Happy New Year's Eve! Hope everyone had a good Christmas, Hanukkah etc and are excited for the New Year. This year I hope you will all make the most of every day and live life to the fullest. Enjoy every second! Each one is precious and shouldn't be taken for granted. Happy New Year!

He was at a loss. He had no idea what to do, or how to fix the problem, but he had to find a way.

The thing is, Will didn't know how to fix the problem. He didn't even know if it could be fixed. Most medical problems he had to deal with were battle injuries; broken bones, stab wounds, that kind of stuff. Easy. It could usually be fixed with nectar or ambrosia. But this? This was something completely different.

Very few were left in the camp who had not succumb to the disease, him being one of them miraculously, but also Piper, Nico and a few others. Luckily, some people had left before this had all started to go back to their homes, but many had stayed. They would regret it.

"Will, Chiron has called us to The Big House," Nico said, walking up to him. Will nodded and they proceeded in the direction of the large barn-like house. They walked through the door and saw Chiron, in his horse form, Piper, Clarisse, and the Stoll brothers. They looked over to them as they entered. Their expressions were grim, even the twins.

"Will, Nico," Chiron greeted, nodding towards them. They crossed over to the group. "What can you tell us about this disease, Will?" Chiron asked, getting straight to business. Will sighed. "Nothing good, I'm afraid. The entire camp has been overrun by the disease, almost the whole population infected. It seems to be highly contagious. Air borne even," Will stated.

"Well, obviously it's highly contagious, how else would it have spread so fast?" Clarisse said while rolling her eyes.

"Do we know what's caused it?" Connor asked, a tinge of worry in his voice. Will paused for a minute, not able to look at them when he replied. "No."

"How can you not know?! You're a son of Apollo! You're supposed to know these things!" Clarisse exclaimed in exasperation. "Clarisse enough!" Chiron said with a raised voice. That shut her up; no one liked to anger Chiron. "No, she's right," Will said quietly. "I should be able to figure out what's causing it, but I have no idea." Piper walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. "Will, no. This is not on you, do not blame yourself for this," she said seriously. Will looked at her, briefly wondering if she was charm speaking him but dismissed the thought when he saw tenderness in her eyes. He nodded at her in thanks.

"What I do know, are the symptoms," Will said looking Chiron in the eyes. He raised his eyebrows, and gestured for him to continue. "From the very first case, the symptoms seem to show very early, developing into something worse with each stage. I've narrowed it down to 5 stages, and you've probably already guessed the first 3: coughing, fever, nausea and vomiting."

Piper swallowed thickly. "What are the last 2 stages?" she asked almost timidly.

Will looked at her darkly before explaining. "They first appeared last night..."

...

Every bed was full. It had all started so fast Will couldn't get through everyone quick enough. All around him, kids were coughing, running a fever, vomiting; it was awful. But what he heard next was more terrifying than all of it.

"Get away from me! Get away!" a voice shouted. Will stopped what he was doing and dashed in the direction of the voice. It was Johnny. He was lying on his bed, staring wide eyed at...nothing. No monster was attacking him, but he was completely and utterly terrified.

"Stop! No! Leave me alone!" he yelled, pushing himself further away in the opposite direction of the wall he was yelling at. Will lurched over to him.

"Johnny hey! It's okay, there's nothing there," Will said as calmly as he could, which was hard with all the sudden stress he was under of looking after 50 sick kids.

But it seemed Johnny didn't hear him, he just kept staring at the wall, backing so far over the bed he was about to fall off. Will lunged forward to catch him and tried to turn his face to get him to look at him, but that only made it worse. Now Johnny was staring at him like he was the monster.

"Don't hurt me! Please!" he cried, tears beginning to stream down his face. He closed his eyes tight as to not look at Will. "I'm not going to hurt you," Will said firmly. "It's me, Will. You can trust me," Will continued soothingly. Johnny seemed to quieten a little, but still wouldn't look at him. "Can you open your eyes for me?" he asked. It took a moment, but slowly he did, and his eyes immediately widened again. Will worried that he was seeing him as some monster again, but what Johnny said next caught Will completely off guard. "Mum?"

Will jerked back in surprise, but Johnny got a huge smile on his face and jumped forward into Wills arms, catching Will by surprise.

"Mum! I can't believe it, you're alive! But, how? I saw you die. They said you were sick," Johnny said, sounding confused, but moved on. "It doesn't matter. You came back to me! I knew you would never leave me!" he said, looking into Wills eyes. Will didn't know how to respond to this, utterly confused at what was going on, but then he realised. He was hallucinating.

