Chapter 2: The Dream

I woke up and looked around. The faint winter sunlight shown through the windows in my cabin. My mind was at ease until I remembered the events of last night. I tried to tell myself to calm down by telling myself that it was only a dream, a very bad dream. But after all my experiences with dreams, I knew it wasn't.

I should check on Thal, I thought.

I checked my digital clock, it read 7:15. I realized that I was now missing breakfast and I was starving. Thaila first, food later. I got dressed and walk around the eating pavilion trying not to draw any attention to myself.

When I reached the big house I saw Mr. D playing pinochle with his imaginary friends. It looked like he didn't even notice me. I walked inside and found my way to the infirmary. Thalia was lying down covered in heavy blankets. It was just her and I in the room. She was awake and turned her head as soon as she heard me.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Are you ok?" I asked

"Yeah, I just got a little cold; I'll be ok once the nectar and ambrosia really kick in. I'll be able to leave with the hunters in a couple of hours."

"I'll just stay here and keep you company." I smiled as I found a chair and sat next to her. We were able to get caught up really well on each other's lives. I told Thalia about how school was going (which wasn't well), she told me about her adventures with the hunters. We reminisced about old times when we traveled across the country together. Both of our moods seemed to lighten up. By the end of our conversation, we were laughing and having a really good time. Annabeth never came up once, even though she was one of our closest friends.

After a while Thalia's eyes widened.

"Percy! I'm sick!" I looked at her funny. "Percy I'm sick!" she had a massive grin on her face smiling from ear to ear.

"And?" I asked, clearly confused.

"I'm not supposed to be sick. Hunters can't be sick! I'm not a hunter anymore, I'm a real girl now." She said, as if she wasn't sick at all.

"You always were a real girl silly," I teased. I was glad that Thalia had gotten what she wanted, to be what she actually wanted to be. Just like last night in the rain, I couldn't help but think of the possibilities of a being with Thalia. I really wanted to get to know her even better. To just spend time with her. I couldn't focus on anything else. Not even… Annabeth? Did I really think that? My mind became hazy when I tried thinking about Annabeth. But we had been through so much together. But thoughts of Annabeth flowed away as if they were being washed down a violent river, probably how the creek looked last night.

"Percy, do you know what this means?"

I don't ever think I had seen Thalia this happy since we've known each other. She put her arms out, asking for a hug. I got up and managed to give her a hug with me awkwardly standing next to her while she sat up in her bed. She gave me an affectionate, powerful kiss on my cheek, as if this kiss contained all the love she had bottled up inside for months. It made me feel so warm and happy on the inside, as if I had just walked back into camp Half-Blood after being gone on a long quest.

Thalia's eyes looked deep into mine. We smiled at each other. It was such a calm winter morning, especially after last night.

Thalia looked like she was about to say something when we heard the door to the big house open and close. Our eyes widened and shot away from each other and towards the door of the infirmary. The door slowly opened and in entered a cute teenage girl with her curly blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. It was Annabeth Chase, my girlfriend.

A flood of emotions came over me. I remembered the two of us at the bottom of the Sea of Monsters after she had attempted to listen to the Sirens. I remembered our slow dance after I had traveled across the whole country to save her. I remembered the kiss in the Labyrinth. I remembered… well you get the point.

We practically ran towards each other and embraced as we met in the middle of the room. Annabeth looked stunning. She was wearing her usual outfit. She wore blue jeans, a winter coat and an orange Camp Half Blood T-shirt. She looked older, more experienced. Being the lead architect of the Olympus renovation and repair projects had definitely had an impact on her appearance, in an amazing way. She was even more attractive than the last time I saw her, which was… a month or so ago.

"Surprise! I missed you Seaweed Brain."

"I missed you too Wise Girl."

After our hug Annabeth came over to Thalia. Her eyebrows knitted in concern for her best friend. Thalia looked almost as sad as when she had told me about her feelings for me. I realized that it must hurt her to see me with Annabeth. This is wrong. Was all I could think.

"Thalia what are you doing here? Are you ok? When I found out you were in the infirmary I came as soon as I could!"

I felt a rush of anxiety come across me. I looked over at Thalia and she had the same expression on her face.

"Who told you I was in the infirmary?" Her voice quivered halfway through.

"Chiron did." Annabeth replied.

A subtle wave of relief came across Thalia's face. We had thought the same thing. Someone on Olympus had told our secret before Annabeth left for camp Half-Blood. Fortunately, that wasn't the case.

"I hurt my leg really bad and needed to spend the night here." Thalia replied.

"Yikes! That must hurt extra since you just hurt your legs a couple months ago on Olympus." Annabeth reasoned. "Can I see? Maybe there is something I can do to help." She started leaning towards the heavy blankets covering Thalia.

"No!" Thalia started. She composed herself "It's nothing really. Its almost as good as new." I could tell she was trying really hard to not sound like she had a cold.

"That's good to hear." Annabeth leaned back wearily. If she noticed something was odd, she didn't let on. Her face was as hard to read as a textbook, especially with my dyslexia.

"How did you hurt your leg?" Annabeth pried.

"Funny story actually." Thalia began hastily "We were playing capture the flag last night and I positioned myself on top of Zeus' fist trying to catch any campers off guard. Then it started raining and storming like crazy. I tried to get down the huge rock and managed to slip and land on my leg funny."

Annabeth winced when she heard that last part.

Thalia looked down at her legs. Her eyes appeared to be zoning out. The small smile that she was trying to fake was gone. She looked melancholic. Annabeth was taken by surprise at Thalia's new demeaner. She looked at me as if I knew what was wrong. I did, but I just gave her an innocent shrug. She gave a little scowl back at me.

