Swimming lessons of doom

The girl looked at me, pain spread across her face. "I can't believe you," she said, as she deflected every single one of my blows. Never once did she try to hit me. She just tried to stop me from hitting her. Who ever had taught her to sword fight must have been seriously strange.

I laughed. "Can't believe what, Graecus? How amazing I am?" I laughed again to myself about that joke .Which, apparently is one of the signs of madness.

"You're modest," she muttered. Then her eyes narrowed. "You're really leaving me no choice." A tear trickled down her check as she said it.

"Do you're worst," I told her.

Wait a second. You probably have no idea what I'm going on about, do you? No. Ok, I'll start by introducing myself. I'm Mirus. It means amazing in Latin, by the way. I'm sixteen, I think. I'm not exactly sure. I came here when I was a toddler. But that's another story. Right now I've got to figure out how I'm going to start this one…

"Mirus! Mirus! Wake up piger!" somebody shouted. I opened my eyes, to see Finn standing over my bed with a jug of cold water in his hands. He cursed in Latin when he saw that I was awake. "I so wanted to pour the water on you," he told me. "But as you're awake I can't. Well, what are you waiting for? Get up and get dressed, or you will be getting soaked!"

"Yes Finn. Will do." I waited a few seconds. "Um, can you go so I can get dressed?"

Fin grunted and left the cabin, slamming the door behind him and taking the jug with him.

I got dressed quickly. How could I have slept in? I hadn't even been dreaming, which was a first. Usually, I have loads of dreams, which I can never make any sense of. Dreams of people screaming and crying and dying. I know, lovely. I've never told anybody though. Apparently it's a sign of weakness. And weakness is not good.

I picked my sword up from under my bed, and sheathed it in into my sheath which hung from my belt. Why did I need my sword to eat breakfast? Good question. One, because it was camp rules that you carried your weapon around with you at all times-even if it was a gigantic, mechanical, fire breathing, unicycle riding, flying, purple hippo (long story)- and secondly, because the dining hall could be dangerous at the best of times.

The five other people from the rejects cabin stood outside. Finn, Mia, Tyler, Aubrey and Shea. Yes, that's right. The rejects. Our cabin is for the kids who haven't been claimed yet. Even after fourteen years, no god has gone Oh yeah. That's my son. Sorry kid, I kinda forgot about you. Here, have a hug. Do you forgive me now? No, nothing of the sort. I mean obviously, they wouldn't do anything like that. They're too cruel. The only time they'd ever give somebody a hug is when they're secretly stabbing them in the back at the same time. I haven't been there for the longest though, even if I had been at Camp since I was tiny. Finn apparently had been there for twenty years, and he still hasn't been claimed. He's twenty five.

Some people out there don't believe in the gods. I've never actually been outside the camp, but new comers come every now and again. They stay in our cabin for a while. They tell us stuff about the out side world. Either that or they tear their hair out and walk around in circles muttering that they're going to wake up soon. But then they get claimed, and they move onto another cabin. They're the lucky people.

Anyway, Aubrey was looking at her watch and tapping her foot. I don't get why she was looking at her watch, or even why she still wore it. It was broken. I sort of broke it in a fight a few days before.

Then she looked up and saw me. "Oh, you're finally here," she sighed. "We're going to be late for breakfast, and all the food will be gone because of you, lutus."

"We're going to be even later with you standing there insulting him," Finn told her. "Move it!"

We moved it.

Aubrey (I hate to say it) was right. There was hardly any food left. She kept of murmuring all the way through the meal that I was about as amazing as our choice of food. I chose to ignore her.

Straight afterwards we had sword fighting practice in the main arena. And, just my luck, I had the teacher of doom. Bob. I know, it's not exactly the most threatening name, but you try telling him that when he has a weapon in his hand. Trust me, if you end up in the infirmary half dead, you're lucky. Also, we kind of hate each other. No idea why, but ever since I can remember, we've hated each other's guts. He seems to find a fault with everything I do. Even if I win a fight, he tells me how I could have done better (and never congratulates me) and then tells the other person to keep the good work up. Evil Bob.

Then again, this camp is hard. Only the toughest survive. So I suppose I must have done something right, to still be alive.

"Right!" Bob shouted as we put our armour on. He shouts all the time. He has a really loud and strong voice. "I'm going to pair you up and you're going to fight for the first then minutes. Then we're going to go over strategies. For the last few minutes, we're going to watch each other fight and look at how you do. Ok, let me see." He looked at the six of us standing there, and studied each of us like we were slaves, and he was considering which one of us to buy. Or eat. Let's just go for the first one. "Finn with Tyler. Mia with Shea." Then he grinned evilly as he said the last two names. "Aubrey with Mirus. Now get to work!"

Aubrey turned to me and grinned. "You, lutus are so dead."

