Really, More like Camp Half-Dead

When I got off the dragon, into camp, I knew I had to make a good first impression to everyone there. So I stumbled over to the nearest person and promptly vomited onto their shoes.

Perfect.

After my incredibly reputation-building performance, I took a good look around me. There were a bunch of people, aging from really-short to really-tall, all wearing the same orange T-shirt with the words "Camp Half-Blood" written on them. What the heck is a half blood? I wondered.

I saw some things that were, to say the very least, weird. Like a guy who has fused himself into a horse, and a guy with eyes covering every inch of his body.

I turned to Leo, who seemed wary of me from my previous performance.

"Where are we?" I asked.

He looked at me and smiled. "Well dear, we are at Camp Half-Blood, where all of the demigods gather in order to not suffer a terrible death!"
"Demigod?"
"Well, dear, demi means half, so a demigod is a half-god, half mortal."

How does a god just- nevermind.

A bunch of people rushed over to me, all from the same cabin by the looks of it. It was only then I remembered my arm was bleeding. I looked at the wound and immediately regretted it.

I'll spare you the details.

Some time later, when my arm was wrapped up in gauze, the horse-guy clip-clopped over.

"Hello child, I don't think we had a formal introduction. My name is Chiron. What is your name?" he asked.

"Avery," I said simply, for the second time today.

"Welcome Avery, to Camp Half-Blood. Looks like you know Leo. I'll ask him to show you around here."
"Who?" I asked dumbly. My memory was as good as a dead goldfish.

"Leo," he said, pointing to the dragon dude.

"Oh, you mean Skinny Boy Supreme."
"I'll show you some of the sights around here," Leo muttered angrily, grabbing my injured arm, probably on purpose.

I didn't notice it before, but dang, Leo had a really punchable face. But I decided that punching my tour guide probably wasn't the best call.

"So here," he started, "we have the rock climbing wall," he started, pointing to a huge wall with- was that lava?- flowing down it with rocks jutting out here and there.

"Is the goal of this camp to protect or kill half-bloods?" I asked.

"That's just the beginning, dear," he replied.

"Call me dear one more time," I threatened.
"Will do, dear."

His face punchability just went up, but I thought I didn't need to be a wanted criminal in both worlds.

He led me to a huge arena. "And this-"
"Lemme guess. The Colosseum."

"Not really. It's the sword fighting arena. Here is where we have our hand-to-hand spars with other demigods in order to not die when it comes to hand-to-hand with monsters."
"Is all you guys ever think about is not dying? Don't you like, have fun or something?"
"What's that?" he questioned.
"Well, fun is like, enjoying-"
"No," he said, pointing to my pocket, "what's THAT?"
I pulled out my phone. "Oh it's just-"
Without warning, he grabbed the phone and melted it with his hand?

"Sorry, no phones at camp," he told me, smiling.

"Couldn't you have like, not, torched it?"
"Well, mortal technology attracts monsters, so I had to dispose of it properly."

"But like can you not burn it next time?"

"Nope. Let's continue!"

"Wait wait wait, what was that fire thing you did with your hand?"
"You mean this?" He held up his hand and, somehow, it caught on fire.

I yelped. It's not everyday you can see someone ignite themselves on fire.

That's when I remembered.

A fire…

Screams…

An ambulance…

"...Avery? Earth to Avery?"
What was that?
"Yeah, I'm fine," I said in a very convincing tone.

"What?"
"I'm fine," I said, a little louder.

He looked skeptical, but decided not to comment on it.

"Ok, well," he started as he brought us to a Cabin, "this is Cabin Eleven! Your new home!"
I took a peek inside. Its creativity and originality matched that of its name.

It looked like a classic cabin with a lot of bunk beds, but there were clothes littered everywhere, the blankets were thrown around and bags lay on the bunks, contents spilled out.

"Comfy," I noted.

"Well, this cabin is dedicated to Hermes, the messenger god, so it's where unclaimed demigods live."
"Unclaimed?" I asked.

"When a demigod comes into camp," he explained, "after some time, they get claimed by a symbol that pops up above their head. It's a sign that your godly parent knows of your existence."'

"What if you don't get claimed?"
"That's an F if you don't."

"So you just live here forever?"
"Yep."

Looking around, I most certainly did not want to live here forever.

"Little tip, when you live here, you might want to make sure you have all of your valuables with you. Hermes is also the god of thieves," he added.

"Who's your godly parent?" I asked.

"Only the one and only Hephaestus, god of the forge, god of fire!" he said dramatically.

"Theatre kids," I muttered.

That comment gave me a pang of grief because it reminded me of what my mom said only this morning. Those were the last words she ever spoke to me.

Suddenly I regret not saying a proper goodbye.

Push past it, I told myself. You'll see her again, eventually.

"Let's keep going," I told Leo.

Right after we finished the tour, the dinner bell rang. I nudged Leo and asked, "How good is the food here?"

He responded, "It takes like the very scum of the Earth."
"My favourite."
"Mine too!"

As we approached the dining place, I saw a huge fire and a line of people holding plates of food. The people at the front of the line were scraping parts of their meal into the fire.

I nudged Leo again. "I thought you were joking."
"Why would I be?" he answered.

We got into the line for the food. There was a piece of steak in barbecue sauce, cheese, bread, grapes and some red juice.

"What's that drink?"
"It's bug juice. So basically you take cockroaches, flies, and mosquitos, mash them up into a paste, throw out the mixture, grab Kool-Aid powder and mix it with water."
"Interesting."

Looking closer, the people at the fire were muttering things before they scraped food into the fire. Making my best guess, I asked, "Is there an oracle or something in the fire?"
Leo sighed, calling me hopeless. "They make prayers to their godly parent. They pray for stuff like birthday gifts and not death."

"But what if you're unclaimed?"
"Just pray to like, I don't know, something."

When it was my turn, I took my plate and thought,

Hey Dad, whoever you are, uh, hi. Claim me please.

I specialize in making speeches.

At least the food tasted good. The bug juice really did remind me of Kool-Aid.

After dinner, we all gathered around the campfire to sing songs.

"What are we singing, the Campfire Song Song?" I asked.

Nobody got the joke.

Somehow, when we were singing very enthusiastically, I assure you, the campfire turned into a million different colours, sometimes at once. It went from purple to green back to red to purple again to blue and- you get the point.

As soon as the last song was sung, we were told to go to our cabins and sleep.

Before I could get to the Hermits cabin, a tall guy with blue eyes and brown hair approached me.

"Hey Avery, I'm Connor Stoll, your head cabin counsellor for now. How's your first day?"
I figured he probably wasn't this nice to everyone, being a son of Hermit and everything.

I decided to approach him cautiously.

"Not bad. Lots of stuff to take in though."

"That sounds great! Here, let's head off towards the cabin."
Instead of being in front of me, he trailed behind me.

"You know where the cabin is, right?" he asked me.

"Uh huh," I responded, still suspicious.

"Great! Lead on."
Interesting.

Halfway to the cabin, I felt Connor casually trip on an invisible rock and grab onto me for stability. The classic trick. But as he got up, I felt him slip his hand into my pocket, but withdraw it without anything in his hand. I don't know how I was able to know this, but I decided to not reveal it just yet. I felt like it would come in handy later.

"You good?" I asked casually.

"Yeah, just some random rock," he said, with a hint of disappointment in his voice.

Smirking to myself, we entered the cabin.