I had no intention of publishing this. But quite frankly, it's funny, or at least I think it is, and I think we could all use a little bit more joy in our lives. I have a few chapters written, so I'm hoping for weekly updates at least for a few weeks, and then, we'll see. Anyways, enjoy, and if you do, let me know in a review. I could use a little bit more joy in my life as well. Also, if anyone is curious about why I've changed the things I have, I would love to explain. I'm nerdy like that.

Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson, neither the books, nor the musical, which this includes references to. I do, however, own the eight textbooks for my Classics class, so that's something, I guess.

Chapter 1- The Dog Days of Summer

Look, maybe you don't believe in the Greek gods, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. If you're lucky, you can ignore them, pretend they don't exist and go about your life. But if you're like me and you're not lucky… well then you can't ignore the gods, even when they ignore you. One way or another their fits, their needs, their problems, they'll become yours. Then all you can do is pray you'll live through it. (Though who do you pray to when it's the gods who are causing you trouble?)

For all of you mortals out there, the following story will sound made up. You'll say to me 'Percy, that didn't happen', and I'll laugh and smile. It makes me happy to know there are people who can afford to go through their lives thinking the gods aren't real. Really, I mean it.

But if you're reading this and suddenly you feel something within you, some truth you can't quite pin down- stop reading. You may be a half-blood, and if you aren't, well you'll end up a Classics major, and that's just as bad. One way or another your life will go down the toilet. I mean it. I've put a lot of effort into writing down my story, but if it stirs something within you- stop reading. I promise I won't be insulted.

But if you think this is just a story, then I hope you enjoy it. There are lessons in it, even for mortals. I mean, they teach the Iliad in school for a reason. Read on, smile a little, laugh if you can, and learn something that will help you be a better person. And then, then ignore anything that makes you think maybe it isn't just a story. After everything that's happened, I have a new appreciation for lies. They're not all bad.

So yeah, that's my disclaimer. Oh and this as well- I'm ADHD and dyslexic, so this story will probably be all over the place. But then again, so is my life. All you can do is hang on.

I suppose it started with my birth, but I didn't know it at the time. So we're going to start with something I can actually remember- the day I developed a slight phobia of Sesame Street.

My summer was not going very well, not that I was surprised. Very few things in my life ever went well. That being said, this summer was especially bad. End of the last year I'd been expelled from my fifth school, and while we were appealing (How could I have known the canon was loaded? Who kept loaded canons just hanging around?) I knew I'd end up having to switch schools, again. It never seemed to matter whether-or-not it made sense for me to have caused the accidents which always got me expelled. The decision stood, and I had to move on.

So far as I knew, my mom hadn't found a new school for me yet. I hadn't seen any of the usual rejection letters, but she knew my luck well enough not to bet on winning the appeal, and I hadn't seen any acceptance letters either. I was beginning to think that I might end up in public school for the first time in my life. Frankly, that didn't sound too bad to me. It was a lot harder to get kicked out of a public school, and I was really getting sick of never going back to the same place twice. It made it really hard to make friends.

Strike that, it made it impossible to make friends, hence why I had none.

Me being friendless, and jobless, but too poor to go to summer camp, I spent most of my summer days just wandering Manhattan. You might be thinking 'Is that safe, letting an 11 year old wander Manhattan alone'. Truthfully it isn't, and definitely not something I would recommend to others, but I was pretty good at getting out of the tight spots I found myself in. I'd found over the years that if you walk really quickly away from anyone who looks shady, they probably won't bother you. Say what you will about the criminals of New York City, but they usually were decent enough that they wouldn't mess with a kid who didn't butt in where he didn't belong. The only thing I really had to worry about was kidnappers, but I guess I was never cute enough for them, because I'd never had any problems.

Besides, I was safer walking around Manhattan alone than I was in my apartment. My step-dad, Gabe, emitted an odor so foul I was liable to choke to death if I spent too much time at home. It was like living beneath the tale of a skunk. Plus Smelly Gabe was as foul as he smelled, and whenever I was home, he'd just remind me of what a loaf I was and how much better off my mom would be if I hadn't ever been born. He was right about that, but I didn't like hearing it all day. Call me selfish like that.

