Hello again. Thank you for reading through chapter one and actually making it to the second. I don't think that this one will be as long as the last, but you never know. Anyways, please enjoy
I luckily was allowed a peaceful recovery sleep. No strange dreams leading me to secret camps in the woods this time. I awoke to a girl with blonde hair holding something to my lips. I took a sip and smiled. It was the best thing I'd ever had. It tasted like this really good pastry I'd once bought from a bakery that used to be down the street. The shop had long since closed and so I hadn't eaten it for a while.
"Good thing you awoke, I wasn't sure you would. The nectar seems to work oddly slow on you."
"Nectar? Is that what I'm drinking?"
The girl nodded. I tried to sit up but she pushed me back down. "You need to rest more, your body was extremely strained when we found you. It's a surprise you made it as far as you did."
"I felt fine till I reached the building."
"Probably adrenaline. Hey, what's your name anyways?"
"Rena Royce." I said. She nodded and made me finish off the glass of greatness. After I finished, I took in my surroundings. I was on a bed in a large room that I guessed was a hospital, or an infirmary. A blonde guy stood in the corner watching me… and everything else, all at once. He had an incredible amount of eyes. They were everywhere. There were many hospital beds, all lined up in rows along the length of the room. Some of them were occupied, though not many. Then I remembered the other kids that had killed the beast.
"Hey are those guys okay?" I asked. The girl nodded and fixed the sheets of the bed.
"That's good. Mooman gave him quite the beating…"
She snorted, "Mooman? You mean the Minotaur."
"The Minotaur? That guy from the myths? He's not real though." But even as I said it, I knew he was. After all, why else would I be lying here in a hospital bed? She looked at me with the same thought in her eyes, then told me to sleep and left the room. I instead tried to sit up and look out the window. I couldn't do it. My legs wouldn't move normally and felt like weights were holding them down. I sighed in annoyance and used my hands to push me up against the head rest. Shifting so my legs were dangling off the side I grasped the nightstand and pushed up. I did fairly well for 3 feet, then fell flat on my face. Just my luck, bested by a floor. The blonde man came over to me picking me up by the arms and putting me back on my feet, holding me up.
"Thank you." He just nodded and went back to the corner. Taking a few steps almost worked, but very badly. I grunted and fell against the wall which I then used to make my way to the door. Just then the girl opened it to see what had happened and looked at me.
"What are you doing?" She asked.
"I happen to be attempting to walk. Just give me a sec, I'll get it." She rolled her eyes and walked further outside leaving the door open for me to follow.
"Well if you refuse to rest and you can walk now, then follow me. I have to bring you to Mr. D, our camp director."
"Camp? What camp are we at?"
"Camp Half-Blood" She said simply.
I didn't know what to think of the name so I just nodded and stood for a minute making sure I could walk properly, then started after the girl.
"So, what's your name?"
"Annabeth."
I nodded awkwardly then looked around at where we were. It was an incredibly weird place. There was some normal stuff that you'd see at any camp like a volleyball pit and an archery range, but then there were the things I'd never dream of seeing. For example, the rock climbing wall that had lava and boulders tumbling down the side. That was a bit odd. Then of course was the building that had smoke coming out of the windows, and teenagers cooling weapons in tubs of water outside of it. Not exactly a day to day scene. Not to mention the goat people playing music to the strawberry patch. At this point I was pretty sure this was some fabrication of the mind and I had actually gone insane.
I saw the girl leading me to a big blue barn house towards the front of the camp. We stepped onto the porch where some people were playing a game of some sort. There were two men. One wore a very bright leopard shirt and had a can of diet soda in front of him. The other was in a wheelchair and had a blanket over his legs. Annabeth motioned me to stay at the bottom of the steps, then went forward and began to talk quietly to the man in the wheelchair. He looked at me and when he saw me looking back he smiled comfortingly. He said something to her and she nodded before jogging past me further into the camp. Once Annabeth was gone, there was an awkward silence that ended when the man in the wheelchair gestured for me to sit in the chair between the two men. I carefully walked up and sat down, tense since this was all very weird and I didn't know anyone. He began by introducing himself.
"Hello, my name is Chiron." He said.
That's an odd name I thought. "That's a cool name." I said.
"This is Mr. D, our camp director." He said gestured to the other man, who glanced at me before rolling his eyes and taking a sip from his coke.
"I'm sure you have many questions, but first would you care to tell us about the night we found you? After which, I will be happy to explain as much of this as I can."
At least I might find out what the hell was going on. "That seems fair. It happened at-" I began when Annabeth came back with the two boys from that night.
