AN: Quick note to all those following me. I know this is not the chapter you were expecting, or even story for that matter, but I was rereading Percy Jackson recently and this plot bunny would not leave me alone. I'm aiming to have a new chapter for all my other stories by Christmas, so bear with me please. In the meantime, enjoy a new story. The start of this chapter is taken from The Lightning Thief, which is owned by Rick Riordan
By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all; a mummy. Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.
Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trapdoor, but it slammed shut. Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.
I wanted to say, No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bathroom. But I forced myself to take a deep breath.
The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around me in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like my demonic math teacher Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur. It felt more like the Three Fates I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway fruit stand: ancient, powerful, and definitely not human. But not particularly interested in killing me, either.
I got up the courage to ask, "What is my destiny?"
I don't know what I was expecting, but it definitely was for the mummy to move. I instinctively took a step back, thinking of the time when I had watched The Mummy. There was no way I was going to let some hippie mummy eat me.
But it didn't reach for me. Instead it unclasped one of its necklaces and expectantly held out her withered hand.
The last thing I wanted to do was touch the mummy, but with the trapdoor still shut and those creepy white eyes looking at me, although I didn't know how it could see, I grabbed the necklace from it.
It was a leather pouch. It looked kinda like a Native American medicine pouch on a cord braided with feathers.
The mummy resettled on her stool.
"Um, thanks." Glassy white eyes continued to stare at me, then slid down to the pouch I still held.
Taken the unspoken clue, I opened the pouch, pulling out a roll of parchment the size of my pinkie. I unrolled it gently. It was yellowed and cracked and old, and I was afraid that it would crumble into dust and then I would fail my quest before I even started. And then Zeus would play target practice and hit me with a lightning bolt.
My eyes skimmed the words. My heart stopped beating and my stomach felt like the floor had dropped out from beneath me. Almost like on one of those rollercoasters where the ride takes you up really high and then drops straight down suddenly at 200mph.
xxxUnravelingDestinyxxx
"Well?" Chiron asked me. "What did the Oracle tell you, Percy?"
I sat in a chair in the council room. Mr. D and Grover were both there. The former wasn't paying any attention to me, which at the moment, I was kind of glad for. Grover fidgeted anxiously, throwing me a nervous look as he chewed on a tin can.
"Tell me? Was she supposed to speak?"
That got Mr. D's attention, along with Chiron's and Grover's.
"Percy, are you saying that the Oracle did not speak with you? She did not give you a prophecy?"
I know it wasn't the most important thing at the moment, but I couldn't stop myself. "The mummy is a she?" I blurted.
"Did she look like a male Peter Johnson?"
"It's Percy Jackson."
"Yes, yes, whatever, Perry Jameson. Why didn't the Oracle give him a prophecy?"
"Perhaps he is not meant to retrieve the bolt," mused Chiron.
"But what about Lord Zeus?" Grover stuttered. "He's given Percy a deadline. If the Oracle didn't give him a quest, how is he going to return the bolt?"
"Slow down a minute. I never said it didn't give me a prophecy. I just said she didn't tell me one."
Chiron turned to face me, worried eyes meeting mine. "What do you mean, Percy?"
I held up the leather pouch the Oracle gave me.
The reactions were instantaneous. Chiron turned as pale as a part horse could, which was surprisingly white. Grover fainted, falling out of his chair with his hooves sticking up. Mr. D. did that weird bending light trick and created another goblet of wine out of thin air. Thunder rumbled, but Chiron didn't scold the camp director like he had the first time.
"Did you read it yet, Percy?"
I gave the centaur an odd look. Of course I read it. I was told to go to the Oracle and get a prophecy. A creepy mummy handed me one, so I read it. Why did one prophecy warrant such reactions? I couldn't have been the first one to get one. Luke must have when he went on his quest. I guess the Oracle must usually speak her prophecies and not hand them out like candy. But still, they seemed a little dramatic to me.
"This is not good," Mr. D. muttered as he sipped his wine.
Not even a week at camp and I'm already in trouble. I'm pretty sure that's the fastest record yet. Although I don't think the resident god had any room to be talking. Chiron had said he was on restriction, but here he was drinking wine. I bet once Zeus was going to pitch him off Mount Olympus, right after me, of course.
"Would you read it, Percy?"
I refrained from rolling my eyes,
"A half-blood of the eldest gods
shall reach sixteen against all odds,
And see the world in endless sleep,
The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap.
A single choice shall end his days.
Olympus to preserve or raze."
"I am sorry, Percy."
"Sorry?"
"I was not expecting this." Chiron said. "Zeus will take this as proof that you have stolen his master bolt."
"What!" I exclaimed, leaping to my feet. "This prophecy doesn't even mention his stupid bolt. How can he use this to blame me? I didn't steal his bolt!"
Chiron shook his head wearily. "That matters not, Percy. The prophecy you just read is known as the Great Prophecy. It has been foretold that a child of the Big Three would one day either be responsible for saving Olympus or destroying it. In order to prevent such a thing from happening, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades swore on the River Styx not to father any more children."
Well, Zeus and Poseidon certainly didn't keep that promise, obviously.
"You are destined to either save the Heart of the West or burn it to the ground. The gods will do everything in their power to ensure that you die so that the prophecy does not come to pass."
Great. A whole lot of immortals now hate my guts and want to see me dead. And I never wanted to go to summer camp. I can't imagine what I was thinking.
"But, shouldn't they keep me alive so I can save them? I mean, what reason do I have to destroy Olympus?" I asked.
"The gods will not care, Percy. You are a threat to their survival. You shall have to stay in camp and train for the future. I will do my best to protect you."
I stared open mouth at my once Latin teacher. Stay at camp? I couldn't stay at camp. I needed to get to the underworld and save my mom. "Couldn't we explain this to them? Somehow prove that I'm not going to kill them all? That I didn't steal Zeus's lightning bolt?"
In light of the current situation, the bolt was the most concerning, but I didn't want to be spare death because of the damn prophecy only to die because I didn't give back the bolt like Zeus ordered me to.
"I do not know that they shall believe you, Percy, but we must try. Go, pack your bags."
"Pack my bags?" I repeated.
"I am taking you to Olympus."
Prophecy still clenched in my hand, I returned to cabin three to back the little belongings I had. Three orange Camp Half-Blood tee-shirts that I was given upon arrival, some jeans and other shirts from the trip to Montauk, toiletries Luke had stolen for me when I was living in the Hermes cabin, and my Minotaur horn.
I was about to take the coolest field trip that I had ever had in my six years of schooling at six different schools. And this time, the cool part was that I didn't know whether or not I was going to die.
