeing if Thalia might be hiding behind it. We all sat in shock, again. Wasn't this just a fun afternoon. The conch horn for lunch had rang a long time ago, and we heard the surge of kids, yelling and screaming as they came out of the mess hall. We were sitting in silence.
"Oh dear, this isn't good. My Lady, we have also discovered that Perseus Jackson and Nico di Angelo are missing. This cannot be good being that…"
"They are all children of the Big Three", Artemis finished, looking even more worried than before.
"Uh, Chiron?", Pollux said nervously.
"Yes, child?" Chiron asked through forced happiness.
"The Prophecy said the sun, moon, and garden must join, so that must mean a child of Apollo, the sun god, a child of Demeter, the garden, and then the moon…" He trailed off but not before Clarisse picked up on what he was implying. "So we also need a Hunter of Artemis, the moon goddess, to completely fulfill the Prophecy." She finished. Everyone looked to the Mist with Artemis still there, who had heard everything. She nodded.
"I will send a representative now. She shall arrive by morning. Goodbye Chiron."
"Goodbye, My Lady", Chiron sighed as he ran his hand through the mist.
Everyone was still not speaking, letting everything that had just happened sink in. Something big is coming, and we all know it.