"Err… did anything else happened?"

"No. Just that." Thalia looked up at us. She gave us a half smile. "You guys should go out, walk around. Get all caught up. You guys have missed each other." Annabeth began to protest but Thalia persisted.

"My leg will be alright" Thalia told us as we were leaving the infirmary. I grimaced as we walked out. I had a feeling she wasn't talking about her leg.

Once we were some distance from the big house Annabeth looked over at me. Even though we were both really happy to see each other, there was worry painted all over her face. She must have been deep in thought as we made our way to the eating pavilion.

"Somethings not right, Percy" She started. "I've known Thalia practically my whole life and I have never seen her like that. She normally doesn't get sad and is always joking around. I'm worried that something else might be going on that we don't know about. The hunters got here yesterday, right? Did you notice anything different about her?"

Of course I did. That's what got me in this messy situation in the first place. Thalia definitely hadn't been acting like her normal self. I realized that neither had I. Annabeth studied my face as I thought of what to say.

"I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary."

De Annabeth nodded. "We'll keep an eye on her and find out if there is any way we can help. Thalia is strong though, I'm sure she'll be alright."

We arrive at the empty pavilion. All the other campers had already gone off to their day's activities. I looked around the little valley and saw the hunters passing time and relaxing outside their cabin. Annabeth sat down next to me at the Poseidon table. Our shoulders were touching, she reached for my hand and held it. She looked really happy.

"I've missed you Seaweed brain."

"I feel like I haven't seen you in forever!" I replied. "A month is a really long time when we've only been dating a few months. Iris messaging is great, but it can't replace being together in person."

Annabeth looked a little guilty. "I know. It has been too long. It just this job is so demanding! I knew it would be a challenge before I started. But it's unlike anything I could have prepared for. Designing the buildings and statues is the fun part but working with the workers to plan and actually build them is a nightmare sometimes!" She started to go off on some of the specific problems she had faced. I loved seeing her light up and share with me about her work. I couldn't help but smile. Once she finished telling me about a park she was designing she looked into my eyes and paused. "You're right. I've been gone way too long. I've been getting pretty absorbed in my work. The builders and workers are expecting me to be back in a couple days, but I'll tell them it'll be maybe a couple weeks." She smiled as my face lit up. "How couldn't we spend winter break together?"

She leaned in and gave me a kiss. We started coming up with some date ideas to do the next couple days. We laughed as I told her about my troublesome mishaps at school. We must had been talking for at least a half hour. I could tell we were both so happy we didn't have to worry about monsters or architecture. It was just us.

We pretty much spent the whole day together. It was as if Annabeth had never left. In the afternoon we went on a walk around the woods. The air was nippy but not nearly as bad as yesterday. The sky was clear and bright. We held hands as we walked.

When it was dinner time, we made our way back to the center of camp. We were expecting to see Artemis' table packed and filled with joyous laughter. But there wasn't any of that. In fact, there wasn't anybody there. I looked over at Annabeth and saw her smile melt away.

"I guess they had an emergency or something and had to leave." Annabeth was obviously hurt that Thalia hadn't come to say goodbye to her. I wanted to reassure her but didn't know what to say. "Anyways, Percy, I'm going to sit with my cabin and spend some time with my half siblings. I don't think we're doing any songs tonight, so I'll catch you tomorrow." We gave each other a hug before she made her way to her table.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful. I eventually made it to my cabin and fell asleep.

In my dream I was standing on a beach. I looked and saw an eagle flying frantically over the ocean making its way to the land. It was struggling in the wind and rain. A huge, dark storm pursued the bird from behind. The bird had a wild look in its eye and frantically flapped its wings. Just then, a net sprang up out of no where and caught the bird. It hurled towards the ground. It looked like the storm shifted its attention from the eagle to the sea. I could hear loud thunders. The dark, terrible storm began colliding with the ocean. It did not look pretty.

I started running inland but as soon as I did the storm stopped and there was calm. The eagle managed to break free from the net and flew over to a beautiful garden. That definitely wasn't there before. I thought. Flowers of every kind were in the garden, though I did notice a lot more roses. I saw a little pond with a couple swans swimming around. I could hear the gentle flow of a creek. It was peaceful. I made my way over to the eagle who was perched comfortably on an oak tree as if it was waiting for me.

I looked at an array of flowers and noticed that they started withering. The grass began to turn yellow and brown. The trees were beginning to slump over. In a matter of seconds, the beautiful garden had shriveled up and was no more. The swans were gone. The pond was as black as night. The land looked as barren as the underworld. The eagle looked just as frantic as when it was being chased by the storm. It flew up high in the sky, almost out of my sight. My eyes widened as I realized what was happening. I tried to yell and wave my arms, but I couldn't move. The eagle was nose diving straight towards the ocean at a dangerous speed. Just as the eagle splashed into the ocean, I woke up breathing heavily and in a sweat.

That wasn't the scariest dream I've had. Not by a long shot. But it really concerned me. Especially after the events of the past two days. What did the bird mean? And the garden and flowers? I tried to piece it together, but nothing was connecting.

I couldn't help but think about Thalia. I felt attracted to her. But this attraction was sudden. I had never felt that way before about her. And how could I kiss her and lead her on? I hadn't acted like myself. What was I thinking? I didn't have feelings for her, but I did. And deep down I knew I did.

Thoughts like these raced in my mind. I couldn't sleep. I knew it was cold outside, but I knew it was better than tossing and turning with a crazed, tired mind. I looked at my digital clock 5:34. I sighed, put on some warm clothes, and started for the ocean. If one thing could help me, it was the calm feelings that came from being by the sea. Maybe I'd even catch the sunrise.