I was running across the ocean. I didn't know how I was doing it, but I knew that I had to get away from something. It had almost caught up to me and- "Willow! Wake up! We're here!" Ian was shaking me. "Huh?Wuzzawhatgoinon?" I said sleepily. Ian spelled it out slowly for my waking up brain, "We are at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C." I sat right up. I had been waiting for this for ages! Of course we were only here for a Greek mythology assignment for Mrs. Jackson, it was still cool. Mrs. Jackson was my favorite teacher. Because I had Dyslexia, she didn't give me that many reading assignments. She was a tall, blond woman with stormy gray eyes. Sometimes her husband, Percy Jackson, would come in and teach us about the many Greek monsters. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson had always been very nice to me. When the principle at my private school in Steamboat Springs, Colorado suggested The Manhattan Institute for Brilliant Young Minds in New York, New York, my mom and I had thought that there was no hope for me. The school wasn't a boarding school and we couldn't find a place for me to stay. The Jacksons had kindly offered their place for me to stay. "All right kids, time for your assignments!" Mrs. Jackson was saying," I will be giving you a clipboard, 5 pieces of paper, a pencil, and a camera! Then you will partner up. Mr. Jackson will give you a slip of paper saying what your subject is. You will then spend the next 4 hours collecting enough information on the subject to write a 10 page essay. The essay will be due in 2 weeks." Ian and I immediately partnered up. We went up to Mrs. Jackson and got our stuff. Mr. Jackson came over with the slip of paper. "You guys have the minor Greek gods. Good luck," he said with one of those smiles that looked like he was going to whip out a sword and say,"Charge! To the lunch room!" I looked at him. "Thanks, Mr. Jackson," I said. I was uneasy. I guess it was something about my dream. That or Ian's whimpering. Ian was a funny guy. He had this disorder in his legs that made him walk funny. He had a note for the gym teacher saying that he couldn't participate in any of the activities. I guess they had never seen him run to the lunch room on quesadilla day."Come on, Ian," I said," We have a lot of ground to cover today." He looked startled. "Huh? Yeah, ok, Willow. Let's go." We walked to the Greek mythology section of the Smithsonian. We wrote down all sorts of facts about the gods. My favorite was Hades. Even though he was one the three major sons of Kronos, he was still classified as a minor god, because he wasn't allowed on Mt. Olympus except for the Winter Solstice. We had almost filled the 5 papers when Ian fainted. I didn't know what to do. I tried slapping him, but all he did was mutter something about quesadillas. "I wouldn't bother, his kind is known for fainting, they get scared so easily," a Persian voice said. I whipped around, my long black hair whipping my face. It was my french teacher, Dr. Thorn."Dr. thorn, please you've got to help-" I stopped talking. Dr. Thorn had turned into a monster with Dr. Thorns face, a lion's body and a scorpion's tail, tipped with spikes. I remembered what it was. A manticore. It was able to throw sharp spikes. "-me."The manticore lunged at me. When I neatly stepped out of the way, he growled and resorted to spikes. I don't know how they missed me. Ian wasn't helping me much. He was just there, unconscious and moaning about food. The ADHD in me wondered whether he always talked about food when he was unconscious. Suddenly Mr. Jackson was there."Willow, take this!"He yelled. He thrust a pen in my hand. I don't know what happened, but suddenly the pen was a sword and the sword was in Dr. Thorn's face. The next set of events was weird. I heard Ian waking up, and Mr. Jackson saying something about mist, and I fell unconscious.

