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The room I stood in was vast and echoey. There was enough light to see by, though if there was a source of the brightness, I couldn't detect it. I couldn't even be sure that this place—wherever it was—was just a room; the ceiling was so high up that I couldn't see it through the darkness of the cavern. It was so quiet that I could hear my own heart beating. I took a small step forward, my sneaker making a soft squeak on the smooth, stone floor.

In the very center of the chamber, there was a small throne, facing away from me. That hadn't been there a second ago, had it? It was a chair at ground level, with silvery fabric draped across the back, and jewels studded in the base. I took another hesitant step forward, not knowing what else to do. Suddenly, the chair spun around to reveal who was sitting there. It was me. But, it wasn't me. At least, I didn't think it was.

The girl slouching in the throne definitely looked like me. She had the same long, wavy black hair as me, and the same short, turned-up nose. It was like looking in a mirror. A very real, very menacing, three-dimensional mirror.

When the clone-me raised her face to look at me with dissatisfaction, I saw that her eyes—though the same round shape and dark blue color—were much different from mine. They were looming and ominous, and they seemed to suck the light from the air and spit more darkness back out.

"Everything is about to get very... interesting, isn't it?" the other-me growled, flashing her disturbing eyes at me.

"I don't know what you mean," I said in a quavering voice.

"Just you wait," she smirked, sitting up higher in her throne. "You'll see soon enough."

All of a sudden, the dimness of the haunting room was replaced by a bright yellow light, coming from above me. I felt something graze my arm lightly and the skin stung worse than a bad sun burn. I groaned, shutting my eyes tight again. When I tried to tug my hand away from whatever was holding it, my muscles ached, and a voice mumbled, "Um, I wouldn't if I were you."

Despite the warning, I pulled my arm up to my chest and clawed at the wrappings around it. It was some kind of cloth bandage.

The voice from before sighed. "Come on! I'd just gotten done wrapping that."

When I finally tore all of the bandages away and took a good look at my arm, I felt like throwing up. My skin had turned brown and purple and green and just about every other disgusting color around two white, scarred-over puncture marks embedded next to each other in my arm.

"I guess I'll just start over, then," the person muttered, taking my wrist again, gingerly.

"What?" I asked groggily. "Where—?"

"Before I answer your questions," the voice—whom I was pretty sure was male—told me, "I'm supposed to inform you that you're not dead. Congratulations."

I turned my head towards him but couldn't make out much except for a dark silhouette. I opened my mouth as much as I could. My tongue was dry. "I figured that," I managed. "I didn't think dying was supposed to hurt this much."

The guy laughed. "Oh, the Camp is sure going to like you."

Before I could ask what "the Camp" meant, I felt myself slipping back into darkness. In seconds I was out cold again.

...

The next time I woke up, my room was pitch-black and empty. I felt around in the dark until I found a lamp on a small table next to my bed. I flipped it on and squinted. Dust floated around the lamp, along with a stringy piece of cobweb drifting from the nightstand to the wall. A small spider crawled out from under the lampshade and peaked out at me.

"Hey," I croaked to it. My throat hurt, but nowhere near as much as my arm did. The bandage was still on it, but this time I knew better than to mess with it. Whatever had happened to my arm, I really didn't want to know the details.

I tried lifting my injured hand to the spider, but it ached so much that I could barely move it. Instead, I touched my left hand to the lamp and the spider scuttled onto it.

I couldn't remember a whole lot that had happened... At the time I was thinking I probably dreamed up most of the past few— what, hours? Days? Longer?That was a scary thought. It made me suddenly eager to figure out where I was. No more messing around with bugs. I put my spider friend back down on the nightstand and pushed the soft blankets off of me. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, my vision went fuzzy. This is going to prove problematic, I thought to myself. When my head stopped spinning, I tried standing up.

The tiny spider just sat and watched me wobble on my feet.

"Well, I don't see you helping any," I told it.

It seemed to be laughing at me.

I stumbled to the door across the room, clutching the doorknob once I'd gotten there. It had only been four small steps, but I already felt like I would black out. I twisted the simple wooden doorknob and pulled the door open. I'd half expected—and maybe hoped—that it would be locked, but I just didn't have that kind of luck, then, did I?

The hallway was dark, narrow, and long. What kind of building was this? It didn't seem like any kind of prison. A hospital, maybe? I vaguely remembered someone mentioning something about a camp...

