"Nanna, what happened? Do you know why everyone was asleep? Why didn't I fall asleep? Was it my turn to watch the younger children?"
"Hush, Lili, hush. I do not know the answers to your questions, but the city is in chaos. There has been a terrorist invasion and attempt to knock down the Empire State Building. The police are trying to figure everything out. However, I have exciting news. Please get into your nice dress and pack your suitcase with your belongings. Someone is here for you."
"What?!" It has been forever since someone has been allowed to see me for adoption. Few people have been interviewed, but all denied, for we did not see them fit for my guardianship. So I have reached age sixteen here in the orphanage, helping with smaller children and waiting for the day I turn eighteen so I may leave and make my way in the real world.
"His name is Mr. Chiron Brunner, and he is a Greek mythology teacher. He is very kind, and I believe he is the one. But a warning, he is in a wheelchair. Now go get dressed, we shall not keep our guest waiting! Oh, and he has a girl your age with him."
Another girl my age! It has been years since I have spoken with one of my age. They were all adopted long ago, and no one dares to abandon children once they reach a certain age when they may remember their birth parents.
I go get dressed and meet Nanna outside the door of her office.
"Now, behold! Your family!" says Nanna, and we enter.
"He-hello?" I say shyly.
"Good morning, my dear. You must be Lillian." says the man in the wheelchair
"Yes?"
"We are here to meet and hopefully adopt you. I am Chiron Brunner, and this is my daughter Annabeth. We are ready for someone new in the family, and feel you are the right one."
"Oh."
I'm scared. Over the man's back is a bow and sheath of arrows, and the girl, Annabeth, has a dagger in her belt. Then I realize who they are. Silena told me about them.
"Oh!" I say again.
"Well," Chiron asks, "Do you want to come home with us?"
"Yes, oh, yes!" I shout, and a real smile spreads across everyone's faces, and Nanna is crying. It has been so long since I was this happy. But I know who these people are, I really do.
Ω Ω Ω Ω
I walk out of the yellow building that the orphanage calls home, the place I used to call home, rolling my suitcase behind me between Annabeth and Chiron. We go to the airport and catch the next flight to New York City, and the ride is surprisingly smooth.
"Zeus must be happy today, strangely. He's always angry." I hear Annabeth mutter, but then there is a bolt of lighting coming from Annabeth's reading light, and her eyebrows are charred. "Sorry." She utters a sorry and opens her book.
The flight takes one hour from my home in Ontario, Canada. Like many residents, I speak French fluently, but was never really taught it. In fact, I have no idea how I learned it. Silena said it was a special ability we had. We would have whole conversations in French, and since many of the nannies did not speak the language, we could say things I would never dream of saying in front of the nannies in English.
The flight lands and we hail a taxi to take us out into the country, not to far from the city but far enough to be isolated. We can still see the skyline from the road.
"Are you sure you want to be dropped off here? There ain't nothin' o'er hill, so there ain't much point in leaving here." Says the taxi driver.
"We're sure," answers Chiron confidently. "We are camping tonight." The taxi driver gives us a strange look, we pay and get out, then he drives away.
"This is Camp Half Blood, isn't it?" I ask.
"How do you know?" asks Annabeth suspiciously.
"Silena told me all about it, how children of the gods fight monsters and are heroes and how our trainer is Chiron," I look pointedly at the man in the wheelchair. "Who is a centaur. Not a man in a wheelchair, so get out of that magical device and show me what you look like."
"How do you know all of that? How could Silena tell you all that?" Annabeth looks betrayed, as well as surprised.
"She knows who I am." I answer simply. "Will I get to see her now?"
"Um...yeah, about that...you should know a few things..." responds Annabeth. "She, uh, you know, uh..."
"She is your sister." Says Chiron simply. By now he has risen out of his magic wheelchair, and towering over me is a full-blast centaur, his horse part white palomino, his top half looking just as it did when he was in the wheelchair. Speaking of which, has disappeared.
"Really?" I ask, excitedly. She was so nice! And the only girl I had contact with who is my age in the orphanage. She started visiting me two years ago. We've gotten very close. "Can I go see her now?"
"And, ah...she is...dead."
"WHAT?!" Then a roar sounds behind us.
"Run!" yells Annabeth, "Get over the hill!"
Chiron scoops me up and plops me on his back, all while pulling out his bow, and Annabeth pulls out her dagger. They turn to face the monster.
It is a looks like a dog, yet the size of a rhino, with glowing red eyes and huge fangs. It's fur is pure shadow.
"Ahhhh!" I scream, "Oh mon dieu!" (A/N translation: oh my!)
Annabeth stabs it in one of the eyes, but it does not disintegrate, just get a dim eye. Annabeth takes my hand, and the three of us run up the hill as the hellhound roars in pain, but it is after us within the second. We are almost over the line when I trip and go sprawling, and the monster towers over me. Annabeth grabs my hand, but before she can pull me over, the hellhound bites my leg, right through the bone. I scream in pain, and then I black out.