Disclaimer: You know Rick wrote it? Then I don’t own it, and if you can’t work that out you must be pretty silly!

---

A new breed of the Olympian children will arise
And all the others shall despise
Two will be lost and three shall remain
Those two will never be seen again “Chiron!” I hear someone yell out.
I try to open my eyes but they are sealed shut, impossible for me to open. I listen to whoever it is shouting.
“SOMEBODY GET CHIRON!” The voice says again, it’s James.
I realize a second later that I’m being carried, probably by him.
“Is she okay, what happened?” I hear another voice ask.
“I have no idea, somebody or something screamed out and she just collapsed” James shifts my weight and the mysterious person carries me now. They start walking and then I hear… hooves.
“What happened?” I hear Chiron ask, he must be riding the horse.
“She just collapsed after that scream a minute ago” The mysterious voice states. I’m shifted onto the horses back and then the mysterious person gets on behind me and holds me in place.
We gallop up the hill and I nearly fall off at one point, but we soon get to our destination.
“Take her inside and put her on the couch, I’ll go get her mother” Chiron says again. I’m carried inside and laid down on the couch. I try to open my eyes, with more progress this time, and after a small mind-over-matter struggle they flutter open.
I’m not actually lying on a couch. I’m in a room that looks suspiciously like an infirmary…
I try to move from my current position and after a second I sit up. A girl with fiery-red hair walks in and shakes her head when she sees me, but comes over anyway.
“You all right? You collapsed back there” She asks, I nod slowly.
I get up from the couch and feel dizzy for a second but it passes slowly.
“Can I go, I’m not feeling sick or anything, really, I’m fine” She eyes me warily but nods.
“Just explain to Chiron what happened, we don’t want you doing it again” I nod and walk over to the door.
“Wait, which way is out?” I ask
“The other door” she laughs at me, pointing over to the other side of the room.
I quickly walk over and through another room and find myself at the back of the house on the porch. I walk around and see my mother frantically running towards the house from down the hill.
She spots me and immediately slows her pace.
“What happened?” She asks, embracing me with a slight tone of concern.
“Nothing, I just blacked out for a second, I guess I’m just really overwhelmed and all, the past few days have been positively exhausting” As I say this some sort of horn goes off in the distance.
“Ah, it’s dinner time, you can explain later but I don’t want you being overwhelmed for the whole summer and blacking out on the climbing wall or something”
“Mum, I think we both know that isn’t going to happen, I am really tire though, and my sleep pattern has been totally destroyed, I know it is sort of my fault for watching movies until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer but flying stuffs up your sense of time anyway” I punch her lightly in the shoulder and we continue on with a light bicker.
We come into the dining hall and I am immediately amazed by the amount of kids at the camp. Several tables are chocker-block but there are also three or four tables that have one kid, or none at all.
My mum walks me over to one of these empty tables which I’m assuming is Poseidon’s table. I quickly fill up my plate but before I start I notice all of the other kids are walking over to the bonfire in the center of the room and putting some of their food in it.
“Do I go…” I motion over to the bonfire. My mum nods and gets up with me.
She puts some barbeque meat in the fire and I hear her say softly “For Poseidon”
I walk up to the fire and put in a bit of everything on my plate, variety is always healthy.
“For Poseidon” I say quietly. I am immediately hit with the smell of the ocean and I can hear waves crashing in the distance… I hope that’s normal.
I walk back over to the table and dig in. Mum and I stay mostly quiet for the meal but that’s how it normally is, we both like our quiet, though that isn’t really possible with all the other campers we still enjoy our quiet corner of the room.
A few kids look over at me and I see them whispering to their other… siblings? I guess that’s the proper term, but they do look over at me funny, and I doubt it’s my mum their talking about.
After dinner I head back to the cabin with mum and I immediately notice she has already chosen a bed.
“Hey mum, what’s your weapon? Like, I’ve never seen you walking around with anything dangerous looking or anything. She smiles at me and takes her hair-clasp out.
