Chapter 1: Panic!
As Percy's dog howled at the moon, the clock struck midnight. The alarm sounded, and the noise of many, many panicky demi-gods rang through the camp. It was time. They had run out of time.
Marissa, a child of Aphrodite, was the first person to speak and the only person not screaming, not only out of the campers, but of the adults, too. "Everybody shut your makeup-covered faces!" she yelled over her brothers and sisters complaining about leaving their extra silk pajamas behind. "If you want to survive, kiss your precious little delacacies goodbye, stop crying, and go! The gods don't grant grace periods, ya know!"
"How would you like it if we told you you had to leave that Gucci handbag behind because it was weighing you down?" said Peyton, a sister of Marissa, who, after her reply, caused a triumphant "yeah!" from the other Aphrodite offspring. "Fine, but it cost me 4,412,991 drachmas!" Marissa cried back. She kissed it and laid it on the floor gently. "Don't make me look at that ever again! Now let's go!"
In the Ares cabin, even the toughest of campers were throwing fits. "I'm going to kill my father if it's the last thing I do!" yelled Yvonne, a daughter of Ares, who, after realizing the danger of what she had just said, was thrown against a wall from a "sudden" gust of wind before she could make a break for it. "Never mind!" she shouted upwards, rubbing an injury on her leg. Yvonne wasn't the smartest cookie in the jar, and she did things without thinking. A piece of paper drifted into her lap. She read, "You're lucky you're good with weapons, or else I wouldn't have kept you around long enough to see this day!
Hate, Ares"
"Good ol' Dad," she said, trying to smile as she stood up. "Need a little help there, squirt?" asked Leila, a tall, bulky Ares kid who always had a sneer on her face. Anger simmered up in Yvonne's face as she replied through gritted teeth, "How's the weather up there, Fatty? Actually, I don't need help, but you do all the time you're so heavy!" "O.K., now that we're even, Little Miss Skin & Bones, let's go. I'm not getting blasted into the wall like somebody I know." She yelled backwards, running toward the door.
This type of scene was repeated in every cabin, with the campers trying to decide what to do. Finally, when everybody met up at the Big House, Chiron made a short speech: "Sorry it came so soon, now run!" They all made their way toward a giant black cube the size of a house on the other side of the strawberry fields. As they reached it, an invisible door swung open and everybody took a seat in the chairs of the dark auditorium. Chiron closed the invisible door behind him and turned the lights on. "Note, children, if you see Dio… D, even out of the corner of your eye, dust yourself with this fine powder located underneath your seats." He held up a container full of what looked like flour while all heads reached down to find their cup. "This is invisibility powder, and before any of you ask why, I'll tell you. If you haven't already guessed, your mothers and fathers are in a terrible fight!"
Everyone gasped. All of a sudden, Chiron was swooped up into a tiny tornado and disappeared before everyone's eyes. All that he left was a tiny piece of paper on the floor and a loud, booming voice laughing and saying, "Chiiildreeennn, never feeeaaar, the Harpies are here!" A few young girls screamed. A body materialized on the stage. "Ah, children, you should never have been bo-orn!" said a Harpy. Percy ran down to the stage. "Eat dust, bird-brain!" He clicked his pen and sliced at the Harpy. She disappeared in a whirlwind of dust, just as Chiron had. But Percy wasn't well off just yet. He seemed to freeze, his eyes locked toward the crowd, then dropped his sword – clanging as it hit the floor – and crumpled to the ground.
