Chapter 2
After my meeting with Chiron, Frederick had brought me back out to the cabins. I suddenly felt really nervous, my heart was beating faster and faster – what would they think of me? What if I just didn't fit in? What if I'm not a demigod at all? It took a lot of effort to push the thoughts out of my mind before I stepped into Cabin 11 where the chatter immediately stopped and people turned to stare at me.
It was as if I had just walked into a funeral reception dressed as a pink bunny rabbit.
I gulped, my cheeks flushing a bright red as the numerous pairs of eyes bore into me.
"Regular or undetermined?" A voice piped up from the back of the cabin
"Undetermined for now." Frederick replied – everybody groaned.
"Hey!" he scoweled "That's not the kind of attitude you should be having to a fellow camper now is it? Robin meet Cabin 11 – Cabin 11 meet Robin."
"Hello Robin." The cabin droned in a monotonous voice.
"See – that wasn't so hard was it?" The satyr said cheerily "Now, um... Alpha – help Robin settle in here will you." A tall girl with brunette hair sighed and stepped forward with her eyebrows raised, looking me up and down as if sizing me up to see how long I'd last.
"I'll see you in a few hours." I turned to watch Frederick wink at me as he left the cabin, leaving me alone with my new roommates.
Alpha was different to the other girls in the Hermes cabin – the most obvious reason being her striking looks that didn't seem to fit with everyone else. She must have been undetermined like me, or must be the spitting image of her mother, because unlike most of the others who had sharp noses, slightly upturned eyebrows and mischievous smiles, she had an extremely pale complexion with striking blue black eyes that were full of mystery and an expression that was... well, I couldn't read her expression at all...
"Will you quit staring at me!" she huffed giving me an expression like thunder.
"Oh, I'm really, I- I didn't mean to—" I stammered under her stormy glare. She just rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh.
"Just forget it. I just don't particularly want to be lumbered with an undetermined, that's all."
"Sorry." I mumbled. I suddenly felt angry at whoever my godly parent was for leaving me to be just shoved to the side and called 'undetermined'. I didn't know that I would be perceived as a chore or a pain either.
"Well come on then, let's just do this as quickly as possible. I'm guessing Fred told you the basics then."
"Yeah but—"
"Good, first though you'll need a weapon so you can go off and train." So you can just dump me morelike. I thought, disliking this Alpha girl more and more each second.
She brought me to what must have been the armoury – she hadn't actually explained anything to me yet but from the numerous weapons everywhere, I was pretty certain.
She brought me to a box of swords first and literally told me just to put my hand in and grab one.
"You'll know if you have the right one for you." She told me cryptically. Whatever that meant.
I hesitantly placed my hand in the box and grabbed the hilt of the nearest sword, trying desperately to not slice my hand open. After pulling it out and holding it in front of me I felt no different. I was just standing there with a sword. I began to worry about what sort of camp would let an 8 year old girl have a full length sword anyway.
"So..." Alpha started as if waiting for me to reply but I didn't know what I was meant to say.
It was a sword. That was about all I knew.
"I guess not then." She grabbed the sword out of my hands and shoved it on a nearby rack before telling me to do it again. This process happened about 5 more times before we both gave up and I was told that maybe sword fighting wasn't my thing.
I was told to try archery with the Apollo kids after but we hastily left after a few small mishaps with the whole "aiming" thing.
A few hours later we had both given up trying to find any kind of weapon to suit me and Alpha had defaulted to giving me sword as a compromise.
It was only then that I realised I didn't know what the other girl's chosen weapon was. Because everything was new to me, I was really interested in almost everything.
"It's just a sword." She said simply, quickly unsheathing part of a beautiful dark silver sword that was unlike any I had seen in the armoury but as soon as she had pulled it out, she had sheathed it yet again and looked away as if embarrassed or like it wasn't something she wanted to talk about.
"It's just a sword." She repeated. I let the subject drop.
Just then, a conch horn sounded across the camp and people began leaving their training and cabins.
