Changing the Future

Chapter 57

I don't know how I managed to sleep for so long, surprised that no one had come to try to find me seeing as I'd been gone for about seven hours now. The sun had set a while ago, leaving the moon to cast a soft glow over the camp, which severely failed to make me feel more relaxed as I could still hear people outside my cabin, shouting for Percy's name.

Instead of going back outside, I rummaged through my bag and pulled out my phone, selecting Patrick's phone number. If I remembered correctly, today was the annual holiday party at Chris Santiago's house, and all my friends would be there. And by be there, I mean that they'll all show up, grab a drink, and stand awkwardly in the corner of the most deserted room while they tried to talk to each other over the booming bass from Chris's massive speakers.

I sighed softly as I pressed the call button, lifting my phone up to my ear as I heard the familiar ring, ring as I waited for Patrick to pick up. It took me five times, but on the sixth try, Patrick finally picked up, practically yelling at me as the bass was about ten times louder than his own voice.

"HI, ANDY!" he greeted, and I winced, having to pull my phone away from my ear unless I wanted to go deaf.

"Hi, Patrick," I said. "How are you doing?"

"WHAT?"

"How are you doing?" I repeated, slightly raising my voice.

"I'M SORRY, WHAT?"

Knowing that this wasn't going to get better any time soon, I hung up and sent Patrick a text to call me back when he could. I then got out of bed and threw on a sweatshirt, the air outside much colder than it had been earlier during the day.

I walked over towards the cabin's only window, which faced the west, where the beach was if you walked in a straight line from here. But there was the forest between the cabin and the ocean, so I couldn't look out towards the waves, instead watching the leaves and branches from various trees sway with the breeze.

So this was what a fruitless search felt like, I thought to myself, my breath fogging up the glass. I wiped away the condensation and pried open the window, shivering as a blast of winter air hit me. Though the camp's barrier kept the worst of the bad weather out, it did nothing to stop the cold.

But even though I was freezing, I enjoyed the frigid air. I was about to pull over a chair to sit down and sketch the forest when I heard a loud roar deep within the trees, causing for birds to screech as they flew upwards, trying to evade danger.

I shoved on my sneakers before jumping out of the window and running into the forest, heading towards the noise. As an added bonus, from the way that the dryads and nymphs were fleeing, I could pinpoint the location of the disturbance a lot easier than had they stayed in their homes.

When I found what was going on, I stopped dead in my tracks, my body thrumming with the sense that I could have no part in this. Instead, I climbed up the nearest tree, settling onto the lowest branch that could support my weight.

I found Leo furiously wiping at a golden disk covered with wires while the large bronze dragon, who had yet to be named Festus, hung upside down in one of the golden nets that the Hephaestus cabin had set up in the hopes of capturing him.

A moment later, once Leo was sure that the disk was as clean as he could make it, he reinserted it into Festus's head, his ruby red eyes glowing once the last wire was reattached. Then came the task of getting Festus out of the trap without alerting anyone else, which Leo did by scrambling around the net like a monkey until he finally found the release clamps, lowering Festus to the ground.

It wasn't long until Festus bounded off towards Bunker 9 with Leo trailing behind him. I decided to tag along as well, seeing as I'd never visited Bunker 9 in my ten years here despite the fact that I knew exactly where it was. Looking back on it, maybe I should've gone down there ages ago. Who knows what kind of revolutionary inventions were down there?