So I mostly just wandered about. Sometimes I would play pick-up games with the other kids that lived nearby. We had a descent league for basketball in June, but now it was mid-July, and everyone else was taking vacations to avoid the oppressive heat. I was in a particularly foul mood that day, because I'd gone to ask Diego if he wanted to play ball, and his mom had yelled at me. Apparently word had gotten around that I blew up a school bus, and suddenly everyone thought I was a terrorist or something. I tried explaining to Mrs. Brown that it wasn't my fault, but it did me no good. I was a 'bad kid' and Diego wouldn't be hanging out with me anymore. End of story.

She'd actually said that to me, that I was a 'bad kid', and the words spun in my head as I walked through the dusty streets. Were they true? I never meant to hurt anyone, but sometimes they got hurt anyways. Was that what made me a bad kid, the fact that I could hurt people without even trying? Maybe. It was hard to come up with any other explanation for why my life was such a mess.

Piece of advise, pay attention while walking in New York City. There are always lots of people around, and it's easy to bump into someone even when you're looking where you're going. When you're moody and brooding and not looking where you're going, well you're bound to get into trouble. And I did. I was thinking about Mrs. Brown's words, kicking up dust, when all of a sudden I kicked a big chunk of pavement. It flew up, arching high, and then smacked a guy right in the face. Horrified, I looked for somewhere to hide, but it was too late. They guy knew immediately that it was my fault, and he turned to me, growling.

But that's when things got weird, because when I say he turned to me growling, I mean it. He was literally growling. I hadn't noticed it before, but suddenly when I looked at him I saw not the face of an annoyed Manhattan businessman, but a snarling hound.

I took two steps back, mouth falling open, heart pounding. I blinked, hoping I'd just gotten something in my own eyes and things would go back to normal , but no such luck. When I looked again, the sight before me was even clearer. Standing there was a giant dog in trench coat, or, perhaps, a man in a trench coat with the head of a dog. The trench coat looked normal enough, or as normal as a trench coat can look, and the dog was just a simple Weimaraner, the breed of dog you always see playing poker in those paintings. Short, gray fur, bright blue eyes, and a long, pointed snout lined with teeth. In this case the mouth was open, and snarling, growling and biting at me.

But then it suddenly stopped, and the creature seemed almost to smile. "You can see me, can't you? I knew I smelled half-blood beneath that stink."

I didn't have a clue what was happening, but my instinct was to run. So, I did. I turned around and sprinted away, pushing through crowds, and crossing the street between furious taxis. I dared to turn around and look behind me, and sure enough the dog-man was chasing after me, snarling and snapping. I usually liked dogs, but there was nothing friendly at all about this one. I knew it would eat me if it caught me, so I couldn't stop running.

Unfortunately, I was eleven. Sure I was athletic, but I couldn't run faster than a full-grown man-dog. I was running as fast as I could, but I could hear the dogs snarls growing closer. I knew it was going to catch me. I just didn't know what else to do.

One weird thing happened as I ran that was worth noting. I should have been focusing on nothing but not-dying, but I'm ADHD, and even in life-or-death situations I'm prone to distraction. Therefore I started wondering (as the dog gained on me) why no one else seemed bothered by the fact that I was being chased by a dog with the body of a human. Sure, you see weird things all the time in New York, but nothing this weird. No one seemed to notice though. I heard a few people say, "Hey, someone call the dog catcher', but either they were being sarcastic jerks, or they didn't notice the dog was not really a dog. Somehow I knew it was the latter, which just didn't make much sense.

But since I was running for my life, I didn't get much time to think about it. Instead I tried to focus, tried to come up with a plan to not die. I reached Central Park at this point, which wasn't my smartest idea. Now that there was more space, the dog-man didn't have to push through crowds to get to me. Instead, he ran to my left, bounding across the grass and propelling himself off a rock. He landed right in front of me, close enough that when I turn and ran, he grabbed the back of my shirt. I screamed, pulling away as hard as I could. The shirt ripped, leaving a ball of cotton in the dog-man's mouth as I fell to the ground and tumbled away.