"Ah! Here they are! Rena, this is Percy Jackson and Grover." Chiron said gesturing to each of them. I smiled awkwardly at them, uncomfortable with all the attention. They returned the awkward smile before sitting down around the table also.
"Nice to meet you guys. Well, officially anyways." I said before continuing my story. "Anyways, it started yesterday at lunch-" here I was cut off by Annabeth who made a sort of cough. Like she was trying to tell me I was wrong.
I looked between them all, "Did I miss something?" I asked raising an eyebrow. Here Chiron gave me a sad smile.
"Rena dear, you've been asleep for four days…"
"WHAT?!" I screeched, "Four days?! I have to let them all know I'm okay!" I stood. "Is there a phone anywhere, can I make a call really quick?" I asked urgently, freaking out.
"Sit down Jena. You can't do anything about it right now, so you might as well just keep going with your story." Mr. D spoke for the first time. There was an awkward silence as I tried to figure out why the hell he called me Jena. I thought I had been clear enough. Perhaps he misheard me.
"Uh, my name is Rena. With an R, not a J."
He just scowled at me and mumbled some curses into his soda. Chiron intervened.
"Now Rena, as rudely as he said it, he is correct. We need to understand your situation better in order to help you. So please, finish what you were telling us." He said calmly.
I sat down again and took a breath. These people were weird, "So it was lunch time and I was sitting behind the school since I have no friends. Did you guys happen to hear about that large crash that happened earlier that day?"
Percy nodded, "I heard about it on the TV. Some guy was chasing this girl through the street." I nodded in affirmation.
"Well, that was me… As I said, I was eating lunch when one of the school janitors attacked me. He was not human… he was gigantic and nasty looking. He was calling me a half-blood and saying how he was going to eat me." I paused subconsciously rubbing my neck.
"That sounds like a Laestrygonian giant. Huge cannibals that attacked Odysseus and his men." Annabeth said.
"Odysseus? Like from the legends? Are you saying that stuff is real?" I asked cautiously. I didn't want to believe such crazy stuff, but from everything that happened, I was beginning to. The others just nodded and said they'd explain later.
"Anyways, he had me pinned by the neck against the wall, and then I… uh…" I didn't know if I should tell them, but then I remembered that Percy had already seen me do it, so I just continued. "I went into the wall." I said waiting for them to laugh. However they just looked at me curiously and slightly worried.
"You went into the wall?" Grover asked.
"Well no. At least I don't think entirely. It's hard to explain, but what I remember is almost losing consciousness and then feeling like I was being pulled into a cool liquid sort of. Then when I looked down my clothes and I were a Smokey blackish like color. Like a shadow."
Annabeth, Grover, Mr. D, and Chiron all exchanged a quick glance of worry and suddenly I didn't feel ok about telling them. I sunk down in my chair to make myself more invisible.
"Please, continue." Chiron demanded nicely.
"Well the janitor couldn't follow me so I grabbed my stuff and ran. As soon as the shadow on the wall ended I became normal, and the monster started chasing me again. I didn't want to risk staying at school and I had to keep running, so I ran into the middle of the street… causing that huge crash. He got through it pretty quickly and so I had to sprint all the way back to the orphanage."
"You're an orphan?"
"…yes… Once I got inside, he left and I collapsed. I woke up hours later and began answering the questions of the police and Headmaster Rasmussen. I went immediately to bed and had a really weird dream."
Suddenly Chiron became serious, "This is very important, what was your dream about? Dreams for demigods are always warnings or other messages."
"Wait a second, demigod?"
He sighed, "Yes. Children of both god and human. Hercules and other heroes like Achilles were demigods. This camp is where demigods are trained to defend themselves against the monsters like the ones you've encountered. They're also known as half-bloods."
I remembered how everyone had been calling me a half-blood and laughed, "You mean to say that my dad was a god?" I laughed again.
"Or your mother."
"No, she was human. I saw it in the dream."
"Ah yes the dream, tell us about it."
"It was pretty creepy. At first I was trying to move through a thick black substance. Like tar. I was running from another giant but it caught me. It ate me whole and I fell down its throat. Before I hit the stomach though the dream changed and I was suddenly in an underground cave. It was gigantic and some parts were awful. There was this big black castle in the center and this little walled off community. That's when I went flying to one of the nice houses and saw my mother standing there. She smiled at me and was going to say something before I was flown out and to this camp. That's how I found it. I didn't know I was going this way. All I was trying to do was get away." Chiron nodded thoughtfully and then asked what else happened.
