The Third Camp

Chapter twenty five: Neptuna

After the celebration was over my whole cabin headed to bed. Everyone kept congratulating me on attacking that guy but to be honest the guy just annoyed me. We all fell asleep almost instantly.

I had a dream about some strange place then the scene changed. A boy with sea green eyes and dark hair was speeding through a storm on the back of a pegasus.

"Come on Backjack, you can do it." The boy yelled over the roar of the storm.

Who was the boy? He couldn't've been someone at Camp Ops, he didn't have a gray shirt on like us.

"Neptuna!" Someone yelled.

I opened my eyes. Doleo was standing over me.

"Rise and shine, it's time for breakfast." She pulled my blankets off of me.

I groaned, pulled on camo pants, combat boots, and a Camp Ops shirt.

"Ready?" Doleo asked a few minutes later.

"Yeah." Chanted back everyone.

"Now, before we go I just wanted to tell everyone that we will be getting looks from everyone, but don't let that affect our practice. Today we have archery first." She nodded.

Everyone nodded as Doleo opened the door and filled out.

After we sat in our seats at the mess hall I looked up at the elevated table. I sighed when I didn't see Carrie in his spot, neither was that girl he was always with. I really hoped that Carrie and that girl weren't together.

They probably are... I thought to myself, Why do I not like that?

The praetor walked in and took his place at the table, the girl wasn't with him. Carrie looked around as if expecting to see something that just wasn't there.

"Good morning to you all, I hope everyone had a good night's sleep but no sleeping during classes." He stood up.

"Classes?" I asked Doleo.

"Yeah, they always resume after the ceremony." She whispered.

"... After breakfast I would like to see all of the heads. So, let's eat!" He sat down again but was quickly talking to everyone around him.

"Wait, heads?" I questioned.

"That's me for us." She nodded it off and started eating. Between bites she wondered aloud, "I wonder why he needs us."

I ate my food in silence until Doleo lead us back to our cabin and headed out to the praetor's cabin. Everyone started gossiping about why she had to go. But when she came back from the praetor's cabin the whole cabin fell silent.

"What happened?" One of the girls broke the silence.

"Maybe later, but now we have to head to archery." She sighed.

Some people argued but eventually we all headed outside toward the archery range. Standing in front of the targets was Carrie. He smiled when he saw us coming.

"Okay everyone grab a bow and quiver then line up in front of the targets!"

I walked over to the shack and found a blue bow and quiver then walked back outside and lined up in front of a target.

After everyone was done lining up, Carrie instructed us on how to hold the bow correctly.

"Now, load your arrow and look directly at the target, if your eyes waver you'll miss. Keep that bow steady and... shoot!" Carrie directed us.

I let go of the bow string and the arrow hit the target, but not in the middle, on the outermost part of the target.

"Good!" Carrie exclaimed.