Rolling down a hill is only fun when you're trying to do it. When you're tumbling down a hill accidentally, well, that hurts. My neck felt ready to snap, sticks stuck into every crevice of my body, a rock jammed into the small of my back- when I finally came to a stop I was bleeding and bruised like you wouldn't believe.

I landed on the bank of the turtle pond, a short way away from a girl my age. She looked up at me and I swore her storm gray eyes were daggers. They certainly cut like them as she snapped, "This is a quiet zone. You can't do that."

I didn't have a chance to tell her it wasn't my choice; she figured it out. A moment later the dog-man came bounding down the hill towards us. The girl screamed (so much for the quiet zone) and suddenly pulled a bronze dagger from the backpack besides her, which was as terrifying as the dog-man. The dog-man was closer though, and heading straight at me, so I focused on getting away from it. But I had no where to go. Stupidly I backed up, and fell flat into the pond.

Two things happened at once. First, I got bitten by a snapping turtle. That didn't feel very good. But besides that, I suddenly felt better. My injuries no longer seemed so severe. I felt a strange tugging in my gut as I kicked my way back to the surface, and the water seemed to propel me, shooting me forward at an alarming speed. Suddenly, I burst straight out of the pond, and took half of the water with me. I drenched the shore, including the girl and the monster. For a moment, both were too shocked to do anything. That gave me the advantage I needed.

I didn't think. If I had, I would probably have died, but instead I trusted my instincts, and charged the monster. I grabbed its snout, wrapping my hands around it and gripping tight. The dog-man freaked, trying to pull from my grasp, but I managed to wrap my legs around it and cling like a koala. It took all my strength to hold the creature's mouth shut, but I managed it, even as it began to thrash, trying to throw me off.

The girl regained her senses at that moment, and charged us, dagger raised high. I worried for a second she'd stab me, for, I don't know, animal cruelty or something like that, but luckily she didn't. Instead she raised the weapon and jabbed at the monster. The dog-man saw it coming though, and spun at just the right moment, slamming me into the girl. I finally lost my grip, and went tumbling, landing half on top of the girl. She howled at me, "Get off me you idiot."

I didn't have time. The dog-man bent over, trying to rip out my throat. It would have succeeded had the girl's knife not landed so close to my hand. Still half on top of her, I grabbed the weapon, and when the dog-man came at me I slammed it upwards, straight through the trench coat, and into the monster's chest.

The creature exploded into yellow dust, leaving nothing but its trench coat behind. Somehow I found that more frightening than anything else, and shouted, dropping the dagger and rolling away from the girl and the trench coat. Only once I was far enough from both did my heartrate start to slow and my brain begin to work. Not that my next thought was very much help at all. All I did was stare at the trench coat and wonder, What?

A teenager dashed towards us. He didn't look like much- blond hair, blue eyes, maybe seventeen-but there was a scar beneath his right eye which made me uneasy. He looked dangerous, especially when he saw me standing there with the girl's knife.

Maybe he was impulsive too, because he didn't stop to ask questions. Instead he drew a full-length sword and charged. I would have died had the girl not managed to scramble to her feet and shout, "Luke no!"

The teen, Luke, stopped, looking down at the younger girl. She touched his arm gently, holding him back, and I figured they were siblings. I didn't know any other logical reason why an older teen would be hanging out with a girl my age… at least none that weren't creepy.

Then I remembered I'd just been attacked by a dog-man who'd exploded into yellow dust when stabbed leaving behind nothing but a trench coat. Maybe I didn't need any logical reasons.

"There was a Cynocephalus," the girl replied. (I'll be honest, I had to google the spelling just now to write it. At the time I thought she was just stringing random consonants together.)

"Dog-head?" Luke repeated, and the girl nodded.

Then they looked over at me. I realized I was still holding the girl's knife, and offered it back. I could hear my mom's voice in my head telling me to say 'thank you', and I meant to, but when I opened my mouth all that came out was, "What just happened?"

