Not my best idea... - Alyx

At first, I didn't think of the griffin again. I stood at the top of the hill, watching as he became nothing more than a dark spot in an otherwise clear sky, and then finally disappeared into the distance. I stood for a while after that, my mind lost as I thought about what had happened the past few days. It felt like it had been longer- it felt as though Cinder had been here for a full week, not the three days he had actually stayed.

Then I let out a long sigh, feeling a burden being lifted from my shoulders. He wasn't my problem anymore. He was gone from camp, and that was that. I turned and started down the hill, my mind already moving on to the other activities of the day. Somewhere in my subconscious, however, my nightmare poked at my waking mind.

The next few days passed without incident. There were whispers around the camp about Cinder, but they slowly silenced as we got distracted with regular training. The summer began in earnest, and things returned to normal for everyone else.

I, however, couldn't shake the nightmare. I remembered it at inopportune moments during my waking hours, suddenly getting flashes of the bloodstained snow, and the horrific deaths I had witnessed that night. I know, I know, they're only monsters- they shouldn't be affecting me so strongly. But the problem was, their deaths were. Something about the dream made them feeling like friends, family, even. I felt as though each death was a shot to my own heart, as though I were seeing my own father get killed a hundred times over.

For the first two nights after Cinder had left, I had no dreams. I was fine with this- no nightmares plagued my slumber. Afterwards that changed, and I started having more vivid nightmares that felt so real I woke up with my own skin aching. In two of them I had been flying; soaring over rolling green fields before dropping to the ground and staggering on wards. I felt pain in my shoulder and my leg that wouldn't fade, and I felt the warmth of my own blood dripping from the wounds, trickling down my skin and soaking the T-shirt I wore. I felt isolated and alone, with my only hope seemingly further and further away with every step I took. I woke from these dreams feeling perhaps more exhausted than I had gone to sleep, with my muscles aching and the strange sensation that I had wings.

The rest of my dreams took place in a much dirtier setting- I saw the billboards of New York, the crowds of people, and the dank allies that littered the city. I was attacked by groups of monsters, barely able to escape their clutches alive. Each new scratch I obtained during the nightmares stung during my waking hours. But, of course, there wasn't a single dream scratch on me. Of course I had a couple from daily training with my cabin, but those, the ones I was so sure were real, seemed far less painful than those obtained in the nightmares.

It must have been about five nights after these nightmares returned that I finally decided I'd had enough.

I opened my eyes groggily that morning, clutching my side, where my latest dream- wound had been inflicted. This one was worse than any of the others. Shuddering, I sat up. One of my brothers- Malcolm- gave me a concerned look as he went about his daily routine, preparing his own sword for our later activities.

My cabin mates were starting to notice my nightmares, in which I was apparently starting to get quite vocal. Annabeth had suggested I speak to Chiron. I had brushed the idea off, at first. They were just nightmares, right? Every demigod gets horrific nightmares at some point or another. But I had to admit these ones were particularly strange. Regular nightmares don't give you phantom pains for wounds you'd never actually received.

Sadly it wasn't until that afternoon that I was able to confront Chiron. The centaur, as usual, had been quite busy. We had just finished our archery session, in which he had been mentoring us. The other members of cabin six started to head back to our cabin to wait for dinner. I hung back, waiting for everyone to leave before I started to speak.

"Chiron-" I started, my voice wavering slightly. I still wasn't entirely sure this was the right thing to do. Part of me just wanted to run back and catch up with the rest of my cabin and hope the nightmares stopped on their own. The sensible part of me knew that they would not. "-I've had…"

The centaur turned toward me, looking at me with his usual kind eyes. "Nightmares?"

I went quiet, and nodded.

He returned the practise bow he had been holding to its stand, repositioning himself so he was facing me front on. "Annabeth mentioned your fitful sleep, child. What happens in them?"

I was reluctant at first, quiet as I tried to figure out how best to explain them- how best to put into words how real the dreams felt. I started talking, hesitant and unsure. Chiron waited patiently, and I found myself explaining everything- every little detail, from the dying griffins, to the way I hit the ground as I travelled cross country.

It took a while to explain everything- the words kept pouring from my mouth, and I was unable to stop myself. Speaking to Chiron sometimes had that effect. He was always someone you could trust- he was sincere in his desire to help you, and he listened to every word and treated it with importance, no matter how trivial the matter. To all of the demigods residing at camp he was a father figure, always there.

He listened intently, his expression darkening at times. When I had finished, he was quiet for a while. I stood there, ever so slightly out of breath, waiting for his assessment.

Eventually, he spoke. "You were right to come to me," he said, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Your dreams are showing you events of the past, and perhaps some of the present."

I frowned. "Why?" My voice was hesitant and quiet.

He was silent again, looking toward the forest. His brow was furrowed in thought. "What you are seeing are the memories of the Griffin- Cinder. I can only assume that your most recent dreams are memories from events that have taken place in the past few days."

I didn't want to be seeing his memories. "Why?" I asked again, this time with perhaps slightly more force than I had anticipated. The news didn't come as that much of a surprise- Cinder was, after all, the only griffin I knew of. I just didn't understand why I was seeing what he had seen- I didn't understand why it was affecting only me.

Chiron shook his head, looking back at me. "I do not know, child. I can only assume that his story was true- you recounted it in perfect detail. A new force is rising somewhere in the north, biding its time before it attacks us at full might."

