The first thing he felt was pain. Awful pain on the right side of skull. His right hand reached his head but the contact only made his headache worse and he hissed as the throbbing grew. Only one eye peeped open. The other was closed, dealing with the pain and the teen came to the realization that…. His head only hit the ceiling.
The boy collapsed back in the bed with a groan and surveyed his surroundings. He laid on the top of a bunk bed. Where? He had no idea. Something wasn't right. Why couldn't he remember anything before he woke up? The boy sat up again to look around below him, but hit his head against the ceiling once again and he flopped back on the bed.
"What. The. Fuck."
The teen just laid there for several moments, his eyes scrutinizing the paint chipping off from the ceiling and the few notes that were scribbled down. The most noticeable were: "Christopher loves Shelby" and "SMD."
"Whatever that means." The boy grumbled.
He searched through his brain to find something to relate to. Anything to grasp on from his past. It has only been a few minutes since he woke up this morning but he was positive that he was suffering from amnesia. He finally found something he remembered, his name and age. He repeated the information out loud.
"My name is Percy Jackson, I'm 14 years old." He repeated the sentence again and again and again…
Percy was shocked that his roommates didn't throw a pillow or tell him to shut up. He could hear the boy below him snoring quite loudly and the other across from them, falling of his bed with an indicant thud. Percy decided he should climb down the latter from the bed. However, he found out to late that there was no latter leading to the ground and the 14-year-old fell painfully.
"M*$^# ^U$%$# ^^%$#..." The rant of explicit words continued on as he dealt with his throbbing head and bruised behind.
Percy composed himself after a few minutes of ranting and rolling around on the wood floor. He propped himself up on the floor, some of his hair covering his face. He scanned his clothes, he wore an oversized leather jacket, with ripped black jeans and black boots.
"AC/DC? Wonder what that means." Percy grumbled as he looked down at his white shirt and the large black letters.
He went through his pockets, searching for something that could trigger lost memories. The only thing Percy found was a silver lighter and a folded piece of paper. He decided to un-crumple the paper first. The parchment was tinted yellow from age and the edges were frayed. He opened the paper eagerly, surely something was scribbled down. The note only said the words:
I'LL BE BACK.
The message was written in blue ink and Percy showed his disappointment and confusion. He felt no ties to the words and crumpled the note again than placed it back in his jacket along with the lighter. Percy was in trouble no doubt about it. He was stuck in a room with two Neanderthals in gods know where with nothing besides the clothes he wore. He can't remember anything before waking up this morning besides his age and name and from what Percy could tell so far, he was invisible to the public. If the reaction from the two other boys to Percy's loud cursing was something to be considered.
"I'm definitely in some deep shit." Percy spoke aloud.
Almost four months later.
It was the December Dance at Westover Hall. A military school located in Bar Harbor, Maine on the East coast of the United States. Kids of all ages were trapped in the gym, groups of girls terrorizing poor innocent boys while the DJ played Britney Spears and Usher. Percy happily sat on the bleachers watching the chaos ensue. Thank the gods, he had the sense of mind to stay away from all of that drama. Besides, even if he tried to fit in with his class mates they wouldn't be able to see him. No one did.
That was, until Bianca and Nico came along. The two sibling were younger than Percy. Bianca was thirteen while Nico was eleven. They came right after Thanksgiving break mysteriously. There was no notice of their arrival or anything beforehand. It was weird, however Percy couldn't call their arrival weird. Not compared to his own situation.
When Percy woke on the very first morning of his "new life" his reaction did not end well. After clumsily falling out of his bunk bed and banging his head against the ceiling a few times, his two roommates: Drake and Josh finally woke up. Percy was wishing they could tell him something about what was going and maybe give him some information on who he was. However, the two didn't seem to even notice his existence. At first, Percy thought it could have been a joke but Drake made it perfectly clear that it wasn't when he did his business in the bathroom, ignorant to Percy standing right next to him while brushing his teeth.
