The Orientation Film

Chapter One: Where do we begin?

Thalia's POV

  "What's all of this?" Thalia asked as she walked into the interview room. It had to be the most clearly unfunded summer camp set up she'd ever seen. An old white, well white-ish, bedsheet was hung from a back wall, with an old rusty tripod and this small, kind of pathetic blue canon camera. The kind you find cleaning our your grandmothers basement containing the most embarrassing baby photos of you half naked in a bathtub. Books stacked to concerningly high heights holding up some old and half broken Target desk lamp, surrounding a old wooden chair.
  "Oh, you're early." Kayla whipped her out from behind a random wall.
  "Yeah, sorry about that. I've been here helping put camp back together, so I thought I'd get this," she scanned the room one more time, "meeting, over with."
  "Yeah about that-" Kayla began, before being cut off by a voice behind her.
  "Glad you could make it." She jumped, turning around ready to have some choice words with the new voice behind her, only to find a a camper she hadn't really talked to before, Will Solace, and the face to the voice, Percy Jackson. They exchanged polite smiles, before the campers walked past her, Percy giving a little snicker.
  "What's so funny Jackson?" Thalia followed them from the entry way.
  "Nothing." He raised his hands in the air, playing dumb.
  "Ignore him," Kayla rolled her eyes, pushing past him, reaching out her hand with a twinkel in her eye,
  "Kayla Knowles, cabin seven, nice to meet you." She smiled with the freckles on her face, framed by a wispy ginger bob with ends of parakeet.
  "Thalia Grace, nice meeting you too. Not trying to be rude, but what is this?" She raised an eyebrow, raising a finger to the dingey tripod.
  "Don't touch the tripod!" Everyone yelled in unison.
  "Sorry," the unfamiliar camper rose from the sighs of relief, "as you can see it's not exactly sturdy."
  "Uh yeah, I get it," her words trailed off, trying to put a name to his face. She knew she had seen him around before, his skin was dark and his eyes were the color of chocolate. Although he towered over her, she could still tell he was only about fourteen.
  "Austin, Austin Lake, nice to finally meet you." He smiled.
  "Austin, right, nice meeting you too. So why am I here?"
  "We want to know how you got to camp." Kayla stepped up next to Austin, who was rambling on, as he began to guide Thalia to the singular chair in the middle of the room. "Why you didn't make it back, monsters you faced, etc." He smiled, the same sickenly charming smile every Apollo camper had.
  "For what?"
  "The new orientation film." Austin turned on the camera.
  "But no one watches the orientation film."
  "Exactly, that's why we are making a new, more relatable, not outdated, and actually interesting orientation film." Kayla smiled as the old chair sueaked at Thalia's weight.
  "So what do I say?"
  "Start by stating your name, age, and cabin, or you can just say the hunt, whatever floats you boat. Then just start from the beginning of your little journey." Kayla gave her the thumbs up as the red light started blinking.
  "Action." Austin cheered.

