"What should we do, Percy? I've never seen this before!" I yelled to Percy, who was staring intently at, and trying to destroy, the stone angel statue in front of us. That may seem weird, if this were a normal statue.
But it wasn't.
You see, when we came into the woods and saw this statue standing here, we wondered why there was a statue in the woods. Was Chiron using it for something?
Then we turned our backs, just for a second. But when we looked back, the distance between us and the angel had closed significantly. The statue was also in a completely different position than before.
Percy guessed that someone may have moved it while we weren't looking, but I, being the logical one, reminded him that there was no one in the woods before we looked away. As crazy as it sounded, even to me, I suggested that the statues... might not truly be statues.
He just laughed at me at first, but when he saw my face, his body went rigid.
"What do you think they are, then, Annabeth? Some monster that looks like an angel statue? What's like that?" Percy asked me, still unsure of whether I was joking or not.
I explained to him something I'd noticed when I first looked at the statues; their faces. I was still staring at the statue though, to see if anyone was moving it.
"Look at their faces, Percy. Who would truly carve an angel with a face like that? I don't think it's a trick."
I had managed to go all this time without blinking, but while my mind was on explanation, I did. When I looked back, the angel had gotten even closer. It was less than 10 feet away now.
"See if you can break it! If it's stone, Riptide could destroy it!"
He ran over to the statue, and tried to slash at it.
I watched, and helped if I could, but a knife was not exactly the best weapon with which to fight an angel statue. I was better at strategy. So that's what I did. I gave Percy strategy tips, and I stood off to the side, watching. I was trying to figure out what this creature could be.
And that came up to the present, Percy fighting a stone statue and me, trying to figure out what it was.
I pulled the TARDIS lever and the stabilizers, my two hearts still broken from all the friends I had lost. I told her, "I don't care where or when you take me, just let it be a forest. I want trees. And shade."
When the TARDIS landed, I walked out and, thankfully, saw a forest around me, like I had hoped. Apparently, however, this was not a public forest, because I also saw a blonde girl with startling grey eyes facing me. She was wearing an orange shirt that read, "Camp Half-Blood,". Well then, this was a summer camp. I had no idea what 'Half-Blood' meant, but that didn't seem to matter right now.
The girl was also pointing a bronze weapon at me – was that a knife? - and looked confused, but very angry. She didn't look threatening, though, like she would kill me, it just seemed like she was trying to protect her camp.
I put my cheery face on, despite the pain in my hearts, but before I could say anything, she asked, "Who are you, and how'd you get past camp borders? No one gets in here unless we want them to."
"I'm the Doctor, and I have no idea about the borders. How'd you get a teleportation restriction field in the..." I held out my finger and licked it. "... twenty-first century Earth?" I answered. "But never mind that. I-" Then I saw a raven-haired green eyed boy about ten feet away. He didn't surprise me, he was probably one of the campers, but when I saw what he was fighting, I was shocked.
He was slashing at, as well as staring at, a Weeping Angel.
I heard this man, the Doctor, he called himself, telling me all about these aliens, the Weeping Angels.
As he explained, another angel appeared next to the first one.
This jarred two things from his explanation in my mind.
One- If they looked at each other, they could never move again.
Two- He said he had fought them by disappearing, forcing them to do just that.
I got an idea. It seemed crazy, but then again, this whole thing, fighting moving statues, was crazy enough.
"Percy!" I yelled. "Get away! I have an idea!"
He did what I said, but his face was unsure, as was the Doctor's.
Percy was intently watching me, but the Doctor was not.
I walked over to the statues. I yelled at them and looked away, allowing them to advance. Then, when they were in just the right position, at just the right time, I put on my baseball cap, and disappeared. These angels would never move again.
I walked over to Percy, who told me I was amazing. But then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. The Doctor, lying next to us. I saw him breathing. Good, he wasn't dead. But we needed to get him to the infirmary, quickly.
"Oh, gods! Come on!" I said to Percy, who came over to stand next to me. "He's breathing, but we need to get Chiron to see how he's doing."
Even though I had just met this strange man, I had some kind of feeling about him. No, not only because he was handsome. I didn't care about that. I had Percy. But there was just something about him, something about his... demeanor, his personality, maybe, that, though he was a stranger, convinced me he could not possibly be a monster. Evil, perhaps, but not a monster.
Percy and I carried him as quickly as we could to the infirmary. Thankfully, Chiron was there. He didn't notice us at first, so we put the man down on one of the beds, and I went over to talk to Chiron while Percy stayed with the stranger.
"Chiron," I said. "There's this man here. We were -"
I stopped myself to explain.
"I know this all sounds crazy, but just listen. When Percy and me went out into the woods to talk, we saw an angel statue there. We took no notice of it, at least, at first. We looked away, but I wanted to examine it. It seemed like a very fine piece of craftsmanship. But when I turned back, the statue had gotten closer. Percy thought that someone hiding in the trees might have moved it when we were talking, but no one was there before we turned away. I told Percy to try and fight it with his sword, but that didn't work. That was when this man, he calls himself 'The Doctor' showed up. I mean, he just appeared there, in a blue British police telephone box that they used in the '60s. I have no idea how he got through camp borders. Then he got out, and explained some stuff about these statues, the Weeping Angels, they're called, and said that if they look at each other, they can't ever move again. So I went in between the two statues, and let them come to me. I put on my Yankees cap, and disappeared at exactly the right moment for the two angels to look at each other. Then, as Percy was congratulating me, I saw him laying unconscious on the ground. Then we brought him here."
Chiron listened intently to me, then walked towards the bed we'd laid the Doctor on. I followed.
He took his medical equipment out of a pouch on his back, then listened to this man's heartbeat. After a few seconds, my teacher's eyes widened, obviously shocked.
I got up my nerve to speak. "Chiron, what's wrong?"
For a while he just stared at the broken man in front of him. He checked his heartbeat and pulse again, though I have no idea why.
He looked straight into my eyes, and said in confusion as well as amazement, "He has two hearts. Two heartbeats."