He found out pretty quickly where he was after following his roommates to the office to get their schedules. Dr. Thorn a teacher seemed to actually acknowledge Percy as he handed him a schedule. However, teachers, students and other staff members still did not notice Percy's existence. That was until he accidently ran into Bianca one day. The thirteen-year-old girl was walking past him with her head held low as some of the girls across the hall snickered. When they accidently collided, Bianca looked him right in the eye and apologized profoundly. He was too shocked and grateful that someone noticed him to even acknowledge that his head was hurting from the pain from their collision.
Percy sat with her at lunch and he met Nico, her younger brother. They were Italian, with dark hair and olive skin. Nico was bright and optimistic always talking about his mythomagic game. Bianca was tired and very mature for her age since she was always watching out over Nico. They were orphans and their family lawyer placed them at Westover Hall. Percy trusted the siblings, and they helped each other throughout the weeks at the military school. Which now lead them to where the three of them sat now. In the gym, on the bleachers, happily unbothered by the several other kids running around.
"Play one more round with me! Please, Bee!" Nico, always so full of energy was practically bouncing up in down waiting for his sister's response.
"Not right now okay? Maybe later." Bianca sighed tiredly.
"Please…" Nico pouted.
Bianca only scowled in return. Percy didn't like when the two started to bicker. It was a rare occurrence but still awkward whenever Percy was a witness.
"Hey Nico, come with me to get some punch. We can play mythomagic after." Percy offered.
Nico immediately jumped off the gym bleachers and joined Percy to go find the small snack bar set up. Nico talked on and on about his favorite game and the new card deck he got last week. Percy only nodded and hummed in agreement to whatever the little eleven-year-old said. As the two boys walked Percy caught a glimpse of Grover Underwood, along with three other teens that he has never seen before. Grover was a kid in Percy's grade and was kind of a weirdo, always seeming to be watching the Di Angelo's. It was only a few seconds from the corner of his eye but he could see Grover point his finger in his direction.
"There!" Grover said.
"Shhhh! Grover, don't be rash..."
Percy glanced at Grover to see a girl with short spiked hair wearing all black talking to him harshly. Another girl, with blond hair was scanning the room oblivious to her friends' discussion along with a tall and tanned skin boy who seemed uncomfortable next to his friends.
"Percy. Who are those kids?" Nico looked up at Percy with a bemused look before turning to look at the three new teens who left to go dance in the center of the gym.
"Must be some friends of Grover who wanted to crash the dance or something. Don't worry about." Percy shrugged off Nico's question.
However, Nico didn't seem to believe Percy's answer. Percy wouldn't have either. Who in their right mind would ever want to crash a Westover Hall dance? Percy felt uneasy. Almost as uneasy as he did when he woke up almost four months ago with no memory. After filling three cups full of pink punch the two boys started to walk back to the bleachers chatting cheerfully. Percy was in the middle of telling a story about his roommates Drake and Josh when Nico stopped walking, a look of horror on his face. Percy stopped talking and looked over to the bleachers. Bianca was missing.
"Where did she go?" Nico said.
"To the bathroom?"
Surely, Bianca would say something about where she was going to the boys. Percy turned toward the entrance to see black spikey hair and long blond hair exit the gym. It was the two girls with Grover, the other boy probably ahead with Bianca. If those three teens didn't just show up out of nowhere and were obviously acquainted with Grover Underwood: a weird student in Percy's grade. It was very likely that Bianca Di Angelo was just in the bathroom. However, that wasn't the case and now Percy's friends were missing and he quickly assumed it was them. Why would they take her?
"Nico, let's go!" The two boys raced outside of the gym and to the main hall of the castle.
When Percy walked by for classes he would always flinch seeing the flags and weapons on the wall. It was a little overkill in his opinion. The front doors were open wide and the two boys saw Dr. Thorn who had Bianca in his grasp. That made Percy even more confused. While the teacher was cruel, Percy did not see why the old man would take Bianca. Bianca looked scared and confused above all other emotions. Dr. Thorn muttered a few words and Bianca replied. Whatever they said was lost in the howling wind until Dr. Thorn practically roared.
"Silence, you insufferable girl!" Bianca shrank a little in his grasp.
"Don't talk to my sister like that!" Nico with a rush of fury and courage, he rushed over to Thorn with the cups of punch in his hands and dumped it all over him.
"Jerk!" That was the last of Nico's surge of confidence before he shrank back from the teacher's stare with a whimper.
