ANTI-HERO, j.grace

ONE

       Before the gods went awol and ceased all connection with their demigod children and all other mythologically related beings, Apollo used to fly across the sky with the rising sun, blaring AC/DC from his chariot at a ridiculous pitch that was only audible to his demigod descendants.

Kieran was a heavy sleeper, he could sleep through any album with a snore, and if for any odd chance he did wake up, he would fall back to sleep before Thunderstruck ended. Klein was a light sleeper, the second the first note of Highway to Hell broke through the air she was awake, and there was rarely the chance she would be able to quell herself back to sleep.

Fifteen years old and Klein Maddox definitely had a personal vendetta against AC/DC.

Even after a couple weeks of literal radio silence, Klein was unable to force herself to sleep through the sunrise.

She didn't even like AC/DC - or being awake.

Unfortunate for the daughter of an AC/DC fan who literally brought on the morning sun.

When the Maddox twins first arrived at Camp Half-Blood, they'd been slapped with the bunk beds smack in the middle of the wall, feeling completely visible to everyone in the entire cabin. They were young, new, and shy, so the placement left them feeling vulnerable. At first, they hung blankets from the ceiling and top bunk so that both of the beds were covered, but that lasted just a few days.

Much like many other children or Apollo, the twins were scared of the dark. The blankets blocked the windows and the door that always seemed to be glowing, and the bedside table with the lamp on it didn't fit under their blanket shield.

As the years passed - seven of them, to be precise - the twins grew to be much more social. Ridiculously social, if you will. The more comfortable the duo grew in the cabin, the blanket shields had dropped. As time passed, they did manage to snag the set of bunk beds in the back corner in the cabin, moving away the best they could from the bright windows and to a Maddox designated spot.

It had been five months since the final battle of the war.

Many of the beds in the Apollo cabin remained empty as they lost the most noticeable amount of campers during the fighting. The warmth had only just started to return to the cabin. It was more silent now, more somber. Empty bunks caught everyone's eye no matter how happy their mood, reminding them of what they had lost just so few months ago.

Kieran's bunk remained empty. His bed was still just as unmade as it was on August eighteenth.

Klein hung the blankets around the bunk once more. One dangling from the ceiling to hide Kieran's bunk, the top bunk that he always insisted he take. "I'm taller, it makes more sense!", he would say. It took just a short week for her to hang the blanket from the top bunk, covering her own.

Her fear of the darkness seemed to pale in comparison to what she'd seen in the light. Besides, she couldn't handle the barren look of the cabin as the surviving demigods hid away as if they were just as dead as the their half-siblings. She couldn't handle the looks they sent her way, the sadness, the sympathy.

So she shut it away.

Klein lay awake in her bed, blanket wrapped snug around her shoulders as she stared up at the bunk atop of hers. There used to be pictures pinned to the wood, but now the only thing you could see was the white folded paper stuffed between the wooden slats and the bed above her. A picture of her and Kieran that she had stuffed away because she just couldn't look at it anymore.

The girl contemplated going to bother Drew. But the sun hadn't risen yet, and the girl knew from experience if that she woke the Tanaka girl up before she had her mandatory hours of sleep, she would charmspeak her to jump into Canoe Lake.