A shadow shifted at the end of the corridor. A person was walking this way. I thought about my options. Duck back into my room and pretend I was asleep the whole time? I didn't know if I'd be able to move fast enough for that. Maybe I could just try and walk past whoever the person was and hope that they didn't recognize me. After a second, I realized that was a stupid idea.

Too late to do anything now. The figure lifted their head to look at me.

"Hey, you're up," the guy said in a hazily familiar voice, sounding only mildly surprised.

"Uh-huh," I grunted. I was getting tired again, so I leaned against the doorframe to my room. I decided to get right to the point. "What is this place and why am I here?" I demanded.

"You're in the Sick Bay at Camp Echidna," he explained, considerately.

I gave him a look. "Camp Enchilada. Great. Well, that really clears things up."

Maybe being snippy like that wasn't the best strategy for me to choose if I was going to find my way out of this place unharmed, but the guy just smirked. I couldn't see very well between the darkness of the hallway and the black spots forming in my vision, but I could tell that he was much taller than me, and skinny as a beanpole.

"It's Echidna. Ee-KID-na. Like, the mother of all monsters. Look, I promise you'll get everything explained to you later, okay?" he assured. "Right now... how are you feeling?"

I realized that he must've been the same guy as before; the one who'd wrapped my arm.

"Like an angry lumberman got a hold of my arm and put it through a woodchipper a few hundred times, then handed it off to his friend the blacksmith to smelt into some kind of chew toy for rabid wolves."

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I saw the tall boy grin ruefully. "That's what scythian dracaena venom does to you. We're all really surprised that you survived, actually." When he saw my confusion, he asked, "You don't remember much, do you?"

I thought back. I remembered the forest behind my house... and me and Kaia running... and me climbing... It was coming back to me.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name's Chaos."

"That doesn't sound like a real name," I stated.

"Well, tell that to my dad then, because I don't think so either." He paused, maybe to see if I would laugh or not. "It's Greek," he continued. "The immortal force that created the titans."

"Greek?"

"Same as yours, Ariadne."

"How do you—?"

"Know your name? Kaia told me."

"Kaia!" I breathed. "You know her? Is she here?"

"Yeah, she's probably outside somewhere." He held out his arm to me for support. "Come on, I'll show you."

He led me down the hallway. There was light streaming out of some of the cracks in the doors, but most of them were dark. I wondered how many rooms there were, and then remembered that there were more important things to address.

"So, uh, listen," I said, nervously. "Kaia told me something right before I blacked out from... whatever made me black out. It was something about Greek mythology." I didn't want to say anything stupid, in case whatever I thought Kaia had told me was a hallucination or a dream or something.

But the guy with the weird name just nodded and said, "Go on."

"And, well, it might sound weird, but..." I paused, choosing my next words carefully, and then speaking very quickly. "She told me the Greek gods are real, and the monsters too, and that she poisoned me, or something. Does that make sense? Was she—?"

"Telling the truth?" Chaos interrupted. "Most definitely."

"What does that mean exactly? 'The Greek gods are real?'"

"Well, they're real; that's one major thing." I couldn't tell for sure in the dark, but I was pretty sure he rolled his eyes right about then. "Would you like me to repeat it in Latin for you?"

"No thanks," I retorted, sensing his sarcasm. "But, really. I mean, I know some people are really religious; I'm not, but I know some people are, and—"

Chaos cut me off again. "Religion doesn't have anything to do with it. They're real, trust me."

"Alright," I snapped, suddenly angry from frustration. "But forgive me if I decide not to take the word of some random guy with a flaky name and a snarky personality that I just met on the topic of almighty divine beings."

He held his hands up in the air. "I'm not expecting you to believe me right this second. Just—I don't know—brace yourself for some freaky stuff. It'll turn up sooner or later."

Freaky stuff, I thought. Great. Bring it on. I am the freaking queen of freaky stuff. I can take anything that comes my way, even a Greek god, if that's what it comes to.

Ha! If only I had known.

...

By the time we actually got out of that building, I was about ready to throw up again. My head spun from all of the weaving, identical hallways the place had. I lowered myself onto the top step leading up to the big building and sat panting with my head between my knees. A fold out chalkboard, like the ones they put in front of cafes to advertise, stood next to me on the wooden deck. It read, "Sick Bay" in lime-green chalk, along with, "Did you hear about the guy who got torn in half? The nurses said there wasn't much left, but he's all right now!"

