The Journey to Camp Half-Blood

13: Luke

I can't believe she's dead. Thalia was my best friend, we helped each other survive.

Grover led Annabeth and I into a big green building near the center of the camp. He led us inside to see an old man in a wheelchair and a guy with a potbelly playing some sort of card game.

"Uh Chiron? Mr. D? This is Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, and Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, new campers." Grover said.

"Welcome back, Grover! Great! You got them!" Wheelchair dude said.

"I thought you were looking for three demigods?" The potbelly guy asked rudely.

"Um- uh- yeah. Well. We were being chased by a whole hoard of monsters, and a cyclops hit her and she fell and a tree branch landed on her and it slowed us down and we saved her and we tried to get to the gate but-" Grover stuttered.

"You mean she didn't make it?! She was the only child of Zeus we know about!" Wheelchair dude said.

"Well, yes, but there's one good thing. When she died, Zeus preserved her by turning her into a tree that actually made a magic barrier to protect the camp." Grover said.

"Well, that's pretty good. I'll have to go investigate. But first let me introduce myself." Said wheelchair dude, "I'm Chiron, this is actually Dionysus, god of wine and parties, but here at Camp Half-Blood we call him Mr. D." Then he started to rise out of his wheelchair. In a few seconds, he was a centaur, and the wheelchair was a box with fake legs attached. I snapped my mouth closed as I realized it was hanging open. "I do hate being in there for too long. So cramped! Grover, why don't you show them around Camp and their cabins? Then come back here so we can... Discuss."

Grover gulped, then said, "alright, come on." He showed us the volleyball courts, the climbing wall with lava pouring down it, the canoe lake, the strawberry fields, the woods where they play capture the flag, the swordplay arena, etc. Then he showed us the cabins. There was eleven, a cabin for each god, I guess. Grover explained that each cabin was for a different god, except for Hades, he didn't have a cabin because he was banished from Olympus to the underworld, and all unclaimed campers stayed in the Hermes cabin, so it was usually the fullest. I groaned at that. He also said that the Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, and Artemis cabins were empty, because they didn't have any kids. The big three made a deal to not have anymore demigod kids, Hera is the goddess of marriage, so she wouldn't have any kids with anybody but Zeus, and Artemis is a virgin goddess, so no kids. But the cabins are all symbolic, and Artemis's hunters stay in her cabin when they visit the camp.

Grover then showed me my cabin, which was indeed full of kids. Then he brought Annabeth to the Athena cabin. All the bunks were full, but one of the kids gave up his bunk for me because I didn't have a sleeping bag or anything.

I went to sleep immeadietly, exhausted from the extremely busy day.

Of course, I had a dream.

I found myself standing in an endless field.

I looked around, and found Hermes, my dad, walking towards me.

"Luke!" He said, coming towards me with the arms outstretched. He embraced me, but I did not hug back.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Well, I'm congratulating you for making it to camp half blood successfully!" He said, grinning.

I frowned. "It wasn't successful. Thalia's dead, and now I'm stuck here with no contact to the outside world."

"Well, I'm actually here to give you a quest, because I saw that you were unhappy being in the camp all the time. After you've settled in for a couple weeks, I'll contact Chiron with a quest for you. To steal one of the Hesperides golden apples, defeat a Colchis Bull, something like that." Hermes said, smiling proudly at his solution.

"But why? There's no point to any of those quests." I pointed out.

"Oh, Luke. You'll understand someday." He patted my shoulder and disappeared in a flash of gold.

I woke up, and stared at the ceiling, thinking about the strange dream. I debated talking to Chiron about it, but I decided to keep it to myself. Chiron will hear about my quest when Hermes tells him, I guess.

Then I got up to my first full day without Thalia since I ran away.

~~~~

Hope you enjoyed! What do you think of Luke's dream? There's probably only a few more chapters in this!

~Megan<3