Percy's POV
I regained hearing long enough to hear her exclaim, "Percy!" Then the world dissolved into unending darkness.

The darkness lifted some unknown amount of hours later, though darkness still reigned outside. I could tell from the moonlight pouring through the window that I was stuck, once again, in the infirmary. How long I had been there was unknown to me. All I could tell was that I was alone
.
A part of me was relieved. No one was risking their health to stay up and keep watch over me. Did that mean I had been out for a while? At the same time, I was kind of disappointed by the lack of human life around my bed. Surely Annabeth had stayed with me when I first got here, right? She wasn't injured too, was she? In the bed, I gasped out loud. She... She couldn't be dead, could she?

I had to find out. Struggling from the cot, I untangled my legs from the sheets. In my panicked mind, I didn't even pause to consider the fact that I wasn't in pain. My brain didn't register the ease with which my back muscles moved.

I hurried through camp. Thankfully, I was wearing a pair of pants while I woke up, so there was no need to worry about scarring any younger campers. I didn't need to constantly hide behind trees or anything, because I didn't see another living soul in the entire camp. That in itself was a bizarre occurrence, for there were always senior campers that tried to sneak out of their cabins at night. Was it actually much later at night than I thought it was?

I ran along though, not stopping to consider these thoughts for more than a second. I found myself outside my cabin in record time, not even out of breath from the mad sprint through camp. A voice in the back of my head told me to report that to Will or an Apollo cabin camper when everyone woke up; it was unheard of for injured campers to suddenly jump up and run through camp without some sort of physical strain.

From the front porch of the Poseidon cabin, I could easily see through the open window of the Athena cabin several cabins away. I didn't even have to squint to see a bunch of blonde teenagers sleeping in their bunks. I could even see the designs on the front door of the Hades cabin (black skulls with ghoulish faces carved around them) grinning at me from behind the standard U-shape of the original twelve cabins.

I didn't think to wonder at any of this. Call me a Seaweed Brain, but I was more worried about Annabeth's well-being than my newfound abilities.

Cautiously, I crept up to the Athena cabin, taking care not to step on a twig and wake everyone up. That would be just my luck. However, I made it to the windowsill of the cabin and peeked through. (I felt like a creeper doing it, but my mind wouldn't let me rest until I could be positive that they weren't waiting to burn my girlfriend's shroud. This was a small price to pay for my complete peace of mind.)

There she was, laying in her bunk. Her golden hair, like rays of sun that had found their way to Earth, spilled around her head and across her white pillow case. Her gray eyes were closed, but I knew that come the morning, she would be staring through them with an intensity that would frighten all the new campers. I could see her chest rising and falling with every gentle breath. She looked like a princess. Gods, if only I could express how much I loved her.

I snuck away from the cabin silently, but found that I wasn't tired. My bare feet carried my body around the desolate camp until I ended up in the woods. I ambled along, eventually reaching the creek where so many Capture the Flag games took place. Recalling some of the better memories from those activities, I sat down at the river's bank and stared into the silvery waters that reflected the moon above.

I spent at least another hour there, listening to the water trickle through rocks and tumble along into the night. As the sun's light began to color the sky the faintest of pinks, I stretched and rose. While stretching, I caught a glimpse of my naked back in the reflective waters.

A huge silvery scar stretched from one of my shoulder blades to the small of my back. It started as a pair of teeth up near my shoulder blade, then morphed into a set of claw marks that carved shallow trenches through my skin.

After viewing that, I hurried back to the infirmary and laid down. If no one knew about this yet, I didn't want to broadcast it to the entire camp. No need to terrify everyone prematurely. Maybe this scar would amount to nothing more than any of the other countless scars I've gotten from monster fights and battles.

Yeah, right. Knowing me, it would turn into a life threatening parasite that would try to kill me at any possible chance it got. Or my friends and family. Or both.

I woke up that morning once the conch horn rang, without even realizing I had fallen back asleep in my infirmary cot. Will was standing in the corner of the infirmary, seemingly talking to the shadows.

