Red Skies at Morning | Clarisse La Rue x OC | Percy Jackson AU

I Get a Crappy New Cabinmate

Not super important author's note:

I don't speak Greek. I don't speak any languages other than English, but in an attempt to replicate the way demigods are portrayed as swearing at Camp Half-Blood in the books I literally googled "Greek equivilent of damn" and "Greek equivilent of ass-crack" and then copied and pasted the first result. I know this is likley breaking so many gramatical rules and is definitely not how someone who actually speaks both Greek and English would ever talk, but hey, we can pretend like I know how Ancient Greek censoring of English swearing would work. And don't worry, we'll get into real curse words as the characters get older and more exposure to the world outside of camp.

Somewhere close to a year since I'd taken my first step down the hill, I'd finally begun to feel that I could call camp home.

Despite being surrounded by half-gods and magical creatures from ancient mythology, my life had peace. Peace I didn't have time to enjoy, as unannounced to us, all Tarturus was preparing to break loose to ruin the new life I had become so grateful to have.

I woke up that morning to what I liked to call my "internal clock." In reality, it was the feeling of my head slamming into the ground.

I'd developed a new habit recently; I was having nightmares for the first time. Dreams that distressed me so much that I'd violently jerk my head around in my sleep until I finally missed the pillow and woke myself up with a good knock to the head. Which resulted in me waking up feeling I'd been beaten by a baseball bat all night while the phantom of paralyzing fear lingered in the back of my mind.

With a groan, I opened my eyes. I was lying with the upper half of my body completely out of my sleeping bag as I stared at the blue of one of my neighbor's bags and was once again reminded that this was my reality.

Despite the pain in the side of my head, I was already drifting back to sleep, the trap of closing my eyes for "just a second" only being more tempting when blinked. I repositioned my head back onto my pillow and lay in my sleeping bag for a minute to savor the warmth while staring at the dusty, wooden ceiling of Cabin 11, eyes half-lidded as I fought to wake up.

The sun had already begun to rise, its golden rays streaming through the window and illuminating the different colored sleeping bags, scattered around the cabin floor like spilled jelly beans.

I honestly wanted nothing more than to roll over in my sleeping bag and slip back into unconsciousness; maybe this time I'd just see complete blackness instead of whatever nightmare I'd woken up from. But unfortunately, I knew I didn't have the luxury to go back to sleep.

In Cabin 11, using the bathroom before breakfast was a privilege left for those who woke up at the butt-crack of dawn, and the line already had six people standing by the door.

So begrudgingly, I got up. Grabbing my toiletries from my backpack and stepping over half-asleep kids.

Cabin 11 was the cabin for the demigod children, or half-bloods, of the Greek god Hermes. But Hermes was the God of Travelers and he wasn't as picky about who could stay in his cabin, unlike some of the other gods. That's why Cabin 11 was where the unclaimed half-bloods went until they could be claimed.

Unless you were like me and most of the other kids in Cabin 11. We were the kids who hadn't been claimed weeks after coming to camp. I'd been here almost a year without being claimed.

When I arrived at the bottom of the hill on my first day, I just wandered aimlessly around the camp, staring at the climbing wall and flying horses until a camper approached me. He thought I was a mortal, what we call non-demigods, who had somehow gotten into the camp.