A NEW BEGINNING

Introduction

First of all, my name is Samantha Grace (but people call me Sam). I have a twin sister named Alex Grace. You can tell we're twins; we look EXACTLY the same with our punkish straight black hair, a little bit of freckles across our nose, electric blue eyes, and the fact we're the same height and wear the exact same clothes (which is a Green Day t-shirt, a black hoodie with skulls on it, black baggy jeans, and black skate shoes).

Alex and I completely depended on each other to survive. We had been on our own for as long as we could remember and didn't know anything about our parents or family. We lived by making money on the streets. We didn't have a permanent place to stay, because everywhere we went ancient monsters that weren't supposed to exist would find us and try to kill us. At least that's how it was until we stumbled upon Camp Half-Blood.

Chapter 1-A Stranger Helps

We were busy making a campsite in the woods for the night when we heard a deep growling coming from behind some trees. "Did you hear that?" Alex asked.

"Don't worry it's probably just a small animal or something," I said. Even though I was pretty sure that wasn't what it was.

"Yeah, you're probably right," she said nervously.

We continued to work and about five minutes later we heard it again, as I turned around to look at where the noise was coming from, I saw a huge animal leaping toward us. "Run!" I shouted, and just like that I and Alex were running through the woods and I tripped over a tree root. "Ouch," I screamed.

"Sam, get up or were both dead." Alex said franticly.

"Don't you think I'm trying," I retorted, but every time I tried to put weight on my left foot I would fall back down. "I think I sprained my ankle, you go on without me and save yourself." I said.

"No, after all we've been through together I'm not going to leave you and let some monster kill you. Come on, I'll support you, just grab my hand." she said.

She held out her hand and I grabbed it, "Thanks," I said.

So with my arm over her shoulder, we walked as fast as possible to get away from whatever that thing was. After a while we slowed down and saw a big sign. I couldn't really tell what it said because I have Dyslexia, so to me it looked like it said CPAM HFLA-BOLOD.

"Let's go in there," I suggested, even though I couldn't read what the sign said I figured there were probably people in there that could help us.

"Let's sit down for a minute," she said and plopped down into the grass next to me.

I knew it was probably a bad idea but I sat down next to her. "Can you read that sign?" I asked, even though I knew Alex had Dyslexia too.

"No, but since it's out here in the woods, it's probably a camp."

"Yeah, that's true, what else would be out here," I said. I looked at Alex just as the thing we saw in the woods leapt at her and sent her flying. She landed next to a tree and laid there motionless. I looked at what attacked her and saw a lion with the head of a woman, a sphinx! The sphinx started walking toward Alex with a smirk on her face, which made me extremely mad. So I stood up, despite the pain in my left ankle. The sphinx was getting closer to Alex and now had a hungry expression on her face. I had to think fast, so I picked up a rock and threw it as hard as I could at the sphinx. It hit her in the back of the head with a loud thump.

She turned around and saw me. "Perfect, I'll just eat you as an appetizer," she said with a grin. She started running toward me and I looked around for something I could use for a weapon. I saw a strong looking stick and leapt for it. I grabbed it and ignored the pain in my ankle and I was ready to fight to the death.

"You're not going to be eating anybody, you big stupid flea bag." I said confidently

"You're going to pay for talking back to me you little brat," she said with an evil look in her eye.

"We'll see about that," I said. The sphinx started running toward me and I waited till the last second to jump out of the way, holding my stick out toward the sphinx. The sphinx didn't have enough time to get out of the way and ran straight into the stick and it left a gash on her shoulder, since the stick's edge was pretty sharp.

"Arrrgh!" the sphinx screamed in pain. "You're going to wish you were never born."

"What can you do that would make me wish I was never born?" I asked.

The sphinx shuddered, as if what she was thinking of scared her. "Things you wouldn't understand," she said quickly.

If there was something the sphinx was scared of, then I should definitely be scared of it. After all, the only thing I had to protect myself with was a stick.

Suddenly, the sphinx pounced, so I quickly stuck the stick out towards her. It hit her paw and one of her claws came out and it was surprisingly big. The force of the impact had broken my stick in half. So, while the sphinx was busy licking her paw, I grabbed the claw, knowing it was my only chance.

The sphinx looked up and saw me holding her claw and instantly started running toward me. It took me completely off guard and slammed me into the nearest tree. She was standing on her hind paws and holding me against the tree, so I couldn't move my arms.

"Finally! I got you, I told you that you would pay for talking back to me, brat," she said.

