The Rise of Night

Chapter 3:RACHAEL

RACHAEL

Chapter 3

 

I awoke in the Athena cabin. The sun’s rays were shining through the windows onto my face, and I blinked, bringing the world back into focus. Annabeth was standing above me, snapping her fingers in front of my face.

“Rachael?”

I groaned. Everything hurt.

“Ugh.” I looked up at Annabeth to see her storm gray eyes still focused on me. Apparently “ugh” wouldn’t cut it. I decided to start with something positive.

“Hi.”

“Are you okay?” She asked, which was the obvious question, but I wasn’t really sure. I took in my surroundings. I was in my bunker in the Athena cabin. It looked normal enough. The beds were still pushed up against the wall. The bookshelf at the back of the room was cluttered with books as usual. A few tables sat beside them, covered with diagrams and geometry sets. Usually when you don’t know your parents you stay in the Hermes cabin, but after a while I got moved here.

My bed was mostly clear, except for me, of course, and I looked across to find Annabeth’s covered in more diagrams and calculations. Usually everyone would try to keep the cabin clean, but they knew better then to touch Annabeth’s stuff. The last guy…well lets just say he was in the infirmary for quite a while. I spotted the desk at the back of the cabin to find it also covered with sheets of paper and Dadulas’s laptop. I managed a smile: same old Annabeth.

I shook my head to try to clear my thoughts. “What happened?” I asked, trying to get the facts straight.

“You don’t remember?”

I shook my head again. “Me, the arai and then…not much.”

Annabeth nodded. “Looked like you took a pretty hard hit to the head.”

“How long was I out?”

“Just a couple hours.” I nodded, and managed to sit up. “When you’re feeling better, Chiron wants to talk to you. I think everyone else does too. We can go when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now,” I said, which probably wasn’t true, as I had a bad headache, but I needed to talk to someone.

“Are you sure?” She didn’t need to wait for an answer, but just looked at my expression. “Okay.” She helped me up, and we walked outside to the big house, my thoughts still fuzzy. But the cool fall breeze felt good, and by the time we got to the Big House I remembered everything.

I didn’t really like what I remembered.

We walked in, Annabeth holding the door open for me, but I could just about walk by myself now. However I didn’t argue when Chiron offered me a chair. This was going to be a long talk.

I looked around to find the other seven demigods staring right back at me. I almost smiled. We were back at the Ping-Pong table. It was almost like old times, but my expression darkened when I thought about the situation.