The sunlight was blinding. My head instantly started pounding, and it must have been pretty obvious on my face because Katie shoved the straw in the Ambrosia back in my mouth and forced me to drink some. The pounding in my head seemed to calm at the sweet taste of the liquid, but stayed screaming until I finished the rest of the drink. It didn't help too much, but at least I could open my eyes all the way.
"Follow me," Katie said, walking in front of me. She waved to some kids outside some cabins as we walked away from the place I'd woken up in. "That place you were asleep in, that's the Big House. It's where Chiron and Mr. D stay. If you're hurt or in trouble, the Big House will be there to save the day."
"Okay…" I trailed off, looking back at the Big House.
"These are the cabins, one for each of the major gods, and a great deal for the minor gods," Katie explained. "This cabin right here is the Demeter cabin," Katie said after we walked passed it. It was a light shade of spring green and was surrounded by gorgeous flowers that seemed to grow before my eyes. Demeter, it said in elegant script over the door. The next was a shimmering blue and had a trident over the door. Poseidon, was written under it in shells. Outside the Poseidon cabin was sitting a boy, nineteen or so, leaning against the doorway and sharpening a sword with a stone.
I had to double take before the sword in his hand actually registered in my head as a sword and not some joke my subconscious was playing on me. This whole place seemed like a dream, but unfortunately, it wasn't, and even in my semi-dazed state, I knew that.
"Hey Percy," Katie said once we were in earshot. He looked up from his sword and at us. He had black hair, sea green eyes, and a kind face.
"Hey Katie," Percy said, getting up and walking towards us. He looked at me for a second before holding out his hand. "Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon," he said as I shook his hand hesitantly.
"Sofia Lovett," I said, looking at him confusedly. "Poseidon, huh?" I asked. I was having a hard time taking everybody here seriously.
"Yeah," he said, taking a pen cap out of his pocket. He placed it on the tip of his sword and it instantly changed into a pen.
My mouth dropped open and my eyes widened as I pointed lamely at the pen in an attempt to say something along the lines of "What the hell was that?" Unfortunately, my ability to speech wasn't so good at that point in time to begin with, and suddenly seeing a sword change into a pen didn't help my condition at all.
Percy laughed slightly once he realized what I was pointing at. He put the pen in his pocket and explained, "It does that. Riptide, it's called. Pretty awesome, if I may say so myself."
I nodded, completely dumbfounded. He laughed again.
"She's new here, isn't she?" he asked Katie. She had her hand over her eyes at this point, finger and thumb on her temples. She nodded. "Well, if you need anything while you're here, don't be afraid to let me know, okay?" Percy said, looking back at me.
"T-thanks," I stammered.
"Okay. We'll get going. Come on Sofie," Katie said, rolling her eyes and pulling me by the arm to follow her when my feet wouldn't move.
We passed Zeus's cabin next, looking terribly neglected. "Thalia, the only child of Zeus alive right now, is one of Artemis's huntresses. Needless to say, she doesn't visit a lot," Katie explained. Having worm myself asking so many questions about each of the cabins already, I settled on just nodding along each time she told me something.
When we passed the Hades cabin, Katie rolled her eyes as she spotted Nico asleep underneath the tree in front of his cabin. He obviously didn't plan to fall asleep; he was in what can only be described as a crumpled heap on the ground beneath a Maple tree. His head was leaning back against its trunk and he had one arm on the ground next to him, the other draped across his stomach, still holding his black sword limply in his hand. He looked absolutely exhausted, like he had passed out in the middle of doing something important, which was odd considering he had been wide awake only half an hour before.
Katie must have noticed my confused expression. "It's all the Shadow Travel. That's how he got to Houston and brought you and me back."
"Shadow Travel?"
"He can jump from any shadow anywhere in the world into another shadow anywhere else. It's quick, simple, but has its drawbacks. It makes him very tired afterward, especially after two consecutive trips, and if he has others with him," Katie explained.
"So why was he fine half an hour ago if it's so exhausting?" I asked.
"Because it doesn't have immediate effects on him. It did when he was little, according to Percy. Apparently, he used to pass out as soon as he got to where he needed to be when he was ten. Now, it takes a little while to kick in, how long exactly differs each time, but when it does, he's out for a few hours at least," Katie said. There was something in her voice that made it obvious that she really didn't like Nico.
