BIG CAMP=BIG KIDS

I felt free. For the first time in my life I felt free. I could do anything. No one could stop me. Of course I still had to hold on to the boy with one arm or I would half fallen off. As I left my home it felt as if I had left all of my worries behind. The boy had looked behind him a few times. I'm not sure if it was because he was worried about the monsters, he was looking to make sure I was still there, or he was just looking at me. With the men of our generation, you never know. He was cute in a dark and mysterious way. Dark hair, lighter skin, grey eyes, those grey mysterious eyes. As quickly as we had gotten into the air, we were descending.

"Where are we?" I asked. Just as I had said that, we flew out of the clouds and I saw tall buildings. I saw the busy streets, people hustling about the street, and... There it was, standing in front of me, the Empire State building. "We're in New York. Aren't we?"

"Manhattan to be exact," he said with a little laugh in his voice.

He was a pretty attractive boy too. He then tried to show off and swerved with the Pegasus. That of course made me hold on tighter. I could feel his abs underneath his shirt. Damn this boy was fine. As he grabbed on to the flying horse's harness to land it, his muscles rippled. He looked just like half of the douche bags at my old school. Trying to impress all of the ladies with his muscles, gets them to fall, and then BAM! breaks their heart. Been there, done that. I'm leaving that hell hole, I'm not going to have a repeat of what happened. I then loosened my grip and looked over at Sonic. It looked like he was trying as hard as he can to not be there. Then I remembered. Sonic is scared of heights. Poor kid.

"I still don't know who you guys are." I said screaming over the wind.

"I'm Ryder, son of Hermes, that's Rubi, daughter of Athena, and down there on Chiron is Cyrus, son of Apollo. You are Delilah." He responded. He said my name as if it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

"Kinda creepy that you know my name. Oh right Sonic has said it like four times."

Just as I had said that, landed on a beach just off of a lake. I didn't know what to look at first. The fresh strawberry fields, the big blue house in the middle, the rows of cabins, and a forest were some of the more peaceful things. Then there were the not so peaceful. A rock climbing wall that spued fire, a place for sword fighting, a place where you can race chariots. Kids were using swords, bow and arrows, climbing the wall, laughing, and actually looking like they were having fun. Now that was something I have never seen before. Ryder hopped off the Pegasus, and held out an arm to help me off. I blushed and got off of the flying horse. When I hit the sand, I almost fell over. Ryder caught me and helped me up. "Sorry, I must have a little jet... or Pegasus leg." I said.

He then put his arm around my waist helping to keep me steady. He looked down at me and blushed. I looked over at Sonic and lifted my eyebrows as if saying, "finally something that goes right." He rolled his eyes at me. The horse man known as Chiron just stopped on the beach and let the boy get off of him. The boy had bleach blonde hair, gauges that were green, green eyes, and was putting his sword back in its holder.

"Welcome to Camp Half-Blood," Ryder said still holding my waist. "Let me show you around."

"Damn Ryder. Let the girl relax. She just got off of a Pegasus that you were flying and just got out of a battle with a cyclops. Your name is Delilah right? Who's your godly parent?" Rubi said.

"Godly parent? Uh none of my parents are godly. They're both bitches." I said.

Just as I said that, a cone moon on either side of a full moon appeared above Sonic's head. I knew that symbol from somewhere. My Greek mythology chapter in English class. It was the symbol of Nyx.

"Nyx? Does that mean? Oh my god. This is real? There are really Greek gods? I thought they died out after the Roman's defeated Greece. Wait. Does that mean there are Roman gods too? Oh my god. This is not real. In about five minutes I'm going to wake up in my classroom and go to lunch. Yep." I said.

"This is all real. You are a demigod, and so is your friend Sonic here. He has just been claimed by Nyx. He is the son of Nyx. Rubi will you please bring Sonic to the Nyx cabin?" Chiron said.

Throughout all of this Ryder kept his arm around my waist. I'm glad he didn't let go because my head was spinning so much. I couldn't think straight. This all seemed so surreal. The gods that were supposedly in America with this Camp Half-Blood.

"Wait. Why haven't I gotten claimed yet?" I said.

"That I cannot answer. The gods made a deal that they would claim their children. Unless your mortal." Chiron said.

"Well right now there is only one thing that I know and that's I'm starving."

"I'll bring you to lunch. You can sit with me." Ryder said.

Chiron and Cyrus then walked toward the blue house having a conversation and every once and a while looking back at me. Was I really just a normal girl caught up in this magical world? But the note said that my dagger was from my father. I already had a father though. Ryder never let go of my waist until we sat down at the Hermes table.

I then did what I did best, sat there and tried to hide into the shadows. Sadly, that was kind of hard to do with the entire table staring at you and asking questions. I didn't say a thing. Thank gods for Ryder. He answered all of the questions for me.

Looking around the tables, I could tell this was like a training camp. One of the tables had a guy whose arms were so large, he almost couldn't put them down. There was another table where all of the girls would take a bite and then fix their lip gloss. I guessed that was the Aphrodite table. There was another table that was full of gears and another full of kids studying like they had finals coming up soon.

I ate lunch quickly. Surprisingly so did Ryder. He stood up and led me to the Hermes cabin.

"Since you haven't been claimed yet, you get to stay in the Hermes cabin." Ryder said.

"Does this always happen when people don't get claimed or is it just because I think you kinda attractive. Oh my gods did I just say that out loud? Uh yeah. Ignore me." I said with a little giggle.

He blushed. I felt kind of stupid because I had just met the guy and I was already starting to like him. He led me to an empty bed. There was a trunk at the end of the bed with... some of my clothing. Mine. "How did my clothes get here?" I said.

"This is a magic chest. It isn't really your clothes, just the clothes you want. The Aphrodite kids like to over use this chest and get designer clothing for absolutely nothing. Of course that wasn't fair so now we only give the chest to the kids who are new or have no clothing."

"Oh, well that makes sense." I replied.

"And here's your camp shirt." He handed me an orange shirt exactly like his. When he handed it to me I noticed a leather chain that had three beads. Each one had a different picture on it. The bead furthest to the left had the Empire State building on it, the one in the middle had two swords crossed into an "X" shape, and the last one was a lightening bolt.

"What's this?" I said holding the necklace in my hand.

"It's our camp beads. Every summer you spend here, you get a bead. Each bead is designed for something that happened that year. Want me to explain the ones I have?" I nodded. He held the bead with the Empire State building. "This was from the Titan War dos. I fought a hydra and believe me, that was not simple. This one, with the swords was from the first time in Camp Half-Blood history, the entire Aphrodite cabin played capture the flag."

"Capture the flag?"

"Don't worry, you'll learn. And this one is from last year. Zeus came down from Olympus to talk to the entire camp."

"What did he say?"

"I wish I could tell you, but Zeus made sure we couldn't tell anyone."

Then I noticed something I didn't notice before. It was a wedding ring. At least it looked like a wedding ring. It was small with a bold band and a small diamond on it. He grabbed it and looked down at the floor. I could tell it was something important to him.

"You don't have to tell me about that if you don't want. I'm a pretty good listener though." I said.

"He looked up at me. I could tell he was trying not to cry. When an attractive, strong man cries you know it's something terrible. He sat down on my bed. I sat down next to him. I grabbed his hand and held it to reassure I was there for him.

"I've never told anyone this before. I don't know what it is about you, but you seem caring, honest, and trustworthy." He said quietly.

We sat there for a few minutes in silence. Then he started talking.

PLEASE REVIEW! SORRY THIS CHAPTER TOOK ME SO LONG!
-akadelilah