Johnny believed he had seen something terrifying like a monster before, and now he believed he was seeing Will as his mum, who Will assumed must be dead.

Will gently pried the boys' arms off from him and looked him in the eyes. "Johnny, your mum isn't here. It's me, Will," Will said as carefully as he could. Johnny looked at him, confused. "What are you talking about mum? You're you," he said, innocence clear on his face.

This was breaking Will's heart. This kid is 10 years old for Hades' sake! "No, Johnny, it's me. Your mum isn't here. She's...gone, I'm sorry," Will said sadly.

Sadness and fear overcame his face. "N-no! You're lying! Why are you lying?" he yelled, backing away quickly from him again. "Johnny, please listen to me-"

"No! Get away from me! What have you done with my mum? What did you do to her?!" he cried, face going red from anger and crying.

Will knew he wouldn't be able to calm him down, and he was starting to scare the others, so he grabbed a syringe and hurriedly filled it. He dashed back over, carefully holding the syringe, and tried his best to hold Johnny down. He gritted his teeth struggling with the boys flinging limbs, but finally he managed to hold his arm down and and inject the needle.

His movements slowed, and his cry's subsided. Will put the syringe down and carefully moved his body to be more comfortable on the bed. His eyes were closing, but he looked up at Will who offered him a small smile, laying a hand on his head. Just as Will thought he was going to pass out, he said something that tore Will's already destroyed heart.

"Mum? Is that you?" he asked, his voice raspy from the screaming, his eyes glassy from crying and confusion, but the hope in his voice was unmistakable. Will closed his eyes, hoping his expression would be hidden behind the mask. He's forgotten. Already.

"I knew you were alive," he whispered, a weak smile on his face. Will sucked in a shaky breath but responded. "I'm here, Johnny, I'm here."

...

An hour later things hadn't gotten better. In fact, they had gotten worse. As Will was helping another patient, he heard screams echoing through the infirmary once more. But this time they were different. These weren't screams of fear; these were screams of agony.

Will dashed into the room to find Johnny thrashing violently on the bed. His eyes were wide open. He ran over to try and see what was wrong, but he could find no visible injury, yet Johnny continued to lash out as if he were being burned alive.

Will froze. He thought back to the hallucinations. A couple others had started to develop signs of them as well, but they were all like Johnny; they saw lost loved ones, or their worst nightmares.

No, this was different. This must be the next stage of the disease; Internal suffering. Agony like that from Tartarus.

Johnny dug his nails into his palms, drawing blood. He then proceeded to try and press them into his eyes while ripping his hair out, all while producing the most horrific screams Will had ever heard.

And yet, Will couldn't get Johnny to come to his senses, but he was able to see the effects this stage had on him. From the looks of it, the pain was all in his mind, but felt all too real. Johnny would hold onto a part of his body like it had been stabbed while crying out, but when Will pried his hand off the area, there was nothing there. But because it was in his mind, there was nothing Will could do to help.

All he could do was sit and try to hold him down, try to bring him out of it... until it was over.

...

"Oh my Gods," Piper whispered. She shakily sat down on the sofa. "That poor kid," Clarisse said, shaking her head. Will had recited the past hours events to them, describing every horrifying detail, no matter how disturbing.

"What happened to him? Is he okay now?" Piper asked hopefully, looking up.

Will shut his eyes tight. "He's dead."

Piper gasped. There were tears forming in her eyes. "He was just a kid," Travis said, a devastated expression on his face. Since Johnny had only arrived at camp recently, he hadn't been claimed yet. And so, had been placed in the Hermes cabin, with Connor and Travis. Due to Percy's promise from the Gods that they would claim their children, most kids had been claimed early on, but there were still those awaiting their parentage reveal. Johnny was one of them, and now he would never know.

Chiron took a deep breath. "I know this is tragic, and there will be time to mourn young Johnny, but we must try to prevent the fate he received from happening again. Were you able to learn anything from all this, Will?" he asked, gravelly.

"Yes, I have. From this I've identified the symptoms and stages to look out for," Will said solemnly. "There are 5 stages a victim of the plague goes through:

1. Coughing

2. Fever

3. Nausea and Vomiting

4. Hallucinations, and

5. Agony of Tartarus."

Piper took s shaky breath. "What exactly does a person go through in the 'Agony of Tartarus' stage?"

