Forgotten memories

YEE HAW, PIGGY!

I have never been shot before. I knew that, because if I have been shot before, then I would remember this pain, even through all this memory nonsense. I heard screaming, it was thalia and Christine. I landed face down in the street. Then I realized something... Percy wasn't dead. The impact of the bullets hadn't hurt him. The Nemean Lion's fur! His coat was bulletproof, I however wasn't so lucky. My shoulder was thriving in pain, and I felt blood ooze through my hand that was covering the wound.

Thalia and Christine charged the second skeleton. Zoe and Bianca started firing arrows at the third and fourth. Grover stood there and held his hands out to the trees, looking like he wanted to hug them.

There was a crashing sound in the forest to our left, like a bulldozer. Maybe the skeletons' reinforcements were arriving. I got to my feet and ducked a police baton. The skeleton I'd cut in half was already fully re-formed, coming after me. There was no way to stop them. Zoe and Bianca fired at their heads point-blank, but the arrows just whistled straight through their empty skulls. One lunged at Bianca, and I thought she was a goner, but she whipped out her hunting knife and stabbed the warrior in the chest. The whole skeleton erupted into flames, leaving a little pile of ashes and a police badge.

"How did you do that?" Zoe asked.

"I don't know," Bianca said nervously. "Lucky stab?"

"Well, do it again!"

Bianca tried, but the remaining three skeletons were wary of her now. They pressed us back, keeping us at baton's length. I was behind Zoe and Chrestine while holding my shoulder in pain, my camp Half-blood t-shirt was not just orange now. It started to become red.

"Plan?" I said in desperation as we retreated.

Nobody answered. The trees behind the skeletons were shivering. Branches were cracking.

"A gift," Grover muttered.

And then, with a mighty roar, the largest pig I'd ever seen came crashing into the road. It was a wild boar, thirty feet high, with a snotty pink snout and tusks the size of canoes. Its back bristled with brown hair, and its eyes were wild and angry.

"REEEEEEEEET!" it squealed and raked the three skeletons aside with its tusks. The force was so great, they went flying over the trees and into the side of the mountain, where they smashed to pieces, thigh bones and arm bones twirling everywhere. Then the pig turned on us. The boar grunted and pawed the ground, ready to charge.

Thalia raised her spear, but Grover yelled, "Don't kill it.'"

"That's the Erymanthian Boar," Zoe said, trying to stay calm. "I don't think we can kill it."

"It's a gift," Grover said. "A blessing from the Wild!"

The boar said "REEEEEEET!" and swung its tusk. Zoe, Christine and Bianca dived out of the way. Percy had to push Grover so he wouldn't get launched into the mountain on the Boar Tusk Express.

"Yeah, I feel blessed!" Percy said.

"Scatter!" I yelled.

We ran in different directions, and for a moment the boar was confused.

"It wants to kill us!" Thalia said.

"Of course," Grover said. "It's wild!"

"So how is that a blessing?" Bianca asked.

It seemed a fair question to me, but the pig was offended and charged her. She was faster than I'd realized. She rolled out of the way of its hooves and came up behind the beast. It lashed out with its tusks and pulverized the WELCOME TO CLOUDCROFT sign. I racked my brain, trying to remember the myth of the boar. I was pretty sure Hercules had fought this thing once, but I couldn't remember how he'd beaten it. I had a vague memory of the boar plowing down several Greek cities before Hercules managed to subdue it. I hoped Cloudcroft was insured against giant wild boar attacks.

"Keep moving!" Zoe yelled. She and Bianca ran in opposite directions. Grover danced around the boar, playing his pipes while the boar snorted and tried to gouge him. But Thalia and Percy won the prize for bad luck. When the boar turned on them, Thalia made the mistake of raising Aegis in defense. The sight of the Medusa head made the boar squeal in outrage. Maybe it looked too much like one of his relatives. The boar charged them. They only managed to keep ahead of it because they ran uphill, and they could dodge in and out of trees while the boar had to plow through them. They disappeared on the other side of the hill. Bianca, Zoe and Grover did their best to keep the skeleton warriors at bay, as Christine helped me. I was clutching my shoulder in pain, and she looked almost concerned for my wellbeing.

"Do you have any ambrosia?" she asked me. I thought about ways to heal myself and I thought of the amulet. I grabbed it and gripped my shoulder. The amulet began to glow brightly, and my wound began to seal. The bullet dropped on the ground; the healing wound had forced the remains of the bullet out. Christine looked at me in stunned silence. I nodded and began to run towards where Percy and thalia had run off to, the others fallowing me. While I ran I remember what my father said about the healing capabilities of the amulet. I could heal, but it would take a toll on my stamina, and I could feel it. I was drained.

"Helloooooo?" Grover shouted from the top of a small cliff.

"Down here!" Percy shouted.

A few minutes later, we were looking at the boar in a huge pile of snow. We stood watching the wild boar struggle in the snow for a few minutes.

"A blessing of the Wild," Grover said, though he now looked agitated.

"I agree," Zoe said. "We must use it."

"Hold up," Thalia said irritably. She still looked like she'd just lost a fight with a Christmas tree. "Explain to me why you're so sure this pig is a blessing."

Grover looked over, distracted. "It's our ride west. Do you have any idea how fast this boar can travel?"

"Fun," Percy said. "Like... pig cowboys."

Grover nodded. "We need to get aboard. I wish... I wish I had more time to look around. But it's gone now."

"What's gone?" I asked.

Grover didn't seem to hear me. He walked over to the boar and jumped onto its back. Already the boar was starting to make some headway through the drift. Once it broke free, there'd be no stopping it. Grover took out his pipes. He started playing a snappy tune and tossed an apple in front of the boar. The apple floated and spun right above the boar's nose, and the boar went nuts, straining to get it.

"Automatic steering," Thalia murmured. "Great."

She trudged over and jumped on behind Grover, which still left plenty of room for the rest of us.

Zoe and Bianca walked toward the boar.

"Wait a second," I said. "Do you two know what Grover is talking about—this wild blessing?"

"Of course," Zoe said. "Did you not feel it in the wind? It was so strong... I never thought I would sense that presence again."

"What presence?"

She stared at me like I was an idiot. "The Lord of the Wild, of course. Just for a moment, in the arrival of the boar, I felt the presence of Pan."

We boarded the pig, and I sat at the back holding onto Christine. When I leaned into her back, I slowly began to feel drowsy. She grabbed my back with one arm to secure me and that was a reassurance for me to close my eyes for a minute or two. I would have slept peacefully, but it was too good to be true. Of course, I will dreem of a memory this time.