I opened my eyes slowly. I looked out the window, and saw that it was barely light out, and still half dark out. I could see (and hear) that Nico was still asleep in the bunk bed next to me, and covered in thick black blankets. I looked at my watch and saw that it was five in the morning.

"Well, may as well go for a jog if I'm awake," I muttered under my breath. I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and my Stanford sweatshirt, and then laced up my Nike sneakers before going out to run. The morning air was cool and refreshing, and it woke me up. I decided that I'd go for a run in the forest, since I hadn't explored it all that much. I set off down a grassy path, keeping to the trail as much as I could. I didn't have any weapons with me, other than my hunting knife, so I hoped that no monsters would attack me.

I had been jogging for about twenty minutes, and the sun was barely coming over the horizon. My mind wandered to last night, with Trevor. Maybe I'd stop by his cabin this morning after my jog, and then I remembered: today was our three year anniversary from the first day that we started dating. Was it cheesy? Yes. But did I love it? Heck yes. I smiled to myself as I jogged. I came to a little clearing, where I stopped to catch my breath. A little rustling noise off at the end of the clearing caught my attention.

Should I investigate it? I thought. The answer: Well, duh.

I quietly walked back to the area where I had heard the noise, and froze at what I saw. My insides churned painfully at the sight. My heart froze, and did what seemed like stopped beating. I had to use all of my power to keep from gasping, or screaming, or crying like a baby. What I saw was horrible.

Two people were sucking face like their lives depended on it. Those two people were Alexis and Trevor. The two people that I trusted most, and loved with all my heart, who had been like family to me, had gone and stabbed me in the heart. And even worse, they had done it on our anniversary. I turned around and ran as fast as I could away from there.

Negative energy swirled around inside of me, as I ran for what seemed like hours. I felt the ground trembling beneath me as the energy pushed to the surface of my skin, scalding me and my heart. I felt the tears sliding down my face. I came to the hill that stood between the cabins and the forest and headed over them. At the tip of the trembling hill, I tripped over a tiny stupid rock.

I tumbled head over heel down the hill, which was shaking like a nine-point-zero earthquake. I heard someone scream, it sounded like a mix of my voice, Chiron's scream, and a voice that I didn't recognize.

My sanity and my consciousness slipped away from me, and I fell into an endless sad slumber.

I felt pain even in my sleep. But what I saw most in my dreams wasn't Trevor, or even Alexis. It was a tall blond boy with a big scar running down his face. I saw him talking to someone who I will presume is Hades.

"You are in between life and death, Luke," Hades said.

Luke, I thought. So this was the boy that had almost ended the world. Interesting.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"The fates and I have been discussing this for quite a while. I did not believe that you should get to live, but they thought differently. Do you have anything to say?"

Don't kill him, I thought.

"No, sir."

Hades sighed, "Well then, I may as well get to the point. They have decided to let you live." The roof above their heads started shaking, and growing stronger and stronger. "What in the underworld?" Hades exclaimed. The boy named Luke looked frightened, and covered his head with his arms. His form glowed very bright for a moment, and then disappeared.

Help, I moaned in my sleep.

I felt hands on my arms, gently shaking me.

"Five more minutes," I groaned. I'd rather face a dream any day then have to face the reality right now.

"Natalie, wake up," the voice said. It was Chiron's voice, pulling me out of my trance. I ignored it and slipped back into sleep.

My eyes snapped open. It was quiet, and the stars shone through the open window. I flexed my hands; they worked fine, except for a bit of cramping. I felt the top of my head for bumps, and found a long bumped up line on my head: stitches.

"Ouch," I whispered.

"You're awake?" someone loudly whispered next to me. I almost jumped out of my skin; I had thought I was alone.

"Yes, who am I talking to?"

The voice hesitated for a minute and answered, "Luke Castellan. May I ask who I'm talking to?"

"I'm Natalie. Hey, you're that guy that… never mind," I said, stiffly sitting up. "Ow."

"So how'd you end up here?" he asked me quietly.

"I tripped down a hill after I saw my boy friend cheating on me with my best friend on our anniversary. What about you?"

"I was half dead and then came back to life after I was proved worthy of living. I've had relationship problems in the past too. It hasn't always been easy for me. Are you new at camp? I mean, I know I've been out of the loop for a while, but last I heard, there was only Nico in the Hades cabin."

