Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, or any of the characters. Or, basically, anything licensed that I'm not supposed to own in this story, I clearly don't own. Thank you for your time.

BEWARE: RATED FOR LANGUAGE.

PROLOGUE.

"You're kidding me."

I say as I take a step closer to her. Thalia's blue eyes make my knees feel weak, but I stand tall. The words she just told me don't latch onto my brain. I need more information, more words—Hades, I just need to hear her say it one more time.

"I left the hunt."

Her words still take me by surprise.

"Oh," is all I could say after she said it for, maybe, the third time. "That's unexpected."

She shrugs. "I felt it was the right thing to do, I guess." She takes a step closer to me, looking me in the eyes, her gaze unwavering. I feel myself shake as her eyes peer right into my soul. "Don't make me regret it." She whispers into my ear. Her breath feels cold against my neck, and I shiver.

Damn. She plays me so well.

She smirks at my reaction and walks away. I try to call after her, but nothing comes out of my mouth except for a strangled choke. After a few more attempts at trying, I just give up. I hate it when my voice fails me right when I need it the most. I wish it would go away just when I'm about to say something stupid, inappropriate, or unnecessary—not at times like these.

Life's a bitch.

I take a few steps forward, easing into it until I can walk at a normal pace. Minutes pass by and I still haven't moved so far from where I stood before. I decide that walking is for suckers who don't have the King of the Underworld as their father and prepare to shadow travel.

And this fails me even more.

I shadow travel just a few inches away from the forest, when I grow tired and need to take a breath. It feels like I've shadow traveled for like a day or something, and usually—up to my usual standards—a day's worth of shadow traveling will have brought me to another state miles and miles away. I'm definitely not up to my usual standards tonight. I blame it on Thalia and her unexpected news that sends me into an interior frenzy, causing me to move so slowly through the shadows tonight.

Stupid euphoria.

I stand up slowly to avoid wavering and just falling back down on my butt—like the first time I tried standing up after resting for so long. This time it's a success and I'm back on my feet, and walking. I consider running after Thalia, when I realize I have no idea where she went. I really have to start thinking these things through.

I pause for a moment and take a deep breath. I look up at the sky, and notice the moon shining really brightly tonight, way brighter than usual. I have no idea if the moon is giving me good news or bad news, but because I feel so uplifted right now, any kind of news would be good to me at this point. Great news, though, would be a clue to Thalia's whereabouts. She couldn't have gone far, right? I mean—she was just here a few minutes ago.

Then again . . . how long have I been shadow traveling?

Fuck it. I'm so lost now, I'll just let fate bring her to me. I mean, fate's gotten her to leave the hunt, it's on a roll—it can't just stop now when I need it to roll a bit more for me.

Taking the deepest breath I can take, and gathering every last bit of energy I have left, I concentrate my mind on the location I needed to be—CAMP HALF-BLOOD.

Camp, camp Nico, think camp, you need to go back to camp!

I chant the mantra to myself over and over as I feel complete darkness engulf me, holding my breath and afraid to breathe, because my overwhelming emotions are getting in the way of my sanity. And when it's bye-bye sanity, it's bye-bye normal functioning body.

I swear—it's the age. My hormones are driving me insane.

I feel my feet touch solid ground—hallelujah!—and I open my eyes. I'm really thankful that fate decided to take my advice and just keep rolling, because luck is definitely on my side tonight.

I'm in front of Cabin #13, in Camp Half-Blood. Home sweet home.

As I step in the door, I feel fate stop rolling and everything just comes crashing down. Literally. The ground shakes furiously and my cabin just crumbles, like it was made of some really crumby cake—it falls that easily! I close my eyes and try to zone everything out, because it's just a dream and my cabin isn't crumbling right now. I probably fell asleep after shadow traveling and my brain is just playing tricks on me.

I take deep breaths as I slam my eyes shut. I wait a few minutes before opening them again, and thank the gods, when I do, I find myself inside my cabin, safe and sound. I'm lying on bed, my hair is probably a bird's nest—because it always is when I wake up. It comes with the awful morning breath and droopy, heavily bagged eyes—wait a minute.

I sit up from my bed and look around. A faint light penetrates through the tiny little square windows lined at the very top of the walls inside my cabin, and a splash of green light here and there because of the torches of Greek fire outside. I grab the watch I keep on the tiny table beside my bed and look at the time.

6:34 am.

What in Hades?

I get up from my bed, tossing the crumpled sheets off of me recklessly, and walk outside the door. I'm barefoot, and too lazy to go back and get my slippers, as I walk over to the Zeus cabin. I knock on the door loudly three times and wait. No one answers. I try again—and again—and again. Damn, still no answer.

I turn on my heel and march to the Artemis cabin, following the same procedure of loudly knocking and waiting a while before repeating. I do this over and over again, maybe seven more times, maybe even seventeen more times, before I realize there isn't anyone inside.

What the fuck is happening? Thalia and the hunters were just here . . . last night . . . that was when Thalia brought me to the forest and told me she left the hunt, hopefully because of me . . . then I chickened out, hypothetically peed in my pants, and I didn't say anything when she walked away . . . then I tried to follow her but didn't know where the hell she went and then . . . my cabin began to crumble?

That doesn't make any sense.

But it has to.

Or else, that means Thalia never told me anything.

Thalia was never here in the first place.

Holy mother of Hades, please, no.

I begin to sprint towards the only other person I can think of at this point. I feel pebbles, dirt, tiny rocks, and everything else that can be found on the ground stick on my bare feet, and very painfully at that. Gods, I hate this.

I run until I see Percy's cabin (because the kids of the Big Three—apparently nicknamed 'The Big Kids' by anonymous campers—have this unexplainable connection when it comes to one another), but I fail to slow down in time and crash right into the door. The good thing about this was that I didn't have to knock anymore, because that crash was as loud as crashes on doors could get.

I get up, cleaning the dust off my clothes, and doing the best I could to clean my already filthy feet, when Percy opens the door.

He looks just like me in the morning—bird's nest hair, droopy eyes with huge bags under them, a grouchy look on his face, and horrible morning breath.

He yawns. "Nico, what the—"

"Percy," I breathe. "Was Thalia here yesterday?"

Percy looks at me disbelievingly, giving me an if-looks-could-kill-you'd-be-dead-right-now look, but it fails because . . . it never works if the person is sleepy, I guess.

"What—no—what're you talking about?" Percy spits.

"Oh, 'kay then . . . thanks," I mutter disappointedly.

Percy scratches his head furiously as he mumbles something incoherent, and then slams the door without another word.

Damn. She was never here; it was all just a dream.

But it felt so real . . .

Fuck. She plays me so well.

REVIEW!

For some reason, I just had to write this story. I have no idea where I'm going with this, other than the fact that I'm basing it on the song "So Contagious" by Acceptance – though loosely.

And yup, this is a Thalico story, because I am just so obsessed with this couple and I love stories about them. But I wanna make this story different somehow, I just haven't figured out how to write it out yet, but I'm getting there. I'm gonna give this story depth, twists, and make sure the characters stay IC, and just overall, I don't want it to be some crappy teen-love story. So, let's just see where I go with this (:

I would love to hear what you guys think of this prologue! I promise, the other chapters will be longer, and more explanatory and stuff. Just wait and see ;]

- Schoe.