Dizziness and horrible jokes aside, the breeze felt wonderful. I heard a soft crashing noise, like water against rocks, and instantly wondered if we were near the ocean.

I lifted my head up and squinted my eyes at the brightness. The sun was high up in the sky, and I figured it must've been late in the afternoon. Laid out in front of me was a sight that I definitely had not been expecting.

"Are you okay?" Chaos asked me, sitting down next to me on the porch steps. In the light, I could now see that he was wearing a dark jacket with the hood up, despite the warm weather. He also had on sunglasses. They were simple and not flashy, like they were meant to be practical, not to show off or draw attention.

"Yeah..." I trailed off. "Where am I, again?"

"It's called Camp Echidna, located in Miami, Florida," he said.

"Miami?" I inquired. I was from Indiana, and had never really been traveling that much. I'd never been much farther south than Kentucky, much less to the state of Florida.

Chaos nodded to me. "Tucked right into a corner of the Bermuda Triangle."

"And this is... a summer camp," I stated, looking to Chaos for confirmation.

I looked out at all the summer camp-like stuff spread out around the valley that dipped below us and the Sick Bay. There were dirt paths criss-crossing the area, with kids milling around in shorts and green T-shirts. There was a small square building that looked like it should've been covered in cobwebs due to how deserted it appeared, and a big round building with kids flowing in and out like water.

Among the assortment of other buildings were two long structures. From this distance, I couldn't be sure, but it looked like the one on the right was constructed completely of glistening marble, and the other one appeared to be made all out of splintery, brown wood. In between the Sick Bay and the two long buildings was an open area dotted with black trees. There were tons of teenagers there; some were older, maybe seventeen or eighteen, but most looked about thirteen, like me. They were just relaxing, like you'd think kids would at a summer camp. Some younger ones played tag, some older ones held hands and walked side by side, and some were even... were they fighting with swords?

Chaos replied, "A special kind of summer camp."

I was about to ask him what that meant, when a boy passed in front of Sick Bay. He didn't look like he was on his way to do anything important, he kind of just ambled along with a sway in his step. The boy was tall, but not nearly as tall as Chaos. He had dark, close-cropped hair and bronze skin. He didn't so much as walk by, but saunter past us. As the dark haired boy's feet crunched on the dirt path in front of the Sick Bay, Chaos followed the his movements with his head, as if he were expecting him to do something interesting.

Just as the boy was about to depart down another pathway, he stopped, and without turning, he started backing up until he stood in front of us. Then he grinned and pivoted to look at us.

"Hey," he said casually, flashing me a bright smile. From here, I could see that his eyes were a dazzling golden color, like a fox's.

"Hi," I replied, returning a less flamboyant expression.

"You must be the new camper everyone's been freaking out about." He put on a worried face for me. "How's the arm?"

"Horrible," I stated.

He ignored me and held out his hand. "The name's Ruin. Ruin Abaddon," he said coolly, nodding his head a little. He sounded like the hero in an action movie.

"Ariadne," I answered, without getting up to shake his hand.

Next to me, Chaos smirked as the boy put his arm down.

"Sorry," I remarked. "Did you say your name was Ruin?"

"That's right." His faced stretched into a grin. "I like your name, too," he said, slickly, flicking his dark hair out of his eyes.

"Stop trying to be so smooth, Ruin," Chaos finally spoke up. "People don't flip over it as much as you think."

"Shut up, snake-head," Ruin jeered, his smile dripping down into a sneer.

Chaos appeared irritated. "Fatuus," he said under his breath.

Ruin opened his mouth and looked like he was about to add something else, but then he just turned and stalked away.

"Did you just... call him fat?" I asked, thoroughly perplexed by the entire exchange.

"No," Chaos replied, sitting back on the steps to the Sick Bay. "I called him an idiot."

"Okay then."

"You should really just ignore him, he's vere impar."

"Uh..."

"Sorry," he added. "I mean, he's really odd."

I looked at him. "What language is that?" I asked, genuinely interested.

"Latin. Sorry if I slip into the dialect sometimes. I grew up around it."

"Oh. Are you from... wherever they speak Latin?"

"Latin is a dead language."

"Right. I knew that."

He grinned at me. "I guess you could say that my mom is from where they used to speak it, though."

I felt dumb. That's the one downside to not paying attention in school: not knowing about stupid stuff like dead languages.

