Living Nightmare

(A/N I had this random thought about people who had lost loved ones in the Battle of Manhattan. So here is my result.)

I can't sleep. I lay in my bed, tears running down my face. I haven't been able to sleep for weeks. Not since he died.

It was in the Battle of Manhattan. Everyone else celebrates, while I mourn for lost love. His name was James. He was a Son of Apollo. He could always make me laugh.

'Don't cry.' He would have told me. 'You're all right.'

I haven't stopped crying since he died. He had just single handedly killed a hellhound. He spun around and called to me, "Did you see that!" Those were his last words. An enemy demigod put a sword through him, and by the time I had gotten to him, he was dead.

Why couldn't my father let me rest? Why couldn't my mind wander to dreams, instead of this living nightmare?

I was the Daughter of Hypnos. The Daughter of the god of sleep, who couldn't sleep. They had finished the Hypnos cabin quickly. I laid in here and cried without worry of being heard. All my siblings were too busy sleeping to hear my wails.

I was in a living nightmare. James would've laughed at that. He would have told me that even the best dreams can start out sad. He would've cheered me up.

I pulled off the covers and threw them on the ground. I ran out of the cabin. I ran to the one place I had always felt happy, I ran to the archery range. I was better with a bow than a sword because James had made me practice. Once or twice, I had even shot better than him. I grabbed a bow and swung a quiver on my back.

I shot my first arrow. Bull's-eye. I wish I had missed. That's what I had done before James taught me to shoot. I shot another at the same target. It split the first arrow.

If the best dreams can start out sad, then the worst can have a happy beginning. We had been dating for two months. Before that, we had been best friends for five years.

I came to Camp Half-Blood when I was eight. They put me in the Hermes cabin, even after I was claimed because my father had no cabin. No one liked me. I wasn't good at anything, but sleeping. I couldn't sword fight, or use a knife, or shoot a bow. I was useless.

Two years past and James arrived. He was claimed that night as a Son of Apollo. After campfire he followed me to the Hermes cabin and asked me my name.

"I'm Delia." I had said shyly.

That started a friendship. It became love five years later. Two month after that he was dead.

Dead. Why did he have to be dead? Why couldn't he be alive and laughing? Joking that pretty soon, I would be a better shot than him.

I wanted sleep more than anything because even a nightmare wouldn't be as bad as this. Nothing was as horrible as a living nightmare.