We head up the coast in a yellow taxi. That’s right, YELLOW. In Australia the taxis are white, so this is kind of weird, but still cool. It smells a bit stuffy in the taxi, but I couldn’t care less.
I look out the window and watch as we zoom past towns and forests. After a while we slow down and the I look over at my mum who grins at me.
“You sure you want to stop here?” The taxi driver asks, looking at us curiously.
“Yes thanks, well just get our stuff out of the back and then I’ll pay you” My mum replies sweetly.
I get my small bags out from the back of the car and then wait with mum’s bag as she pays the man. The taxi zooms off into the distance and I sigh, turn to my mother and then walk after her.
We are on a dead-end road with only one drive-way on it. It’s some sort of ranch by the looks. We head up the drive-way and when we come to the fence I stare down the hill with wide eyes.
Below us is a massive camp of some sort. A massive rectangle of cabins sits in the distance and then fields of strawberries, a giant (volcanic) rock-climbing wall, kids running all over the place, archery, a stadium, some sort of race-track, beach in the distance, a lake with canoes and a large forest. At the top of the hill is a large house with a small porch.
My mum nods her head in the general direction of the house and we quickly walk over to it.
As we get closer I make out a strange guy in a pine-apple shirt and an old man in a wheelchair talking at a table on the porch. As we get closer they look up and the guy wearing the pine-apple shirt rolls his eyes at me. I look over at mum, but she just grins at me.
“Astrid” the man says, nodding his head at me as we walk onto the porch, leaving our bags on the grass.
“How do y-”
“Astrid, my name is Chiron and this is Dionysus” The old man says, gesturing to himself and the other man.
I nod slowly and Chiron gestures to the two spare seats across from them.
“Well,” Dionysus begins “Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, hope you don’t die too soon, blah-blah-blah, I need to be other places” He snapped his fingers and a glass of wine appeared in his hands but Chiron gave him a look. He set the glass down in front of my mother and then snapped his fingers again, this time a can of coke appeared and he walked off, sipping it as he went.
“Well, he really is as delightful as I remember, isn’t he?” My mother says, talking to Chiron.
Chiron chuckles at my mother and then clears his throat.
“Well, I must say he hasn’t gotten any worse, but there are other matters we need to discuss at this point. Astrid, you’re going to have to stay here over the summer, possibly longer depending, so that you can train in the unlikely case that a monster will find you when you are out in the human world, we have already prepared Poseidon’s cabin for you and your mother will be able to stay here for one evening before she will have to be on her way, the other campers do not know of you yet, but they should be fine with you being here”
I nod slowly and my mother grins at me.
“So, a tour?” Mum asks Chiron, who nods at her and we all get up from the table and start walking down the hill, towards the strawberries. “So, what sort of training will we start with tomorrow?” I ask.
“You?” Chiron says, looking over at me from where he sits in his chair “As a daughter of Poseidon you’re going to start with sword fighting, manipulating water for your benefit, basic stuff”
“What about archery?” I ask, I had always wanted to be an archer.
“I’m very sorry Astrid, but children of Poseidon are not really... ah, proficient in archery”
“Oh…” I look over longingly at the archery area and Chiron looks at my mother, who just shrugs at him.
“If you truly want to have a go at archery you may, but I warn you, we have never had a child of Poseidon who is any good at it” I look over at him and my grid broadens.
“Thank you Chiron, I promise I won’t let you down”

---

“Hey there, you’re Astrid, right?” A boy with dark brown hair and green-brown eyes and a grin on his face is walking over to me, I’m assuming he’s the one who was talking to me.
“Um… yes?” He grabs the bag that’s sitting next to me and walks me over to a light blue cabin. A salt-water fountain sits out the front of it. On either side are two cabins that look just as decked out as the blue one. On the right is one that looks like it’s made of obsidian with a skull over the doorway and green flames flickering inside the windows. On the other side is a blue cabin with an eagle on the roof. It looks like it’s made of marble, with golden pillars. The one in front of me was similar, but resembled something more-like the sea. It had seashells dotted here and there, with the fountain sitting out the front, spraying a fine mist of salt-water over the area. A sea-breeze drifted through the area and I could almost hear the waves crashing in the distance.