"Don't work yourself up over it," Chaos told me, even though I hadn't said anything. "There are a lot of things campers don't know when they first get here."

"Does that mean that when you were offering to repeat 'Greek gods are real' in Latin, you could—"

"Actually do it?" he said. "Yes."

"I can't tell if you're psychic or just like to finish my sentences."

Chaos shrugged. "I'm used to having the same questions asked to me a lot."

"So, you're the one who shows the new campers around."

"No, I just patch them up if they're hurt and teach them how to fight if they don't know how. I'm not a tour guide. Though, speaking of chaperons, there's Kaia."

I snapped my head up, and sure enough, there was Kaia; slick black hair, green slitted eyes, scaly skin... wait, what?

Yelping, I jumped back a little.

"Don't freak out!" she stammered. The humanoid-looking lizard monster with my best friend's voice looked at Chaos. "I forgot the Misst again, didn't I?" she hissed.

Glancing at Chaos, I could see him smile a little bit and raise his eyebrows from beneath his sunglasses. "Yep," he said, like he was used to this.

I didn't get it. Chaos was just sitting back on the stairs with his elbows resting on the step behind him. Why wasn't he flipping out?

"Dang it!" Kaia exclaimed.

From the waist up, she looked very much like the Kaia that I had come to know and love, every feature perfectly in place. Her legs, though; those were a different matter altogether. In place of her regular human legs, there were two snake bodies. I thought it appeared a little as if she was wearing snakeskin pants, but then I saw her walk. Well, er, slither. Kaia nervously chewed on her lower lip with her fangs.

"Please tell me that's just really good monster makeup," I said.

"Um, not exactly," she replied. "Drop the 'makeup' part of it."

"Told you to brace yourself," I heard Chaos mutter next to me.

"Oh my god, you weren't kidding around."

"You mean, 'oh my gods,'" he said.

"Chaoss!" Kaia whined. "How much did you tell her? That's my job!"

"No worries, I left all the cool stuff for you, Kaia," he said, standing up and stuffing his hands in his pockets. He looked back at me. "My work here is done. Just watch the arm, alright? Good luck."

He trudged off down the trail towards the big round building in the distance without another word. Please don't leave me! I wanted to shout at him. My best friend has snake legs and I don't know what to do!

"Ari," Kaia said, taking a hesitant step forward. "I'm sso glad I didn't kill you!"

"You have no idea how much I agree with you."

"Oh, you musst have sso many quesstionss." Kaia clasped her scaly hands in front of her and nodded at me like she was a psychiatrist ready to listen to an insane person's life story.

Oh, where do I start? I wanted to ask. "Uh, what up with the fangs, first off?"

"I told you before, I'm a scythian dracaena."

"Like, the Greek snake women?" I asked, remembering my mythology book from home.

"Exactly like the Greek ssnake women," Kaia agreed.

"So, you and Chaos were telling the truth, about the gods being real?"

"Well, more importantly, Greek monsters are real, but yeah."

"Is everything from mythology real, then? The Underworld, Mount Olympus, stuff like that?"

"Basically."

Looking back on it now, I have to admit that I felt a certain amount of ease in believing that statement, even back then when it was all new to me. As if I'd known that fact all my life, and I just hadn't remembered that I'd known it until that moment.

"So, um... when did all that happen?" I asked.

"You know the sstoriess, Ariadne," Kaia said, slithering over to sit next to me. I scooted a few inches away from her. "The godss made the entire universe. Well, I guesss technically it was the titanss... or the primordial deities. It'ss all very confusing."

"I'll take your word for it."

"But anyway, it'ss been like thiss ssince the dawn of time. They've alwayss been here. They sstarted out by getting big in Greece, then moved on to influence the Roman empire with different namess, and sslowly took over the resst of Europe over the yearss, but they never sstayed in one country for too long. They move around with the world's center of power. That meanss they're here now, by the way. And, while we're talking about the gods, I might as well mention that the monsters move around with them. Sso they're here too!"

"I've noticed."

Kaia just smiled and nodded at me, tapping her long sharp fingernails on her leg—I mean, snake trunk.

"And I haven't heard of the gods being real... why?" I asked.

"Don't be ssilly, Ari. Do you have any idea how the mortals would react if they found out there was actual real-life gods, making it thunder, making the ssun come up in the morningss, making people fall in love? Total discord."

"Then, all the science we know is actually fake? We just think that the earth revolves around the sun, or that night and day are from us turning in space?"

