Chapter one

The yelling and the shouting are too much for Cressida to bear. Her foster parents were always yelling and shouting at her foster siblings, whacking them viciously with leather belts. Cressida was a victim to the torture, she just felt numb and agitated, but it never harmed her in anyway. It was always like that with all her foster homes she settled into.

Night was swirling in, and the stars shone luminously against the dark wispy clouds. Cressida sat in the porch of her ramshackle home, gazing at the coruscating twinkling stars. She loved it out here, in the cold brisk breeze on her skin, and the night at its full darkness. Despite the shouts and yells barely muffled in the house, she found it calm and placid in the hours of darkness. She felt strong.

Cressida would come here always. Gazing at the stars and thinking of nothing. It was some sort of escape for her, like the darkness understood her when no one could. She had no friends, no one loved her and she's been through countless schools where she has never been accepted, she struggled with work because of her dyslexia, and keeping her ADHD on toll was never easy. She was only a teenager, she should be living her life, going out and having fun, but how could she when she sustained so much sadness?

So she sat there on the porch, the sounds of rustling trees and the crickets chirping in the bushes keeping her company.

"Where is that goddam girl?" Jared – Cressida's foster father – roared. She could hear anger in his voice. Cressida just sighed; she knew she was going to receive the inevitable torment.

"She's out star-gazing again!" Stephanie – Her foster mother – shrieked. Cressida sat stoically.

"That dumb girl!" They began to yell and shout obscenities. Cressida waited until they were outside dragging her back in. Her foster parents resent her, scowl at her and call her hopeless and useless, an empty shell with no potential. They don't care for her – they just cared about the money they got for sheltering Cressida under their thumb. It was like this with all the foster families, she thought of herself as a beer bottle on the street, kicked and thrashed around until the glass would shatter. Cressida did, at least she thought she was broken. Unloved and desolated.

Suddenly, the noise in the house erupted into eerie silence. The air around her wavered, suddenly colder and brisker than before. Cressida observed her surroundings quickly, stood up and faced the ramshackle house. She wondered, why did they stop shouting? She wasn't alarmed however, in fact she felt invincible in the night, she thought she was nuts.

She shrugged and a powerful surge hit her, not painfully though. She whipped around and met a shadowy form – not humanoid, but the shadow was compelling. She felt drawn to its familiarity, though she has never seen a shadow out of nowhere, with no source of it. She stood dazed in a reverie. The shadow trailed along, forcing her to follow it like a trail leading to somewhere. Cressida's mind went blank literally, and she was unaware of everything.

She walks along as she follows the path of the shadow in a trance. Its powerful source of darkness so compelling it encases her with transparent darkness as she glides to wherever the shadow is taking her.

In a matter of seconds, Cressida is enveloped into shadow half-consciously in the sky. Soaring over the city lights of New York, the loud traffic havoc beneath her like ants, everything was bird-eye view. She flew over Tribeca Park, and thousands of trees dotted into view.

The powerful shadow in the night hovered on the other side of New York, to the country side of long island. It seemed to glide slower as the destination came closer. Country roads isolated along with woods and mud. All there was were woods; it seemed quiet in this side of the country.

In the midst of it all, the shadow of darkness descended slowly until it reached dirt in the middle of the woods. Thunder boomed in the sky, and the air was warm. As the shadow continued its journey, a tall pine tree came into view and gold glimmered. A large body circled the tall pine tree, with copper scales and yellow eyes; it was alive but seemed to take no notice in the dark shadow passing by. Torch lights loomed into view, the torches blazing and illuminating the arched entrance and the words on the archway read 'Camp Half-Blood.'

Cressida's shadowy form shrivels erratically, the darkness shade disintegrating into the night as Cressida's form parted away from the shadow. Her body was limp as she arrived at this destination, staring wide-eyed in her surroundings. The torch light braziers bringing out her dark hair as her eyes swerved around the trees. She stood shakily under the archway, exhaustion and fatigue weakening the bones in her knees. Her knees gave in and she collapsed on the ground from the impact from the semi-possession. She has arrived to Camp Half-Blood.

Cressida still lay unconscious on the grass under the archway as footsteps crunched closely. People were laughing in the distance and talking and it all died down when a teenage boy caught sight of Cressida. A few other people joined the boy, they were all teens – some young, some older. They all wore orange t-shirts and beaded necklaces. The teenagers huddled around Cressida's limp body, some elbowing away to get a better view.

The guy who found her first had sun kissed hair and blue eyes; he was tall and lean and looked about sixteen years old. He came forth and raised his eyebrows, puzzled. "She's a mortal." He said.

A girl about fifteen, with dark hair and grey eyes came beside him. She rolled her eyes, "Duh Jack, and she's not a monster either, she wouldn't of gotten past the barriers."

"But how did she get past Peleus?" A guy demanded in the crowd. The other teens eyed down at Cressida as she groaned in her unconscious state.

A clip clop sound thumped on the ground and neared closer to the teens huddled around Cressida. The source of the sound approached, it was a young man with shaggy brown hair with a hat and scruffy eyebrows, and he appeared to look very young. His upper body was an average teenage boy, but his lower body had hairy goat legs and hooves.

The boy with the goat legs sniffed, and Jack glanced at him briefly as if he wasn't startled by his appearance. "We just found her here. Does she have a half-blood scent?" Jack said to the boy with goat legs.

The goat boy sniffed and looked down at Cressida's ragged body. "She's a demi-god, a very powerful one." He sniffed again, flabbergasted. "I should get Chiron immediately." Then he scattered away, leaving the rest of the teens curious, all peering at each other.

"Satyrs." The girl with the dark hair and grey eyes grumbled. She rolled her eyes as if irritated.

Jack just shook his head and bent down to inspect Cressida closely, his big blue eyes perplexing. "If she's a demi-god, she's supposed to be claimed already and brought to camp-half blood as soon as she reaches thirteen. She looks about sixteen at most."

"The gods are unpredictable." The girl with the grey eyes said. Lightning flashed. She glanced up at the night sky fearfully. "Sorry." She muttered.

Jack took a quick look at the sky and stood up. "We should take her to the infirmary now, and then Chiron shall speak to her once she's conscious."

The other campers with orange t shirts nodded as Jack and another camper helped pick her up. Cressida groaned in her sleep, her black clothing tattered and dirt with mud. Black shadow still lingered around her, but the campers didn't seem to notice.