Disclaimer: You didn't think I owned the concept, did you? Good think, because I don't. So don't think I did. Rick Riordan is a pretty brilliant guy. Give him credit for coming up with the concept of Camp Half-Blood and all that. All the credit for Mythological beings goes to my ancestors.

A normal summer; that's all I wanted.

Sadly, that's not what I got. My name's Seth Rushton. Until recently, I went to a small, private school in Denver, Colorado.

Now, I would tell you that the rest of my family was dead, that I was perfect, and that my eyes changed color with my mood; however, none of that's true. In fact, I just felt like another normal kid. That all started to change one day.

I was thirteen, I went to an old, beat up looking diner with my mom (I admired her; she put up with me without having a meltdown). While we were eating, I noticed a group of three other kids around my age. Then, I heard a motorcycle pull up outside, and a man walked in, wearing a camouflage shirt and wrap-around shades. A red glow came from behind his sunglasses, almost as if his eyes were flames. He sat down across from the kids and started talking to them. I didn't pick up their conversation, because my mom grabbed me, shouting,

"Seth; finish your dinner; stop looking in on those people!" she said it as if she were extremely worrie

d. I finished my dinner and went home. I never saw the three strange kids again.

After that day, I began seeing weird things all the time. Like this one time my teacher tried to follow me home in my freshman year. He stalked me on the bus, and when I got off at my stop, the bus driver said he needed to talk to him. The next day, I heard that the teacher had been fired for harassing a student.

Two years later, all the weird events in my life began to make sense.

I sat at the table in the cafeteria with my lunch. "I can't believe it," I said, "Only two more weeks." I was happy school was ending. My Dyslexia made it hard to read, and even when I could, my ADHD kept me from being able to study.

"Yeah," My best friend, Joel said, "Can't wait for senior year, how about you?"

"I'm just thinking about summer, right now."

Let me explain. Joel Sevret was my best friend. He had come here from New York City in the beginning of junior year. He had green eyes, and I recognized him because of his dark brown hair. He tended to act weird, like this one time, when we had no way to get home back in November, and a friend of ours offered to let him use his cell phone. He reacted as if he had just been offered a lethal injection. But nonetheless, he was my best friend, as well as the only one that wasn't an idiot.

"Dude," I said, "Morris and Fred are stalking us again."

Morris and Fred were the two new janitors at our school. They were creeps, and seemed to enjoy watching me all the time. Joel always got nervous when they were around us. I actually didn't blame him. Morris whispered something to Fred.

"Uh… maybe we should move to another table." Joel said, slightly worried.

"It's fine," I said, 'It's not like they're plotting our deaths."

"You have no idea…" he muttered to himself. I dismissed it as a failed joke.

I looked at our creepy janitors. They were looking as obnoxious as always; fat, annoying, the kind of guys that you want to punch in the face as hard as possible. Suddenly, they flickered, revealing a sort of purple, liquid-ish outline of themselves, looking like dark purple ice sculptures with yellow eyes. That lasted for about a half a second, and occurred a few times, before I looked at Joel in disbelief. "Did I really just…"

"No," he replied, trying to cover something up, "What makes you think… everyone knows… I mean, it's not like… okay, you didn't see that!"

"You okay?"

"Fine," he said, "Never better."

After that, I kept a close eye on Morris and Fred for the rest of the day, and they acted pretty much normal (normal being a relative term).

"Mom," I said, "Something weird happened at school today."

"What happened, Seth? You can tell me anything."

My mom is one of the nicest women you'll ever meet. She's tall, and walks with a kind of swagger that makes you somehow know that she's nice, but can mean business; which is true. Combined with her auburn hair were her blue eyes: One of the few traits I inherited from her.

I told her my freakish story. All about how Morris and Frank had turned to jelly for a second, and how they didn't seem to notice. She looked surprised.

"Seth, are you sure that's what you saw?" She asked, as if she thought I belonged in a mental asylum.

"Yeah, Mom, I swear!"

"Hmm… your father would know how to handle this…" She said sadly.

My dad was a government mailman. In the past, my mom told me, he had been the messenger of royalty in the Mediterranean. I didn't think any countries in the Mediterranean had kings or queens, but I didn't tell her that. She said he had moved here and met her, thus, me. However, one day, and this is what my Mom had told me, he was in some sort of freak car accident while I was only a few months old.

"Why, Mom? You're good at handling this stuff, right?"

"Sometimes, even don't know, sweetie." I was confused by this. I thought my Mom was pretty much on top of everything. She solved each and every one of my problems when I was younger, now that I was older; I realized that even she wasn't Wonder Woman. "Just try to stay away from them, and if they try to hurt you, tell Joel, he can help."

"Why? He doesn't seem that tough."

"Trust me, honey; he's probably your best bet against those two. I'm starting to wear down a bit, now."

"Okay, thanks, Mom."

She nodded, "You're welcome."

I went to bed, ready for the next day. Over the next two weeks, I tried to forget about the events on that day, hoping something as creepy as that never happened again.