𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐩

Chapter 1

One - Cyrus
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Collective Hallucination Between Brothers

Look, being a half-blood isn't the easiest thing to do out there.

Heck, it may be the hardest you could ever encouter.

That is the exact reason why Cyrus Grant hated his life. He was a half-blood, and he was constantly in danger.

If you could be reading this, because you possibly think that you are one, don't. Stop reading. Drop your book and, if you can, burn it. You definitely don't want to be a half-blood.

If you are reading this, thinking it's fiction, great, read as much as you like. Your life is envious to the half-blood kind.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of them. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

This is the life of Cyrus Grant.

A normal 12 year old boy. Well, that was until this specific day on Yancy Academy, private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Is Cyrus a troubled kid?

Yeah, you could say that.

You could revisit any point in his short, miserable life to notice that. Though, things started going downhill this one May, when Cyrus's sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan: twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

It does sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, their Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so Cyrus had a small ounce of hope this would do fine.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let the kids play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put Cyrus to sleep.

Cyrus hoped this trip would be okay. At the very least, he wished he wouldn't get in trouble.

The gods weren't too kin on attending his requests.

See, bad things happen to Cyrus and his brother on field trips. Like at fifth-grade school, when they went to the Saratoga battlefield, Cyrus had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. He wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course he got expelled anyway. And before that, at fourth-grade school, when they took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, his brother hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and their class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.

This time, Cyrus was determined he would have a normal field trip. At least once.

All the way into the city, he put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting his and his brother's best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.