"Don't assk me. I jusst accept that I'm here with snake legs and don't question it."

I sighed helplessly. "Alright, but why am I hearing about this now? Of all times? When were you planning on telling me that you were snakes and scales from the waist down?"

"Well, I had to be ssure about your parentage."

"My parentage?"

"You're a dual-blood."

"Dual-blood?"

"Meaning you've got both blood typess."

"Kaia, how many times am I going to have to repeat the last few words of every sentence you say in a questioning tone until you actually tell me what that means?"

Kaia said, "It meanss you've got half mortal and half semi-mortal blood."

"You mean immortal?"

"Well, yess and no. It'ss complicated."

I was starting to get frustrated. "Is this how the entire conversation is going to be?"

"You're half human," she offered.

"So if I'm only half human, do I even want to know what my other fifty percent is?"

"Probably not."

"Okay. Tell me anyway."

"I sshould sstart out by ssaying that even though they were born like a gazillion yearss ago, the godss haven't really changed much since the beginning of time. Jusst like in the mythss, they have a lot of kidss with mortalss."

"Uh... cool?"

"Well, maybe for them!" Kaia snapped. "Ugh, prissy little privileged demigods. Prancing around with their sspecial godly powers. They make me ssick."

"So, you were saying..."

"Oh, yeah. Sso, there's these demigods—or half-bloods, whichever you prefer—running around the United Statess, killing off all the monsters. Like it'ss their job or something. Ugh, completely annoying. Anyway, you know some monsterss from Greek mythology, right?"

"Of course. Medusa, the Sirens, the Minotaur. I could go on. But, didn't they all die a really long time ago, according to the myths? Heroes killed them off and everything, right?"

Kaia shook her head. "Not really. You can't actually kill a monster permanently. Well, you can kill us, but we just go back to Tartarus and reform again. Ssometimes it takes a while, but we always come back. It's part of the reason heroess exist; they keep us at bay."

"Wait, tartar sauce makes monsters reform?"

"TAR-ta-russ, Ari," Kaia said, sounding the word out for me. "The deepest part of the Underworld where monsterss come from."

"Alright. So, the famous monsters like the Hydra and Medusa are still around."

"Exactly," Kaia confirmed. "So the monsters, when they noticed that the gods were having kids with mortals, they decided that they needed more of their own children to defeat them all and protect themselves. Ones that weren't as fragile as regular monsters, who just crumble into dust when demigods hit them."

"Oh."

"Don't look so surprised, Ariadne," Kaia laughed. "You really thought the monsters would let the gods have all the fun?"

I shrugged, saying, "I guess not."

"So, along with the demigods, there are these kids that are half-monster and half-human."

"And they're just like normal humans?"

"Well, most of them have special powers depending on their parent. Some of them have physical attributes carried over from their monster parents, too."

"Where are all the half-monsters, then? Wouldn't they have to be in hiding to keep people from finding out about them?"

"That's what Camp Echidna is for!" Kaia swept her arm around, gesturing to the valley below us. "We train the dual-bloods to fight! Among other things, of course."

What Kaia was saying slowly dawned on me. "You mean... all these kids are fifty percent monster? And... and you think I'm one of them! Don't you?"

"Well, of course," Kaia chimed. "You smell like one!"

I fought the urge to sniff myself.

"You have an aura of power like no other human, Ariadne," Kaia explained. "You've got ADHD and anger management issues, right? Those are really strong signs of a dual-blood. The ADHD helps in battle. It keeps you on your toes. The anger stuff is because you're naturally vicious. It's literally in your blood, most likely. Not to mention that you survived my scythian dracaena venom."

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The pieces fit together... "But— but—- how did you even find me?" I asked her.

"We've got dracaena sstationed at sschools everywhere. It was a bit of a longshot going to a ssmall town like yourss to investigate, but we had been ssensing power coming from that sschool for a while, we just didn't know which sstudent it was. Now I'm ssure it'ss you!"

"You mean, you're certain that I'm a dual-blood?"

"That'ss right!" Kaia cheered. "Ariadne Weaver, daughter of... uh... did Chaos and Lamia ever figure out who your mom is?"

"Who's Lamia?" I asked.

"Never mind. Let'ss finish the tour firsst, and I'll take you to ssee her later. Sshe'll definitely want to meet you."


Oh, Kaia, I'll never get tired of clicking through your speech impediment on Microsoft Word's grammar check.