Chapter 2: No Way!
For the next few weeks I was never quite sure if I was awake or asleep. All I could see was darkness all around me. This black wasn't like the crayon black though it was a bone chilling black. A color so deep it filled your soul and left you an empty shell.
Still I could hear things. As soon as my eyes shut that first time and sent me into the coma thing, my hearing increased ten-fold. Several yards away I heard the paniced gasps and heavy footsteps of people running towards my (still burning) body. After what seemed like ages I was lifted up annd carried somewhere. I could tell by the heavier footsteps of someone very close to me.
Apparently I had lost feeling too. That's inconvenient. I thought sourly. I have no idea if my body is still on fire! Hang on, I can still think! This shouldn't be to bad. While being carried I thought of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Hours one through twenty. Nothing out of the ordinary. Hours twenty-one to present. I killed a teenager, used a sword, got lost, got flamed by a dragon thing, and am in a coma. This is by far the worst day I have ever experienced.
The heavy footsteps stopped. I heard a pillow being fluffed and sheets crinkle. I must be in a bed. I thought. Mumbles filled my ears.
"He can't be trusted. Peleus tried to kill him. Peleus only torches people who can't be trusted." The voice was like fire. If your far enough away it feels war but, up close it will burn you.
"We have to give him a chance!" This voice was more analyzed and careful. "For all we know he could have been walking down the road and seen the tree and gone up to check it out."
"Then how do you explain the sword?" The flame voice had a point weather I wanted to admit it or not.
"Maybe he had just slayed a monster." The voice that was careful was right and I had apparently killed Jami. Or whatever that goat legged thing was.
Another voice came into the conversation. "Hey come give the guy a break it could be anything!" This voice was more layed back and casual as if he had no idea that the two girls where about to slit each others throats. "Now you guys can leave and we'll keep an eye on him and as him when he wakes up."
I would have liked to shout, "I vote for the guy's plan!" Unfortunately I couldn't move my mouth at all.
There were grumbles of agreement and under the careful girl's voice she muttered, "Traitor to Olympus. We should never trust her or her judgment."
Traitor to Olympus? Like the Olympus in the old myths we read in Language Arts? No way. Still the thought bothered me. It was like an itch I literally couldn't scratch or a splinter in my mind.
Over the next few weeks I grew accustomed to the conversations of the people around me. According to everyone the gods in Olympus where real and (apparently) very alive today. They lived on the sixth-hundredth floor of the Empire State Building and still did their business. Since I was in a coma this gave me plenty of time to cope with the idea.
Other than talk about gods I heard things I probably shouldn't have. Kissing when nobody was around but them, plans for something called capture the flag, and even some rants about the other and I quote, "idiot campers who actually think they f****** belong here!" and others I wouldn't even try and repeat.
Finally one (Friday?) afternoon my eyelids lifted slowly open and I looked around. Really all I could see was the ceiling because I still couldn't move my neck. The ceiling was that of any other. Bland, white. stuff like that. Then my neck could move again. I looked around the room I had been in for the last (four?) weeks.
I was let down. I expected a floating hospital bed hovering ten-thousand feet in the air. Due to of course the talk about gods and stuff. Really my eyes only saw a plain bright blue room with several beds next to and identical to mine. It looked like any other hospital.
The only thing I saw of interest was a girl with curly blond hair, gray eyes and, a Camp-Halfblood T-shirt on with jeans. She was reading something. I couldn't tell what but by the cover it seemed complicated. She looked up and grumbled something about, "The coma kids always waking up on my shift."
I tried to lift my legs and found that energy had returned to them also. Swinging them over the edge of the bed I got into a sitting position. Looking down I noticed that I had new pants and a new shirt on. Hoping a guy had done that I said, "Where am I?" My voice was scratchy and almost to scratchy to actually decipher.
The girl sighed and pointed to a glass of what looked like water. "Drink that. It will help your voice." She looked at my right leg in concern and them quickly looked back up at my face.
Trying not to look like a pig I grabbed the water and drained it in one giant gulp. "I said," I paused. A tiny bit of drool had come out of my jaw. "Where am I? And who are you? Other stuff like that.
The girl tried not to look annoyed. "Look I know you could here in that coma thing of yours so you already know where you are." She was right I had figured that this was indeed the camp everybody talked about. Camp Half-Blood. "I am Annabeth Chase. You might know that too. As for the 'other stuff' question I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific."
I looked at Annabeth up and down. She was proud. To proud. It would be her downfall. "Never mind about those last questions. Yes I could indeed hear in my coma. Wha-" I never got to finish. As I was talking I had stood up. Something was wrong though. It was my right leg. I looked down on it for the first time and gasped.
Instead of flesh I saw a bronze replica of a leg filled in with metal gears that were whirring and whizzing. Flexing my knee I saw that it obeyed as if it was part of my body.
I looked at Annabeth for an explanation. "Well," she started to explain. "when we found your body the dragon fire had burnt most of your body. Un fortunately dragon fire burns faster than normal fire so by the time we got to you the fire had burnt through the bone in your right leg. Me and the other campers decided to amputate and then give you a new leg. The leader of the Hephaestus cabin made it special for you. Coupled with a spell from one of the kids in Hecate's cabin you're the only one who can see the leg as it is."
Annabeth took a deep breath and walked over to me and took my wrist. Almost jogging she brought me upstairs into the light of the Big House.
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