✔ Aspen | Sherman Yang

[15.00]

The red walls of the Ares Cabin were the first thing he saw when he woke up. Not a pleasant sight, as they really blinded his eyes. He threw the covers over his head unhappily and heard a rapping at the door.

"Oh fuck, I'll get it." Grunted Paris, a girl who unlike Clarisse, was extremely bony, but had a very mean attitude as well. However, she wasn't nearly as mean as their head counselor. Surprisingly, he and his sister actually got along quite well as they both disliked Clarisse.

She opened the door and then a yell shouted in the room towards Sherman. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHERMAN!"

Paris whipped around. "It's your birthday?"

He groaned in tiredness. "It's my birthday?"

"Bloody Tartarus, you don't even know your own birthday?" She scolded, slapping his back to make him get up. His face stung from her hand and he groaned.

The months had been so rough he hadn't even considered checking the date. Time didn't seem like something to consider when people were dying all the time or when your best friend turned into a goat. Sherman wanted to stay in the covers of his bunk but August had been waking everyone up already.

"Ever get drunk Kool-Aid?" Asked August who had literally hopped into the cabin and grabbed a pile of clothes for him with his jacket. That satyr knew him too well.

"Of course not, it's artificial as fuck." He replied. Sherman went into the bathroom and came out while sliding his arm into the sleeve of his jacket. Then he wriggled his feet into a pair of black sneakers and joined August outside.

He didn't know what to expect, his birthday was different every year. Once, the whole gang made a whole party. Once his mother took him to Minnesota. Once he went to August's. Once he went to Starbucks and bought a frappachino. Once he almost forgot until the day it was his birthday.

At school when it was someone's birthday, people screamed happy birthday down the halls or completely ignore the person. They'd even go as far as singing dying ballads.

Thankfully, no one really bothered to say anything about his birthday, except for the Children of Dionysus, who were bugging him about how he wanted his party. At first he was flattered that they'd bothered to make him a party. They asked him his favourite color: blue. His style of party: loud. And his favourite fruit: strawberries. Soon he realized that they'd suggest something different for everything and his party was turning out to be the exact opposite of how he wanted it.

When they kept pestering him with questions, he ignored them and told them to go plan what they wanted.

Sherman yawned and decided he would make the most of the day even though nothing special was happening. During his free time, he caught Katie in the strawberry fields.

"Hey."

"Hey you birthday man." She punched him fifteen times lightly.

He smiled, it was quite endearing having her around.

"Strawberry?"

"For sure." He picked a few big ones right out of the basket. The strawberries were amazing, a sweet juice filling his mouth.

"Gods Sherman, you get your nasty fingers out of my strawberries out of my basket. Get your own." She said playfully.

He grinned and snatched a few more from her and she laughed. When he grabbed for another one, it shrank and wilted into a dry rotten berry that sank in his fingers.

"Eww, what the Tartarus?" He wiped off the juice on her denim shorts and she pushed him into a poky berry bush. Wincing in pain, he slowly got up and chuckled, then ate the berries off the bush. He stared at her hands, which were stained with the juices of the berries, and managed to make them grow.