Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"move, you idiot!" marcel screamed at myra after she nearly got trampled by one of the bulls.
it was his fourth day back at camp, and they already had an emergency. no, scratch that. the emergency had been for quite some time now.
six days ago, he got an iris message from clarisse. she tried to hide it, but she was shaken. the fact alone made his blood run cold. clarisse never felt scared. nervous? maybe. but not frightened.
she told him how someone had poisoned thalia's tree. that the pine was slowly dying, and the border was weakening. clarisse asked him to come back as quickly as possible - they needed as much help as they could gather.
that was how he found himself at half-blood hill two days later with his black backpack and spear in his hands, standing with an alarmed expression.
thalia's tree was in a horrible condition. its needles were yellow, and a pile of dead ones littered at the base of the tree. in the center of the trunk, three feet from the ground, was a puncture mark the size of a bullet hole, oozing green sap.
marcel balled his fist at the sight. whoever did this, they would pay. he would make sure of that.
soon enough, he learned that chiron was fired, as well as argus, and tantalus had taken the role of the activities director. tantalus was almost like a living corpse. he was pale and thin, as if he hadn't eaten for weeks. he always wore a threadbare orange prisoner's jumpsuit. his blue shadows under the pale eyes made him look like an escapee from a mental asylum. the addition of the dirty fingernails and badly cut gray hair gave the impression of a psycho homeless man who waited in a dark corner to ambush and eat you alive. not pleasant at all.
on his fourth day at camp, the colchis bulls attacked. if they were regular bulls, there would be no problem with them. but no, they had to be elephant-sized, with mouths and hooves made of bronze. and, naturally, they had to breathe fire, too.
fucking amazing.
marcel panted and wiped off the sweat that formed on his forehead from the immense heat. he didn't know why, but the fire surrounding him made him feel a pit forming in his stomach. as if his body told him to run away and not look back.
he glanced down at the girl he lunged after. her bright camp t-shirt was scorched, and her dark skin was discolored and covered in blisters.
"thanks," myra groaned out.
he scowled and turned his back to her. "go find someone from seven."
"i still can-"
"fucking hell, go!"
without another word, myra scrambled to her feet and shakingly went deeper into the camp.
he scanned the area. his eyes widened when he noticed castor was about to get plunged by one of the bulls' silver horns. he frantically rushed toward the son of dionysus, and the next thing he did was absolutely stupid.
