Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! Honestly I've been struggling with planning out these next few chapters, hopefully once I get past them I'll be able to keep good pace again. We still have quite a ways to go on these character's story, and there are so many good moments and chapters ahead that I'm looking forward to! Thanks to everyone who's reviewed thus far, it really means a lot.

11

Mason

That night, Mason dreamt for the first time.

He wasn't exactly sure why he didn't dream. It hadn't even really occurred to him until he was about ten years old, and even then it wasn't much more than a passing curiosity. His foster parents at the time just told him that some people don't dream, or that some people never remember their dreams, and that was enough of an explanation for him to get back to his math homework. He didn't mind it, usually. Even when he heard stories of people dreaming of things like flying, or even having lucid dreams, he was mostly content with having uneventful sleep.

Consequently, Mason was now surprised to find that not only was he dreaming, but he was dreaming of a memory, and extremely vividly.

(music: Sleepwalk - Tennyson)

The first thing he felt was the humidity. The summer air was thick with moisture, but he could still sense a gentle breeze brought in by the lake. He watched as the water lapped the shore in small waves, the sunlight glittering off of the surface of the lake from where it was setting in the distance.

Even in the dream, Mason felt himself basking in the feel of it all. It had become a regular thing, him sitting out on the small wooden bench behind his house at sunset, taking everything in peacefully. It had felt so much different now that he was the only one living in the house, and he would have been lying if he had said he wasn't lonely. But somehow, out here, in the humid air and sunset light, some of that loneliness drifted away. It was still there, but the sunlight felt almost like it would brush his hair and gently let him know it would be alright in the end.

He found himself glancing to his side, and his serenity was slightly broken at the surprise of seeing himself sat next to him on the small bench, eyes closed and expression calm. Another him, dressed in a plain white t-shirt and sweat pants. Looking down, he saw his own body was still there, but oddly transparent and ephemeral, like a ghost. He lifted his arm, transfixed by the odd haziness and the fact that he could see through it ever so slightly. It seemed as though he was watching his memory through a third-person view rather than his own.

Did everyone dream like this?

The thought was interrupted when the other Mason opened his eyes, and as he did, they widened in surprise. Dream-spectator Mason followed his gaze, already knowing what he would see.

There, about twenty feet out from the shore, there was something floating in the water. A person, strewn across a large piece of wood, soaked and still.

Memory Mason rushed out to the water and waded in, swimming to the floating debris and trying to drag it back towards land. As he got to shore, he took the person by the armpits and dragged them a few feet onto the backyard lawn, setting the person down and glancing them over, trying to assess their condition.

Dream-spectator Mason drifted over and looked over the other Mason's shoulder.

The person was a boy, thirteen years old. He was slightly short for his age, and he wore a black t-shirt and grey shorts, both of which were soaking wet. His long black hair was also soaked, matted and stuck to his face, which even in unconsciousness was contorted in a minor scowl. His eyes, despite being closed now, were a color that was hard to pin down even if you looked into them, somewhere between a green, a blue, and a yellow.

And his name was Cade.

Of course, the Mason from the memory didn't know all of this.

But the Mason watching from the dream did.

[^]

Mason watched as his past self carried the boy inside, laying him on the couch. He shook his head as Memory Mason scrambled around his kitchen, trying to find where he kept his medical supplies. He didn't know why he hadn't just called someone then, whether it was the police, a neighbor, or even Ken, the man who was supposed to check on him every month and take care of his emergencies. This seemed like an emergency. Just not one Mason had been expecting. So, he hadn't called anyone. At least not at first.

For the time being, Mason had just decided to try and see what he could do to help this strange boy that had washed ashore at his lake house. After a closer look when they were inside, Mason saw that the boy was badly injured, bloodied with cuts across his chest and arms, and a leg that looked ever so slightly bent at the wrong angle. In those hours the boy was unconscious, there were many Google searches on tending to wounds and stabilizing someone in a rough condition. The fireplace beside the couch was lit, helping to warm up the water-soaked boy.

Even after Mason had felt vaguely comfortable that he did as much as he could have, and that the boy was in a relatively stable condition, he still couldn't bring himself to leave the boy's side, and so he found himself dozing off in the early hours of the morning, right there in the living room.