"Well, I woke up in the middle of the night and had to use the bathroom. Someone knocked on the door and when I opened it, it was another giant. Like the janitor's brother or something. He grabbed me and so I pushed him and he fell over long enough for me to get around him. I tried yelling for help but nobody was waking up. No matter what I did."
"Wait a second, you pushed a Laestrygonian giant over?!" Annabeth asked shocked.
"Believe me, I don't know how either. But as I was saying, no one would wake up so I had to run again. I got a chance to grab my backpack then bolted. I was heading to the police station when I was teleported to the road outside camp. It was like a pulling. I was just figuring out that I was near the place I saw in my dream when I saw their car." I said gesturing to the other boys.
"Well we didn't see you. You scared the hell out of me when you just appeared out of nowhere." Percy said.
"Sorry about that. But yeah, the car got struck by lightning and just nearly missed taking off my head when it flipped. You guys probably know the rest." I finished. They nodded, "Well, this all explains why you were so exhausted." Chiron smiled.
I laughed bitterly, "Yeah, that's it." I yawned. Just the memory of everything was enough to make me tired again.
"Why don't you get some rest? I need to discuss some things with Mr. D. I'll contact your headmaster and let him know you're ok, don't worry. Annabeth, would you lead her to the Hermes cabin?" He asked. She nodded and began walking away. I quickly followed and asked what he meant by Hermes cabin.
"I suppose I have to explain all this to you sooner or later." She sighed, "This is a camp for demigods as you know. For each of the major gods, there is a cabin for their children. You'll see them in a second. Hermes is the god of travelers and so all the new kids who haven't been claimed by their parent are housed there. We don't know who your father is, so we can't put you in one of the other cabins yet. If you're claimed, we'll move you into your own." She explained quickly.
"I see. What do you mean by if? Are there people who aren't ever claimed?" I asked surprised. Surely they'd want to claim their children right?
She scowled, "No. Demigods aren't their biggest priority, and they don't really care to help us. They only ever use us to accomplish their own means. If they don't need you, they might not even bother to remember you're theirs." She said bitterly.
"That's so stupid. They seem like they're assholes." I said. She looked at me cautiously as thunder boomed overhead.
"I wouldn't say things like that if you don't want to be electrocuted." She said. I looked up at the sky.
"You mean they're constantly listening in for insults even though they probably deserve some? After leaving us alone to be attacked by monsters?! To wonder why terrible thins always happen to us and deal with all of this on our own?!" I said angry. Why was I so angry? Was I mad because I had a father who was alive and who'd never even bothered to drop by and let me know what was going on? Letting me be attacked by monsters and fend for myself on the streets until the orphanage found me? Yeah. I decided I was mad. I was pissed. I didn't even care that the air was charging with electricity and the clouds above were becoming dangerously thick.
"Rena! Apologize! Before they blast us all!" Annabeth said frantically. I didn't want to, and certainly wouldn't have if I was the only one being affected. But I looked around and saw the other campers looking up scared and trying to figure out why that was happening. I sucked up my anger and apologized.
"Alright. I shouldn't have called you assholes." Yes I should've.
"You probably had your reasons." No reason is good enough for abandoning your children.
"I'm sorry." I am not sorry.
The clouds thinned and the air returned to normal with one last warning boom. Annabeth let out a relieved sigh, "No matter how you feel Rena, you can't just say those things. Making the gods hate you is the last thing you want to do."
"Yeah…" I was quietly seething for a while before Annabeth cleared her throat and we approached the cabins. They were all different. One for each god, representing what they ruled over. Annabeth explained them all and then lead me to the one I was going to stay in. It was way over crowded. Not only were all the beds full, but also most of the floor. Some kids were hanging around and talking, which all stopped as they saw me. I noticed that some of them had similar features in their faces. Like sandy hair and bright eyes. I guessed those were the actual Hermes children. A tall guy with kind eyes and a scar on his face walked over to us smiling. Annabeth began to fidget as he got closer. Oh? I smirked. She liked him I bet.
"Hey! My name is Luke. I'm the head counselor for the Hermes cabin. This is where you are going to stay until you're claimed." He smiled. I liked him, he seemed friendly enough.
"Hi. I'm Rena." I introduced myself.
"Well Rena, I'm sure we can find you a spot to sleep." He smiled at Annabeth who blushed and smiled back before leaving. He began to lead me through the cabin and try to clear a spot for me. The other kids all watched me trying to figure out who I belonged to by my looks. None of them seemed to like me very much. I guess my solid black eyes had that effect on people. I put my bag down on a patch of clear floor and left the cabin to explore. Luke caught up to give me a tour and began by showing me around the archery range.
