Chapter IV. It Would BE A Nice Summer Camp if There Weren't So Many Monsters Around.
Bianca warned us to time to go back. I signed wistfully, but obliged. After we had landed in the camp, I waved them farewell and went to my own cabin. . (By the way, I got a cabin for myself because my sleeping habits would have driven everyone crazy.) I didn't realize I was so tired until I collapsed in my bed.
Then I slept, slept, and slept for some more.
And as usual, I missed all the fun.
When I finally woke up. Nico filled me in. There was a quest and Bianca was on it. I remembered my dream about Bianca. The thought was really upsetting. 'I hope they can save Annabeth.' He said to himself.
That got my attention. 'What do mean by save Annabeth?' I inquired him warily.
'What?! You don't know? You must have slept through it. Annabeth was the one that found me and Bianca, she fought bravely but she was kidnapped.' He noticed that my face was getting paler and paler. 'Did you …did you know her?' He asked carefully.
I nodded. I didn't know what to make of the news.
I knew Annabeth personally. When I was a kid, my parents would bring me when they visit camp half-blood. They would have to drag my sorry ass along. It was back then when I first met Annabeth. She was fascinated by my unique condition. (Don't ask me why such strange things intrigue her. She just does. Her favorite channel is about Historical document, seriously! And that says something about her. )
Anyway, she tried to solve my sleeping problem, but failed. The point was: we were pretty close. We had known each other for years and I had always admired Annabeth. She was always so confidant, so brave and smart and so sure of herself. Only one time I had seen her freaked out and that was when Luke left. Believe me, that was not a pleasant sight.
But now she was kidnapped. All this time, how could I miss such an important news?
'I know I have only met her once. But I think Annabeth will make it out fine. She was so brave.' I did not failed to notice that Nico's face flushed at the mention of Annabeth. I found this fact quite disturbing. But I decided to let it go, especially when Annabeth was captured.
The depression hung in the air, but both of us decided to ignore it. We chatted a bit too enthusiastically on the way to the dining hall. It was almost as if we were trying to fill the gap of uneasiness.
In the camp, we had to do all kinds of practice. The truth was I was good at nothing. The sword was too heavy. I shot the sparrow all right, but my accuracy was another thing. Chiron personally marched across the field to take the bow away from me and forbade me to touch one for the rest of my life. I tried to race with the nymphs, but I lost. The fact that I couldn't run faster than a tree really was not just slightly disturbing.
Maybe the Morpheus part of the family line was messing with me. Maybe I was just stupid. Either way, I couldn't care about it. By now, I got used to it.
Nico had a hard time not laughing his head off. He kept asking me, 'Why can't you sway you sword right, Vicky?' He played innocent but I knew he was evil! I just knew it! I glared at him but that only made him worse. He was still unclaimed, but he was pretty good at sword fight. The thing about Nico was, when he was fighting he radiated kind of dark energy. Immediately, you wanted to shy away from him. Even Clarisse got the message that messing with him was off-limit. Meanwhile, to most of the campers, he seemed unapproachable. Beside the power, he always seemed to be somehow different, like…he was from another era.
Maybe the kids just labeled us as the 'weirdo group.' The strange thing was, I didn't mind at all. Perhaps part of the reason I liked to hang out with Nico was that my family was not all that cozy and warm. After all, my grandpa was Morpheus and he had his palace in the underworld.
We spent some time together. You knew, the normal stuffs kids did in a summer camp. Fighting monsters (okay I sat there and watched Nico fought monster), learning Greek, playing cards in the middle of night, screaming for your life when you had cannibalistic bird ladies on your tail. Fine, the screaming part was my doing.
All these memory got me warm and fuzzy inside. And I grew quite content just thinking about the camp. 'It is my home.' I realized.