Chapter Eight

Hints of the future/echoes of the past

Two weeks had passed since the mosasaur, and I had now been at camp for just over three weeks. Nothing odd happened, but I was still on edge. As I'd expected the strenuous activities of camp left me sore and exhausted, but at the same time I was noticing that I was getting less so as time went by. My muscles were becoming stronger and more powerful. Interestingly though, they didn't really increase in size very much at all. They visibly increased in size a little but after that the improvement was in their performance. This allowed my slender and wiry frame to stay and I was happy with this, I much preferred being wiry to bulky. I preferred it because it meant that my small frame concealed surprising strength. At first during practice fights I was able to catch my opponents by surprise. They hadn't fully expected the strength that was already in me. One particular thing that surprised everyone else was not so much my skill with a shield, but more specifically my remarkable ability to parry virtually any attack with said shield. Additionally, I also had exhibited unbelievably fast reflexes, so fast that I could dodge strikes and unleash a flurry of strikes of my own.

Eventually I was able to find the weapon that suited me best, a sword. This sword however was…different. Twenty-six inches of not celestial bronze, but steel. Upon first seeing it I turned to Chiron, who had led me here to this shed to pick a weapon, told me that this sword was an enigma to the camp. It showed up one day out of nowhere a couple years ago, and no one could remove it because anyone who touched it was literally shocked with a bolt of magical energy and released it at once. It was clear to all, somehow, that it was because no one was worthy of having it in hand. Therefore, he advised me to just leave it, but I just stared at it. It almost felt like it was calling to me specifically, like it wanted me to wield it. I couldn't explain it, but as I approached it, I could have sworn I heard a faint and unintelligible whispering.

Chiron, noticing my sudden, deafness as it were to his statement, stared at me in confusion and surprise as I reached the sword and grabbed onto the hilt. The moment I made contact with it, I felt not a shock, but rather a sensation like my life force was being sucked out. As I felt this sensation however, I was steadily lifting it out of the pedestal that had appeared along with it. If I weren't so focused on the blade and had looked behind me I would have seen how Chiron's face had taken on an expression of complete amazement. Finally, just as what must surely have been the very last bit of my life energy was about to be drained away, the sword came out of the pedestal, releasing a flash as it did.

The moment it slid out of its pedestal, I felt all my life energy return. I stood there and shifted the blade into my right hand and gave it a few test swings. It strangely enough seemed to be made perfectly for me, I didn't know how that was possible. The pedestal then disappeared, like it was never there.

I turned around and saw Chiron's expression, I just looked at him confused. He then shook his head and simply said that now that I had claimed the blade he was able to get a vague sense from it. A sense that just told him despite being made of seemingly just steel, would still be somehow effective against monsters, likely because of an obvious and admittedly unknown magic it was imbued with. I wondered how I would negotiate this non-demigod made weapon in the world if it wouldn't disguise. But as soon I thought that, it did, as a mechanical pencil. I decided then that this blade was really something special indeed.

That being said I decided to name it the Master Sword, strangely the instant I thought that there was a swirling warm wind around me for a second. Not only that but the name I had chosen momentarily filled me with a sense of familiarity, like I had heard it before, like it was just…right. I didn't understand it. I had a feeling telling me that the weapon being clearly magical, had attuned itself with me. Later on, I also noticed the presence of a little symbol etched into the blade itself near the base of the blade. A symbol in the shape of a triangle that was itself made of made of three smaller triangles with two on the bottom and one on the top, leaving an upside down fourth triangular space in the center. This symbol struck a chord with me, though I could not explain how or why. It was just…familiar somehow. Another thing that struck a chord with me after I pulled the sword was the faintest, fleeting impression at the edge of my mind of a figure beside me. Not so much physically though. A figure that while I couldn't really "see" it, I got the impression of a humanoid being of blue light and flowing attire, and the same unintelligible voice.