Dr. Thorn recovered from the almost ineffective splash of punch in his face quickly. His anger grew and right before Percy's eyes, the monster of a teacher became an actual monster. His body resembled the body of a lion and he grew a long tail that resembled a scorpion. A manticore.
"What. The. Fuck." Percy gasped.
Dr. Thorn used a claw and lifted Nico in the air, Bianca cried out and tried to kick the beast but he was to strong and too big to be affected from Bianca's attacks. Thorn let out an evil laugh and looked out over a cliff, muttering something that only the Di Angelo's could hear. Percy needed to do something quick. He looked around frantically for something to use and that's when his mind went into auto-pilot. Percy turned to the wall of weapons and grabbed one of the antique rifles. It looked better than the others and was closest to his arm reach. With a newly found urgency, Percy rushed back to Dr. Thorn and found Grover and his friends were outside and another group of kids, all girls, were too. The girls, dressed in silver parkas had arrows aimed at the monster's back. The scene looked chaotic.
"Alright, time to end this." Percy growled.
He had no idea what came over him but after a few clicks, the old rifle was aimed at Thorn's neck. He wasted no time pulling the trigger.
CRACK.
The monster fell to the ground and howled in pain. Everyone stood in shock. Bianca dragged Nico out of open fire and over to a corner of the castle. The blond girl who stood next to Grover snapped out of her shock first and charged the monster, stabbing it with a dagger. However, Thorn stood up, the knife still embedded in his shoulder and the girl holding onto his back. Everything went into chaos once again, the hunters uhh… girls started to launch volley of arrows, the other kids started taking out ancient weapons and charged the manticore. Percy just stood there, lost.
Percy only had one weapon: the old rifle. He had no idea what came over him to just go out and grab the damn thing off the wall. He had no idea he could even shoot a gun, with no memories or not he didn't think that happened before. Now, after trying to finish off the monster failed Percy had nothing to do but helplessly watch from the sideline alone with Nico and Bianca.
He put his hand in his leather jacket and felt something in his hand. Ever since he woke up, Percy wore the big beat up leather jacket each day 24/7. For some reason he had some sentimental connection to the clothing and had the instinct to keep it with him at all times. Pulling out of his jacket he held a golden bullet.
"What?" Percy's eyes widened.
The only thing his jacket held was a lighter and until recently and an old note. How could a bullet appear out of nowhere? The fourteen-year-old looked up at the battle. Now was not the time to wonder how to piece of metal got stuck in jacket or how Percy's teacher turned into a monster. There would be a time for questions later hopefully. Percy's fingers fiddled with the small piece of metal and loaded it in the rifle. He aimed it this time between Thorn's eyes, one green the other blue. The monster growled as he tried to shake the blond off his back. With a quick pull of the trigger, Thorn struggled no more and he dissolved into gold powder that littered the ground.
"Annabeth!" The punk girl and the tan boy raced over to the blond while Grover limped over to the Di Angelo's.
Percy jogged over to where Bianca and Nico were huddled in the corner. Bianca standing in front of her brother defensively. Grover tried to reach out to them but Bianca did something totally unexpected. She kicked him right between his legs.
"OOOWWW!" Grover cried as he fell to the ground.
Percy looked down at Grover who started bleating. No, not yelling but bleating, like a goat.
"Oh my god Bianca why'd you do that?" Percy asked frantically.
"I don't know?" Bianca cried.
"How'd you shoot that?" Nico looked up at him with awe and Percy realized he still had the gun in his hand.
"I honestly don't know Nico." Percy sighed and looked over at Bianca.
"Are you alright?" Bianca looked at Percy with wide eyes as if he was a totally different person.
While Percy was four years older than Nico. Percy thought of the little boy as his brother and so far, one of his closest friends. However, his relationship with Bianca is different. For her whole life, Bianca looked over her brother. She filled the maternal position in their mother's absence. She was unnoticed by the people around her. Percy had no idea if he had parents or not, but he was unnoticed by the people around him as well. They were mature and for the past four months, equal partners in helping Nico grow up with a childhood. Percy and Bianca stared at each other until Nico interrupted there weird little moment.
"You should probably be asking Grover that Perce." Nico chuckled slightly.
