She shivered and willed her mind to leave this place it had brought her too. Unfortunately, she remained in the presence of the titan. His laughter rolled over her skin like a blade peeling her skin from her body, like one might peel oranges, leaving her feeling bare, exposed. Vulnerable. She struggled to remember everything she'd been taught over the past weeks, but she could barely remember anything with the pounding in her ears. 'Don't be such a wimp, stupid! It's nothing but a nightmare, calm down.' But what was that Percy had told her? 'Demigod dreams are more real than the dreams of regular mortals.' The only thing worrying her at this point was just how real they were.
"You should learn to control your fear and keep your head, child, if you are to be of any use to me."
Sasha shivered involuntarily. "I don't want to be of any use to you. I don't want to have anything to do with you." She managed to stutter out, her voice catching several times with her short, hitched breathing. Once again, that sinister, imposing voice responded, rasping in her ears. "You won't necessarily have a choice, stupid girl. You've too kind a heart, and upon meeting my son, you'll have no choice but to be kind to him." Sasha opened her mouth to respond, but the words died in her throat. 'Son?! How the hell could he have a son!?' She thought, bewildered. As if he'd managed to read her mind, he responded, "His past is none of your concern. The only way you'll be of any use to him is by becoming an ally of his. And based on what I've observed of your behavior, there should be no problem with that. Just so long as you don't know who my son is." The titan chuckled, the sound sinister and nerve racking.
"Why me? What do you want from me?" She swore she could see her grandfather's face, half transparent in the sky, ginning down at her wryly.
"Why the prophecy, of course." He said cryptically. Sasha opened her mouth to ask questions of the titan, but he laughed darkly and suddenly Sasha's stomach knotted up into horrible cramps. Her body began to heat up, and air whooshed past her at a thousand miles an hour. She shut her eyes, releasing an ear-splitting scream, and suddenly everything stopped and there was nothing but darkness.

The darkness quickly melted away to reveal a darkly lit cavern, despite the fact it was smaller than Sasha imagined caverns were. Torches were mounted on the walls burning Greek fire, illuminating the room with an eerie green glow. The walls were made of rock, as well as the floor. Off to one side of the room was a door, and to the other a rack for weapons had been installed into the wall, and on the rack stood several weapons, all made with the same black metal as Nico's. 'This is Nico's cabin' She realized with a start. 'But just what on earth am I doing here?' Pushed up against the wall directly opposite where she was standing was Nico's bed and bedside table, along with his closet. Slowly, stealthily, Sasha advanced toward it. Not sure what she was looking for, she randomly began searching the drawers of his bedside table. A couple drachma, a skull ring, a chain from which hung a ruby, a pouch of ambrosia, a canteen of nectar, some ripped up and crumpled papers, a bone (Sasha had no idea whether it was real or not and had no intentions of finding out). Just as Sasha decided to give up, something in the back of the drawer caught her eye. 'Nico Di Angelo in possession of a book?' She thought in disbelief, reaching for the black book. Upon opening it, she realized that it was not, in fact, an actual book, but a photo album. Not that this was any less strange. In the beginning of the album, there were several pictures of Nico with a girl with straight black hair and deep brown eyes. She looked so much like him she assumed they were siblings. Then there was Nico. In this picture he looked around twelve years old, with a childish, mischievous grin plastered across his face. His eyes shone a brown, not the almost black color they were now. His hair was a lighter color, too. In his hand he held a little figurine of a man holding a trident. 'What the hell is he doing with a figurine of dad?' She pondered aloud, then, remembering something she saw while rummaging through one of the other drawers, quickly pulled the drawer above the one she was currently searching open. Sifting through it a bit, she smiled triumphantly, pulling out the little figurine of Poseidon. She examined it thoroughly, making out the words
Mythomagic Figurine; Poseidon, God of the Sea, Greek. Attack power: 9800 Defensive Skills: 7060 © Hermes & co.
'So it's a game,' she thought, returning the figurine to its place and continuing to look through the photo album. There were several other photos of him and the girl, and then they stopped. The photo album had several blank pages left, but Nico had failed to fill them. Shrugging, Sasha closed it to put it away when the door banging open caused her to jump, dropping the album onto the floor and springing to her feet. Whirling to face the door, she already had her mouth ajar, prepared to wriggle her way out of this with excuses, when he saw Drew and Nico passionately making out in the doorframe.
"Uh…." She shifted her weight uncomfortably, trying to get their attention. "Hello?"
The couple continued to ignore her, continuing on with what they were doing. Sasha couldn't control her heart as it contracted, and she sighed, fully knowledgeable that her disappointment was written all over her face. Not that she was worried—she was sure they would notice. She bent over and picked up the photo album, about to put it away and leave, when a picture fluttered loose from the book and to the ground. Muttering, she leaned to pick it up, and froze when she saw her own face smiling up at her. She remembered when this picture had been taken; it was the summer before she began high school for the first year. She and Andrea had gone to a soap soccer party, and this picture was taken of the two of them making silly faces to the photographer, soap suds partially covering their beings. Sasha's hair was down and curly, like it always got whenever she got wet, and her eyes were wide and shining. Sasha smiled at the recollection of that day, but raised her eyebrow suspiciously. This was one of the few pictures Sasha brought with her to camp, so what was Nico doing with it? And, more than that, why weren't there any pictures of Drew? Indignantly, Sasha tightened her grip on the photo until it was crumpled and there were creases down it. She threw the album into the drawer, not bothering to care what state she left it in, and shoved her way past Nico and Drew, still passionately intertwined, marching over to the beach.

Sasha yawned, turning onto her other side in her bed before slowly ascending into a seated position. She had a skull-cracking headache, and she tightly gripped her bed sheets in each of her hands. She sighed, exhausted, and turned down to look at her hands, where her right hand, along with her left, was bundled up in sheets. But unlike her left hand, Sasha's right hand was also gripped tightly on a photograph. Her eyes widened and she muttered in exasperation.
"Shit."