Annabeth's POV

"What's this about again?" Annabeth asked, shielding her eyes from the blinding lighting of the so-called camera crew. At least that's what Kayla and Austin called themselves.
  "We skipped our Greek lessons so Mr. D is making us create a new orientation film," Kayla said, fixing the crumby tripod and holding up a very beat-up a blue digital camera.
  "Okay," Her eyes darted to Will Solace and Percy Jackson, who somehow found themselves helping the other two, "what do I say?"
  "Well, we want to make this orientation film different than the old ones, interesting and maybe even relatable. So, we are asking you, Thalia, and Grover to tell us the story of how you guys made it to camp. Talk about the monsters you saw, fought, the people you met, and what happened leading up to why some of you didn't come back alive. So that the new kids can find comfort in seeing what just happened to them also happened to you. Got it?" Austin walked in, notepad and pen in hand, sitting across from her in the same orange Camp Halfblood shirt as everyone else in the room.
  "I guess-" She mumbled through the idea of opening up about the traumatizing events on camera for the entirety of camp to see, things she hadn't really opened up to anyone, even Percy, about.
  "Good. Now start by saying your name, age, and cabin number. After that just start where it all began, any background information you think would be helpful." Kayla shuffled through the pile of bent wires tangled into a ball on the floor.
  "Don't feel pressured to share everything though, we want this to be comfortable." Will rose from the corner where he sat with a careful eye as he observed the campers, looking sternly at Kayla as he over enuciated 'comfortable'.
  Since Micheal Yew died, Will had taken over as head councelour of the Apollo Cabin. Annabeth never really knew Will that well beforehand, he had always just been friendly, a bit quiet, but from what she saw, nothing more. Although she felt for him, having everything, responsibilities and trauma dumped on you and being told to deal with it, but it seemed no one else at camp really noticed it. Everyone talked about her and Grover and Percy as the big war heroes, and as much as she finally got what she wanted, a small part of her wanted to go back to before. Not the before that was suddenly thre big interest, the after of that before. The part where her, Luke, and Grover were together, although to contradict that she couldn't help but remember the pain of losing Thalia at such young age, or changing anything that would mean her and Percy would never meet. The ways of the fates seemed to be against her and her wishes of returning to the family she once belonged to.
  "Of course," Annabeth smiled, "where do we begin?"

Grover's POV

  "I have to sit in front of a camera?" He asked, walking toward an old little shed, unable to remember the last time someone used it. As he walked with a slightly on edge Percy, he watched as campers from every cabin, even the Aphrodite Cabin, hammering at wooden boards, fixing damage from the Battle of Manhatten. Cabins, new and old, were being built or renovated to match the growing number of campers.
  "Good luck, Grove." Thalia laughed under smudged eye liner.
  "Wow, hold on, what, was she crying?" He turned around into Percy's arm, stopping him from bolting.
  "Earlier, yeah." Percy sighed.
  "What?!"
  "Look, Grover, it's not an electric chair, its just emotional." He smiled gently.
  "If you made Thalia emotional, whatever is in that shed is pretty much the electric chair." Grover protested as the shed got closer.
  "Or bringing up her past." He hinted.
  "Oh," Grover paused as they made it to the shed, "is that why Annabeth was crying ealier?" Percy's expression dropped at the mention of Annabeth's name.
  "Yeah, we talked earlier, it's just hard for her to talk about, you know that." Percy's words were solid, but he could feel he wasn't fully telling the truth.
  "Do I know?" He peaked his head around the doorway.
  "You'll figure it out," he forced a smile as they entered the set, well if you could really call it that. Will sat in the corner with a hlaf empty box tissues, dirty tissues surrounding his chair. The mood of the room was surreal, the way it feels when someone dies or when tragedy strikes, or is brought up. Creeping through every crease and crevius, every crack in the old cement, following you everywhere, marking every footprint, a tragically familiar feeling to Camp Half Blood. The bugs, the cramped cabins, the crowded cabin tables, homesickness, with all the feelings you got used to at camp, that was never one. "he's here." Percy called across the hollow and broken room.
  "Hi." Grover smiled awkwardly.
  "Good Luck, Grover." Percy patted his shoulder, turning toward the exit.
  "Wow, where are you going?" The fear of being alone in what looked like an interrogation crept up his back, pulling at each and every little hair and all the way up through his horns.
  "I'm gonna check on Beth." He gave a look, a telepathic look at that because, to his own fault and that of a horrid Cyclops, Grover could feel just about whatever Percy was, even when he didn't want to. Once Percy made his exit, the melancholy feeling slowly turned into that of straight awkwardness and silence. Dead silence and stares from the three Apollo campers.
  "I'll come back later if-"
  "No," Will cut him off, "no need to do that. Just sit in the chair, please."
  "Would someone first please explain to me what is going on?" He asked, cautiously making his way to the interrogatuion chair. Each Apollo camper looked at each other tiredly, sighing in unison.
  "Here we go again." Kayla groaned.