My eyes snapped open, my chest heaving. I shivered violently; the Hera cabin was freezing cold. What just happened? I sat up on my blow up mattress and pressed my hands to my eyes, hard. I opened them quickly though. The glowing green eyes of the girl named Rachel had come back to me, as if the image was tattooed on my eyelids. I was pretty sure that she was the camp Oracle. Taika had told me about the Oracle once, but she had never mentioned names.

I looked at the back of a huge, golden throne that stood in the center of the cabin and grimaced. I had put the mattress directly behind the statue so she couldn't look at me. It wasn't that the woman on the throne was ugly, she was gorgeous, but I had my reasons to hate the thing. One, the woman was my mother who hated my very existence. Two, she had this look on her face. It was kind of like a 'mother knows best' look but had an threat to it too. Like she was saying, "If you defy mother she'll squash you like a bug and hand you over to Hades without a second thought." I'd seen that look before and it had nearly gotten me fried like bacon. The incredibly detailed paint job didn't help either. The statue nearly looked alive, her eyes seemed to follow you around. Basically, I hated this cabin-which had no furnishings whatsoever-and spent every minute I could far, far away from it.

A low sound broke me out of my thoughts, and I cocked my head, trying to hear better. It was the sound of voices, not individual ones but that low hum of a bunch of people all talking at once. I frowned, wondering what time it was. The cabin, of course, was dark and had no windows, so I couldn't judge the time by a light source. With the sun the way it was, my guess probably wouldn't have been accurate anyway.

I rose, swapping my sweatpants and tank top for a orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and jean shorts. The buzzing of voices was growing louder, as if more people were joining the crowd. I frowned again, strapping my sheath to my belt and sliding my knife into it. About two minutes had passed since I'd woken up and already it sounded like people were shouting.

I skirted around the statue, being careful to avoid looking at it, and pushed on the big, bronze double-doors of the cabin. Everything went silent as the doors swung open and every eye was on me. I blinked, shocked, and took in the sight before me. It looked like every last camper was standing in the green that the twelve main cabins surrounded. Some were wearing pajamas, other full clothes. Some had armor and weapons, others had a weird mix of a little bit of everything. I took in the chaos of it all. You could see how siblings were all spread out, everyone in a mass.

The unsettling thing, however, was how they were all looking at me. Some glared accusingly, others looked at me in awe. There were kids who looked at me in envy or excitement, and still others who looked scared and confused.

"'A demigod born of unique descent!'" Someone yelled. "It's her! The prophecy is about her!"

I blinked again. How on Olympus did they know the prophecy? They couldn't have all had the same dream that I'd had…

"Yeah!" Another camper yelled. "That bit about light? That's got to do with her!"

"Don't forget the one line: 'Great courage and defiance she will present,'" Yet another demigod shouted, a smirk in their voice. There were snickers throughout the crowd. Yeah, I guess everyone knew about my tantrum on Olympus by now. Gods, this was embarrassing.

"Guys, guys, forget about the prophecy. What about Rachel? The mortals won't know what to do with her and what happened. That blonde mortal could tell them everything!" A girl's voice shouted. I saw some people frown, murmurs breaking out.

"Okay everybody, calm down," A voice called out, the speaker standing on a bench so that he could be seen. "The Oracle will be fine," Percy reassured the camp. "Chiron will send someone to go make sure she's okay. Go back to sleep."

He hopped down off the bench and everyone just stood there. Grumbling broke out, but the campers started to make their ways back to their cabin.

The moon, however dim it was, was still in the sky. I looked at it for a long minute, thinking back to what they said. 'A demigod born of unique descent.' Of course they'd assume it was me.

I sat down heavily on the front step of the cabin, which looked more like a mausoleum, and sighed. It was like no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't be normal. I couldn't be a normal girl, I couldn't be a normal demigod either. And now I was apparently the demigod in the prophecy. It made sense now, the dream where Hera had told me to train. She knew that I'd be handed a quest and she knew it'd be soon. She just hadn't known that her secret would be put on display for all of Olympus. She hadn't known that I'd be such a pain in the ass.

I glared at my feet, a familiar angry feeling welling up inside of me, and took out my knife. There were times that I wanted to scream at that stupid statue inside the cabin. I wanted to blast it to pieces with my light or, sometimes, I wanted to hurl my knife into the Sound. It may seem crazy, to want to get rid of something like that, but it was from my mother and I didn't want anything from her. I didn't want to owe her anything. If she gave me a knife, then I'd have to find a way to repay her for it. I did not want that.

But before I would act on my impulses, the dream would come back to me. "Ready yourself before this dream becomes reality. Train hard, embrace your abilities, and fight bravely against your enemies," Hera had told me. That always stopped me. If there really were enemies that were going to come after me, I'd need a weapon.

Then there was the feeling that made me even angrier. I actually wanted to please my mother. I didn't want to let her down, even after she'd let me down in the biggest way possible. It was stupid to want her approval and to want her to be proud of me, but I couldn't help it.

I gripped my knife, raised it, then hurled it at the grass in front of me. It sank about six inches into the ground. I heard a long whistle and looked up. Nico was looking at the knife, his eyebrows raised. I scowled and he bent down to jerk it from the ground.

"Nice throw," He commented, sitting down beside me and handing the blade over. I took it and ran my finger over it, brushing the dirt from the surface.

"Thanks," I muttered, turning the knife over and cleaning the other side.

