The Lightning Thief - Something's been Stolen

MORE FUR AND LOWER STANDARDS

To top off our exhaustion, we were all now also completely in shock.

We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that other people had obviously used to their advantage. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast-food wrappers.

We'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but we didn't dare light a fire to dry our damp clothes. Some convincing had to be made, but in the end, none of us wanted any more trouble for the night.

We decided to sleep in shifts. Percy volunteered to take first watch.

I immediately took this as a chance to crash. I didn’t argue, I didn’t protest, I just got out my blankets and fell asleep instantly.

That night, I didn’t have a nightmare. But I had something a little worse.

Puzzle pieces. Puzzle pieces flew around in my dream. Each puzzle piece was extremely important, I felt the urgency of them in my dream, but I couldn’t figure out why.

Suddenly, there was a golden table. There were already matches of puzzle pieces on the table, glowing slightly around their neighbors. Every time I looked at one, it would begin to glow so bright that it was unreadable. I saw a picture of Percy being claimed and- the piece glowed bright. I saw a picture of Chiron requesting the quest- and it glowed too bright to see again. This happened to all of the puzzle pieces. I would look at them, seeing the part I had witnessed before, and then notice something in the background that was important, just before it glowed brightly to decipher it.

Luke and his magical shoes and- gone. The Furies on the bus and- gone. Then, all of my connected puzzle pieces were glowing golden. That left the puzzle pieces flying around me. I took a look at them, trying to get clues and maybe information. But the pieces were flying too fast. Sometimes, if the pieces whizzed passed my ear, I would hear catches of someone’s voice.

One puzzle whizzed by. “We need to leave.” It was Percy’s voice.

Grover’s voice shot past my ear. “It’s too late to turn back…”

“You must not rush out for vengeance-” Chiron’s voice found my ears.

As more voices whizzed past me, something in the tornado of puzzle pieces caught my eye. It was a golden puzzle piece. I felt like I knew what it was, and I wanted to add it to my golden puzzle. As it flew by me, it slowed down, willing me to catch it. I did, and turned it around. It was Medusa. The images on the piece were fluttering like a video tape. First it was Medusa trying to mislead Percy, and then Grover smashing into Medusa, then Percy lunging with his sword, then Medusa’s head on the ground. The longer I looked the brighter the puzzle piece shone, and soon it grew hot in my hand. I quickly placed the puzzle piece next to the Furies puzzle piece; not knowing how I knew it belonged there, but just knowing. It didn’t look like it was going to fit, but then the piece molded into place to fit the Furies. I subconsciously smiled in my dream, and stepped back to admire my golden puzzle.

My head snapped up when I saw something golden whirl around my head. My hand reached out, and my stomach exploded with excitement. I felt like this puzzle piece was going to tell me something important, something ahead of its time. Something that would make sense of the quest.

My hand was so close. The puzzle piece slowed down in the right speed to be caught. My fingers brushed against it and-

“Annabeth.” Something shook me. Remembering Medusa, I snapped out of my dream and jumped up, unsheathing my dagger.