𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐒𝐊𝐘-(ᴘᴇʀᴄʏ ᴊᴀᴄᴋsᴏɴ )¹

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

03. The Other Matter

Winter, circa 2007,
Camp Half-Blood.

━━━𝐀𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇, Seth never imagined that anything could top the total dumpster fire his entire life had been.

As it turned out, the universe had one more nasty surprise left in store for him.

"Are you awake?" A voice asked him quietly.

Everything around him was in motion, and his wounds ached as his entire body jostled. He felt like he was going to throw up his entire stomach. "Ugh," he groaned. He tried opening his eyes but they felt like they were being weighed down by lead. "Why is everything moving around so much?"

He didn't get an answer, but the voice suddenly said outloud, "Guys, he's awake. But I think he's gonna throw up."

He inhaled sharply and stretched out his hand to grab onto something, anything, to ground him. He ended grabbing on to something firm and leathery, kind of like the seat of a bus. "Don't say 'throw up' or I swear I'll punch you in your eye," he grumbled as he tried pushing himself up to sit.

"Um...I don't think you should-"

The voice never got to finish the sentence, because the room jostled again and Seth's grip loosened and he flopped back onto the surface he was lying on.

The resulting pain was the worst he'd ever felt in his entire life, and his quiet scream was enough proof of that.

"Thalia!" The voice shouted in a scolding manner.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Another voice yelled back from a short distance.

What the hell was happening around him?

He managed to open his eyes at last, and the first thing he saw was the face of some guy he'd never met before.

"Who the fuck-?" He whispered to himself, about as confused as he could be in that situation.

The kid stared back at him with his green eyes, looking just as confused as he felt. Seth couldn't imagine what exactly was so confusing to him right now. "Uh...are you okay?" He asked.

Before he could answer, Nico's voice piped up. "Seth! You're awake!"

Seth turned his head to the side, and he saw the kid rushing towards him with the biggest smile on his face. He looked like he'd just met Santa and gotten every gift he'd ever wanted.

Seth braced himself for the impact that would result from Nico invetably jumping up on him, but it never came. The boy just stood by him as he jumped around in excitement.

"I can't believe everything in Mythomagic is real! We fought a manticore, found out we're demigods and we even met actual gods!" He rambled on.

The manticore. Right. They fought that thing after almost getting kidnapped. This green eyed dude must be one of the people that prevented that from happening.

Seth's brain came to a screeching halt. "Wait," he said. "What? What are you talking about? Are we in a fucking school bus?"

Nico nodded rapidly at him, and Seth noticed the Apollo figurine clutched his hands. "Yeah! It's Apollo's chariot. We're riding the sun! How cool is that?"