It was when Mason saw the boy wake before his past self did that he really started to question the nature of this dream.

The boy groaned as he shifted in his spot on the couch, and after a moment his eyes shot open, glancing around the room. The space was now lit with the muted colors of the morning, some light coming in through the windows. His eyes seemed to look around with panic and confusion, as well as pain, before realizing there was another person in the room – Mason, knelt on the floor, arms and head resting on the end of the couch.

Trying to move slowly and quietly, the boy moved aside the blanket on him and began to shift his legs over, before cringing in pain and stopping. Regardless, he continued on, setting his feet on the floor and standing, taking one tentative step before grunting and falling back on the floor with a thump.

The sleeping Mason stirred at this, his eyes fluttering open before widening at the sight beside him.

"What are you doing?" he asked, standing up and leaning over the boy. He reached down. "You need to stay-"

"Don't touch me!" the boy yelled as he backed up on the floor, his voice coarse. His eyes were trained on Mason, alert and defensive like a cornered animal.

Mason stood up, raising his hands in concession. "Okay, okay. I'm not going to hurt you, I just… you need to take it easy." He gestured to the boy's leg, which the owner of seemed to only just then realize was wrapped up in bandages.

A long moment passed, the boy breathing heavily through his nose as he scowled wide-eyed at Mason. Finally, he let out a heavy breath, and rose slowly with his elbows to his feet. As he struggled, Mason reached forward to help, only to be stopped again with a hand gesture from the boy. He limped the couple steps back and fell back onto the couch, resting against the back. Through all of it, he had his eyes trained unswervingly on Mason.

A few more seconds of silence passed before the boy spoke again. "Who are you?" he said in a flat but strained tone.

Mason managed a smile. "Mason," he said, reaching a hand out to be shaken.

The boy stayed still, just staring at Mason, who put his hand down after an awkward beat.

"What's your name?" Mason asked.

"None of your business," the boy said coldly, now glancing around the room.

"Well," Mason said slowly. "This is my house, so, it sort of… is my business…"

"I didn't ask to be taken here," the boy snapped, glaring at Mason.

Mason looked at the boy with genuine confusion. "You washed up unconscious on a piece of debris in my backyard. I didn't take you anywhere. What even happened? How did you get here?"

Dream-spectator Mason moaned under his breath as the boy shrunk further into the couch at all of this, chastising his past self at the influx of questions towards an obviously scared and injured boy.

He watched as the boy patted down his pockets, looking for something. After a second, the boy looked up. "I think I dropped something outside." He shifted his jaw. "Could you get it for me first?"

Memory Mason eyed the boy carefully, gauging whether to trust him, but ultimately nodded. "Stay put, alright? I'll be right back."

As Memory Mason walked out of the room, Dream-spectator Mason was surprised to find that his perspective didn't follow, but instead stayed in the living room with the boy. The boy watched intently towards where his host had walked, and at the sound of the back door closing, he immediately stood up from the couch, taking a deep breath as he steeled himself against the pain. Mason could see the boy's face was pale and dirty, with his eyes somehow seeming both kaleidoscopic and pale. He took slow, stumbling steps across the room, heading towards the front door. Each strained step was slower, and in the quiet of the empty house, Mason could hear the boy's breathing become more labored as well. Finally, with one last step towards the door, he collapsed, crumpling in a heap on the floor, just as the sound of the back door closing echoed through the room again.

"What-" he heard Memory Mason say as he stepped into the room. He ran over to where the boy was laying, kneeling on the floor. Mason remembered it all, as he had tried yet again to tend to the incapacitated stranger, but in the dream, he felt the words and sound fade away. Somehow he knew the dream was about to end, as the images in his periphery slowly began to blur and fall away. As they did, he found his eyes resting on the face of the boy, strained in pain and nausea, eyelids fluttering. A beam of sunlight hit the boy's face as he was lifted up, which somehow grew in brightness until it was blinding, and the last thing Mason saw was a blanket of white and orange.

[^]

Light poured into Mason's vision as his eyes shot open. His chest heaved with heavy breaths as he sat up from where he was laying and took a moment to remember where he was. The morning air was crisp and fresh, and the sky was in its early dawn colors of muted orange and blue.

