-Jillian-
Find him.
Find Leo.
Please, Jill.
For me.
I snapped awake, flinging myself onto my own lap and leaving a nice, gloppy pile of my stomach acids there while I was at it.
Classy. I know.
It took three tries to get my eyes open, seeing as they were glued shut with at least a millennia's worth of eyeball-crust, and when I did, I nearly fainted myself right back to sleep.
I was on a sofa. In room. Lined from ceiling to floor with gawping, empty-eyed faces.
I scrambled off of the couch, shrieking, bringing the now vomit-weighted blanket down to the floor with me.
Then I blinked.
They were just masks. Smiling and grimacing and scowling, but still somehow completely blank.
But still. Leaving a teenager in a room full of fucking creepy-ass dead people masks is more than a little sketchy.
I dragged heaving breaths into my lungs. My throat was dry. My mouth tasted like dead skin. My stomach was growling. And I kind of needed to take a piss.
I blinked again. And the door was locked.
"Fuck." I didn't even know what was going on, but I knew it was bad, "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckshitfuck."
Herman.
"Damnitfuckshitfuckgoddamnit."
My head was clamped firmly between my knees, the only thing that seemed to be keeping it from melting. Sobs tore at my throat, bringing more puke up with them. Herman was dead, and I had just as well killed him. And now here I was, trapped in a room full of masks that could only be hell.
"WhatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoIdo."
And then I stood up
Because I had a goal.
Leo.
Please, Jill.
For me.
I stumbled and shook as I walked around the room, using the mask-less parts of the walls to stabilize myself, trying to find an exit. Or a lock picking kit. Wracking my brain for Leo as I went.
Leo Valdez.
Short kid. The only one in the class, maybe even the world, who was shorter than me. Funny, too, though maybe my eight-year-old mind was biased from experiencing nothing but fart-based humor up to that point.
I had no idea what he had to do with anything, but I trusted Herman above anything and anyone else.
And according to him, Leo needed finding. So who was I to argue.
The door gave a morbid-sounding click and swung open. My first instinct was to grab the nearest mask, a big plastic one of a vibrantly painted weeping clown (My personal least favorite type of clown), and chuck it at the shadow that had appeared in the blindingly white light behind the doorway.
It hit its target right between the eyes, but bounced right back off, summoning not much more than an 'Ow.' and a mutter of 'What in the actual fuck…'.
I picked another mask, this one heavy and wooden, depicting what looked like a psychopathic transvestite, and winded myself up to throw it full force.
But then-
"Hey, lady. I surrender."
The mask landed on the floor with a clunk, Psycho-tranny leering at her/his unjust treatment.
I stopped. And stared.
It was-
-Leo-
Jillian, The name was burning into my brain ever since the nightmares started. Two nights ago, by my count. It was being flipped over and analyzed nonstop in the backdrop of the work I was doing on the Argo II.
Jill, while I was installing toilets.
Jillian Reyes, while I screwed a satellite dish the deck, ignoring Jason's annoyed huffing about the people of today's dependency on wifi.
J Rey, as I hung pinup style posters of myself in everyone's bedroom.
Her face had looked familiar, even when it was twisted in disgust and horror like it was in my dreams. And sure enough, one peek into the 5th grade year book that had arrived on my bed in cabin 9 along with all my other belongings, revealed a Jillian Adonia Reyes.
Her chubby eight-year-old cheeks, oddly shiny in the terrible lighting, were placed perfectly on either side of a evil smile and curled up under slightly manic eyes.
Jillian Adonia Reyes. I could hardly make out her name through the darkened boiler room and my dyslexia, but the face was unmistakable.
Rory was sleeping back at his own cabin that night, so I flipped through the next few pages with renewed vigor, not minding too much as the loud flaps echoed around the metal room, and there she was again.
This time in a group shot of Mrs. Santiago's class. I smiled a little, looking at the plump face of the last proper teacher I had before running away. She was one of the nicest teachers in the school, but still lost her patience with me on a hourly basis. It wasn't a great picture of Mrs. Santiago. She was side-eyeing Jill and me, her expression projecting a slightly panicked concern, as if she was worried that the two of us standing together would cause an inevitable plague.
Looking at our matching demon-grins, I couldn't help thinking that maybe there was a basis to her fretting.
I still didn't know what she had to do with anything.
"So… " Rory looked up from the panel he was adjusting, prompting me, "New camper, huh?"
I shrugged, only half-listening, still trying to figure out exactly how to connect an XBox to the lounge.
He was silent for a moment or two, but didn't go back to working, "It's bad timing, huh?"
"Do you have to end every sentence with 'huh?'?"
He ignored my snapping. He was one of the only non-Hephaestus campers that bothered to help me out on the ship longterm (probably one of the only campers, period.) and was fully used to and fully indifferent to my frayed nerves and short temper. Calmness. That came easy with the Hypnos cabin.
What didn't come easy was willingness to do anything other than sleep, which was why I kind of appreciated him. Despite his obnoxiously slow voice and refusal to be woken up even a second before noon.
