I drifted in and out of consciousness, each awakening lulled back by an overwhelming tiredness. Once or twice, I awoke to conversation. The darkness consumed again and again.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" a voice asked. To me, the voice sounded vaguely goat like.
"Feed her some more nectar, Grover," another voice said. This one seemed more tired, older, deeper than this Grover person's voice.
A warm liquid, that tasted like my father's truffles trickled its way through my lips and down my throat. Slowly, my eyes blinked open. I was staring a a wooden ceiling, which could have been the ceiling for a cabin or something. I had just focused my eyes when a face appeared over head, obscuring the beam that I had been focusing on.
"She's awake Chiron!" Grover, I assumed, said over excitedly.
"I can see that Grover, and now, I suggest you move your head." Just in time, Grover moved his head. In the next second, I sat up really fast.
"Augh..." I groaned. My vision grew blurry for a moment, and I clutched my head. "My head hurts..." Once my vision cleared, I looked up. A gangly boy, who slightly resembled Nathan stood before me. Next to him sat a man in a wheelchair with facial hair.
"Who are you? Where am I?" I asked, bewildered.
"I'm Grover! Hi! I'm a-" Grover said, still obviously very excited.
"Your a what?" I asked, curious to know why I wasn't around anyone I knew. "And where's my daddy?" I demanded.
"Well you see," I turned my head to look at 'Chiron', who had begun to talk. "You are a half-blood, or a demigod, so to speak. A demigod is a person who is half mortal, and half god. Greek god, that is."
I looked at him, shocked. I turned back to Grover, who now seemed more reasonable than Chiron, who was apparently talking nonsense.
"It's true!" Grover added on.
I groaned again. They were all crazy. Was this a crazy house? Did they think I was going crazy and sent me to an asylum?
"Your missing a parent, are you not?" Chiron asked me.
"Yeah, my mom. Why do you want to know?" I said defensively. "And why is there a man with curly black hair and a laurel on top of his head in a neon purple track suit and orange leopard print Nikes standing in the corner of the room?"
The guy spoke up. "I'm Mr. D. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, blah blah blah, I'm camp leader, anyways welcome Serena." He sighed out, like he wished this was something he didn't have to do.
"Are you Dionysis? Why are you guarding a camp? And it's Silena!" I asked, bewildered and hoping my guess was right.
"Punishment, some boring stuff, anyways I'm here now." he droned in the same tone of voice.
"Well, she was probably your Greek god parent." Chiron said, continuing on like nothing happened, and nothing he was saying was of any subsequence. "You were attacked by Gabe. He was a trickster, a demon who escaped Hades and was attracted to your 'scent'."
I sat, stunned.
"Grover," Chiron said, "bring her to the Hermes cabin."
This shocked me out of my reverie.
"But I thought Hermes was a guy!" I thought for a minute, scrunching up my nose. In history class, what had that dull teacher said? That was the day that Gabe asked me to borrow a pencil. I shuddered at the thought of Gabe, who I now knew was a monster. And to think I thought he was actually hot! 'Think past him, to what was on the board.' I thought to myself. Hermes, the god of messengers. The GOD of messengers.
"And you said that my Greek god parent was a girl!" I protested.
Chiron here confirmed my thoughts. "Yes, you're correct, Hermes is a male. But because your Greek god parentage has not been revealed yet, you will stay with the Hermes cabin, because he is also the god of thieves and travelers."
Grover waved his hand over at me and said, "Come on Silena, let's go!"
I tentatively shifted my weight and placed my feet on the floor when I suddenly thought of something. "Where's my stuff?"
Chiron again replied to my question. "Your father said someone named Amelie helped him pack your things, and sent your luggage to the Hermes cabin."
I stood after some effort. Grover was in front of me, already hop walking awkwardly away. I followed, behind him by some paces.
"Grover! Wait!" Grover slowed, and looked behind him. Before I could stop myself, I asked, "Why do you walk so funny? Like you're galloping or something."
He laughed, which sounded more like a whinny, and informed me, "It's because I'm a satyr. I'm half goat."
Grover kicked off his shoes. "See?" he presented his feet, no, his hooves to me.
My eyes grew wide. "That's so weird. You remind me of this guy Nathan at my school."
As we continued walking, he said, "That's 'cause he was a satyr, too! Camp Half-blood, that's what this place is called, sends out satyrs to schools and places where the gods think there's going to be a half-blood."
"Wait, so he was sent specially to stalk me?" I asked, slightly offended that my privacy had been abused like that.
Grover flushed. "No, it's not like that! I-"
"Grover, relax, I was just kidding." I sent an affable smile his way.
Looking around me, I held in my questions about the strange activities going on. I spotted horse stables, and grew excited. However, before I could ask if we could ride horses here, Grover stopped.
"Here's the Hermes cabin!" he presented, slight pride in his voice.
