Percy stirred his slushie moodily. Stupid Gods, He thought. Stupid Wolves. Stupid Amnesia. Two days ago, the wolves had kicked him out, telling him to find some camp, somewhere in the west. Oh alright, sounds good. He imagined replying. I'll just walk all over the western united states searching for the stupid hidden camp while running from monsters and battling a very recent case of amnesia. Sounds great! Sometimes he thought Lupa expected too much of him. He put a large spoonful of blueberry slush in his mouth and sloshed it around until it was completely melted. His head hurt.
About an hour ago, he'd walked past a park where a little girl was having a birthday party. There were kids everywhere, grabbing for pieces of blue birthday cake on the picnic table. Blue birthday cake. That had stopped him dead in his tracks. It triggered a memory, and a happy, light feeling came along with it. He remembered…. Annabeth. She had something to do with it. He frantically tried to reach for the rest of the memory, tried to figure out why he had had blue birthday cake, who had made it, where he ate it, anything. But it was like trying to grab onto sunshine. Before he knew it, shadows had replaced the memory and left him with nothing but a pounding headache and a sour mood.
Stupid Blue Birthday Cake. His mind was like a dark, muddy pool. He could feel the memories he so desperately searched for all around him, like weeds, tickling his feel and tangling around his legs, but the water was far too murky to see any of them clearly.
He tried for another spoonful of slush, but his spoon came up empty. Sighing, he stared into the empty foam cup for a moment before standing up and tossing it into a garbage can. He'd found the half eaten slushie outside of a Sonic drivethru, and, though it grossed him out a bit, he was hungry and tired enough to sit on the curb and eat it. Besides gummy bears, it was the only thing he'd had all day.
Suddenly a shrill screech filled the air. Percy whipped around to see his Euryale and Stheno, the two gorgons who never seemed to die, rounding the drivethru corner in a stolen police cruiser at breakneck speed. Euryale was directing her screams at Percy, yelling things along the lines of "DIE, DEMIGOD SCUM!" Stheno, however, was shouting at Euryale "HAPPY HOUR IS ALMOST OVER! IF YOU WANT A DRINK, NOWS THE TIME TO ORDER!"
Percy uncapped Riptide. Breaktime was over.