"Good morning" he heard a voice say behind him. He turned to see Reyna sitting on one of the stone benches, still wearing his Winnie the Pooh hoodie. She had been on the last night watch, waking early in the morning. The rest of their companions were all still asleep.

"Morning," Mason muttered as he ruffled his hair, easing into full consciousness. "Sleep well?"

Reyna's lips curled in a soft smirk. "Yes, actually. Surprisingly well. You?"

"Uh, good. Yeah, pretty good," he said awkwardly, not knowing if he should talk about his dream or not.

She gave him a questioning look, but let him be.

As the morning inched along, the group gradually woke one by one, with Nico being the last to get up. The rest of them had taken to snacking on the assorted food they had for breakfast without waking him, knowing that his energy would be important for the journey ahead. Finally, as Nico groaned awake with frazzled hair and narrowed eyes, they took to talking about what to do.

"Wait, we're going to Mount Olympus?" Percy asked, his mouth full of beef jerky.

Reyna gave him a look somewhere between annoyed and endeared. "Yes, that's where the next step of our quest will take us. We've received guidance from a god that we'll find what we need there."

"Which is?" Percy asked again, this time swallowing his food first.

"I'm not sure. She said it was an item, one that would ease the burden of the curse."

"Well," Nico said, snatching the bag of jerky from Percy's hands. "At least it's close to camp. Makes things simple for us."

"Speaking of," Tabitha said. "How is camp? Before you left, anyway?"

Nico and Percy exchanged a worried glance.

"It's pretty bad," Nico said. "At least half of the campers are sick, and none of them have gotten better. In fact, most of them have gotten worse. It's…" he paused, hesitating. "There's something about it that's polluting their minds, not just their bodies. Most of them have begun having these… episodes. They'll lash out at people, screaming and flailing. Thankfully, since they're weak, they're not too hard to hold down and calm down, but there's been more than a few injuries even just from that. One satyr almost died when one of them got ahold of a dagger."

"And we still don't know what it is?" Tabitha asked.

Nico shook his head. "We know it's a curse of some kind, not just a sickness. Some of us have tried looking through some old legends and such to find something about it, but nothing fits exactly. Our best guess is that it's something intentional, though. Something that someone put on the camp specifically, not just some random ill-gotten artifact or something."

"I wonder which god hates us now," Percy muttered. "I know there are plenty that aren't a fan of me."

"Well," Reyna said. "Regardless of who or what, we know how to remedy it. Mount Olympus. Nico, how are you feeling? Is shadow-travel feasible?"

Nico rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, should be. Five of us isn't too bad, but it'll be a bit straining. Percy and I looked it over yesterday, we were thinking of shooting for Toronto today, which will get us about halfway there. Then I can rest, we can gather supplies again, and then we shadow-travel again when I'm able and go straight to Manhattan."

Mason saw Reyna think it over briefly before she nodded. "That sounds like it should work," she said. "Any objections?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Alright, let's get going, then."

As they all began to gather up their assorted belongings, Mason still felt zoned out. In fact, he had been through most of the morning, mostly because he was thinking about his dream.

Maybe it was everything with Reyna that had spurred it – the memory of the last time he had taken someone into his house under odd circumstances. Or maybe he was just stressed, and that brought along the vivid dream. Either way, it was strange to dream and remember it, let alone so clearly. He hadn't seen that boy's face in so long, but the dream felt almost disturbingly real.

He let himself remember Cade for the first time in a while. His scowling face, his messy black hair, his unsettling eyes. The boy was a weird one, for sure, but at the same time, Mason recognized his kind somewhat. He had spent enough time in orphanages to be able to recognize it – the defensiveness and desperation of a kid who's long decided to believe that they were alone. It was an easy pit to throw oneself into, he knew. All the runaway kids that always found their way back to the orphanage, as well as all the ones that left once and never did come back. They all seemed to think the same way: that no home was better than a home they hated.

He saw all of that in Cade, but he had never had to deal with it himself before the kid showed up at his house. Before it had always been something he just observed, as he watched kids come and go as one of the ones that never did. But once Cade showed up, Mason had that responsibility thrust upon him of steering the boy away from that path of isolation and self-destruction. In retrospect, it almost seemed like a test of whether he could help someone like that after all his years watching it from the sidelines.

If it was a test, he had failed.