"Well, I just found out that I'm a daughter of Hades. You're a son of Hermes, right?"

"Yes," he sighed. "But I don't really want to be. I've always felt like there was no one there for me."

"I think that it would be cool to have Hermes for a parent, and you're lucky that you have so much family. You'll always have someone there for you. A lot of people don't have that, you know."

He didn't say anything. I had thought that he had fallen asleep, but he said, "I never thought of it that way. See, when my dad left me with my mom, I felt abandon. She was in a way, crazy. Completely out of her mind. And I was the one who had to take care of her, and put up with her freak attacks. And why I'm telling this to a complete stranger, I don't know." He groaned in pain.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He pointed to his shoulder. "It just started hurting. I don't think it's completely healed from when I broke it."

I slightly wondered when he had time to break his shoulder. A voice in my head said, You know how to heal it.

I guess I did. I pressed a palm to his shoulder, and it started to glow. I concentrated very hard on healing it, and he gasped, and then the glowing died down. "Are you okay? How does it feel?" I asked anxiously.

"Better," he said, rubbing it. "How did you do that?"

"I dunno," I said, shrugging.

I sniffed at the memory of the guy I loved kissing the girl who was like a sister to me. It tore a hole the size of Olympus in my heart, that didn't feel like it would ever heal. I felt like a Bella that had just lost her Edward, or a Juliet that had just lost her Romeo: hopeless. I fell backwards onto the bed, momentarily forgetting how to stand, or breathe. I choked in the air and pushed the memory the back of my head.

"Now it's my turn to ask you if you're okay," he said, slowly sitting up.

I nodded, trying not to bring up what I could barely think about, much less talk about. I could see the scar on his face in the moonlight now, and it stretched from just under his eye all the way down to his jaw. "That's not so bad," I told him.

"What, this thing?" he asked, stroking his scar mournfully.

"Yeah, that. I've seen worse."

"Like what?" he scoffed.

"Like this," I said, lifting up my shirt. He reflectively covered his eyes but I said, "No, it's okay."

He uncovered his eyes to see my scar. It ran all the way down the left side of my body, from my shoulder to my ankle.

"Whoa, how did you get it?" he asked, slightly wincing at the sight.

"A hydra attacked me when I was little, or so my mom tells me. I got temporary amnesia from that moment when I was four, and don't remember anything from before or during that day."

"So we've both had our share of experiences," he said. "I'm a little surprised that you're not trying to strangle me, or even yelling at me for what I almost did to Olympus."

"Well," I said, "I don't judge people that I have nothing against. I wasn't aware of what was going on in this huge world of Greek Gods and Titans or anything, so can I really say what was right or wrong if I had no clue that any of this was even going on?"

He scowled at me. "That wasn't the answer I was looking for. See, I'm worried that now that I'm alive again, the people that once knew me won't want me back."

"You mean they don't know you're alive?"

"No. They felt the earthquake that was caused when Hades was bringing me back to life," so that's what that was. "But Chiron had us out of sight before anyone could see either of us. You were passed out like a log, and your head was cut open."

"Oh great. I was blinded by tears and I tripped over a stupid little rock and tripped down a stinking hill."

"It's okay," he said, patting me on the back. "We all have our moments… well, not all of us but you know what I mean."

"Well don't you know how to make someone feel better," I said.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "You don't really learn how to be warm and fuzzy on the dark side. And apparently the dark side also doesn't have cookies!"

I giggled at his comment. There was always that comment of "Come to the dark side, we have cookies," but I had never really thought it was true. This just confirmed my suspicion.

"Don't worry, if they don't accept you for who you are, or who you were, then they're not your real friends. And even if no one wants to hang out with you, I will, because for the moment, I've pretty much lost all of the friends that I came with."

"Thanks. I guess I'm in a similar situation too. Do you know what time it is?"

I looked at my watch. "It's about half an hour past three. How long have I been out?"

"Hmm," he said, "about three days."

"What? Three days? I must have really hit my head! How come you're still here?"

"I acted like I was asleep. I didn't want to be the only one explaining their situation," he replied sheepishly.

Clopping noises sounded in the hall outside the room, and the door knob turned. Luke and I stared at the door, and waited for Chiron to come in.