"She's been sleeping since the day before yesterday," Rory said, almost sounding envious for a moment, but then turning scared, "I didn't want to look into her dreams, but they were really loud. And kinda messed up."
I put down the XBox, half interested in what he was saying and half just completely done with my original goal of 24/7 console gaming.
"Messed up how?"
Rory shuddered, causing his rolls of fat to jiggle like jello, "Like, there was a lot of blood. And a hellhound. Except it was giant. Bigger than Mrs. O'Leary!" He looked at the screwdriver clutched in his chubby, grease-stained fist, "And then there was just this… tearing in my head. Like someone was ripping out part of my brain. I asked Clovis about it, and he said he felt it too." Then he turned to me, eyes wider than I'd ever seen them. Filled with terror, "Do you think she's dangerous?"
I was fully facing him now, definitely interested, ignoring the questioning creaks of Festus over the intercom.
Rory looked me full in the face, using the powers he got from his dad to throw her dreams right at me.
I felt bile building in the back of my throat.
Because it was the exact same images that I had seen in my nightmares two days ago. The same day, I realized now, that this mysterious new camper had arrived.
A satyr, tall, gangly and redheaded. His screams being cut short as his bloody goat legs were severed from his body in a flurry of fang and spittle. The girl.
Jill.
With her feet bleeding and her hands shaking. Except I was her this time. My own feet stinging on the grainy concrete and my own fingers spasming at my sides.
Herman. Pounding in my head.
Find him.
Find Leo.
I blinked. Hard. Once. Twice. Until the fear clawing at my stomach loosened its grip and I could breathe regularly again.
Rory stared at me, a little concerned at my violent reaction to the girls' thoughts, "Do you think she's dangerous?" He said again, softer this time.
Before I could answer a series of short, rapping knocks came from the metal door next to my ear.
I lunged towards it, glad for the distraction, not really wanting to think about the shivers creeping up my spine.
It was one of the Apollo girls. The one I was always glad I wasn't technically related to. Stephanie? Lacy? Stacy? Maci?
I tried to keep my eyes off of the reflective surfaces all over the room, suddenly aware that I was coated in grease and hadn't bothered brushing my teeth that morning.
"Hey…Maci?"
"It's Stacy."
"Right. I knew that."
I didn't want to be rude and ask her to bugger off, but she was just standing there… and I had work to do.
She coughed, a delicate, fairy-like sound it seemed only girls could master, "Um… Chiron asked me to call you over." She looked me up and down, "If you want to clean up…"
I shifted from foot to foot, part of my mind still on Jill, but most of it wondering what I could do that would give me the best chance of getting laid.
"I think I'll just go like this." I tried to insert some humor, hoping to make her smile. And maybe decide to make out with me somewhere down the line, "Natural beauty and such."
She shrugged in a 'Free-country' sort of way, completely ignoring the lust she felt at my witty commentary, and gestured me to follow her to the Big House.
It suddenly occurred to me to wonder if I was in trouble.
Stacy left me to walk the rest of the way to the Big House on my own, apparently deciding that her tall, tan, buff siblings were cooler than me.
When I arrived at my destination, cold sweat was already building on the back of my neck.
Did I do something?
Was there a setback in the plans?
Did someone DIE?
Chiron was standing on the porch, in centaur form, pacing. With his hands crossed behind his back.
That meant it wasn't good news.
I stopped at the base of the rickety wooden steps that lead up to the suburban but still oddly intimidating building, "What happened?"
He stopped clip-clopping to stare at me. His stares were always uncomfortable. Piercing and searching and forlorn and expecting and disappointed, all at the same time.
"I'm sure you've heard about the… ah… new camper." He put air-quotes over the last phrase, making me cringe inwardly.
"Yeah. Jillian, right?"
He cocked an eyebrow, making me realize that he probably didn't know the girl's name himself. He didn't press me, but seemed to be keen on staring at me extra intently from that point on.
"Shall I cut straight to the chase?"
"Why not." My shrug was awkwardly casual, like a cartoon character throwing their hands in their pockets and whistling.
Chiron took a breath, "She's been muttering your name in her sleep. Even your mother's name once or twice. I think she may be the 'Child of laughter, not joy' we've been waiting for."
The Other Prophecy. That was the last place I had been expecting the conversation to go to.
"Can I… go see her?"
He nodded, solemn, as always, "She's right inside. I've been keeping the Big House closed while she sleeps." He paused, as if questioning the sheer ridiculosity of his own actions, "She might still be out."
I made myself put on foot in front of the other, an irrational dread building in my stomach as I pushed myself up creaking steps and reached for the doorknob.
Apparently, my fear was totally reasonable, as the moment the door squealed open, I was hit full in the face with a plastic clown head.
I stared at the eery, eyeless mask at my feet and then looked up at the thrower.
Jill.
-Jillian-
Leo.
A/N:
This is a bit of a clusterfuck chapter. As in it's an obviously rushed mess.
There'll be a few more of these. It's basically just me rushing through to get to the action packed parts. Though I'm actually fairly pleased at how this turned out.
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