Resurrected

Tommy's POV

You know what they say: Good times never last. If they don’t say that, I’m saying it now, because honestly, I don’t think I have ever found a group of people with worse luck than Camp Half-Blood. The worst part was, it didn’t even take that long.

How long? Five weeks. It took five weeks for things to go from absolute bliss to complete Minotaur dung. Everyone was happy. Charlie and Silena were expecting, Ethan and I were happy, Annabeth and I had settled our differences, same as Percy and Ethan. We were…peaceful. But we should have known how rare of a commodity peace is in our world.

It all happened on a Saturday, to add insult to injury. Ethan, Charlie, Silena, Annabeth, Percy, Clarisse and I were relaxing on the porch of the Big House, enjoying life. Alex was dead tired from a sword-fighting lesson with Percy the previous evening, so she was still sound asleep in the Hebe cabin. Besides, I always felt a little guilty whenever she saw Ethan and I holding hands, which incidentally, we were doing right then.

Suddenly, two second-year campers came stumbling slowly up the hill, looking like they had just lost a fight. Both their noses were broken, and they both had lots of cuts on their faces. One of them, a girl I vaguely recognized, had a massive, bloody sword gash running from her right ear to her chin. But that wasn’t the worst part. The same girl had a javelin still sticking out of her, the shaft broken off in her stomach, the bronze tip tinged red as it protruded from her back.

“Oh my gods! Medic! Apollo Cabin!” shouted Annabeth as she saw the campers, “Oh no, Julie!”

She ran over to the girl, who was grimacing as she tried to fight off death. The other one, a girl from Tyche’s Cabin, set her down. She wasn’t as damaged as the other.

“What in Hades happened?” I asked her, but she was numb, staring into the ground as she sat. That’s when we saw them. Two men, in full black body armor and carrying long, curved swords that were sprinting out of the Nike cabin.

Oh no, I thought, Oh, Gods are they okay?

I started to run towards the men, but the Tyche girl was quicker. She drew a sword seemingly from nowhere and took off like a bullet towards the men, screaming,

“I’m going to kill you for what you’ve done! I swear to ALL THE GODS!”

But it was obvious she wasn’t a swordsman. She tried to step inside the first warrior’s guard, but slipped, and that’s when the second warrior slashed his blade across her back, causing fresh blood to spill as the girl screamed in pain.

I felt a rage come alive inside of me that I hadn’t felt in the four months since the Kronos Incident, and I let my instincts take over. I sprinted towards the warriors, slid on an ice patch to avoid their synchronized strikes, and picked up the fallen girl’s sword while protecting her as she lay.

The warriors quickly whipped around and charged again. The first one was obviously the mentee, not the mentor, because he made a wide slash, which I easily dodged. When he sliced back the other way to try to hit me, I ducked under his blade and sliced up from his abs to his face, killing him instantly. He dropped onto the thin layer of snow on the ground, quickly turning it dark, dark red. I noticed that he fell to the ground with a lot more force than a dead teenager.

Oh, Gods, I thought, I just killed a grown man!

But the second one, the mentor, didn’t seem to care. He advanced towards me slowly, making me back up to defend the fallen Tyche girl. When I was about to step on her as I walked backwards, he struck. And boy, was he good.

This was by far the most skilled fighter I had ever gone up against. Yet, his style seemed familiar. Then, with a cold sense of dread, I realized that it was familiar because I had been taught it. It was the fighting style of the Titan Kronos.

We slashed and hacked at each other for a solid 90 seconds, but then the warrior realized that he was being surrounded. So, he took a step back from me, shouted an incantation in Ancient Greek, and slashed the air. A portal like some kind of dark teleportation window opened up with a rip! and he stepped through, dropping a piece of cloth on the way out.

I picked it up and realized it was a note. Then, weirdly, I realized it said “For Ethan Nakamura” on it. I turned to grab the Tyche girl, but when I felt for a pulse, I got nothing. I said a prayer to Hades, and closed the girl’s eyes. Then, as custom, I fished out a golden drachma. I cleaned it off with some fresh snow, trying to ignore the red tinge that the snow around her body had acquired. I slipped the coin into her pocket, and said another prayer to Charon, the ferryman, as a final blessing.

Just then, I heard two sets of footsteps sprinting on the now cold December soil.

The wounded girl, I thought.