I woke up. I was on a very soft bed. I tried to sit up, but something forced me down. "I don't think you should be sitting up just yet, kid," a nice voice said. My eyes focused. A boy my age was sitting on the edge of the bed. He had short blond hair. His eyes were yellow. My brain still wasn't working. "Where am I?" I asked. "Hmm, well, I think I'll let Percy tell you," he answered. "Oh, yeah, drink your nectar," he added. I looked around. On the bed stand there was a tall glass with something that looked like hot chocolate. I started to drink it. It tasted like my mom's lava brownies. Before I knew it, the glass was empty. There was a knock on the door. "Can I come in?" a voice asked. When I said yes, Mr. Jackson came in. "How are you feeling?" he asked. "I feel better. But what happened? Where am I?" I asked. Mr. Jackson thought for a moment. His brow furrowed like it always did when he was worried. That was what Mrs. Jackson said was her favorite trait of him. "Willow, do you remember that the Greek gods sometimes had children with mortals?" Well, if that wasn't random, I was a monkey. "Yeah, they were called demigods, right? But what does that matter? The Greek gods don't exist, they were just myths made up to explain science, right?" I said. Percy was looking exasperated. "Willow, what if you were told that in two thousand years you would be a myth, that what they call modern science is a myth? How would that make you feel?""I guess I wouldn't like it. But what you're trying to tell me is that the Greek gods were real?""Not were, Willow, are. The Greek gods are real, and their children, the demigods, are real too, and you're one." I didn't know what to think. That was just about the craziest thing I have ever heard. I kept expecting him to say, "Hah! April fools!", but he just sat there, looking really serious. I decided to test him, "All right, if my dad is a Greek god, then who is he?" Percy smiled. "Well, haven't you guessed? You always had a thing for guessing the right answer." I thought about it. I eliminated all the goddesses, since I knew my mother was mortal. That still left a bunch of boys. I started with the Olympians. I immediately put Apollo out of the question, I didn't have blond hair, and I liked the moon way more than the sun. Ares was a big NO because I didn't think I could be that aggressive: I didn't fight people just for my own enjoyment. I didn't think I was a Hermes; all his pictures portrayed him with blond hair. Dionysus was impossible; I had never had the patience to grow things and hated parties. Hephaestus was also impossible: I was horrible at any kind of art except drawing. I was also horrible at swimming, so Poseidon was out of the question. Even though I loved lightning, I was scared of heights, so I knew I wasn't a child of Zeus. Then there was Hades. Even before I came to him, I knew that it was Hades that was my father. I had always preferred being on the ground, and I loved playing with fire. I had always been an outsider at my school, except for Ian. And I had never feared dying for some reason. I looked at Percy. "It's Hades, isn't it?" I said. He nodded. "The sign came when I brought you here." I decided against asking him what the sign was. I was feeling sleepy. Percy must have seen my eyes drooping and excused himself. I thought I would never be able to get to sleep, but the moment Mr. Jackson closed the door, I fell asleep.

Chapter 2

I woke up again, thinking I was in my bed at the Jackson's place, but it was the same room. The boy who had been there when I first woke up was there. "Who are you?" I asked. You might think me rude, but I had ADHD, I did impulsive stuff like that. "My name's Jared Haralson, Son of Apollo. And before you ask, you've been out for a week. You're at Camp Half-Blood, the only safe place for demigods. It's on Long Island, and your mom already knows you're here. She also knows that you'll be staying here for at least the rest of the summer." He had said all this without taking a breath. Torture me as you will, but he was really cute. He looked at me. "Who are you? All they told me was that you were 15 and just found out that you were a demigod," He asked. My turn to talk. "My name is Willow Yue. Hades' my dad. Anything else you want know?" Yep, I could be pretty annoying. But apparently, so could he,"Yeah, can you walk?" he asked. When I answered yes, he helped me to my feet. We walked outside. The camp was amazing. There was what looked like a huge forest, a temple to the gods (created by Mrs. Jackson, I could tell, She had drawing plans of it in her office), a volleyball court, a lake (for canoeing), an archery practice range, a forge (for creating weapons), an arena for swordplay practice, a stable for horses (and, as Jared told me, pegasi, winged horses, but I don't believe him). Then there were the cabins. The first wing had twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. Then there were a bigger wing with cabins for the minor gods. There were a lot of cabins in that wing. We went to the back of the minor gods wing to a cabin that was made of black obsidian rock. It had Greek fire burning on torches in front of the door. It looked my kind of place. Noah left me there, looking at my home for the summer. I took a deep breath and opened the door. The interior of the cabin looked a lot like the outside. The walls were made of polished obsidian, there were few windows, and only two bunk beds. Only one of the four beds looked as if it had been slept in lately. I took the bunk bed on the other side of the room and unpacked my few stuff. The door to the cabin opened. A girl about twelve years old came through the door. She spotted me and nearly dropped all the things she had in her hands. We both stared at each other for a few seconds. She decided to talk first. "Hi, I'm Moa," She said," I heard that you were coming. Uhh, welcome to the Hades cabin." And she ran back out after dumping her things on her bunk. Well, that one's a bit strange, I thought.I chose the top bed on the other bunk. I didn't have much, not even a change of clothes. I only had my backpack which had my laptop, drawing pad, pencil case, and some volumes of Naruto. There was a knock on the door. "Hey,Willow, I'm coming in," Mrs Jackson said. She came in, dragging two large suitcases and my guitar case on her back. "I want you to go through all of this and make sure I didn't forget anything. It's all your stuff from our house. Thank goodness you keep a tidy room!If I forgot something, just tell me. I'm going back to our house tomorrow, anyway." I started looking through the suitcases. "Mrs. Jackson, what day is it?" I asked. "Sunday," She said, "So you were unconscious for three days." Whoa, I thought. Three days? That was a long time to be sleeping.