As he snapped back to reality, staring down at the dirt, a thought crossed his mind. As he and his companions continued packing up, he made his way over to Reyna's side as she rolled up her sleeping bag.

"Hey," he whispered, leaning down.

She looked up at him, a bit surprised. "Hey," she replied softly.

Mason hesitated for a moment, but shook it off. "Can I ask you something?"

Reyna set down the sleeping bag and turned to face him, a curious look on her face. "Of course."

He bit his lip. "Do you… at camp, Camp Jupiter, do you know anyone named Cade? Boy, Asian, on the shorter side, dark hair?"

Reyna looked to the side in thought. "Cade… hm, I know of one Cade, but not matching that description. There have been plenty of new recruits over the past few months, though, and sometimes names escape me. Why? Someone you know?"

"Uh, sort of. Someone I ran into a while ago."
"And you think he's a demigod?"

"Well, looking back on it now, yeah, I'm pretty sure. It's just… I haven't seen him in a while, and I guess I… found myself wondering how he was?" He didn't mean to phrase the last part as a question, but as he did he knew that it would pretty obvious he wasn't explaining everything. He didn't know exactly where to start though, with the dream and everything.

Thankfully, Reyna didn't question him further. "I'll try to remember, and maybe ask Percy and Nico if that's alright?"

Mason nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, thanks."

A moment of silence passed, Reyna looking him over with a sympathetic expression.

"Well," Reyna said, putting a hand on Mason's shoulder. "If he is a demigod, I'm sure he's strong enough to get by."

Mason nodded again, this time halfheartedly. "I hope so."

[^]

They decided to leave some of their belongings behind for the sake of travel, primarily their sleeping bags, handing them over to some surprised campers nearby. They gathered up their backpacks and bags with what they could feasibly take, then gathered around each other once they were ready.

"Alright, get ready. This is going to feel… weird," Nico said.

"Is the hand-holding thing really necessary?" Tabitha asked with an annoyed tone.

Mason glanced around at the group, all huddled together in a circle under the shade of a thick grouping of trees. They were all holding hands with two of the others, going from Mason, to Reyna, to Tabitha, to Percy, to Nico, and back to Mason.

Nico and Percy glanced at each other, and ever so briefly, Mason caught the glimpse of a mischievous smirk on both of their faces.

"Yup," Percy said.
"Absolutely," Nico said.

Tabitha groaned. "Just get it going, then. No offense, but this hand's getting sweaty," she said, swinging Percy's arm. "Water demigod, huh?"

Percy looked at her with mock offense. Or at least what seemed like mock offense. "Excuse me?"

"Nico," Reyna said with a pointed look.

Nico rolled his eyes, the hint of a smile still on his face. As he did, Mason saw- no, felt the space around them darken, like someone was dimming the sun, and then a huge rush of air.

[^]

Even as light reentered Mason's vision, the sound of rushing wind didn't fade away, still battering his ears. He felt the ground underneath his feet as he put his hands on his knees, trying to take in deep breaths. Finally, his senses returned, but still with that immense rushing sound. As he stood up straight once more, he felt a splash of water across the front of his body, and as he looked up, he realized what the rushing sound was.

Looming over him, at least a hundred and fifty feet tall, was a cascading curtain of white water, crashing down onto the rocks next to where he was standing, which was on a red-painted and rubber-covered wooden walkway. Behind him was the wide expanse of a river, with some tall buildings across on the other side.

"I thought we were going to Toronto!" he heard a voice yell from beside him over the noise, and he turned to see Tabitha trying to shield herself from the water, mostly unsuccessfully. He glanced around him to see that the other three were similarly trying to get their bearings and keep from getting soaked.

Nico had grabbed one of the side railings, faltering a bit as he tried to stand up. He seemed dazed, like he had just woken from an unplanned midday nap. "I thought so, too," he muttered, just barely audible over the waterfall.

"So where are we?" Tabitha said.

"I know this place," Percy said. As Mason glanced over to him, he realized Percy wasn't wet at all, his clothes and hair still looking completely dry despite being battered by the wall of mist. "Niagara Falls. Well, this is the Cave of the Winds, Niagara Falls is that way," he said, gesturing behind them. "Took a trip here once, long time ago."

