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Chapter Two.
See, not sleeping for 80 hours is a push for me. If I'm in my bed I'm completely awake, unable to sleep my brain won't allow it but at the same time wants to drop dead. So if I just fall asleep sometimes at random. You can't wake me up. My dreams were-well strange.
First was my usual dream. I was walking up a street, the blue cloudless sky above me, surrounded by trees just changing color. It wasn't hot out, but I felt like I was suffocating in the hot, overbearing clothes I was wearing. The dream has no meaning. I just go on and on and on up the street, my heavy steps never moving me.
"Interesting." Out of the corner of my eye I see a girl with shoulder length red hair, eating a chocolate bar on somebodies front steps. "You should wake up." She says.
I can't respond. She sighs, gets up, and pulls me onto the grass. I topple, and suddenly I'm falling. Falling, falling, falling, falling.
I landed on a bed of stony ground, and I instinctively rolled. Well, not instinctively, because soon enough I know I'm not controlling my movements.
I grabbed a bow off of my back, and notched an arrow, in a kneeling position. My knee was pretty scraped up but the person controlling doesn't even notice.
A girl landed with a thud next to me, her black hair flying in front of her face. She swore in another language I didn't understand, but dream-me does, because next I smiled and replied "And that's why my hair's always up."
"Can it wonder girl." the girl growled
"Really? Can't think of something more creative Harp?" I asked.
"I can think of your nose bloodied."
"Shush you two!" A voice hissed, making dream me jump about a foot.
"Celia!" I whispered at her. "Don't do that to me! Last time he did it I threw a knife at him and now he's got that notch in his hair!"
This Celia crawled to the other side of me, grinning. Her hair was under a black cap but tiny red-orange strands peeked out. She made kissy kissy noises. She was in my other dream!
"Shut up." I mumbled, looking down, as heat rose to my cheeks. What? I don't blush! I'M BLUSHING.
Who is this guy? Because seriously, if he can make me blush like what?
I'd tuned out so I had miss part of their conversation.
"You okay Nat?" Celia asks.
"Just-deja vu." I say.
There's a roar ahead of us and a flame erupts. I look up, but before anything can happen I wake up, and I have a feeling I won't remember the dream.
I'm on a soft bed, with a mop of brown hair above me, my mouth full of cheesecake-or the filling at least. A watery one, because it has a pudding like substance. The person notices I'm awake and puts their blue eyes to me. "Well nice to meet you Sleepy. I'm Stealthy." He says with a grin, plopping more pudding into my mouth.
I spit it out. God knows what's in there.
He sputters, golden colored cheesecake stuff all over his face.
I sit up. "You-You-You-You." He sputters. I'm still wearing all my clothes, so I find the pocket in my bra and pull out my pocket knife and take it out.
"While it's no big, black sword this can still take out an eye. Where the hell am I?" I growl.
He stares at me, pudding all over his face, an expression of disbelief. Then he laughs. I stare at him, laughing, at knife point, covered in most likely poisoned pudding. And I chuckle. Then we're both laughing. Eventually I regain control of myself.
"Seriously where am I." I say.
"I should take you to Chiron, he'll explain everything. I'm Connor by the way." He says. I nod, getting out of the bed. I feel a bit weak as I always do after a long sleep, and Conner has to support me down a staircase and out onto a porch. There sat a man in a wheelchair playing go-fish with a woman. She wears a simple white dress, her auburn hair in a bob.
"Chiron, New camper, New camper Chiron. Kerri, new camper, new camper, Kerri." I roll my eyes at Conner, couldn't he just say my name? It occurs to me he doesn't know it. And both their names start with C's... I think. Interesting.
"Ah. You must be our newest camper. You've been out for four days." Chiron says.
"I would have expected twenty-four hours." I respond lightly, sitting in a seat between them. "Deal me in?" I ask.
Chiron does. "So why exactly did you sleep for so long child?" Kerri asks me, her deep brown eyes surveying my sleep-curled hair and the bags under my eyes.
"Well, I'll be happy to tell you if you can find a reason as to why it's any of your business."
"I'm camp director. I don't want my campers just passing out at any given moment." She says.
"Camp?" I ask.
"Yes, Camp half-blood. We'd sent Nico out on a mission to find demigods. Usually, he has to explain, but apparently you were rather-docile." Kerri goes on. "Then, you pass out in the back of a taxicab, and don't awake for four days."
"I'm pretty docile when I'm sleepy. Also I already knew. My mother told me." I say, evading the question of why I slept for so long.
"Well I hate to tell you, but most sleep for eight hours, not-whatever amount of hours is in four days."
"12×8. Just decrease the number being multiplied in half and increase the number multiplying by two. Then you can find a way to get to the main, elementary times tables. And it's ninety-six hours." I tell him.
"Neat trick." He says.