We continued to walk. "You spend a lot of time with him?" I asked.
"Unfortunately, yes," Katie said. "Nico, being one of the most powerful demi-gods at the camp, is sent on trips to random parts of the world often to help other demi-gods get out of whatever mess they find themselves in. That was why he was there to save you from the hellhound."
It seemed that at the mention of the hellhound from the day before, the Ambrosia kicked in.
"Wait, what?" I stopped and grabbed Katie's arm, turning her to look at me. "How did he know I was being tracked by a hellhound?" Katie started to formulate a response but I cut her off. "Better yet, how did you know I was being tracked by a hellhound?"
"You see, I've known you were a demi-god for a long time, Sofia," Katie said. I motioned for her to carry on. "Every summer, I come to the camp, like all other campers, and I was told that when the scouts were out looking for demi-gods, you were found. You were young, we were young, Sofie, so instead of bringing you back here, they sent me to take care of you. I could give reports on how you were doing, monsters that were chasing you, and if anything came up, Nico would come and take care of it." The look of sheer betrayal must have been clear in my expression because Katie carried on. "I wanted to tell you, Sofie, I really did, but I couldn't! Chiron and Nico wouldn't let me!"
"So you were never really my friend? You were assigned to me?" I asked, a large lump raising in my throat.
"Originally, yes, but you have to understand! You're the best friend I've ever had!" Katie said, taking my hand in hers as she pleaded with me. "I was assigned to you, yes, but then you became much more than an assignment to me! You're my best friend, Sofia!"
"Does this happen a lot?" I asked, trying to make sense of this all.
"Yeah! You remember Percy? The same thing happened with him and his friend Grover. He's a satyr. They're still best friends, even after Percy found out about how he was originally just an assignment," Katie said.
"Hold on, I'm confused," I said, letting go of Katie's hand. "Nico knows me too?"
"Yeah. Well, he didn't know you personally until today, but he's seen you before," Katie said, thrown off track by my random question.
"This is all so confusing!" I cried aloud, throwing my hands into the air. "First, I get attacked by some huge-ass black dog, then some kid I don't know picks me up and takes me to some place I've never seen before, and you're there, and there's a dude who's half horse, and I'm half god, and there are Pegasi and swords and armor and deadly drinks and I just want to go home!" I sobbed, dropping to the ground and curling up in a ball, crying into my knees.
What happened next, nobody was prepared for. As suddenly as if someone had flicked it on with a light switch, all hell broke loose. The noise made me look up. I wiped the tears from my eyes and was scared shitless at what I saw. Spears started dropping from hooks, radios started flipping channels, people started screaming and panicking, making it all worse.
It got louder as I realized it more and more. Within thirty seconds, the whole camp was in terrible shape. Water splashed up from the pond and smacked people in the backs of their heads; people were yelling and screaming; branches fell from trees and smacked into sandcastles little kids were making on the beach; satyrs were losing control of their reed pipes; it was completely chaotic.
To be honest, the sudden outburst of chaos utterly frightened me, provoking more tears. By this point, Nico had woken up, and was running towards me and Katie. Katie was looking at him with a dumbfounded expression and screaming to him over the noise. Whatever it was she was trying to tell him was lost in the chaos as soon as it left her lips, as was anything Nico tried to shout back.
The more scared I became at the psychotic outbursts around me, the worse they got. Even children of the more level headed gods- Demeter and Hephaestus- were on a complete rampage; possessed, so it seemed. The children of Aphrodite actually stopped staring at themselves in their mirrors and started taking part in the action as the children of Athena traded their books for the chaos. Nobody seemed to have any control over anything they did, even Katie and Nico, who were taking part in a very heated argument about goodness knows what while I was sobbing with fear.
The only one that seemed to be able to control himself was Chiron, who ran over to me when the chaos seemed to reach its peak. I couldn't hear him over the noise, and he knew that. He didn't speak, but simply bent down and laid a hand on my shoulder.
I looked up at him, my vision clouded with tears, and saw him mouth the words "Stay calm". I took in a shuddering breath and nodded.
"Stay calm," I mouthed back, nodding over and over again to myself as I desperately tried to calm down. I thought of kittens, ice cream sundaes, peace signs and hearts, but kept on getting distracted by the noise. Every bang, crack, and scream put me more on edge, scaring me more, provoking more chaos.