"Finally! Dinner." Alpha said, I struggled to keep up with her as she sprinted to what I guess was the dining pavilion.
After being whisked away so quickly by Alpha earlier, I hadn't actually met anyone else from the Hermes cabin. Once I had sat back down after dropping the best part of my food into the fire – something that I didn't really understand because no one seemed to have been kind enough to explain to me – and listened to a short speech from Chiron, I sat next to a girl who didn't give me a second glance. I would have sat next to Alpha seeing as she was the only one I knew but she had sat as far away as possible and I knew how to take a hint.
I began eating my meal in silence wondering if this was what would happen every meal time while I was at camp (which I gathered would be quite a long time) when a boy suddenly sat down next to me.
He was a lot older than me but he had a kind smile which made me feel a bit better because I was feeling kind of rubbish at the moment.
"Hi, I'm Luke – head councillor of the Hermes cabin. You looked a bit lonely so I thought I'd join you; I hope you don't mind"
"Not at all." I replied, smiling knowing that at least there was one person who was trying to be nice to me.
We got talking and I was glad that I had at least made one real friend at camp. He was nice to me and didn't think that just because I was undetermined – a word I was getting quite annoyed about hearing – didn't mean that I was any less that the others who were claimed. I found out a little bit more about him as well. He said that he had arrived at camp 3 years ago with a girl called Annabeth who was a daughter of Athena. He had also mentioned briefly another girl called Thalia and something to do with a tree as well I think but he dropped the subject quickly and I knew better than to pursue about it.
Before I knew it people were getting up to leave.
"If you need any help at all round here kid, don't forget that I'm here."
On my way back to cabin 11, my clumsiness took the better of me and I walked straight into a girl who was about two years older than me.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" I apologised, blushing profusely.
"Don't worry about it" she mumbled, rubbing her shin where I think I accidently kicked her.
The girl had blonde hair and stormy gray eyes that had a kind of you-really-don't-want-to-get-on-the-wrong-side-of- me feel. I realised that this must be Annabeth that Luke had talked about.
"Are you Annabeth?"
"Um, yes... do I know you?" she asked me, I shook my head with a small smile.
"No, but Luke told me about you. I just arrived so I'm in the Hermes cabin." I explained
"Oh."
Awkward silence.
"Well, I should probably get going..." she said hastily
"Yeah, me too. Sorry about bumping into you..."
"Not a problem..."
"Robin" I smiled
"Robin. See you around"
I watched her as she half-limped to cabin 6, still feeling quite guilty about my utter clumsiness. I had managed to drop, bash into or at least damage almost everything that I'd come into contact with that day but as I watched her leave, I couldn't help but think I'd be seeing her again sometime.
Back in the cabin I realised just how tired I was and quickly went to bed in the hope that maybe after a good night's rest I might remember something about who I was. With difficulty I was able to slip into a fairly peaceful slumber. Not for long.
I found myself in a place that was pitch black and freezing cold but there was a horrible uncomfortable heat from below that must have been coming from a raging inferno beneath me. All of a sudden I could hear voices all around me, screaming and shouting and crying in pain, it was almost too much. I felt like I was drowning in the souls of the people who were shouting at me like they were crushing me but something pulled me back.
I could still hear the voices but it was like they were far away but I could hear them getting nearer each second that passed.
"You must be strong child!" A powerful voice boomed all around me, the shock made me scream and fall over backwards.
"Who are you?" I screamed into the dark after I had pulled myself up. The voices were getting nearer.
"Be prepared. You do not belong now. You must change it." It hollered and echoed across wherever I was. And then it was gone.
Suddenly, I was jerked forward into a dimly lit space, a lone figure stood in the centre of a massive cave. I couldn't see who they were because I was looking from the back but all I could tell was that whoever he was, he had black hair. However much use that would be.
As quickly as I had gotten there, I was gone, back in the place filled with the voices which had almost reached me. I heard them all screaming for help, like they were being tormented. Hearing them all at the same time was driving me insane, I couldn't think.
And then I woke up.
