Scattered Dimensions

Chapter 3: Oracle And The Beast

As we walk back to find Chiron, I realise that it's been quite a while since Annabeth and I have walked by the lake in Camp Half-Blood, hands entangled, enjoying the breeze and the view around us. It's been a while since we've enjoyed this calmness around us. I just want to lead a normal life, kind of a regular mortal life with the occasional monster around the corner. I was going to ask Annabeth if she would be interested in living at New Rome by Camp Jupiter, maybe leading a small, regular, and happy life. I guess Annabeth still wants to help out with the development at Camp Half-Blood, building new cabins and what not. Also, Annabeth is still the head architect of Olympus, so there's that too.

Not too long after, we see Chiron galloping towards us.

"Percy, good, you're here," said Chiron.

"Hey Chiron, yeah, I was on my way to talk to you," I replied.

"You need to come with me. The Oracle asked for you, specifically Percy. Annabeth can join us too. I don't think that should be of any trouble," said Chiron.

Chiron was looking slightly restless. His legs were constantly moving around, he didn't look steady, and his face looked a little worried. Also, there's definitely something seriously wrong going on here. The fact that Rachel specifically called me makes me feel a little worried. By the looks of it, Annabeth wasn't very amused by this development either. I feel like a magnet for danger, and every time I ask for a little calm and normalcy in my life, it just feels like I jinx myself into danger.

Suddenly, we see a satyr, running towards us from the woods nearby. Wait, that's Grover. Grover's grown quite a lot. There's a decent beard on his face, and his horns have grown out too. Also, he looks a little taller and maybe a little hairier.

"Hey, Grover!" I exclaimed in excitement. It's been a while since we last met.

"Percy, it's good to see you. Bad timing though," replied Grover as he hugged me and continued, "Chiron, there's an issue. The Oracle is down."

"What do you mean the Oracle is down?" asked Chiron.

"I mean, Rachel is down. Well, she was walking towards the Big House when I noticed her muttering something to herself, and then, all of a sudden, she just collapsed. I ran right after her to find her unconscious on the ground, and I immediately called for the healers from the Apollo cabin and ran here to call you," replied Grover.

"We need to hurry back," replied Chiron, as he started to gallop away.

There's something sinister happening here. There's definitely something weird happening here. What are the chances that the probability of me being called by Rachel for something most likely related to Oracle business and all of a sudden, she just collapses to the ground inexplicably? I'm not sure if I'm excited about the coming days at camp. Anyway, we followed Chiron to meet up with Rachel. I hope she's fine.

As we walk back, I see that there's a gathering by the Apollo cabin. I can see Nico standing outside, peeking into the cabin ever so slightly. I bet he thinks he's being sly. I followed Chiron into the cabin to see Rachel on one of the beds, lying down and still. She looks like she was in a serene, deep sleep, completely oblivious to her surroundings. Alongside her were a few puzzled faces, probably healers of the cabin.

"What's wrong?" Chiron asked the group.

"She appears to be physically fine; there appears to be no external impact on her; it appears that she simply fainted, but she hasn't woken up since," one of the healers near the bed responded.

"What about magic, some kind of curse, or some gimmick?" I ask.

"It doesn't seem like magic, so we had a few of the Hecate cabin members look around and track for any kind of magic. Also, we asked satyrs to track for any kind of mystical energy or attacks from any monster or anything, so far we've gotten nothing," replied another of the healers, tried to feed her some nectar and ambrosia.

"From everything done so far, it really just feels like she fell into a deep sleep. Hence, we also called for a few of the Morpheus cabin members too. "Nathan here, is trying to check and see whether she's asleep and probably try waking her up," replied Will from the sidelines, pointing towards Nathan, who looked comfy and cosy and was deep asleep on one of the bunk beds.

Will shakes Nathan up, trying to wake him up when Nathan slowly opens his eyes as he regains consciousness. Suddenly, he shoots up straight and looks at all of us. He then jumps across the bunk beds and scrambles his way towards Rachel. His eyes are a stinging deep red and there are stains of tears running down his face. He then proceeds to violently shake her in her bed as he shouts, "We need to wake her up right now! Everyone, wake her up! "

We all grab at him and try to calm him down as he starts to cry and collapses onto the floor. People pass around water, nectar, and ambrosia as they feed him some of it and try to help him calm down. Lots of puzzled and worried faces. Even Annabeth looked really worried. Her face was pale and her hands were colder than usual.

Will sits down next to Nathan and asks him what happened as he feeds him some ambrosia.

"As soon as I went into my dreams, I went in search of Rachel's dreams. It was pitch dark, but I managed to walk into what seemed like Rachel's thoughts, but as soon as I entered, I was bombarded by just a huge overload of all kinds of stuff just trying to completely destroy me. Everything looked like it was trying to kill me. The worst part was that I saw Rachel in all that havoc. She stood in the centre of this sort of translucent whirlpool, and she looked like she was asleep. And among all of this, I saw someone standing by her side, caressing her hair," explained Nathan.

"Who was it? Could you identify them? "asked Will.

"No, I couldn't. I tried to move closer to her in there, but a few steps later, I just saw this pitch black thing with fires flying across all around it. It had like these dark black obsidian looking blades for fingers that were wrapped around Rachel's face. I was frozen in place. This thing was beyond any of my existing knowledge. It also didn't look like something that belonged in the dream world. It just mumbled out one sentence," replied Nathan.

"What did it say?" asked Will.

Nathan turned around and stared at me as he spoke out the words, "Go find Percy Jackson."