Chiron turned to the man standing in the doorway of the Big House, looking disinterested, and mouthed something. The man, Mr. D, I'm guessing, disappeared back inside the Big House, returning a minute later with a bottle that he brought down to me. He gave it to Chiron and walked back up to the Big House.
Chiron turned back to me and gave me the bottle, motioning with his hands that I should drink it. When I refused to drink it, too busy crying my eyes out, he opened my mouth for me and poured the liquid down my throat until it was all gone. It tasted faintly like pickles, sour and unpleasant, so I gagged once I had swallowed it all. Mid gag, however, I began to feel drowsy.
It was suddenly very quiet around the camp and I, again dazed and confused, passed out for the second time in two days.
…
"Well this seems to be quite a running theme, don't you think?" I heard a voice, warped and distant, say above me as I slowly came to.
"Seems so," a voice, this one deeper, replied.
"Is she waking up?" the first voice asked.
"I sure as Hades hope she is," a third voice said. "All this sleep can't be good for her."
I stirred, tried to stretch out my arms, and yelped when my broken left arm screamed in protest.
"Yep, she's waking up," the female voice said, one I now recognized as Katie's.
"Hm? What happened?" I asked, slurring my words together a bit as I tried to get my mouth to cooperate with me. My good hand flew to my head, which was pounding again.
"You had an emotional break down and started causing all kinds of things to go wrong," Katie said, passing me a glass full of Ambrosia nectar. I sipped at it as best I could without choking; I was having a hard time remembering to swallow
"How bad was it?" I asked. I'd made things happen like this before, normally just pots on the opposite sides of rooms jumping off of shelves when I got a bad grade on a test or something, but nothing ever that severe. I couldn't remember exactly what had happened, or how they had cleaned up the mess. The pickle-potion Chiron had given me did a good job at messing with memories I had of the experience.
"Do you want the good news first or the bad news first?" Nico asked. He was sitting on the bed next to me, looking half asleep himself.
"Um, the bad news, please," I said, crossing my fingers and hoping it wasn't that bad.
"Well, first off, you've completely ruined the entire camp. Nothing the kids of Hephaestus can't fix in a day or two though," Nico said. "The Apollo kids have their work cut out for them, thanks to your flying spears, which didn't half poke some of the campers here. You've also put Percy and the Demeter kids to work trying to get the water and branches out of camp."
"That bad, huh?"
"Pretty much," Nico mumbled, draping his arm over his eyes to block out the light. I forgot I had woken him up from his recovery nap earlier, and it seems the lack of sleep was catching up to him.
"What's the good news?" I asked Katie this time, deciding to let Nico sleep.
"You've been claimed," Katie said, a proud smile creeping out across her face.
"I have? No way!" I sat completely upright, ignoring the screaming pain behind my eyes and the head rush that followed. "Who's child am I?" Oddly enough, asking this seemed so much more real after my little… breakdown, of sorts. What had once been impossible was now becoming more realistic as I had proven to myself, really, that all of this talk of gods and powers was all true.
"Chaos," Katie said. "She claimed you after everything calmed down and all the campers were staring at you sleeping."
"So that means…?"
"You're officially a demi-god! Yay for you! Now can you two please leave so I can sleep?" Nico whined from next to us.
"You have a cabin all to yourself don't you? Go there and leave us in peace," Katie snapped back.
"I don't wanna go!" Nico moaned like a child. "I can't feel my legs, I'm that tired."
"Good for you." Katie rolled her eyes and turned back to me.
"So where will I be sleeping tonight, then?" I asked. "Not in your cabin, I guess."
"You'll be in your own cabin. Chaos's cabin. It's number 39," Katie said. "It's red and says Chaos across the front in black letters. Can't miss it."
"I'll be alone?" I didn't like the idea of that so much.
"Not alone completely. You're still at a camp with hundreds of other kids, remember," Katie said. She saw my worried expression. "You'll be okay, I promise. Come on, let's go eat, and we'll go to the campfire tonight. That'll cheer you up! I'm singing your favorite song!"
"You are?" I asked, beginning to relax a bit more.
"Yeah! All the Apollo kids lead the campfire, it's fun," Katie said, smiling.
"It's pure torture," Nico mumbled, almost completely asleep.
"For an emotionless bastard like you, then yes. For people like us, people with feelings, it's enjoyable."