Reyna gave Percy a thoughtful look with a hint of suspicion. "Were you thinking about it when we made the jump?"

"No?"

Reyna's eyes narrowed.

"No! Honestly, I wasn't! If anything, I was thinking about camp!"

"Well, either way, we're here now," Mason said, glancing around them. There were a handful of tourists across the wooden walkways, all dressed in yellow ponchos. Oddly enough, they all seemed to either have not noticed the five teenagers who had manifested out of thin air, or only gave them slightly suspicious glances, probably just at their lack of yellow ponchos.

"What do we do?" Mason asked.

"I have a suggestion for step one!" Tabitha said loudly as she began to make her way down some of the walkway steps. "Get the heck out of this place!"

Mason and the rest of the demigods looked to each other for a moment before shrugging and following after her. They made their way across the narrow wooden walkway, quickly getting away from the wall of mist and splashing water. As soon as they reached where the path became pavement, Mason became very aware of just how soaked he had gotten from the few moments they were stood in the splash zone. It was uncomfortable, his clothes now sticking to his body. It was made worse by the fact that it was a bit chilly, the skies full of grey clouds overhead.

"Dude, that's just not even fair," Tabitha said, who was already shivering. She bumped arms with Percy, who was completely dry. He just gave her a stuck-up, close-lipped grin.

"And what were you just saying about a sweaty water demigod?"

Tabitha just shook her head and grunted in reply, but Mason could see she was still smiling.

Eventually they made it to the elevators that would take them up to the main area of Goat Island. Thankfully, the five of them managed to find themselves alone in the elevator.

"So, what's the plan now?" Tabitha asked, still trying to wipe some of the water off of her face. She looked to Nico, who was leaning against the wall.

"Bus?" was all he said. "Or we wait a few hours and I try to shadow travel us again."

Tabitha scrunched her face. "Really? That's the best we can do?"

"I mean, I could try calling Blackjack," Percy said. "We'd need more than just him, though."

"Blackjack?" Mason asked. He didn't quite remember if Reyna had mentioned him.

"Yeah, he's a pegasus. Friend of mine."
"Oh, right." Not much surprised Mason at this point.

"For now we should find somewhere to rest for a moment, perhaps dry off a bit," Reyna said as the elevator doors opened.

They made their way over to a small terrace area with some picnic tables and all sat down, some of them trying to squeeze the water out of their clothes. Various tourists were scattered around, many of them on the walking path at the edge of the island where they could see the massive waterfalls.

"So, why did we end up here?" Tabitha asked.

Nico shook his head, his eyes glazed over somewhat. "It happens sometimes. I get distracted, or someone thinks of someplace, or something just pulls us somewhere. Could be anything."

"Like Percy thinking about this place?" Reyna asked.

"I already said I wasn't, okay?" Percy said. "Besides, isn't this, like, closer to Manhattan anyway? We'll be fine."

As the demigods continued their light bickering and planning, Mason decided to try to find a bathroom, wandering around the small terrace area before finding it.

As he exited the bathroom, he felt a small tug at his shirt, and he glanced down to see a young boy looking up at him with a worried expression.

"Mister, my sister's in trouble. You need to help her!"

Mason looked over the kid. He was cute, with short, disheveled brown hair and a striped red shirt. His brown eyes were wide and intent on Mason's.

He knelt down next to the boy. "Your sister?" he said in a soft voice. "Is she hurt?"

The boy shook his head. "She went up the tree, and I stayed on the ground, and now she's crying because she can't come down. You need to help her get down!"

Mason glanced around the area. "Where are your parents?"

The boy seemed to hesitate. "They said they'd be back soon, told us to stay."

Mason raised an eyebrow. "Did you stay?"

He fidgeted some more. "No," he said in a quiet voice.

Mason thought for a moment, then stood up and held his hand out. "Alright, show me where she is."

The boy grabbed Mason's hand tightly and began to run off, dragging Mason along with him. They hurried across the pavement of the road before reaching the tree line just past the paved path, thick with bushes and tall grass. Mason slowed down slightly as the boy stepped into the grass.

"Come on, hurry!" the boy cried, tugging at Mason's hand.

Mason glanced behind him to where the small buildings were behind them, brief hesitation crossing his mind, before turning and following the boy into the trees.