One month after my arrival, July had just started and I had noticed, and appreciated the mundaneness of life at Camp Half-Blood. Here my kind were safer than almost anywhere. Every so often a group from the Roman camp in California visited. There was friendly talk and exchanges of knowledge. There were also joint activities such as team battles, capture the flag (special edition: Greeks vs Romans), and reminiscing about days past. One time when I was sitting in front of the Athena cabin I overheard some of the long-time members from Camp Jupiter telling some new Camp Half-Blood campers about the schism between the Greeks and Romans six years ago. I'd already heard all about this of course, it was practically camp legend despite being so recent. I was always fascinated with it, partly because being a half-blood myself, I could really connect with these people. They had all either moved onto college, or retired from their duties as counselors.

The Romans only stayed a week as usual, after they left I was walking down the beach when this weird feeling passed over me. It was hard to even describe, a vague sense of dread and fear. What was that? I thought, putting my hand on the hilt of the Master Sword (which was strapped to my back, point down) just in case something tried to ambush me. I tried to find the source of the feeling, trying to determine if this was a threat to the safety of the camp. I didn't find anything at all, nothing of any kind. Disturbed and confused I headed away from the beach and towards the main part of camp.

That night I had weird sleep, and by weird, I mean even by demigod standards; visions, dreams, warnings, I didn't know what they were swirling in my head. A grainy black and white image slowly fuzzed into view. It was a city though I wasn't sure which one, what got my attention was that it was too quiet. The only sounds were the wind, distant bird song, and that was it. No vehicles, no machines, and no people, and then the dream or whatever changed.

I was standing on a hilltop, overlooking a huge prairie. The black and white fuzziness was still present so I couldn't see what I was looking at very clearly. I was still pretty sure I saw flashes of light but not much else. I jerked awake, heart racing and breath panting.

"Had a nightmare?" the sleepy voice of another Athena camper came out of the darkness.

"Yeah" I replied simply.

"Join the club" they joked tiredly.

"Yes, what else can we do? This is part of who we are" I said softly.

"True enough" the person said.

I waited but nothing else was said, clearly the speaker had drifted off again. I knew I should do the same. My mind slipped back into sleep and my senses blanked out.

Stars, countless stars in the sky. I was looking up into a beautiful night sky, full of twinkling stars. My astronomy knowledge plus the lore from ancient Greece allowed me to quickly identify constellations and stars. Then I noticed movement up above, something was moving up there. A trio of "stars" were suddenly moving in a V shape. The three objects moved slowly at first, but soon started to accelerate. Soon they started leave trails of smoke behind them as the air around them started to glow. This made them appear like meteors, but I knew they weren't. You see meteors are much faster than this, nor do they start out looking like stars.

The objects plunged through the sky, and then somehow, I just knew their altitude. You know what it's like, in dreams you know things in ways that don't make sense. Their altitude was now ten miles up and dropping rapidly. I noticed that the objects had spread apart as they fell. It was at this point I realized I was mistaken, it wasn't the air around them that was glowing like a sun, it was the objects themselves. Furthermore, the "smoke trails" were just an optical illusion. They looked exactly falling suns, only much smaller. They were four miles above the ground when I put two and two together to realize their glow is what made them look like stars from very far below. As my eyes followed these unknown objects lower and lower I noticed the black outline of buildings.

That got my full attention, there were no lights on in any of the buildings. Come to think of it, there was no light pollution at all. Suddenly a tremendous flash lit up the area like a nuclear explosion. Then I realized that it wasn't like a nuclear detonation. It was one, but different, somehow, I just knew that these weren't normal nuclear weapons, whatever they were. I already suspected as much from watching them this whole time.

The ground trembled beneath my feet, shaking strongly enough that I was lucky I stayed standing. Then the sound reached my position. It was so loud my ears burned with pain and rang. Immediately following the sound was the airblast. Somehow, I remained standing even though trees were instantly leveled, probably because it was a vision. The noise level decreased and when it was gone my ears were still ringing. The ringing filled my ears, blocking out any other sound entirely. I saw a massive plume of smoke and ash tower into the sky. A second flash appeared on the horizon, followed by another gigantic plume of smoke and ash.