The sphinx pulled back her front paw, like she was going to swipe it at me to kill me. I squeezed my eyes shut and tightened my grip on the claw, knowing the sphinx was about to kill me.

"Let her go," someone screamed on top of the hill where the sign was.

"Who said that," the sphinx snarled.

"Like it's your business," said the stranger. I opened my eyes and saw an arrow fly past me and the sphinx jump out of the way right before the arrow hit her.

When the sphinx let go of me, the pain was unbelievable. My ankle still hurt where I had tripped and both of my shoulders hurt where she was holding me against the tree. Even though I was in pain, I ran toward her and stabbed her in the heart. She was dying, but still managed to swipe her paws at me one more time. Unfortunately for me, she had gotten a lucky shot. I now had three deep gashes where my stomach is. Then the sphinx started to disintegrate, just like all of the other monsters did that Alex and I had killed.

I started limping toward Alex, when I got up to her she was pale. I turned to look at the place where the stranger was and I could see the person running toward us shouting something that sounded like "are you alright?"

I couldn't really tell because my ears were pounding and I could barely hear anything. I looked back down at Alex, and then everything turned black.

Chapter 2- We Get an Explanation, Sort of

When I woke up I saw a girl with short, spiky, black hair, freckles across her nose, and electric blue eyes. She was wearing a black t-shirt, black tattered jeans, and a leather jacket with buttons from a bunch of my favorite bands.

"Where am I?" I asked the girl.

"Camp Half-Blood," she answered. I instantly recognized the voice as the stranger that had helped me escape from the sphinx.

"You're the one who helped me kill the sphinx," I exclaimed.

"Yeah," she said.

Suddenly the memories of the night before flooded back into my mind. "Where's Alex," I asked.

"If you mean your sister, she's over there," she pointed to the bed next to the one I was in.

"Is she alright?" I asked.

"She's going to be fine," she said.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Thalia," she said.

"Where a...am I?" Alex stuttered.

Thalia and I both ran over to Alex to see her. "Sam what is this place?" Alex asked.

"All I know is that we're in a place called Camp Half-Blood," I said.

"Who are you?" she asked Thalia.

"Thalia," she answered.

Just then, the door slammed open. A man in a motorized wheelchair came in. He had thinning hair, a scruffy beard, and was wearing a frayed tweed jacket. "I see your both awake," he said.

"Thalia, could you please wait outside the door, I need to talk to them alone, and when I'm done I would like you to show them around camp," he said.

"Okay," she said as she walked out the door.

"Well, I'm sure your both wondering what's going on," he said.

"Who are you?" I asked. There were tons of questions I wanted to ask, but that's all I could make come out of my mouth.

"My name is Chiron and I teach here at camp. "

"What kind of camp is this?" Alex asked.

"It's a camp for half-bloods," he said.

"What do you mean by half-blood?" Alex and I both asked at the same time.

"Do you know the myths about the Greek Gods?" he asked.

"Yeah," we both said.

"Well, they're not myths. The Greek Gods are still here, and when they have kids with mortals, the kids are Demigods, or half-bloods," he said.

"Wait, so you're saying that the Greek Gods, like Zeus, are still here," I said.

"Yes, and they come to this camp to learn how to survive," he said

"Learn how to survive?" Alex asked.

"The half-bloods attract all kinds of monsters and other bad things, which try to kill them. So they need to learn how to protect themselves," he said.

"Well, why aren't monsters here?" I asked.

"There is a protective border around the camp that only allows half-bloods to cross. The only way something else could get in, is if someone inside of the camp allowed them to," he said.

"So everyone here is half-bloods," I asked.

"No, not exactly, there are nymphs, harpies, satyrs, and well, you get the point," he said.

"So are you a half-blood?"Alex asked.

"No, I'm a centaur," he said.

I was a little confused at first. Then, he slowly began to get out of his wheelchair, but instead of legs, there were hooves. Once he was completely out, we saw that the lower part of his body was a White Stallion.

"Wow!" Alex and I both said.

"Ok, so if everything your telling us is true. Then why are we here? We're not half-bloods. So the protective border shouldn't have let us in." I said.

"But it did let you in, so that means you are half-bloods," Chiron said.

"But, how would we…" I said.

"Have you ever wondered why monsters always found you? Nobody else around you even knew they existed. But you were attacked about once a week by one," he interrupted.

"Wow, so we really are half-bloods," said Alex in amazement.

"Yeah, so come on. I'll get Thalia to show you around." He said.