We ran with the Apollo flag in our hands, our hearts bursting with joy. We could already see victory approaching, but then...
The voice. A familiar voice pierced my mind, jolting my thoughts.
"It's time," it whispered.
And then, as if the voice itself was the command, a heavy fog began to engulf the ground.
"Guys," I said in panic, trying to warn them. Everyone turned toward the fog, their eyes wide with alarm.
"This is weird," Taylor muttered, "This kind of weather isn't supposed to enter the camp."
And then, before we could process it, Adam shouted, "Duck!"
Above us, enormous metal birds descended, shooting sharp feathers like arrows. These birds were not ordinary mechanical creatures; they were built for war, with silvery metal feathers, glowing red eyes, and sharp beaks that could pierce armor.
Arrows were flying from all directions, the sky filled with the whistling sounds of metal slicing through the air.
One of the arrows narrowly missed my head, hitting the ground and causing a small explosion.
A wave of heat hit me, knocking me backward, but I managed to stay on my feet.
Explosions began to sound all around. It was just like my dream...
"They're attacking the camp!" I shouted. We ran back to the camp as fast as we could, my heart pounding with every step.
Taylor drew his sword, its hard blade gleaming in the setting sun, while Lia drew her bow, pulling back the string, ready to shoot at any moment.
My heart was racing so fast, there was no way this was real. My nightmare couldn't come true, right?
When we arrived at the camp, the scene was horrifying: the campers were being attacked from all sides.
I could see hellhounds tearing through, their black fur and glowing red eyes, half-woman half-snake creatures with shimmering scales and eyes as cold as ice.
Then, in front of me, I spotted one creatured I remember statue of it from the trip to greece —a massive minotaur, nearly two meters tall, with curled horns and muscles bulging like stone.
It made the ground shake with every step, its eyes blazing with cruelty.
Above us, a sharp whistle sounded, a metal feather flying directly into a large house on the hill, a house I hadn't noticed before.
The house exploded into splinters, scattering glass and wood everywhere.
The blast knocked me to the ground, but I quickly got up, the pain in my leg not stopping me from continuing to run.
Lia was shooting arrows rapidly at the hellhounds, each arrow hitting its target as if guided by the gods themselves.
These hounds weren't ordinary creatures—they were demons from hell, meant to hunt the souls of warriors.
They disintegrated into dust the moment the arrow struck them, their last breath escaping as black smoke that vanished into the air.
A half-woman half-snake creature, with a penetrating and cold gaze, lunged at Kate, who immediately revealed two golden daggers.
She thrust one dagger into the snake's belly, and the creature hissed in pain, trying to coil around Kate.
But Kate was too fast, and she cut it again, this time in the neck, bringing it down to the ground.
"Where's Chiron?!" I yelled, searching for our guide amid the chaos. "Where's the guy with the eyes body?"
Taylor was fighting against three snakes at once. He maneuvered around them, cutting and slashing, but they were fast and lethal, striking every opportunity they had.
He was exhausted, blood dripping from a wound on his arm, but he didn't give up.
Just as one of them was about to bite his neck, Adam sneaked up behind them and cut them all down in one swift, precise stroke.
The camp's fields were littered with the bodies of half-bloods. Some were seriously injured, blood flowing from them, while others lay still on the ground, their eyes open in terror.
Suddenly, the whistle sounded again. This time it was louder.
The houses of Nemesis, Aphrodite, and Ares exploded one by one, as if someone had declared war on the camp. My prayers were that no one was inside.
Adam looked stunned, his eyes wide with shock. "Retreat!" he shouted.
We ran toward the hills, trying to escape the inferno, but everyone's faces were covered in a fear I had never seen before.
And then... I heard Adam scream. I turned and saw him in the giant minotaur's massive hands.
It lifted him high and threw him with immense force into a tree. I heard the sound of bones breaking.
"Adam!" Kate screamed, rushing towards him with tears in her eyes.
Inside me, a rage surged uncontrollably. No one hurts my friends, especially not the children of the messenger god... Wait, right, the messenger god!
I raised my axe, holding it firmly toward the minotaur.
"Hey, you with the ugly horns!" I yelled, "In the name of my father Hermes, I have a delivery for you!"
My hand trembled, but I released the axe. It flew straight toward the minotaur, seemingly guided by its own will, and sliced it through the chest with precise accuracy.
The minotaur disintegrated into dust and the axe returned to my hand like a boomerang.
Adam lay on the ground, gasping for breath, with Kate beside him trying to help him get up.
The terror-stricken whistle sounded again.
"Rachel!" I cried, summoning my winged sandals and trying to fly to them, but the feather was faster than me.