"So you agree then?" Will asked the corner. He paused, as if listening to an answer. "Right. That's what I'm saying!" He hesitated. "Ok, I'll IM you if his current state changes." He listened once more, a smile lighting up his face. "Ah, love you too!" The shadows stopped talking to him as Will spun around to continue working. That's when he finally noticed I was awake.

"Percy!" He rushed over to my bedside, grabbing a glass of nectar off the counter across the room from me. "How're you feeling?"

"Fine," I answered simply, taking the glass of nectar from his outstretched hands and sipping it.
The son of Apollo laughed. "Just because you're the Hero of Olympus, Percy, doesn't mean you have to suck it up and act like you're okay! You were just attacked by werewolves the other day! And from what I saw, it was a serious injury. I bet it hurts like hell right now, man."

I shrugged, setting the glass down on the small table next to my cot. I didn't want to survive all this just to burn into ashes due to too much nectar. "Actually, I really feel fine, Will! I don't feel anything!"

Those were the wrong words to say apparently, because Will turned pale. He hurriedly ordered me to turn onto my stomach so he could examine my mauled back. I did so, though obviously not as urgently as he wanted me to, because Will was standing over me wringing his hands.

"Oh Gods, I hope I'm wrong," he kept muttering under his breath. If I wasn't already freaked out, then that would've definitely unnerved me.

I flipped onto my stomach, waiting for Will to pronounce me a dead man and confirm my fears of it turning into a fatal, homicidal parasite. Instead, all I got was silence. That terrified me more than anything.

"... Will?"

His voice answered me with a tone of awe and shock. "You... You actually do look fine! This is impossible," he whispered, gently prodding the scarred flesh. "You should still be recovering, but it appears that you've fully healed yourself in the span of a few days. This would normally take weeks to heal from!"

"So... can I leave and go get breakfast with everyone else?" I asked, hoping against hope that he'd say yes.

To my surprise, he granted my request. "Just make sure to come back so I can run some tests on you!" He called as I threw on a t-shirt and sprinted from the infirmary.

All eyes were on me when I strode into the pavilion. I stood there, everyone staring at me, for a moment, debating over whether or not I should say something. The dead silence was beginning to unnerve me. It's not natural for a crowd of ADHD teenagers to be this quiet.

"Uh, hey guys," I said, giving a small awkward wave. The silence prevailed, interrupted only when a camper towards the back gave a muffled cough.

At the Athena table, my favorite demigod stood up and hurried towards me. "Percy," Annabeth said when she reached me, "what are you doing out of the infirmary?"

"Oh, I was just coming to get some breakfast. I was hungry. You know, getting attacked by monsters always manages to do that to me."

Annabeth rolled her eyes at my obliviousness. "No, why would you leave when you had just been severely injured two days ago?"

"I was out for two days?" I shook my head. "Never mind. And I didn't just leave the infirmary. Will told me I could go."

Annabeth frowned. "Why would he do that?"

I shrugged. "He said I was healed, but he wants to do some tests on me later. Can we sit down? Everyone's staring is kind of freaking me out."

We walked together to my table, and Annabeth sat down across from me. I saw Chiron raise an eyebrow at us from the other side of the room, but he didn't say anything. Annabeth kept asking me questions. "What do you mean, healed? Those were serious wounds you got! I was terrified that it might've been able to cut deep enough to puncture something! They couldn't have healed that quickly!"

I started eating the eggs and bacon that appeared in front of me while Annabeth was talking.
When she finished for the moment, I swallowed and began to address her questions. "I'll show you after breakfast, if you want. And you can come with me when Will does the tests."

Annabeth nodded, her golden curls bouncing. "All right."

"Meet me in my cabin after breakfast, okay?"

She showed her approval by placing a kiss on my cheek. "See you then."

I spent the rest of the breakfast time stuffing my face with bacon and sausages and contemplating the meaning behind the new abilities I finally had time to comprehend from the night before. What did it all mean? Hopefully Annabeth would know.

Notes

Chapter two has been posted! Again, the link for my story on fanfiction.net is right here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12462425/1/Silent-Running
Thank you!