I walk up to the small front porch and step inside. The main theme is blue and I can still feel the sea-breeze and hear the crash of waves, but in this room it is more…powerful. There is some sort of horn on the wall, slightly off-kilter, and a small fountain, spreading more sea-mist throughout the room. Sea-shells are scattered through-out the room and a small bath-room sits in the back of the cabin.
One of the beds has a few items next-to and near it so I decide against using that bed. I walk over to a dark-blue one in the middle of the cabin, next to a window. I quickly place my stuff in drawers located under the bed and then walk back out.
“Ah, okay, do you want me to show you the other cabins?” The boy asked.
“Yeah, sure, what did you say your name was?”
“James” he says, walking over to the right of the cabin.
“So, how many kids live here?” I ask casually.
“About.. I don’t actually know these days to tell you the truth, it’s hard to keep track with all the new kids we got recently, this is Zeus’ cabin, that’s Hera’s, but it’s only honorary, that’s Dionysus’, Athena’s, Ares’, Hermes’, Hephaestus’, Apollo’s’, Aphrodite’s, you get the idea, right?”
“Yeah, I guess”
“The other end is for the minor-gods, they’re pretty new cabins still”
I nod slowly and he tells me what the rest of the cabins are.
“So, whose son are you?” I ask, curios now.
“I don’t know” I stare at him curiously.
“But, Chiron was explaining to me what happened with the Titans, how long have you been here?”
“I’ve been here since I was a lot younger” He pulls out a beaded necklace with numerous beads on it. I count them quickly, eight beads, this guy has been here for ages, and he doesn’t even look that much older than me…
“How old are you?”
“Fourteen” he says, hanging his head.
“You’ve been here since you where six?”
“Yeah, I had a rough upbringing”
We go into an awkward silence.
“So which cabin do you stay in?”
“Hermes”
I nod slowly.
“Do you want to go to the weapon shed?”
“Weapon shed?”
“Yeah, every demi-god, even semi-demi-god,” I laugh and he sticks his tongue out at me “has to pick their own weapon so that they can, you know, defend themselves”
“Okay, I’m following you”
We quickly make our way past the rock-climbing wall and the basketball court where I stop for a second and stare at the kids playing before James drags me on and then we make our way over to a large shed.
The door opens and I gape at the amount of weapons sitting around the toolshed. The main colour-theme is bronze and the light reflects into my eyes from around the room. Guns, axes, shields, bows, swords, knives, you name it, it’s in the shed.
James hands me a short-sword and I immediately shake my head and hand it back to him. He places it back in its hook. He hands me a small knife with a leather grip and I hand it back to him again.
We slowly go through many different types of weapons. At around seven weapons he hands me a slim right-handed bow. I grin at him and he raises an eyebrow curiously but just rolls his eyes.
I throw it from hand to hand and nod slowly at him. He hands me an arrow and we walk outside. I quickly put it in and pull the string back next to my ear. I take in a quick breath, and then hold it. After a second I let go and the arrow goes flying, straight for the tree I was aiming for.
“Holy Hera” James says, gaping at me.
I grin at him and he cracks up laughing. The Apollo kids look over from their basket-ball game and then look at the tree.
“Nice shot” A girl says. I look over at her and she nods her head at me. They go back to their game.
I quickly retrieve the arrow and then we go back to the shed to find my hand-to-hand weapon and get the full quiver of arrows.
I eventually choose a short, thin, blade that almost looks like a knife, but not quite. James gives me a belt with a holder for it and I put it in the belt and then rest the quiver of arrows over my shoulder. He grins at me and then gestures to the door.
“You know, considering you’re a semi-demi-daughter of Poseidon you seem pretty powerful” He says casually as we walk back to my cabin.
“What are you talking about, I’m not even a full half-blood, you’re probably ten times more powerful than I am, and just because I can shoot an arrow at a tree doesn’t mean I’m anything special, it just means my eye-sight isn’t as bad as I thought it was” As I say this I re-adjust my glasses on my face.
He looks over at me and rolls his eyes, he does that a lot. A horn sounds in the distance and he grimaces.
“We need to hurry up, it’s dinner time” I look over at the big hall that Chiron said was the dining hall earlier, and realize that it’s actually quite late, weird.
We quickly make our way back to my cabin, picking up the pace. I hand the bow and quiver on a hook over the top of my bed and then walk outside the cabin.
A scream rings through the air and then I stumble. James runs over to me and asks me something, but I can’t hear him. My vision goes dark and I black out.