...Would you believe me if I told the reason I was late was because I was sick with the Wuhan Flu? No? Well, I hope y'all are healthy too!

Amy came to consciousness slowly. The first thing she noticed was the slick feeling of the sleeping bag she must have passed out on top of. Hopefully she didn't have any classes today, because she wap- wait. That wasn't right. She didn't have a sleeping bag! Amy's eyes snapped open to find a two devilish face staring back at her, their skin a sickly white, dark circles around the pyschotic, impish eyes. She screamed and jolted upward, smacking her head against the ceiling, which was only two and a half feet above her. The two demons shrieked as well and fell out of sight, landing with a loud thump out of her sight.

Amy realized she was sleeping on a triple bunk bed in some dark communal bedroom. All around her other girls, many of them looking similar to the two who had woken her up, were also jolting out of their cramped beds in a strange mix or terror and glee.

"What the fuck?!" Amy cried in confusion. Where was she?! Had she been kidnapped?! Oh my God she'd been kidnapped! She scurried down the ladder of the bunk bed. Her movements felt gawky and awkward. Now she was face to face with the two girls.

"I know right?! This is, great!" The taller one with the long nose said. Amy looked at her in disbelief. What was wrong with this girl?! Well, she was a goth, obviously, so that's one thing.

"Great?! Great?!" Amy winced slightly as her voice cracked. "This isn't great! This is terrible! I've been kidnapped, shoved in a room with a bunch of dumb teenagers and... oh God, I think I have an essay due today!"

"Um, we all signed up for this, normie. And you're the same age as Janet, so check your privilege!" The short one with the longer hair responded, cocking her hip in a sassy-type pose.

"Are you blind?" Amy snapped in disbelief. "Clearly I'm a colle-" suddenly, she saw a mirror at the end of the hall. She froze and, began to walk towards it as if in a trance.

The face opposite hers in the mirror was her own, but not the one she'd grown used to. That pimply skin, that bushy, almost unibrow, that long, stringy hair. She'd fixed all of that her senior summer before heading off to college. They were back. She screamed as she looked at her hands, her fingernails covered in chipped black nail polish.

Amy Meyers, college junior, was once again 16 years old.

Her mind was blank, completely devoid of rational thoughts. Heart pounding terror permeated her brain as she mentally broke. She had a flashback to the last night and the strange quiz she'd taken. She'd wrote down she was Cathy. She'd wrote down she was 16. She'd thought it was a joke, but here she was!

"Oh God oh God oh God oh God..." Amy sank to her knees as she muttered. Everything was wrong. Was she dreaming? Was she dead? How could this happen?! Oh God oh God oh-

"You mean oh gods." Chirped the smaller goth. Amy jumped to find her standing over her, looking down with overly painted bug eyes. From her new angle on the floor, Amy noticed she was wearing an orange Camp Halfblood t-shirt and jeans that clashed hideously with her gothy makeup. In fact, everyone in the cabin was wearing orange, including Amy herself. A fresh wave of panic came over her. Had someone undressed her while she slept?!*

Minigoth didn't seem to notice. "I'm Madelyn! And I'm a lesbian!" Somewhere in the back of Amy's panic addled brain, she registered that as a weird introduction.

Madelyn bent down until her face was right next to Amy's. "And you're Cathy, cause it says so on your bed. Are you a lesbian?"

"No..." Amy managed to distractedly squeak out. So she was right. It was a case of mistaken identity! Ok, calm down. She can work with this! It's fine! She'll just go to whoever's in charge of this psycho place and tell them it's all been a mistake!

And speaking of which, the door slammed open, revealing a disgruntled looking boy with longer, jet black hair, not wearing the Camp Halfblood T-shirt, surprisingly.

"Hades Cabin," he spitted out these words with complete and utter disdain, "it's time for orientation. I'm the cabin counselor, Nico di Angelo. That's "d-i", space, "Angelo", not "Dangelo". Sage says we should start teaching you grammar early. Now everybody get out and go to the amphitheater."

Immediately, most of the cabin rushed over, squeeing with joy at meeting their hero, including Madelyn the Lesbian and long nose Janet. Amy was at butt-level, so all she saw were over a dozen pairs of ill-fitting jeans try to storm the kid, only to be driven back by some unseen, shrieking horror.

"No stampeding staff members! Ampitheater is down the road, not next to me! Move!" the now shaken gaggle of fanbrats obeyed and tromped out of site to the unseen amphitheater. All except Amy, who remained motionless with shock. 10 seconds of silence passed before Nico seemed to notice a stray brat and marched over.

He was nothing like the image painted by . If you were to judge the appearance of book characters solely from what the fanbrats said, Nico was a total emo hunk, super hot in that pale, sexy, damaged sort of way and at least 16 years old. The real Ghost King was tiny, barely as tall Amy and couldn't have been older than 14, and while he certainly looked damaged, it wasn't hot in the slightest. He looked absolutely psychotic, with shattered, tired, crazy eyes and really sallow, unhealthy skin. His clothes were dark and older looking, an aviator jacket over a collared shirt, adding to the feeling he didn't belong in the mortal realm. The only place Nico would look natural would be in a haunted house, devouring the souls of visitors along with Annabelle and the Flying Dutchman. And now that grim, cadaverous gaze was fixated solely on her. Amy gave an involuntary shiver.

"Hey, you..." he checked a roster sheet he was holding. "Hogwood. Get up and move. You're late."

"Ex-excuse me , but t-there's been a horrible mistake," Amy began, taking a deep breath and getting to her feet and moving towards Nico. "You see, I'm not actuall-" She must have crossed some invisible boundary, because in a flurry of feathers and shrieking, a miniture monster stepped out of nowhere. It was truly hideous. The thing was barely 3 feet tall, it's emaciated, body covered in thick, black skin with scraggly black feathers peaking out where body hair would be on a human. but it definitely wasn't human. Instead of a nose, there was a mangled beak, and it's arms ended it bat wings, rather than hands. It bared it's teeth, still bloody from last mealtime at her, and shrieked again. It's cry sounded like a human in agony.

Amy scrambled back and out the door instantly, no longer concerned with clearing her name, down the gravel road, to be swept up in the crowd up people heading for a large, open air structure in the distance.

Part of my inspiration for the Minifuries was the Fireys from Jim Henson's Labyrinth. Y'know, those messed up little red things that pop up out of nowhere to dance in front of a crappy greenscreen and light themselves on fire and also take off their own heads and toss them around like footballs. Y'know, for kids!

I intended this chapter to be far longer, and include the actually Orientation (and I haven't proof-read too well...), but I realized how far behind schedule I was a decided better to post a shorter chapter just to give you long suffering people something within what is technically March! Sorry.

*No.