"Actually, I think you're the dead one, porci."

She unsheathed her long, deadly sword. Why on earth had Bob paired me with her? I didn't stand a chance. Oh. Right. That's why he paired me with her.

I unsheathed mine. It wasn't as long, and not as deadly on it's own, but I knew how to use it just right. And using it just right made it just as deadly as hers.

She made the first move, trying to hit my arm, but I deflected her stab. She tried again on this other side, but with just the same result. She narrowed her eyes. Then she tried another tactic. She moved to hit my leg, but at the last minute brought her sword up and hit mine. When it didn't clatter on the ground she knelt down. Oh no. I'd seen her do this move before. She was going to leap over me and hit me in the back. She grinned and sprang up. I swished round. But she wasn't there.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in the centre of my back which seamed to spread through my body. I screamed, and unfortunately, I screamed like a girl. I dropped my sword and fell on the ground. My vision went blurry, but I could still make out Aubrey standing over me, gloating.

"Well, get up, Mirus. I didn't hit you that hard."

"Can't," I managed to murmur.

She nudged by side with her foot. "What do you mean you can't, lutus?"

Stop calling me dirt, I thought as I closed my eyes. Instead of saying it I let out a loud groan.

"Bob!" Aubrey called, her voice actually making her sound ever so slightly worried. "There's something wrong with Mirus!"

I heard (and felt) our instructor make his way over to where I was lying. "Mirus, you can stop acting. It's not working."

I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn't get a single sound out of my mouth.

"Shall I go and get an Apollo kid?" Aubrey asked. No answer. She repeated her question.

"Hmmm? Oh, right. Yes, I suppose so. And be quick, Ok."

That's when I lost consciousness.

I don't know for how long I was out, but sometime between the time of me falling unconscious and me finally waking up, I had a dream.

I was standing in a very dark place. A black river ran near me, and although it seemed to rushing by pretty fast, it made no sound. I looked around, and the bleak land around me seemed to stretch for ever and ever. Like a black desert.

Then, out of the darkness, two people appeared to be walking fairly briskly. A man and a woman. The woman wore long flowing, blue robes and had sea weed twisted into her brown hair, and she was carrying a small bundle that was crying. A baby. The man wore a simple tunic and brown sandals.

"Thetis sweetheart, is this really necessary?" he asked, struggling to catch up with the woman.

"Yes fool, of course it is," she told him, her voice bitter. The man looked kind of offended by being called a fool. "You want your son to be great, don't you?"

The man nodded."Yes, but this is going to kill him!"

"How many times?" she shouted. "He's not going to die!"

"But-"

"I've told you a million times."

"You said we had to go to the Underworld. To go there he, we, have to be dead."

"We're in the Underworld, stupid."

"Oh…We're not dead, are we?"

"NO!"

The man looked at his sandals, before looking back up at the woman, Thetis. "Alright, alright. No need to get so touchy dear."

She glared at him like she wanted to strangle him. Trust me; I've had people glare at me like that about a zillion times.

"Ok," she said after a minute's silence. "To work."

"Er… what are you going to do?" he asked nervously.

"He's going to get a swimming lesson," she told him.

The man looked at the river, and then stared at Thetis is disbelief. "Oh no you don't!" he said, making to grab the baby from her arms.

"Why?" she asked with a sly smile "Don't you want your little Achilles to become invulnerable?"

Black mist swirled around me, and soon couldn't see my own hands when I put them in front of my face. My legs felt soft like jelly, and I landed on the cold ground on my hands and knees. The ground below me was no longer black. It was a marble floor.

"Mirus!" somebody said. I looked up. Feet, legs, body, arms, face. Bob's face. "Mirus, what are you doing on the floor? I thought that Apollo kid would have at least have had some sense to put you on the bed when I told him to put you in the infirmary."

"I think I fell out of the bed. I was asleep," I told him, trying to get up, but as soon as I put any weight on my legs, I collapsed again.

"So it is as I thought," he muttered to himself. "My dream was right."

"What are you talking about?" I asked him. "What dream?"

He glared at me, and for a second I thought he was about to do something really bad, but then he sighed. "You will learn soon. But now we must get you ready for when they come."

"What are you going on about ?" I shouted at him.

"Be patient," he told me camly. And then he left, closing the infirmary door quietly behind him.

A/N I hope that you've enjoyed the story so far. Sorry I haven't posted the next chapters of my other stories yet. I am working on them. I promise you. It's just that I'd finished The Lost Hero, and I really needed to write this story.

So anyway, please review, and if possible give some constructive criticism (ie. not OMG! THIS IS SO RUBBISH! GIVE UP NOW! Something along the lines of 'This is really good but you could improve..." Oh yeah, and flames will be used to heat the imaginary hot chocolate for the nice people who write nice and helpful reviews.

So yeah, thanks and bye for now.