The Hero

Chapter 3

The next few weeks continued to pass peacefully for almost all of the demigods. One demigod, however, was not so lucky. 

Ryan Doverman's dreams were plagued by a powerful being. The being spent two weeks trying to convince Ryan to join his side before succeeding. It started slow for Ryan, getting offered greatness in exchange for his help, but it slowly progressed into torturous nights. Ryan continued to protest, saying that he had a home here, people cared about him here, and he wasn't going to throw that away. The being offered him riches, power, revenge on those who wronged him, leadership opportunities, but Ryan didn't care about any of that. He was happy at camp and didn't want to mess that up. 

A week and a half had passed of the dreams when Ryan went into the Morpheus' cabin asking for help to get rid of the dreams. They gave him a toxin that was meant to lessen the effects of the dreams, to help him have a dreamless sleep. Sadly, the toxin didn't work. The only affect the toxin had, was angering him. 

"HOW DARE YOU TRY TO RID YOURSELF OF ME!" The being had screamed at him before cursing Ryan with nightmares of those he cares about dying. The next two nights were the same. He dreamt about everyone he loved dying, his friends, what little family he had. Sometimes the thing killing them would be himself, he would imagine himself holding a knife, stabbing the people he cared about. Still, he resited. 

It wasn't until the end of the second week that the being had succeeded in turning Ryan into his pawn. The last night the being had moved on from mental torture and begun physical. While none of it appeared on his body, it all felt perfectly real to Ryan. Throughout the night, Ryan was stabbed, burned, and skinned, until he agreed to help. 

"Stop! Please stop." Ryan had called out, "I'll help you. Just, please stop." 

Ryan had never been able to see who was torturing him, but he could almost feel the smile appear on the being's face. "Remember Ryan, if you decide against helping me, we will go back to the torture." Ryan heard a dark chuckle, "Now here is what I need you to do."

The next day, Ryan sat crossed legged and reached his mind out into another. He looked into their memories and started to remove and change them. He sought out the memories of one specific person, and as he watched them leave the person's mind, he sobbed. He had known already how much this person had done for everyone, how much of a true hero they were, but watching the camper's memories of him, made it too real. 

Ryan hated what he was doing the whole time he was doing it. He wanted to stop. He couldn't though, every time he went to sleep, the being still plagued his dreams of what he could do to him if he didn't continue to help. 

Whenever Ryan removed a memory it was like watching a movie. Watching what happened on screen, but all in a single second. Ryan watched many memories of what the hero did to help this camp, but he couldn't stop removing them. It was worse to change the memories, for him to be able to do that, he had to experience the memories as the person he was manipulating. He could feel the hope and love build up in each one of the campers, and deplete once he was finished with them. 

The whole process took about three months. He started with all of the cabins that weren't Olympian gods. He removed all of the heroic moments and started to change others so that the person appeared mean, rude, arrogant, and he made sure that all of the campers felt as tho this person had greatly wronged him. After he finished making the minor gods' children he began to manipulate the Olympian gods' children. 

Throughout this whole process, Ryan felt his powers growing and maturing. He understood exactly what to do to fully manipulate a person and make them hate someone. The person that he was trying to get everyone to loathe, was Percy Jackson, and he hated himself for it. The first person he was friends with at camp, the person he looked up to the most, he was hurting. He saw it on Percy's face every time that one of the campers glared at him and told him that no-one wanted his help. Percy would walk away with a confused look on his face but he would always brush it off and go back to his friends or help somewhere else.