"We have a lot of different weapon ranges here and you'll get to try them all so you can find what you like to use most." He explained.
I had no idea what that might be so I asked, "What's your favorite weapon?"
"The sword. I've practiced with it for a while and I'm really accustomed to using one." He said.
"Ah. That makes sense." I figured I'd start with the sword, it was the classic hero weapon after all.
"We'll have to get one for you later. You got here just in time for capture the flag."
"Uh, I'm not even going to ask why you need weapons for capture the flag." I said. He laughed and lead me out of the archery range. He showed me the rest of the camp and then it was time for dinner. We walked to the mess hall which was surrounded by giant ancient pillars in the Greek style. Like everything else here. I sat down with the other Hermes kids and let them tell me about more stuff I would need to know. I wasn't very familiar with Greek mythology so they explained basic people, monsters, and stories every half-blood should know. Percy was sitting with us too and we made small talk getting to know each other better. He was pretty cool. When dinner finally started I was surprised to see wood nymphs (apparently) bring out huge platters of all sorts of delicious foods. It was amazing. I'd never seen half this stuff before except through windows of fancy restaurants. I began to fill my plate with a few things. I couldn't eat that much since I wasn't used to it so I didn't take as much as the others did. Everybody began to stand up and walk towards the brazier in the center of the mess hall. They were scraping some of their food into it. I knew it was an offering since I heard kids mutter the names of their parent as they did so. Great. Who the heck did I offer to? When I got there I just said "To my dad. Whoever you are." It didn't smell like burnt food at all. It smelled nice. Lucky gods.
We all sat down again and kids began to eat. They were drinking too. I looked at my empty cup. There wasn't any jugs of juice on the table and I had no idea where to get something to drink. Then a boy tapped my shoulder, "You have to say the drink you want. It'll appear." He said. Okay then. That was weird, but ya know. Gods and swords and stuff. I was beginning to learn to go with it. I thought but only ended up asking for water. The cup instantly filled with ice water. Cool.
"Thanks… uh…" I said to him.
"I'm Connor Stoll." He said. Then he pointed to the kid next to him who looked exactly like him. "This is my brother Travis." Travis waved since his mouth was full then went back to eating. I could tell they were Hermes kids.
"Nice to meet you guys." I said. We all finished our food and then Mr. D stood up.
"Okay. As you brats know, today is Friday. You also know that tonight we play capture the flag. Cabin five currently holds the laurels." The cabin with all the big brutish looking kids laughed and cheered. "Before we all go running off into the woods with pointy sticks though, I guess I should tell you that there's a new camper. Jena Rice." Mr. D said.
Chiron mumbled to him and he rolled his eyes, "Rena Royce, whatever."
All the campers looked at me and I shied away from all the eyes. The table from before burst out laughing at me, "Great day to get here newbie! We're gonna teach you a lesson tonight!" one girl roared. Her siblings laughed.
"Those are the Ares kids. Most of them are mean and ugly." Connor said. I nodded after looking them over. "The big girl who was taunting you is Clarisse." He filled me in.
"Ok. So, what exactly is this game? It's definitely not standard capture the flag from school. That much I know." I asked. Travis and Connor both grinned.
"You'll see. Don't worry. Luke will help you figure it out." They said amused. I raised an eyebrow at them but didn't ask anything else. Everyone stood and left the mess hall. I saw kids putting on armor and gathering weapons. Cabin leaders were strategizing and forming alliances with each other. I found Luke helping Percy into his armor. He looked as nervous as I felt.
"Hey Luke. The Stoll brothers told me to come to you since I don't know what's happening right now." I said.
Luke smiled and explained the rules of the game. Then he told me about our alliance with the Athena cabin. Next, he found me armor and a sword. "Jesus this thing is heavy." I said holding the sword up.
He smirked and picked his up easily. Percy was struggling to hold his, though not as much as me. I guess he got practice in before I woke up. The sun was going down and everyone was approaching the forest. Growls and monster noises came from inside. Wonderful.
Okay! I'm going to end it here because I think this chapter is a bit long. At least it looks that way in Word. I didn't want to end it there, but then I thought: Hey, why not? I know what's going to happen. You guys are the ones who suffer from the cliffhanger ;) Just kidding. I'm going to update really quickly. In fact, I'll start writing Chapter 3 as soon as this one is up. Thanks for reading it and please review! It would help a lot! See ya soon!