"Yeah…" Percy looked down at Grover who was still bleating on the ground.
"He may not have deserved that." Bianca through her hands up defensively.
"I thought he was going to attack me!" She said and Nico helped the poor guy up.
While Nico helped him up, Grover's pants seemed to rip as he was pulled off the ground revealing his lower body. Bianca and Nico shielded their eyes just in case but instead of two human legs there were two furry goat hooves. Grover seemed to have little horns grow out of his head and Bianca stepped back slightly while Nico stepped further in awe. The two siblings were so different.
"A faun?" Percy tilted his bemused.
He was shocked by his own words. Why the hell did he call Grover a faun? Before the half-animal could explain himself and everything else that just happened a feminine voice spoke out.
"Satyr!" All four of them looked over to see a teenager around the age of 16 walk towards them.
She was beautiful. With copper colored skin and silky black hair. Her eyes were the color of volcanic rock and a silver tiara rested on her head. She looked like a Persian princess.
"Lady Artemis wishes to speak with Bianca Di Angelo and her two male companions." She said the word "male" with such disdain Percy flinched slightly.
"Wait… Like the goddess Artemis?" Bianca asked hesitantly.
Percy could tell Bianca was confused by the information. However, for some reason he wasn't. It was not much of a surprise when Grover transformed into a faun err… satyr. It was instinct when Percy called him a faun like it was instinct to take the gun and (with perfect aim) shoot down the manticore. See! Percy even knew the monster's name from instinct as well.
"Lady Diana, as in the goddess of the hunt, moon and nature." Percy spoke.
However, he instantly regretted it when the girl immediately snapped her head to look at Percy. He shrunk back slightly. The girl's eyes widened and her volcanic rock eyes seemed to burn with fury.
"Satyr, lead thee to Lady Artemis's tent. I must speak to this male personally."
"Yes Zoë." Grover immediately followed orders and dragged Bianca and Nico where the group of girls were setting up camp.
"Wait, whoa time out here…" Bianca tried to reason as she walked off with Grover.
Percy was about to call out to Bianca and reassure her that she was fine and that she would be alright facing the goddess. However, Zoë stomped right up to him and pulled up his jacket sleeve.
"Hey… What are you doing?" Percy drooped the rifle with a thud and grunted slightly at the girl's force. He stared down at his forearm.
SPQR was tattooed into his skin with five bars below it and a skull above. After taking a shower one night when Percy's dorm mates were heavily asleep, Percy found the tattoo and felt a slight connection along with another across his upper back. However, it was not strong enough to bring back old memories nor did the other tattoo on his back but Percy decided to keep both a secret. The tattoos seemed unimportant any way. But when Percy looked at Zoë's face when she saw the symbols on his arm, they were definitely not unimportant.
"Who are you, demigod?" The girl hissed, gripping Percy's arm with an iron grip.
"I…I don't know okay? My name is Percy Jackson, I'm 14-years-old…"
"What do you know…" Percy didn't know it was possible for her grip to get even tighter.
"I t..t.. told you! I don't know, alright? I woke up with no memories about four months ago." Percy hoped that was good enough information for Zoë' to finally let him go.
'God Damn she had one strong grip.'
"Can you please let me go now?" Zoë' let go and pushed Percy making him stumble a little.
There was silence as Percy held his bruised wrist and Zoë looked at him, deep in thought. Percy waited for her to say something, anything. While her behavior earlier was intimidating and hurtful Percy hid his hope that this Zoë' girl could help him regain his memories. She seemed to know something about his past. After several moments of waiting (on Percy's part) she finally spoke up.
"Thou will discuss these problem with Lady Artemis in her tent. Bring your weapon as well boy." She said icily and walked off, Percy hesitantly following her.
With a rifle strapped to his back and jacket sleeves rolled up, Percy faced whatever came next with a determined expression. After four months of praying for a clue, he finally might get something.
So this is the re-edited version of an old story line I have had for a few years. I'm quite young so my writing skills aren't really on par with other writers who have experience on . This story line took me some time to create so it could be more realistic and more interesting than what I earlier wrote. I hope the story line interests more readers and…. Yeah! Please give comments and tips below, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!