"They might be wrong. This prophecy might not even happen while we're alive," He told me, looking out toward the basketball court. I snorted.

"You don't believe that," I said sourly. "Hera said I'd have to face enemies. And a demigod born of unique descent? You really can't get more unique than me."

He looked at me. "Fine, it's you."

I looked at him. "Ah, that makes me feel super!"

He made a face at my sarcastic tone. "The prophecy also said that the demigod would have power to rival the eldest gods."

I frowned. "Maybe it isn't me…"

"It's you."

"Zeus almost killed me. Yeah, I can 'rival his power,'" I said sarcastically.

"I really can't stand you sometimes," Nico grumbled. I felt my bad mood slipping-I just can't help but lighten up around him.

"Aw, you like me, Death Boy. Don't even try to deny it," I grinned, scooting closer to him and bumping my shoulder against his. He looked down at me with a small smile and I closed the distance between us. Again the world seemed to fall away, just me and him in the semi-darkness, together. But, of course, the moment always has to get ruined. Last time by Aphrodite girls, this time by Chiron.

He cleared his throat pointedly and I froze, pulled back from Nico, and blushed. It was one thing to be, er, interrupted by other campers, but by Chiron? It was somewhat mortifying.

"Uh," I tried to explain. "We were just-"

"Andromeda," He cut me off. "Please, spare all three of us from further embarrassment. If you'd please come with me, both of you."

I swallowed and stood up, following Chiron as he headed toward the Big House. No doubt I was in for another council meeting about the prophecy. We walked in silence, Nico beside me and Chiron in front. Inside the Big House, everything was silent, save for Seymour's snores. At least someone could still sleep.

There wasn't anyone in the Rec. Room when we walked in and took our seats. I sat where I had last time, right near the net, and Nico sat down beside me, our shoulders touching. I don't know why, but I felt ten times better with him there. Suddenly the prophecy didn't seem so bad, like I actually had some control over the situation. I was in the middle of asking Nico if he wanted to play ping-pong when the other counselors started showing up. First Miranda Gardner-from Demeter-followed by the Stoll brothers, Jack, Percy, Annabeth, Clarisse from Ares, and Jake Mason, Hephaestus. They kept trickling in, Taika sitting down on my other side until, finally, all the counselors were present.

There was silence for a moment, then Clovis, a chubby blonde kid from Hypnos, spoke up.

"I've never heard of two-hundred plus demigods having the same dream at the same time," He said drowsily, his head nodding.

"So everyone did have the dream with the Oracle?" I asked.

"All of Nemesis did," Jack replied and the other counselors nodded.

"What I'd like to know," Jake Mason spoke up. "is what that prophecy was about. 'The enemy arises, a target in sight,' doesn't sound all that great."

A few counselors made faces, others looked down at the table.

"We just got rid of our last enemy," Tamara Brown, daughter of Nike, grumbled. I raised my eyebrows, wondering of they were referring to the Titan War. I'd heard about it, knew that it'd happened nearly two summers ago, in August, but no one had given me specifics. What I knew was that some of the Titans, the high-and-mighties before the gods, had made a comeback and thanks to the great hero, Percy Jackson, the world had been saved. Apparently, the campers were over the whole enemy arising thing. I couldn't really blame them.

"Well, it isn't like we can just ignore the enemy," Clarisse, a big mean girl with stringy hair who I tried to avoid, said a little too enthusiastically. She was a perfect example of a daughter of Ares, always looking for a fight. "They'll rise whether we want them to or not, so we might as well get ready."

"Jeeze, Clarisse, calm down," Conner Stoll grumbled.

"This prophecy might not even be happening right now," Miranda Gardner said half-heartedly, not believing it anymore than the rest of us.

"'A demigod born of unique descent,'" I recited, then skipped ahead. "'Light shall shine through even the darkest of nights.' Miranda, unless there's some other illegitimate child of a god somewhere who can shoot light out of their hands, I think the demigod's me. And since it's me, how much d'you wanna bet the prophecy will unfold sometime in the near future?"

Annabeth shook her head. "Just because you're here and the prophecy has been revealed doesn't mean it will come to pass anytime soon. The Great Prophecy that had to do with Percy didn't happen until four years after he first came to camp."

"Annabeth," Percy argued. "That prophecy was different. Me or Thalia or Nico would've had to turn sixteen for it to happen. There was nothing about a certain age in this one."

Annabeth looked at him hard then sighed. "For once, Seaweed Brain, I think you're right."

"So what happens now?" I asked in a smaller voice, leaning on Nico. I saw some eyebrows go up around the table but ignored them. Chiron opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by the door swinging open.

Rachel, the Oracle, the girl who had spouted the prophecy, stood in the doorway, looking disheveled. She walked into the room, her Clarion's uniform crumpled and a black shawl over her shoulders, followed by Will Solace and Butch from the Iris cabin.

Her green eyes taking in the room, stopping on me. She locked eyes with me and frowned.

"You," She told me. "are the one who will find Apollo."

A/N: I AM SO SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO UPDATE. School. Is. Murder. But anyways, here you are. I'm sorry if this is a bit boring, but it had to be written. AND, you know, in what? Three chapters? The action shall start! Thanks for bearing with me you guys, I love all of you! R&R? Call it a birthday present? Considering my birthday is the TWENTY-SEVENTH!

A/N/N: And if this has any spelling/grammar issues, tell me, I'll fix it ASAP!