"Whatever you say…"
Katie ignored him and stood up, offering me a hand. I took it and got up off of the bed, the same one from earlier that day, and followed her out into the sunshine.
…
Picture a sweet, perfect, picture book summer camp with a glistening lake and pristine cabins all in a circle, with cute little kids running around, laughing and smiling like Barbie dolls with sticks shoved up their asses. Now take that camp, set it on fire, use acid to put out that fire, send a few spears through the cabins, set a starving Rottweiler on the kids, flood it once, flood it again, run over all structures still standing with an eighteen wheeler, throw some of the most unsuspecting campers into trees, plaster some random confused faces in the crowd, and you have Camp Half Blood after my panic attack.
Katie was pulling me through the wreckage by the hand with such force my arm nearly popped out of its socket. I had to run to keep up with her, desperately trying not to cause more damage to the fragile camp as I stumbled through the camp. The crowd of shocked campers that was clustering around us parted like the Red Sea as we passed, hastily trying to get as far away from me as possible.
I tried not to look at the wreckage, hoping for dear life that I wouldn't have another emotional breakdown, but no matter how hard I tried, I just kept looking up. Tears started to form in my eyes as I watched people desperately trying to fix what I had broken in a matter of seconds. Everyone looked at me disapprovingly as I walked by them, slowly poking holes in my ego that really didn't need to be there.
Katie had, without my realizing it, pulled me to a bright yellow cabin with Apollo written across the front. She tugged me inside, threw me down on the first bed in the room, and waltzed over to a large wardrobe in the corner. I opened my mouth to protest, but was cut off by a ball of cloth hitting my face. It fell into my hands and I noticed that it was a pair of black skinny jeans. Again, my questions were cut off by clothing smacking me in the face, and this time, it was a pair of orange socks.
"Put them on. The campfire is starting soon and I can't have you walking into a crowd of people you just massacred looking like you'd been massacred with them," she said, walking over to a mirror near her bed and fixing her long blonde hair. I sat there confused. "Go on! The bathroom is right there."
"Um… okay…" I'd learned not to question Katie when she was giving me orders years ago, and I guessed now wouldn't be the best time to break that trend, so I obeyed, and walked into the bathroom.
What I saw in the mirror almost made me scream. My hair was a disaster, greatly resembling that of a person who had just stuck her finger in a light socket; my normally pale skin was, if possible, even paler, making my light dusting of freckles across my nose stand out; and my eyes had dark purple bags under them. I changed into the skinny jeans Katie had lent me (thanking my lucky stars that we were the same size) and threw on the clean socks.
With a splash of water in the face, and some smoothing out of my hair, I looked presentable, so I walked out into the Apollo cabin, where I saw Katie sitting on her bed reading a book. Looking around the bright yellow cabin, I realized we were the only people there.
"Where is everybody?" I asked.
"Hm?" Katie looked up from her book and at me. "They're all out healing everybody you hurt with your… piff…" Katie was obviously trying to find a word.
"Piff? What's a piff?" I asked, looking at her with an expression that clearly read "huh?"
"I don't know. It's just the word I'm going to use every time you have a break down. It's better than emotional breakdown now, isn't it?" Katie said, returning to her book.
"I like it. So how's everybody cleaning up from my piff?" I asked, worried.
"Well, I think…" Katie was cut off by the Apollo door banging open and an angry Nico storming in.
"I've been evicted! From my own home! Evicted!" Nico said, throwing his arms up in the air in frustration.
Katie didn't look phased in the slightest at his news. She stared at him with the same blank, "really?" expression she gave everybody who pissed her off. I'm guessing she gave Nico this expression a lot because he rolled his eyes and continued.
"Percy got stuck in a tree earlier, right, and because he's one of the older kids at the camp, someone couldn't go up there and get him, he's too heavy, so the Ares kids had to chop down the tree to get him down! And guess where the tree fell? On my cabin!"
Katie and I both looked at each other and broke out into laughter, falling over ourselves as we tried desperately to catch our breath. Nico stood in the doorway, trying to pick his jaw up off the floor as he watched us.
"It's not funny!" he whined, which provoked more laughter.
"Yes… it is!" Katie gasped, still laughing.
"How would you feel if your cabin got knocked over, huh? You'd be pretty upset!"
"No, I'd just stay with Sofia," Katie said, starting to compose herself.