She pushes down on the large gem in the center, grasping the side of it like a hilt. A thin blade comes out of the other side of it and I gasp and say something along the lines of ‘oh my god’.
“I was going out with one the Hephaestus boys for a while and he made me this because he knew at some point I would have to go back home, he asked me to wear it every day in memory of him and so I do, I haven’t seen him since them but he sends me an email from time to time” I smile at me mum.
“Can I get something like that? Like, make it so that my knife-blade looks like… I dunno, something normal?” She nods at me.
“Of course, now, I’m going to bed but you should go off to the bonfire and make some friends” She says, walking me over to the door. I roll my eyes at her but walk out anyway. I follow a steady stream of kids away from the cabins and soon come to a large amphitheater-like place with a massive bonfire in the middle. It seems to be a yellow-orange, not like a normal fire at all.
“The colour reflects off the mood of the campers,” I look over to my right and see James “You can come and sit with me if you want, Hermes doesn’t mind other campers sitting with his cabin” I walk over with him to a large bunch of kids who seem absolutely hyper.
I sit down next to James and look over the large groups of campers. I immediately spot the red-haired girl from earlier.
“Who’s that?” I ask, pointing over to her.
“I dunno, I’ve never actually met her before but I’ve seen her around camp” He says, squinting at her.
“Question, do all campers have bad eyesight or is that just me?”
“Nah, all of our brains are hard-wired for Greek so a lot of us are diagnosed with Dyslexia at a young age, a lot of kids are also diagnosed with ADHD because as you can see,” he says, gesturing to the Hermes cabin “We can be pretty hyperactive, but most of the time that’s because it’s our battle skills kicking in, though I can’t really say that for some of the kids here”
I look over at some of the cabins and find at least two of the cabins that stand out for the fact they aren’t practically bouncing. One of them is a group of kids that all seem to be dressed up like it’s prom or something. The girls are all wearing make-up and the guys all look like they’ve just walked out of a magazine or something. The other cabin seems to be…. Sleeping.
After another few minutes the songs start. I don’t know any of them, as they are completely different to your average campfire songs but I catch on pretty easily.
Songs of battles, putting on your armor, killing monsters, your grandmother is (a titan, god), etc. The songs are all totally hilarious and as the night wears on I find myself just as hyper as the other kids. The bonfire gradually turns a brilliant golden colour and after that it just keeps on getting taller.
By the time it seem to be the height of a two-story building the songs end and Chiron walks over to the edge of the bonfire.
“Well, I welcome you all back to camp for a summer full of quests and other adventures. We are re-instating the rule that you have to visit the oracle before a quest until said otherwise and if you don’t already know, Rachel’s cave is located towards the back of the forest. I would also like to welcome three new campers, Astrid, Elaine and Daniel. Please help them out if you see that they need help and make sure they are feeling at home in their new cabins. I would also like to announce that Percy and Annabeth won’t be returning for some time. They are having some… ah… complications with their mission and it will be extended a fair bit longer than they thought, I would also like to ask that you all leave Nico alone unless if he speaks to you directly, please make your way back to your cabins soon” He says and gallops off.
It is pretty much silent until someone shouts out “Where’s Nico?!” Everyone looks over and I hear James whisper “That’s Clarisse”
After another second or so of silence and the flames go a light shade of green. One of the girls from the… Apollo cabin gets up and walks off, her cabin soon follows. Everyone starts to clear out and I get a bad feeling.
“I’m assuming what Chiron said is not good in the slightest?” James nods slowly, he appears to be contemplating something of utter importance.
“We should go” He says, standing up suddenly. I get up and follow him back to the cabins.
“See you tomorrow” I say quietly.
He nods stiffly and races back over to his cabin. I sigh and walk back over to mine.
I quickly brush my teeth and get changed then slip into bed.
I lie in bed and think about what Chiron said earlier. After about an hour I finally fall asleep.