Chapter 1: The storyteller

Darkness. That was all I could see here. That was my mind right now. My memories and myself were all gone. So when I woke up and I found the girl staring down at me, eyes pleading for me to be okay, I was anxious.

"Do I know you?" this was all I could say. When you didn't know who you were or anything else for that matter what else would you ask a stranger?

"I...I...Haxolo, Don't you know me? It's me, Chloё" Chloё was completely distraught with the revelation that I didn't know who she was, but so was I, for a different reason.

"I'm sorry but how did I get here? Who am I? What is this place? Tell me, please, I'm begging you"

"Calm down...It's gonna be alright...I promise" But I knew she didn't feel that way inside, she was just trying to help me. She helps me up from the floor, and I find a river to my left, and that we're in a cavern of some kind. A very big cavern.

"I think I should get this out, but you are not gonna take it so well"

"Anything is better than nothing, please…" and so Chloё continues on,

"This place, this is where the dead go to be reborn, to the river you see before you. It's a magical river, and it will cleanse the person of all their past life, that's what has happened to you."

"So, I'm dead?"

"No, not yet, but you fell into the river fighting Melinoe, the goddess of ghosts, and you, well, you weren't protected."

"What? I don't understand. I fell into a magical river fighting a goddess, and now I can't remember anything?"

"Yes." I took a moment to process this whilst she tried to get the fire going again. Once the flames started to rise again, she turned back to me and asked me if I remembered anything at all.

"Not a bean" Chloё smiled ruefully at that, obviously remembering something that I probably never will.

"So then, what about me? Who am I?" I was eager to know, but Chloё took her time answering.

"I think it would be better if I gave you a bit more background first. So, there are gods in the world, powerful gods capable of many things, twelve major ones and a lot of minor ones. All of these gods are Olympians, and they rule over the world so to speak, but regular mortals don't actually know they exist. People like us, however, know better. We are demigods, and we are capable of some things that normal people can't do, because we have a godly parent and we share some of their powers."

"Wait, you're saying that gods have kids with humans and that's what we are? How many of us are there?"

"Until recently, about two years ago, we believed that there were only a handful of us, forty maybe fifty, but then we discovered that there were two camps containing children like us. Camp Half-Blood, based around the gods' Greek personas, and Camp Jupiter, for Romans. You and I, we're residents of the first one, because when we were conceived, our parents were in their Greek state at the time."

"Right...so I'm a Greek demigod. Do you know who's my godly parent?" This was weird, but I had no reason to doubt her, I didn't know otherwise after all.

"No, we never found out who your parent was, and we don't know who your mortal parent was too. You would always say that the only thing you knew about your parentage was their last name: Contrastac, that's the name that was given to you as was instructed by the letter left to the orphanage you grew up in"

Although I didn't really have any hopes to begin with, they were knocked down nevertheless. It was just my luck that I had no leads to go on other than my name. Contrastac? What kind of name was that?

"So, all you know about my past is that I was raised in an orphanage and that someone left me a name. Tell me about you, what's your name?"Chloё was surprised at this, but began anyway,

"Well, my name's Chloё Tarver, and I'm a daughter of Harmonia, goddess of harmony. I'm from the Midwest but I've lived in New York for a year now at a boarding school so I could go to camp half-blood during the summer. I've known you for 3 months, ever since you came to camp, and you were...cautious of things, didn't trust people, didn't like to make friends. I changed that. I got to know you and eventually you opened up. We trained together, we worked together and eventually we became a thing. You asked me out just last week, but now I don't know what to do, I feel like I've lost you."

"Whoa! Overload. She's my girlfriend? What the hell do I do now? I can't love her if I can't remember her, but I could comfort her." That's what I thought to myself, and that's what I did as she began to cry

"I'm sorry, It must be hard for you, seeing as I don't love you now, but I think that the old me wouldn't want you to cry."

Chloё sniffs and wipes her tears away

"No, you're right, he wouldn't have." And out of nowhere she hugs me. But more in a friendly way than in a lover's way.

"How long have we been down here? Would people be missing us?"

"Umm...I think about three days now, and people already know we're down here, I sent an Iris message to camp. Help should be here any time soon. I think you should get some rest, it'll do you good."

"But I ー"

"Don't argue with me Mr. Mystery, get some rest!" Chloё told me firmly, taking no for an answer

"Yes ma'am" and so I laid back down and closed my eyes, falling into unconsciousness. Sleep may help me rest, but had I known that demigods have untold nightmares I would have probably just opted for confronting Chloё instead.

Well, that's the first chapter over. They did a lot of talking and it kind of made it drag on, but I hope that the way it explained my antagonists' pasts was sufficient enough.

The next chapter will be a dream that previews the events to come, and I will be writing it soon.

Thanks for reading, see you later!