I sat up, still awake sometime near midnight.
The sound of soft breathing and the occasional movement of bodies were the only sounds in the silent night. Some moonlight came through the windows of the Hermes cabin, and it helped illuminate the space if only a little.
It had been a confusing day, not just in terms of what I witnessed, but also what I felt.
Annabeth had led me on my tour. though she was quite hostile at first, after knowing her a bit more I realized she was in fact quite the warm girl-and a good friend. She'd led me through the cabin tours and didn't (really) reprimand me when I stuck my head into Poseidon's cabin. I felt like she would have- it seemed like her duties after all,
Just a while later I was shoved into the toilet by this buff and stocky girl. An Ares Kids, apparently. It felt like I was back in the normal world again, getting bullied by buffer, stronger people I didn't know-but that illusion shattered quite soon. The toilet exploded in my face-quite literally, but I wasn't harmed from some reason. The kid…ah yes, "Clarassie", wasn't that fortunate though-it felt like the water was out for vengeance as she was soaked from head to fucking toe.
Serves her right for bullying me.
Touring the arena and the climbing wall was quite mundane-save for the fact I discovered the climbing wall had actual lava in it and Chiron, the centaur dude who's famous in Greek mythology for training heroes, was my Latin teacher. Well, my old Latin teacher. That gave me quite the nasty surprise- especially how he could literally transform into his wheelchair-bound form. Something called the "mist", apparently.
Touring the woods, looking at landmarks, usual stuff that happened on tours ensured. Annabeth dropped another bomb on me when she explained Thaila's pine was actually Thaila- the daughter of Zeus I'd talked to in my dreams. Christ, this camp was quite the insane place for me to be in.
Speaking of Thaila, Annabeth was shocked at how I knew about her. She was even more shocked to learn that I communicated with her during my coma of sorts. Sadly, I never got the change to ask her if she was bored, trapped in that empty white stasis. That fact seemed to make Annabeth sad a swell.
And then…there was the matter of cabins. As much as I wanted to go into Annabeth's (she had been a nice friend so far) apparently some rule forbade it. I couldn't be in her cabin because I was unclaimed, and could only stay in the Hermes cabin.
Sadly.
Luke, the cabin counsellor for the Hermes cabin, had been nice to me-he seemed like the older brother of Annabeth, and now me. Some people here were utter piles of shit, but honestly I didn't blame them. This cabin was so crowded people had to sleep dangling from the ceiling of all places. Apparently some had died from falling too.
I couldn't help but feel somber at the sorry sight of someone's leg dangling from the light fixture opposite to me. I was lucky that some demigods had been claimed before I arrived, leaving some Empty spaces.
it took no effort for Luke to clear a space for me.
Dinner was also something else. All the campers would take the best parts of their meal- and I mean the best- and literally burn them. "A sacrifice for the gods", apparently, which sounds like a load of bullshit for gods who look at the Hermes cabin and say "yeah, that's normal". Fuck'em.
Of course, I wasn't gonna be voicing my opinions in the middle of a literal camp surrounded by demigods devoted to their parents, if I had, I'd probably been beaten into a small pile of flesh and bones where I sat.
But still…Luke seemed to agree with my views on the gods. Even on the first day, when we sat by the seaside- my favourite place in the entire camp currently. He was claimed as the son of Hermes, but he seemed to resent his father quite a lot. Every time he said his father's name, he spat it out like it was venom.
Or maybe I was just imagining things.
Either way…whenever I was with Luke or Annabeth, I felt my stomach churn and butterflies in my stomach, doing funny things inside. No matter what we were doing or where we are, I always got that fluttering feeling in my guts. It was confusing, but also nice…and slightly annoying.
Was this what having a crush on someone felt like?
And should I ask Annabeth what this feeling was? I felt like I needed help on this, but I didn't know who…
As I pondered this question, my eyelids grew heavy, before fluttering shut.
Before long, I had drifted into dreamland.