I never heard the sound this time, but I saw the soil start to peel up and get blown away at high speed, obscuring my vision as it passed by me. A third and final flash shone just beyond the horizon. The third glowing cloud of ash, smoke, and gas was towering above the horizon in the distance. The pillars of material began to spread, blocking out the stars. Shutting out the light until it was pitch black.

I jerked awake again, but this time it was morning. I blinked a few times, confused. I knew that demigods never had what are simply dreams. We get to have visions, warnings, omens, and other absolutely delightful things like that. Yet something told me that what I'd had were different from that. At least in a technical sense. Some had the mysteriousness of an omen, others had a vibe of a vision. Some were more unsettling than others in more than one way. The very first one, the silent city was weird and unsettling. How does a city go completely silent? Or for that matter, the city that was totally dark before being destroyed? The dark city's destruction was also unnerving, strange weapons were used.

The view from the hilltop, what were those flashes of light? The questions swirled around and around in my head. Also, if these were visions of the future, when would they occur? Were they visions of multiple possible futures? I shoved the thoughts away and tried to focus on other more known things. Of course, I couldn't have known that the content of these visions would one day prove to be very important and also very much real.

On my way to breakfast the sun was shining, clearly Mr. D was still keeping the weather in control, like he had been for a long time. As breakfast commenced, followed by morning activities, I just couldn't shake a feeling of foreboding. At the same time though I knew it would be pointless to dwell on the visions. I just had an instinctive sense telling me that it would be a long time before these came to pass.

One day later after lunch I was on the beach again. I was alone again as well, but this time something very interesting happened. I had decided to return to the spot where I'd had the mysterious panic and investigate. I got down on my knees and started feeling through the sand with my hands. The weird thing is, I didn't even think of this, it was like something was urging me to do it. After a minute of nothing, my index finger on my right hand touched something. It felt cold and metallic, locating it again I started to excavate it. Soon I started to see the glint of metal, bronze in fact.

Soon I uncovered the whole object, it was a statue. It was about six inches tall and as I peered at it I recognized the deity. It was Athena, I stared intently at it. I carefully set it aside and resumed digging and I soon uncovered more. One after another they were revealed, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, and all the other Olympian gods and goddesses. Now that they were all unearthed I felt for the first time the aura around them. It felt...ancient, the metal itself seemed new, but the aura of all of them told me these were very old, extremely old, possibly thousands of years old. It made me wonder how long they'd been here, surely not as long as they were old, right?

I decided that I should tell Chiron so I grabbed them all and made my way to the Big House. Surprisingly I didn't need to look very much to find him. He was standing on the porch and therefore quickly noticed the contents of my hands. He froze for a second, then jumped off the porch and trotted over to me.

"Where did you find those?" he asked.

Confused I answered, "by the beach, why?"

"Do you know how old those are?" he asked, not answering my question.

"Pretty old?" I guessed.

"Ancient, five thousand years old in fact" he stated, before muttering almost too quietly for me to hear "at least, maybe even more".

So, my gut instinct hadn't been wrong, they were ancient!

"So, what do we do now?" I asked Chiron, choosing to pretend like I hadn't heard that last part.

"I have no idea" he responded.

Then an idea popped into my head and I asked Chiron if maybe each of the cabins of the main Olympians could each have the statue of their cabin's god or goddess. He said that he thought that was a great idea. After that, the statues went to each corresponding cabin. The people in the cabins that actually had demigods of that parent were intrigued. It wasn't surprising, after all the word of how old these were had spread through the camp like wildfire. Who knew how long they'd been buried there, hidden, and unknown?

What nobody knew though, was that these statues were more than just relics of the ancient times. They were the vessels of a secret, a secret that would one day change the world forever. Concealing inside them a fundamental challenge to the very survival of the human race, demigod and mortal alike. This challenge would either result with the end of humanity or its survival of a peril the likes of which had never been seen before.