"But I have to stay with Percy! Percy!" Nico whined, throwing himself down on a bed that was next to Katie's. That, for some reason, made Katie laugh even harder.
"Why is staying with Percy a bad thing? He's nice," I said, confused. Percy seemed bearable enough, why Nico was upset about having to stay with him was quite beyond me.
"Percy is like my brother I never had and everything, but he's always so loved up with Annabeth. It's quite sickening," Nico said.
"Annabeth? Who's she?" I asked. "I didn't see her with Percy earlier."
"She's a really pretty, really tough, daughter of Athena that Percy is like, madly in love with. The two of them have been dating for a while, but the initial lovey-dovey summer fling romance is still there. It's terribly annoying," he said, burying his head in his hands and letting out a frustrated sigh.
"But staying in his cabin is bad because…? It's not like she sleeps there, right?" I asked. No answer. "Right?"
Nico sighed again and lay back on the bed. Katie had begun to sober up, so when Nico shot up, looked at me, looked at Katie, looked back at me, and looked back at Katie, she shot him a "Don't even think about it" look.
"What?" I asked at their unspoken conversation.
"Not going to happen, Zombie Boy," Katie sneered.
"Please?" Nico begged.
"No!" Katie yelled. "I have to deal with enough of you during the day! I don't want you staying in the same cabin as me!"
Nico rolled his eyes and turned to me. "What about you, Sofia? The Chaos cabin is pretty big, and Katie could sleep over, just to keep an eye on me." Katie let out a frustrated scream from behind Nico.
"You really don't want to stay in the Poseidon cabin, do you?" I asked.
"Nope."
"Well…" I really couldn't make up my mind. Between Katie's frantic attempts to get me to reconsider (a mixed up series of shaking-heads, hand signals, and mouthed explicatives) and Nico's surprisingly convincing puppy dog eyes, I was trapped, unable to make a decision.
"Great. So I'll be at your cabin at seven, okay?" Before I could open my mouth to protest, Nico was gone, out the front door to the Apollo cabin and walking down the path.
Once he was out of earshot, Katie shot up and threw her arms up in the air in frustration. "What the hell was that?" she cried. "Now I'm going to have to have a sleep over with the son of the devil! Nice going, Sofia!"
"I'm sorry! He threw himself at me! I was trapped!" I said back, starting to get pretty aggravated. Suddenly, a picture frame jumped off a shelf and dropped to the floor with a loud crash.
"Can you please try to control your emotions right now?" Katie sneered, walking over to pick up the smashed picture. I saw it was one of a small blonde girl and an older boy that greatly resembled her.
"Who's picture was that?" I asked.
"My little sister Amy's. Well, she's a half sister," Katie said, putting the picture back on the shelf, despite the shattered glass.
"How many siblings do you have in this cabin?" I asked.
Katie thought for a minute and replied, "Fifteen, all of different ages."
"Wow. That's… a lot," I said, suddenly realizing something. "I don't have any siblings I don't know about, do I?"
"Oh, no. That's why we were so surprised when we found out about you. Chaos hasn't had a child since the 1700's," Katie said, turning back to me.
"It still hasn't registered that my mom isn't my real mom," I said quietly, looking down at my feet. "Am I adopted or something?"
"Now isn't the time to go into that. To be perfectly honest with you, I have no idea, but you need to focus on more happy things." I didn't reply. Katie came up next to me and took my hands in hers. "Look at me," she said. I looked up at her with tear filled eyes. "All you need to know is that your family is here now, okay? You've told me tons of times you hated life in Texas. Now you get to start over."
"But am I going to like it here?" I asked. Katie chuckled.
"Trust me, Sof, you'll love it here," she said, wrapping me in a hug. I drew in a shuddering breath and nodded, hugging her back. We broke apart when a radio in the corner started blasting music, probably my doing. Katie turned it off, took my hand, and pulled me from the Apollo cabin.
AN: Thanks to all you people who have stayed with me. I know I didn't update soon enough, and for that I am going to make no excuses because I know it was completely and utterly wrong of me, but know that this chapter was excessively hard to write, what with Shane's constant banter about how much better the book that she is reading is than my writing, and with a case of writers block capable of stumping JK Rowling. Just know that I love you all and, frankly, can't wait to get my next chapter posted. Looking forward to feedback!
Maggie