"It's...nice." I glanced around me. The other cabins seemed cleaner. The Hermes cabin was a bit run down, and a with the evening breeze, caught the scent of unwashed socks and body odor. Crinkling my nose, I sucked it up, and opened the door. Stepping instead hesitantly, I was stunned by the mess. There were sleeping beds everywhere, because there weren't enough bunks for everyone. Belongings were spread everywhere, and two boys who looked quite alike were fighting over an orange t-shirt. I sighed, but brightened considerably when I saw my pink Coach luggage sitting off to the side of the room. Squealing, I ran over to my belongings and touched them.
Grover had trailed behind me, and over my shoulder he announced, "It's time for dinner guys!"
He walked out of the cabin, and I followed his lead. The two boys that had been fighting over the t-shirt walked up and sandwiched me in between them.
"What's up new girl?" the one on my left said.
"Yea, what's crackin'?" the one on my right said.
"I'm Travis-," the one on the left said again.
"-and I'm Connor," Connor replied.
Together, they said, "We're the Stoll brothers, prankster extraordinaries!"
Each one of them grabbed one of my hands, and pulled me along to the Hermes cabin table. On the bench, there was only room for one person. When I tried to pull my hands away from their grip, I found that I couldn't.
"You super glued your hands to me?!" I shrieked.
Connor and Travis were grinning victoriously.
"Let's sit over there!" Travis suggested, pointing to the end of the table, where the table was the dirtiest.
Giving them both dirty looks that rivaled the table, I forced them to sit down before me. Out of nowhere, plates and goblets appeared before us.
"Stand up, Silena." The brothers said in unison.
I ignored them pointedly, but after some time, they managed to pull me up and off the bench. Travis picked up my plate, and dumped it into the fire.
"Hey!" I protested, breaking my silence, "I'm starving, and you just throw my food into the fire?"
"It's an offering for the gods silly Silena!" Connor said.
They brought, more like dragged, me back to the table, then gave a small portion of their food to the fire, too.
Conner said to Travis, "Bon appetit!" They continued on the shovel they're food disgusingly into their mouthes.
I was trying not to cry. They were so mean! Just when my tears were about to overflow, I felt a warmness sweep over my body. Gasps and whispers echoed about the mess hall, and a couple of kids pointed over my head. One table, in particular, looked happy. I looked up, and saw that there was a pink dove floating on top of my head.
A boy walked over from the table that looked happy.
"Hello, darling!" He greeted me. "Welcome to the Aphrodite cabin! I'm your cabin leader, James Andrew. You can come sit with us now, over there. What's your name?"
At this, I promptly bursted into tears. "I c-can't," I hiccuped while sobbing. I nodded my head at the two boys around me. "They superglued me to them!"
Connor and Travis looked a bit awestruck and guilty.
"Aw, sweetie. Don't cry," James comforted. He shot a look at the two boys. Out of his pocket, as if it appeared like magic, came a bottle of glue dissolvent. He applied the bottle's contents onto my hand, and after a minute of tugging, my right hand separated from Travis'. Then, James applied the solution on my left hand, and that hand came free, too.
"That'll probably be the last time you ever hold the hand of an Aphrodite girl," James said darkly. He then walked away. I followed, looking back at them. Feeling a little bad, I mouthed, "Sorry!" Hurrying after James, I came to a stop next to the Aphrodite table.
Their table was still clean, neat, and white. Two girls slid over, and made room for me to sit between them.
The girl on my left was extremely beautiful. She had pale blonde hair, and glittery blue eyes that popped.
"Hi, I'm Amanda," she stated, smiling prettily. She looked about to be a couple years older than me, perhaps 16, or 17.
"I'm Silena," I told her, and smiled back.
"And I'm Hazel," the girl on my other side chimed in. Her voice sounded like bells. Hazel seemed closer to my age.
I smiled at her, and asked her, "When did you come to Camp Half-Blood?"
"Just a year ago," she answered. "And it was nowhere near how dramatic your entrance was," she said, eyes glittering with the prospect of gossip.
On the other hand, I was mortified. "People were talking about me?"
"Oh yeah, the whole camp was talking about it. You really set this year's camp off with a bang!" Hazel enthused.
I groaned, for about the millionth time today. "I really wish I wasn't in the center of attention."
"Well," Amanda chimed from one side, "We'll just make them have something to talk about. How about I give you a make over?"
The two words 'make over' excited me. "Really?" I asked.
"Yeah!" she answered. "We can start right after dinner. I bet the Chiron already had your luggage sent over to our cabin, so we could have you settled. Knowing Chiron, he probably did it the minute you were claimed." Amanda said, rolling her eyes at the last sentence.
"I'll help!" Hazel said loudly.
The entire table of Aphrodite girls looked over, and Amanda declared, "We're giving Silena a makeover!"
The entire table began buzzing. A makeover! Everyone wanted to help.