The two kids exchanged a look, and then Luke frowned, asking me, "How old are you?"

I didn't see why that mattered at all, but my mind was still not functioning properly, so I couldn't come up with a witty response. So I just answered him, "Eleven."

Luke shrugged and the girl (I really needed to learn her name) snapped, "Doesn't mean he shouldn't know."

"He's safer if he doesn't. Let him be a kid for one more year, Annabeth," Luke answered. I raised a brow at that, which probably looked kind of stupid. Maybe that's why Annabeth looked at me like I was some sort of child and not just a few inches shorter than her. But Luke seemed to get his way. Annabeth took her knife from me and moved to go pack up her things. Luke and I were left more-or-less alone.

So I repeated my question, "What just happened?"

Luke smiled, and maybe it was his scar, but he looked dangerous then. No, he looked deadly. Yet beneath it all there was a strange sympathy, even as he said, "Nothing happened. You were attacked by a rabid dog, but you and Annabeth drove it off."

I didn't understand why he was lying to me. I knew what I had seen. I knew it wasn't just some dog. It was a monster, pure and simple. "You're lying."

"Why would I need to?" Luke answered, a glimmer in his eye. "It was just a dog. What else could it be?"

"A monster."

He smirked again (I was getting sick of his smirk.) "Really? A monster. Isn't eleven a bit too old to believe in monsters? Well then, if it was a monster how did you fight it off?"

"It was distracted when I came out of the lake and I grabbed its snout and stabbed it."

My response threw Luke. He narrowed his gaze, really studying me for the first time. Then his eyes widened, and he seemed almost frightened when he asked, "If you came out of the lake, how come you're dry?"

I looked down. Sure enough, he was right. I knew I had fallen straight into the turtle pond. Annabeth was soaking wet, and her book was probably ruined. Yet I was dry. There was no evidence what-so-ever that I'd fallen into the lake.

For the first time, I wondered if maybe I was going crazy. Had I imagined the whole thing? I knew what I remembered and yet… Luke wasn't wrong. If I'd been in the pond, if I'd managed to soak the monster and Annabeth, how come I wasn't wet? None of this made sense, but somehow that one little fact was too weird even for me. I began to doubt.

Luke could see it in my eyes, because he ran with it, "Look, kid, here is what I think happened. You were being chased by a dog, and you accidentally knocked Annabeth into the pond. Now you're trying to say it's a monster because you're worried she'll be mad. I get it. Annabeth scares me as well. But we both know the truth. There was no monster, and you never went into the pond. You're not even wet."

I knew he was lying to me. Of course I knew it. Yet what I knew had happened… it wasn't possible. At least Luke's solution made sense. But how do you pick? Do you go with the rational explanation when you know it's a lie? Or do you trust your senses even when they're at war with everything you know?

I couldn't pick. I'm indecisive like that. But at that point Annabeth, who was actually wet, said to Luke, "Come on, we should get back. Mr. D will be bad enough we left, even if it's my birthday."

"Happy birthday," I stupidly said. It was just a knee-jerk reaction. I expected Annabeth to glare at me, she seemed the type.

Instead she blushed. (And I did as well). "Ah, thanks. And thanks for saving me from the… dog."

She knew it was a lie too, so why didn't she fight Luke? I just didn't get it. Fighting them, however, didn't seem worth it, not when my mind appeared to be turning to mush. "You're welcome, I guess."

She stared at me for a second, brows furrowed, and then shook her head. Without another word, she began walking away. Luke offered me a sympathetic look and followed after her. Once they reached the path, however, Luke stopped, calling back to me, "Hey kid. I never did ask your name."

"Perseus. I mean Percy." I didn't have a clue why I'd said my full name. I never said my full name. I guess the last few minutes just had me on edge, and since I was normally only this nervous on a test… well my Scantron sheets always had to say 'Perseus'.

Annabeth balked. Luke laughed. Then he mock-saluted me, "Well, Perseus. I'm sure we'll meet again. Good luck. Don't go picking fights with any more dogs. Oh, and the trench coat is yours. Keep it. Maybe it will bring you good luck."