𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞

Chapter 6

The doom opens and the title appears.
'I Play Pinochle with a Horse'

|Sereia: I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.
I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I do remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding.|

The girl with curly blonde hair hovers over her, smirking as she scraps drips off Sereia's chin with the spoon when she sees Sereia open her eyes.
Girl: What will happen at the summer solstice

"Annie, she just woke up. Calm down" says Thalia. Annabeth blushes. Poseidon glares at her.

Sereia: What?
The girl looks around.
Girl: What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!
Sereia: I'm sorry, I don't ..
Somebody knocks on the door, and the girl quickly fills Sereia's mouth with pudding and Sereia passes out again. The next time she wakes up, the girl was gone. A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over her. He has blue eyes - at least a dozen of them - on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.

They flinch and shiver.

|Sereia: When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to.|

She sits in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance.

|Sereia: The breeze smells like strawberries.|

There is a blanket over her legs, a pillow behind my neck.

|Sereia: All of this is great, but my mouth feels like a scorpion has been using it for a nest. My tongue is dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.|

On the table next to her is a tall drink. It looks like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. She reaches for it with a weak hand and almost drops the glass once she got her fingers around it.
Grover: Careful.
She turns and sees Grover leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradles a shoe box. He is wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD.

|Sereia: Just plain old Grover. Not the goat boy. So maybe I've had a nightmare. Maybe my aunt is okay. We are still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And ...|

Grover glares at her

Grover: You saved my life. I ... well, the least I could do... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this.
Reverently, he placed the shoe box in her lap.
She opens it and inside is a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood.

|Sereia: It hasn't been a nightmare.|

Sereia: The Minotaur.
Grover: Um, Sereia, it isn't a good idea -
Sereia: That's what they call it in the Greek myths, isn't it? The Minotaur. Half man, half bull
Grover shifts uncomfortably.
Grover: You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?
Sereia: My aunt. Is she really ..
He looks down. Sereia stares across the meadow. There are groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley is surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of them, is the one with the huge pine tree on top.