In the Beginning

Chapter Ten

     I woke up in the middle of the woods the next morning. I trudged back to the cabin, my bare feet freezing against the frosted grass. When I found my way back to my cabin, everyone was up. Brittney was the first to spot me. You could probably hear her gasp from the other side of the camp. She ran out to me.

     "Starr! What did you do to yourself?" She pulled twigs out of my knotted hair. I waved her off and went into the cabin. As I walked in there was a collective gasp from various places in the room. I sat on my bed and everyone was still staring at me. What did I look like to get that much of reaction. As if she read my mind, Britt handed me a mirror. I looked at my reflection. I had twigs and leaves in my hair, a black eye, and a swollen lip.

     "Oh god..."

     "Gods." Brittney corrected me quietly. Oh right. I brushed leaves and twigs out my hair and then brushed the rat's nest. Britt braided my hair down my back even though I didn't really want help but figured I should pity her. I even let her put mascara on me put that was where I insisted on leaving it. I didn't really care for make up, it felt like I put ten pounds on my face for fun. No thank you. I made Britt stop fussing over my appearance and told my cabin mates to go to breakfast without me. I changed into jeans and an orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and made sure to wear tennis shoes that tied tight just for good measure. I jogged out to the dining pavilion and slid into the bench next to Brittney just before Chiron had started the announcements. I received sideways glances from everyone as if they were all trying to decide how I managed to give myself a black eye in the middle of the night. We all shuffled to sacrifice part of our meal to the gods and sat back down. I tried to keep my head down to avoid people's stares as I ate.

     "It's not that bad Starr, really, you're fine." I didn't care about my face, I cared about someone figuring out what had happened. Even if it was unlikely. "Piper, is it that bad?" Piper gave me a glance over Brittney's shoulder. We exchanged a look and I could tell Piper knew I didn't really care if it was that bad. But Piper shook her head.

     "It's fine, you look great." I managed a small smile and we went back to eating.

     It was time for capture the flag, what I'd been dreading all day. I was appointed to the Athena cabin's team and thank the gods for Annabeth being an amazing strategist because our team was up against both Inez and Quinn. Which also alarmed me. We all suited up in bronze armour and were given swords. Tack that on to the bad-things-about-capture-the-flag list. I wasn't the best with a sword. Annabeth assigned me offense because I was small and lithe, I couldn't decide if it was a compliment or not but I went with it. My heart raced as Chiron signaled the start. I took off running in my route, praying I wouldn't have to run into anyone. Of course, that was delusional to think and in no time I was cornered. Quinn was standing in front of me, Inez behind me. Her being behind me made me nervous, I would much rather see what move she was going to make. I glanced back at her. Inez glared at me with brown eyes. That's weird, I could've sworn they were white last night. I kept my eyes on Quinn, which was a bad idea. Bad idea number two: skirting around the two and making a run for it. I just barely dodged the black dagger flung at my back. I could see the flag of the red team. That's when it occurred to me, I was too short to reach the flag. Annabeth ran past me, snagging the flag and bolting straight for our side. It dawned on me that I was just a distraction. I turned to face the two. Last night I had been more terrified of Quinn which I now was ashamed of as I looked at Inez. She looked like someone had stuck fire ants in her bed sheets which might sound like it would've been an amusing face to look at. It wasn't. She glared at me with the less than friendly brown eyes. She shoved Quinn to the ground leaving him with an incredulous look on his face. Inez walked straight for me and in one swift move, knocked my legs from under me and pinned me to the ground. She raised her black dagger to end it when she hesitated. It looked like she was having an internal conversation with herself. I took this time to flip her over and run. I heard Chiron blow the whistle just as I crossed into my team's territory.

     We were all collected around the campfire, roasting marshmallows and singing ridiculous campfire songs. I sat between Brittney and Annabeth, Mavis on her other side. A girl sat with Mavis, she had dirty blonde hair that was short and singed on the ends but she didn't seem to mind. Her green eyes seemed to reflect the campfire.

     "Where's Percy?" Mavis whispered to Annabeth. A grim expression crossed her face but disappeared a second later.

     "Probably-" Her answer got cut off by a scream from the forest. It was high pitched and rang for a second too long. It was silent, even the campfire that had been roaring orange a moment before had stopped crackling. There it was again, the deafening scream echoing in the silence. "We better check it out." Annabeth nodded to Mavis and they both stood up, Annabeth clutching a bronze knife.

     "Lucy." The girl sitting next to Mavis nodded and stood up next to them. "Starr, you armed?" I nodded nervously. For some reason there was a dagger in my hand, the bronze had been oxidized, it was so old. "C'mon." Mavis gestured for me to stand and we all took off in the direction of the screams.

--Sorry this story has been quite boring so far...I've introduced most of the characters and all that fun so I'll start to pick up...thanks for reading it anyhow--