His answer didn't satisfy me- far from it, actually. I hadn't thought about the griffin's story with much seriousness. I'd pondered its validity, of course, run through what little I knew of his encounter through my mind, trying to glean which parts of it were the truth. I hadn't realised that the first of my nightmares had given me a vivid retelling of the event itself, complete with languages I didn't understand. A shiver ran down my spine as the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Something was coming, and I had a suspicion it had something to do with the bird- with Cinder. "What are we going to do about it?"

He thought about my question for a minute or two, before he finally answered. "There isn't much we can do right now," he said. "I will confer with Miss Dare, and Mr. D."

I was quiet, waiting for him to continue, to give the call to action- to start a quest. Something like this couldn't be ignored, could it? I had seen first hand (well, near enough to it) what that army of monsters could do. I'd seen their numbers, the swarms of them, and the violence with which they exterminated fellow monsters. I felt ill just thinking about it.

"Thank you for telling me about your nightmares, child." He said, eventually. "Return to your cabin for now- if they persist tonight, you should speak to Clovis. He may be able to help you." His tone was dismissive, the finality of his words suggesting that the conversation had been concluded.

I stood there for a moment or two longer, before I turned and started back toward cabin six. Essentially, I had been told to sit tight and wait. To ignore the dreams- the warning signs- and write them off as pesky nightmares that should be forgotten about. I felt anger start to rise in me, followed quickly by guilt. It wasn't Chiron's fault. He was speaking the truth when he said there wasn't much we could do. A quest couldn't go ahead without a prophecy, and so far we only had hearsay. The only proof of danger was the combined word of a monster, and a demigod's nightmares.

To others, I imagine, it would have seemed ludicrous to start worrying over something with evidence so trivial. I couldn't agree, though. I knew what I had seen, and Chiron himself had confirmed that what I had seen wasn't simply my mind playing tricks on me. There was a danger, and I was sure it was headed toward Camp Half- Blood. I was sure it was on its way here, just like Luke's army of monsters. Except this time, I was almost certain the monstrous regiments were far larger. It gave me a bad feeling.

Back in cabin six I found it difficult to concentrate. Now, like all demigods, I have ADHD, so not being able to concentrate is somewhat normal for me. But this particular evening it was different. In normal circumstances I could at least focus my attention on the page of a book. It took me a while to read, but I would slowly make my way through it. Tonight I couldn't even read a single word my mind was so crowded.

I was aware of every sound- every footstep from my cabin, and the cabins nearest us. I swear I could hear every person in my cabin breathing. I noticed each flicker of the curtains at the windows, and every single cloud that passed in front of the sun. My mind couldn't move past my dreams. They were still fresh in my mind, vivid and lifelike. I remembered each move I- Cinder had made in his fights, each duck and every nick. My side throbbed in protest, and I could have sworn I felt the blood slowly trickling down my hips.

I remembered the weakness I felt after that wound had been inflicted, after Cinder managed to kill the attacking monster- a serpentine creature that had held a bronze-tipped spear. He had staggered away from the cloud of dust, backing into the alleyway they had fought in. He fell against the dumpsters, breath ragged.

He was our best lead on the monsters. Being a monster himself, I would assume he knew something of armed uprisings. At the very least he would know more than we did here, at Camp Half- Blood. And yet here we were, dithering as we tried to figure out whether it was worth a quest, while he was out there probably dying. My hand went to the spot just below my ribs, feeling my cold hands even through my t-shirt. I got the feeling that he wouldn't be anywhere we could reach him by the time a quest was sorted out. He would have long passed back into Tartarus, where there was no telling how long it would take for him to re- form.

So my dumb self decided to form a plan. So much for being child of Athena, the Goddess of wisdom. At least I could acknowledge how bad my plan was. It consisted of leaving the camp under the cover of night- when the other campers were asleep- and heading into New York to try and find the injured griffin before he invariably got himself killed.

Like I said, I know it's a stupid plan. First off, walking around camp during night time is dangerous. The cleaning harpies- Aello, Celaeno, and Ocypete- were known to attack demigods caught wandering camp grounds a night. Although, if anyone could make it out undetected, it would be me. Second, it was a long way to New York from Camp Half- Blood. And third, arguably most importantly, the only navigational hints I had to help me find my way were snippets of billboards and shops from my dreams- from Cinder's memories. That, and New York was swarming with monsters just waiting to chow down on some Demigod hide. Some groups of demigods weren't able to make it through the city for all the monsters, and here I was thinking about traversing the place all alone.

But desperate times call for desperate measures. Even if those measures are idiotically desperate. I couldn't just sit at camp and pretend everything was all sunshine and daisies, especially not when my dreams were so adamant on reminding me every two seconds that things were, in fact, not all sunshine and daisies.

And so it was that I found myself standing at the door to Cabin Six, heavy backpack slung over my shoulders, Skotono in its sheath by my side (We'd retrieved it a few days ago, finally finding the crash site again), gearing myself up to step outside and start the whole train wreck. I had gone back early from the campfire to pack, hiding my bag beneath my bed when I heard my cabin mates approaching. I had lay in bed, wide awake, pretending to sleep as I waited for the others to fall asleep themselves. I had moved silently, pulling the bag soundlessly from beneath the bed, and I had moved to where I was now.

I took a deep breath, clenching my fists, and reached toward the door. I turned its handle, and slowly opened it. A cool breeze moved past me, bringing with it the smell of sea salt from the ocean. I stepped outside, carefully closing the door behind me. I had left my cabin undetected. That was step one. Now for steps two through a hundred.