I sprinted back to check on her, and saw that her cheeks were flushed from the cold, and her skin was pale and frigid because she was still in pajamas and a Camp T-shirt. The two girls had been ambushed. Ambushed while taking their naps. I realized again that I needed to check on my own cabin, but I didn’t have time now.

The girl, Julie, was someone I recognized from the Nike cabin. She was my half-sister! It took so long for me to recognize her because she was so beat up, and right then, my stomach turned to ice and I felt like throwing up. But I took a deep breath and ran to her. That’s when the medics got there.

“BACK UP!” the first one shouted, and we complied quickly. Both of them got Julie comfortable on her side, and then the first one, who I realized with a start was Will Solace, said softly,

“I need you to breathe in, okay? Three…two…one…breathe!”

As he was talking, the second medic gripped the broken javelin segment firmly, and when Will gave the command, the medic tensed. Julie took a ragged breath as Will held her steady and looked into her eyes. Then, the second medic pulled the spear out with strength, but his hand didn’t jump an inch. A perfect removal.

“Tommy,” said Will sharply, startling me, “stay with her, I need to get some supplies out.”

Like a muscle contracting, I knelt down beside Julie, pushing the hair out of her face and smiling at her. She tried to smile back, but then she grimaced and coughed up blood, like the act of smiling hurt her. Then, I saw some more blood trickle out of the gash on her face. Her deep blue eyes seemed defeated, turning grey with death.

Desperately trying to keep her awake, I said, “C’mon Julie, fight! You have to stay awake now, c’mon.”

I could feel my voice shake with fear and my lips trembling. Will was sweating and looking grim, trying hard to seal up the gaping wound through her chest. But I knew it was too much. Even though I would have done anything I could have to save her, I knew she was fading fast.
She must have known it too, because she grabbed my hand feebly and put it to the cut on her face, like she wanted me to do something about it.

“Beautiful…for once. Please,” She murmured, just loud enough for everyone to hear. I was shell-shocked. Those words cut me like a knife and I couldn’t hold it. A silent tear fell from my eyes, and the only person who realized I had lost my grip on Julie’s hand was Ethan.

So he grabbed a block of ambrosia and about an ounce of nectar and started rubbing them together on a piece of gauze wrap. He then started to apply the mixture to the gash on her chin. The deep cut started to seal itself instantly, and after a minute or so, it was just a pale scar.

“All gone,” Ethan murmured to her, smiling with his one brown eye and his faded eyepatch, “you look beautiful, Julie.”

She smiled genuinely, feeling her cheek reverently. Then, Will and the other medic started chanting, and I could literally see the color coming back into her face. She took a deep breath in, and coughed out blood. But then, she gasped for air and started breathing normally again.
I collapsed onto the ground in relief, and then stood up just as quickly, sprinting towards my own cabin.

Gods, I thought, If these adrenaline spikes don’t give me a heart attack, I’m Superman.

But when I got to the Cabin, my breathing had slowed to normal, and I was relieved to find my three other half-brothers and four half-sisters were not dead. They all had battle cuts and bruises, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed. The Tyche girl was the only one who had died.

Don’t think that way! I scolded myself, She DIED!

Hating myself for being so positive in light of what had just happened, I walked back to the Tyche girl, picking her up out of her own blood and carrying her. I didn’t know where I was carrying her, but as I cradled her lifeless body in my arms, I didn’t care where I was taking her. I just felt like I needed to be the one carrying her.

That’s when I saw the Tyche campers. Two girls and a boy walked out, looking desperately around, searching. Searching for the dead girl. Then they saw her, saw me, and they all started crying. Not silent tears, no. Full on wails of despair. They ran to me and helped set the girl down. They all started murmuring sobs of prayer towards her and the Gods, and I decided to leave them be.

The rage I had felt while fighting came back, but this time, I was in full control. I looked at Ethan, who had come to see what had happened, and I handed him the note, not saying a word. As he read it, he scowled. Then, as he read the author’s signature, he paled with fear.

“It’s Cato,” He said, the name bringing back horrible memories, “he’s got Alex.”

Notes

So, yeah. Schist just got real....AGAIN. Alex is captured? WUT? And who's this guy Cato, and why does everyone fear him? Why am I asking so many questions if I'm the author? IDK BRUH. XD

As always, Enjoy,
Grafon