"Yeah. Apart from that, where the hell am I?" I ask.
"New york." Chiron answers simply.
"New york? I was in Michigan!" I splutter.
"I think she needs to see the video now. Oh, child will you tell us your name?" Kerri asks.
"Natalie."
Now, I won't tell you about the informational video, *spoilers!* but I will introduce myself. Ha! You thought you got past introductions didn't you? Well, too bad.
I'm Natalie E. Kimber. I'm sixteen, my birthday is November fourth. (Meaning I can't vote until I'm nineteen.) I have sorta-blonde hair with tiny little wisps of pure blonde that always curl around my face. I have two older siblings, who are both in college, and parents who love me. Well... Half siblings.
It was my mother, she told me before she left.
It explains why I don't look anything like the rest of my family. I don't even resemble my cousins.
I stare at Conner, who just came back into the room. "So we're demigods." I state.
"Connor Stoll, son of Hermes at your service." Conner says with a bow.
"How do you know?"
"Well..." Conner smirks, then continues. "Despite the fact I'm an amazing thief and can lock pick just about anything, and I only know my mom, and I look like all of my Hermes siblings, I was claimed."
"Claimed? How?"
"You'll see. Should happen to you soon enough. But right now, I need to show you to where you'll be sleeping." Conner says. I sigh, and get up, following him back outside. He hands me my backpack.
"Thanks." I say, checking to make sure my things were all in there.
"So how old are you?"
"Sixteen. You?" I ask. I ignore the weird looks I get, I'm wearing plaid boxer shorts and a dark blue T shirt with bleached hand prints, my hair is most likely a disaster area.
"Seventeen. So what do you excel at?" He answers.
"What do you mean?"
"Often a demigod inherits powers from their godly parent, Like I inherited really good sneaking skills. Athena kids are extremely smart, Are's kids are-well Ares kids. We all get characteristics." He says.
"Well... Um does writing count?" I ask.
"Writing?" He asks incredulously.
"Yeah. I write." I unzip my backpack as we walk and pull out my black notebook, which is well worn with paint doodles all over it. I flip through it for him to see. My thousands upon thousands of words lining the pages fly past him.
"Wow." He says.
"Yeah. This is part one. I'm working on part three right now for this story." I say.
"That's definitely something." He remarks.
"Why?"
"Most of us have dyslexia."
I shrug looking down at my notebook. The words are clear, and I can immediately jump into the moment without having to read a single page beforehand.
"I was never diagnosed." I say.
I'm lead up the stairs of what looks like a regular old cabin. It's rather messy inside, and completely full of boys. Just boys. "Don't you have like-girls?" I ask.
"Their in Rome doing a visitation weekend." one guy says.
"Oh joy." Can I go and be claimed like right now?
"We're sons of mercury." A boy says, pointing to some guys.
"Like... Roman gods?" I ask.
"She's new." Connor explains, and they laugh.
I dislike being laughed at, but I just roll my eyes and set my backpack down on an open bed. I grab some fresh clothes, and my combination ten-letter lock and put it around the zipper and handle so it can't be opened. "Where are the showers?" I ask.
"I'll show you." some guy says.
"I'm supposed to show Nat around." He says, giving them a look. And then he goes back outside, and I follow.
"Sorry about them. They'd probably show you to the forges and talk you into showering in lava or something. Not that I wouldn't do something similar but I don't want to get into more trouble." Connor explains as he leads me through the commons area. A fire burns, and a small girl of about nine sits tending the flames.
She looks up at me, noticing my stare, and I wave. I should talk to her later, she looks a bit lonely. She gives a small smile and waves back.
"Hello. Earth to Nat?" Conner waves his hand in front of my face.
"Right. Sorry. More trouble?" I ask.
"Not where I was going, but yeah. We tried to spray all of the Aphrodite cabins clothes in sugar water so they'd attract mosquitoes but it didn't work. We just ended up ruining some designer clothes, and my punishment was to take care of you and show you around until you get claimed." Conner says.
"Good to know you guys are idiots. You should've just switched out all their starch bottles with sugar water, that way it'd ingrain into the fabric." I say.
Conner stares at me. "Would that work?" He asks.
"I've done it before." And Conner hugs me. I push him off.
"There's the bathrooms. Bye!" And off he runs. I roll my eyes, and walk towards the cinder block building he had said was the bathrooms.
Sooooo what'd you think? Whew, it was long. I've already cut this chapter in half and it's STILL long.
I have a favor to ask of you wonderful peeps. I have a chapter coming up soon, and I need questions and embarrassing/dangerous/idiotic dares. I don't know how many I'll get, but I'll put them all in! The demi's are playing a little game that's my version of ToD
Also thank you for all the favorites, follows, and reviews, it really brightens my day, especially reviews so type some stuff and click that little button!
Peace out-Id.