The explosion hit them directly, and the shockwave threw me backward, back to Taylor and Lia.
"Adammmmmm!" I screamed, filled with tears.
Taylor looked around in panic. "Guys, we need to get out of here! Look!" He pointed toward the lower part of the hill.
Hordes of hellhounds were running toward us. We had no chance of fighting them.
"No way I'm leaving Adam!" I tried to run to him again, but Taylor wrapped a vine around my hands, pulling me back forcefully.
He shook his head in denial.
We ran down the other side of the hill until we reached the road. Suddenly, a car screeched to a halt in front of us. The door opened, and out stepped a curly-haired redhead, looking to be in her 30s or 40s.
"Rachel!" Lia yelled, her eyes wide with surprise.
"Get in the car, quickly!" Rachel ordered.
Without thinking twice, we jumped into the car, and it sped away quickly. The hills behind us disappeared from view as Rachel tried to catch her breath.
She pressed the screen of the car and dialed a number.
"Come on, answer already..." she murmured impatiently.
"Yes, Ms. Rachel?" a male voice answered from the other end.
"Joe, I need my speedboat urgently, at Long Beach!"
"Received."
Rachel hung up and increased the speed even more, looking determined to get us out of the dangerous area.
We jumped out of the car and began running toward the sea.
When we reached Long Beach, the wet sand started sticking to our shoes as we approached the waterline.
The waves crashed loudly, and the cold wind whipped our faces, as if even the sea itself was resisting our escape. Rachel, her eyes scanning the horizon, hurried toward the dock.
I felt the adrenaline in my body beginning to wane, but there was no time to stop.
Suddenly, the sound of engines roared from the horizon. A speedboat appeared, cutting through the waves on its way toward us.
It was Rachel's speedboat, its engines roaring like hungry predators. "Come on, everyone on the boat!" she shouted, trying to overpower the noise of the wind and waves.
We tried to reach the boat as fast as we could, but the hellhounds were not far behind. I saw them starting to climb the dunes, their teeth bared and eyes glowing under the full moon.
"Rachel, they're already here!" Lia yelled in concern, beginning to shoot arrows at them, each arrow hitting its mark perfectly, but it didn't stop their advance. There were too many of them, and they were too fast.
We boarded the boat quickly. Rachel started the engines and headed out to open sea. The hounds ran after us, but just as the first one leaped toward the boat, it surged forward, leaving them behind.
My heart only calmed slightly as we moved away from the shore, but the worry did not leave me. "Adam... he..." I began to say, but Rachel cut me off.
"We'll find him, I promise you," she said softly, her tone soothing.
The boat sped into the darkness, slicing through the waves like an expertly shot arrow.
Behind us, on the Williamsburg Bridge, I saw the giant dragon again, waiting in the gloom, its many heads panting in a steady rhythm, as if anticipating the moment it could strike.
"What do we do now?" Taylor asked, his voice trembling. The worry was evident on his face. Each of us was injured in our own way, but the emotional damage was even more apparent.
"We need to get to—"
But suddenly, she stopped abruptly. Her eyes began to glow a deep green, as if possessed by another force. Her heart sounded like faint whispers, her movements froze, and she was pulled to another place.
"Prophecy!" Lia shouted, turning to us with an urgent look. "The Delphic spirit is speaking through her!"
"The helm!" Taylor ran to grab the helm, as the wind made it spin wildly and the boat rocked.
Rachel lifted her head, her mouth opening as words emerged in a voice that was not hers. The voice was deep and resonant, like thousands of voices speaking together from an endless abyss:
"Three shall walk the path of shadows,
In their way to gather the seeds of the gods,
When a hidden enemy spreads his wrath,
They shall lead the trial for the brothers of light.
But on the day when the mountaintop cracks,
The primordial shall rise, and eternity shall sink."
Rachel gasped heavily, collapsing to her knees in the boat. She struggled to regain her breath, seeming to return to reality. Her eyes returned to normal, filled with fear and confusion.
"What… what happened?" she whispered, still not fully understanding what she had said. But we understood.
Prophecies always foretell what is to come, and this time it was clear that we were facing a challenge more difficult than we had anticipated.
"What does it mean?" Taylor asked quietly, but none of us had an answer.
What we continued to know was that our path was about to become darker, more dangerous, and it would be very hard to survive.
The boat continued to move forward, but in all our minds, we began to grasp the weight of the fate that had fallen upon us.
This time, the prophecy spoke not only of us but of the entire world. The fate of the demigods and the gods was intertwined in a way that could not be untangled.
We continued to sail forward, as if trying to escape the prophecy, but we knew that there was no escaping a destiny that was hidden from our eyes. What lay ahead was beyond anything we had known so far.