Will swallowed before saying, "I believe a person goes through some of the worst pain imaginable, like that of the souls sent to the Fields of Punishment. But," Will paused. They all looked up at him. "From what I've seen, those who have gone through many battles, suffer the worst: those who have themselves suffered a great deal of pain... relive their past experiences, their past sufferings; the more you've been through, the more you've seen, the worse the agony."

There was silence in the room. The majority, if not all of them, had been through terrible tragedies. If they contracted the disease, it would not be pretty.

"But where did it come from?" Travis asked no one in particular. "Something like this couldn't have just appeared, could it?"

"I was thinking the same thing," Will agreed. "What do you think Chiron?"

Chiron had his arms folded, one hand holding his chin in thought. "In all my years, I have never seen anything like this. I tried to contact the Gods to convey my worries to them, but..."

"But, what?" Piper asked at Chiron's pause. He sighed. "There was no response. I could not get through at all."

"What? How can that be?" Clarisse demanded. "I do not know. It's as if the message is being blocked." Piper furrowed her brow. "What about Mr.D? We could ask him. Where is he?" she suggested.

"I'm afraid he left for Mt. Olympus rather abruptly, not long after this all started. Only said he was summoned by the council and was 'happy to oblige if it meant a break from babysitting a bunch of needy half-bloods.'"

"Charming as ever," Connor muttered under his breath.

Chiron shot a look at him, then glanced up at the sky, but surprisingly, no thunder threatened as a response. That made Chiron frown. The Gods liked to make it known that they were always watching, but there was no indication they heard Connor at all.

"So, what is going on?" Travis asked the question everyone was thinking but had no answer to, except maybe for one of them.

"I sensed Johnny's soul entering the underworld," Nico said, speaking for the first time since the meeting started. "This is very out of the ordinary, but there was something... different about this time. It didn't feel... right. Something felt off, like his death was unnatural."

"Well of course it was unnatural. A 10-year-old kid died from an unknown deadly disease! What could possibly be natural about that?" Clarisse exclaimed.

"That's not what I meant. I know this will sound heartless, but, when someone dies, even if they are young, and the cause of death is from an illness, it is still natural in the sense that the death was not abnormal; it is a normal occurrence in nature for diseases and plagues to form and bring about death, as decided by the fates. But this, this wasn't like that," Nico said, looking deep in thought.

"What do you mean?" Will asked, curious as to where he was going with this.

"I don't think this was not the death the fates had planned for Johnny," Nico replied, looking Will straight in the eye.

Everyone looked at him in shock. "Nico, are you sure?" Chiron asked after a moment.

"Unfortunately, yes. When his spirit passed into the Underworld, it was a lot darker. I could noticeably feel it, like he wasn't meant to be there. I tried to contact my father to see if he noticed anything, but like you Chiron, I couldn't get through. It's like we've been... cut off. I think something, or someone, doesn't want us speaking with the Gods."

As soon as Nico said this, the ground began to shake. Everyone latched onto something before carefully making their way outside to see what was going on. To their complete horror, the earth before them started to morph... into a face. A face they all knew too well.

"Gaia," Piper spoke softly, eyes locked on the dirt now smiling up at them.

...

"Well done, Nico di Angelo, you figured it out, even if you didn't fully put the pieces together. A disease does come from nature. And this one came from me as well. "

"Then why does it feel unnatural?" Nico demanded, glaring down at her.

She just continued to smile at them. "Oh, come now, I can't just tell you all my little secrets, that would ruin all the fun. But let's just say, this wasn't supposed to happen, but I thought it was very fitting for you demigods after what you did to me," she sneered as she said this last part, clearly still salty about her defeat at their hands.

Nico frowned. What does that mean?

"We killed you, how are you here?" Piper asked the question going through everyone's minds.

Gaia laughed. "My dear, you can't kill life. I am the earth itself. I am everywhere, in all of nature. You can not kill me," she said evilly.

Piper swallowed but stood tall. "You will eradicate this disease. Take it away and leave the camps alone," she said, her charm speak leaving no room for defiance.

Yet this only made Gaia laugh more. "Daughter of Aphrodite, your tricks may have worked partially before, but not now. Not ever again. There is nothing you can do to stop me. Nothing any of you can do." Her form rose up into the sky, and began to glow. "You can not win this time, demigods. This is not something you can fight your way out of."

She cackled darkly as they all shielded her eyes from the blinding rays of light, the evil sound fading as she did.

When they turned round, she had gone, though her curse remained.