Camp Half Blood

Chapter 13

All I could see was white.

An endless white background, all around me.

I was sitting on a white floor, on a white chair. I look around me again. Was that a...? Yes, it was a door! A big, white partially open door sitting behind me like it would want me to go trough it.

I stood up.

Suddenly, the white chair disapeared, being replaced by a white void, just like the rest of the room.

I looked around.  The door, I had to open it.

I brushed my hands over the cold metal door handle.

It was open. The door was open.

I took a deep breath and pushed it. Suddenly, light invaded my sight. Sunlight, more exaclty.

It took me a couple of seconds to get used to the brightness.

From the moment I was able to see everything right, I realised I was in an arena. A fighting arena.

At first I tought I was alone, but then I looked around. Carter, Ciara, Wyatt, Melissa and Alek were all sitting around it, with one hundred feet between them. We were all forming a big circle around the arena.

A strong female voice quaked the whole amphitheatre.

'Welcome fighters! Are you ready to fight?'

We all looked at each other. Fighters? Fight?

We waited a couple of seconds until we heard another female voice.

'Welcome to monster fighting! To start, you need to go into the marked areas and take your weapons. You'll have three challanges. If you win them, you'll get this:'

A piece of paper with a word on it started floating in the air, disapearing in the next moment.

'If not, we'll get your friend, Sophia!  It's your choice, so choose carefully!'

We all walked to the marked areas, still shivering. What had we gotten ourselves in?!

When the last of us stepped on the red Xs and took our bags and everything changed.

Instead of the barbarian-looking arena we were now on a green field, full of flowers. The sun was shining, the birds were singing...the perfect nature picture.

'What are we doing here?' Melissa asked, nervously playing with her hazel hair.

'I-I don't know' Wyatt said, biting his lip. He was afraid.

A loud roar broke the silence. My heart started pumping faster.

'Wha...what was that?' No response.

We all looked up.  A bird flock flew over us.

'Harpies. We're in big trouble' Ciara looked worried.

'Can't we wake up?' I asked.

'No, we can't. We need to finish this. If we win it we'll get a clue to Sophia's location. If we don't...' Carter raised his eyebrows.

'We'd better win it' Everyone agreed.

'Do we have a fighting plan?'

'Yes' Alek said 'We'll burn them'

'And how are we supposed to do this?' Ciara had already changed her tone from worried to sarcastic.

'Easy' Melissa said 'We make a fire and cajole them into flying into it.' She took a lighter out of her pocket.