The Betrayed Hero

Chapter 1

It's been four days since Percy returned to camp after spending a week with his mom and stepdad. The camp was being rebuilt back to its glory, but the sea and the campers were acting weird. The campers would either look at him with pity or disgust. The sea would be smooth, then suddenly turn rough, which reminded him of a sentence that he had once read. Well, his mom had read and said to him, 'the sea does not like to be restrained'; it felt just the same, as if the sea were stopping itself from doing something; it had become dangerous to be on the shores; the mortals had already dubbed it something big that is about to hit the land'.

He tried talking to Chiron and Annabeth about it, but they would just ignore the question and change the topic and would look at him with something in their eyes that he could not recognise, especially Annabeth. She was trying to be distant and would occasionally ignore him, but he let it slide, as maybe memories of Tartarus were coming up when she looked at him, specifically his encounter with Akhlys. He had even tried to 'IM' Tyson, who was in the Royal Forges in their dad's palace, but even he did not know anything that was happening, so he tried to ignore it.

All of his days were pretty much the same as every other normal day, which included waking up, eating, training other campers, talking with Annabeth if she wanted to, hanging out with Nico and Grover, and sleeping. He knew today was going to be no different from other days, as he woke up screaming at the break of dawn due to nightmares from Tartarus that haunted him daily.

As he could not go back to sleep after these daily doses of nightmares, he did his morning rituals and went out on the beach for a walk.

He just stood there, taking in the sound of the rough sea and trying to forget about the nightmares that had hit him today. Suddenly, Nico came and stood beside him. They were way past the crush stage that Nico had on him now that he had Will with him. It was adorable to see how awkward and flustered he could get. Nico just stood there with him, not saying anything. After a while, he turned towards him and asked, "Nightmares?" And Percy just nodded. He knew better than to ask more about it. And Percy knew that even though he had his fair share of nightmares haunting him, sometimes asking about them would trigger unwanted memories.

They just stood there, taking in the scene in front of them, and then returned to the dining pavilion for breakfast as usual. Percy sat alone on his table, and Nico was on his. Grover had come by and wished him good morning, giving him a sad smile, while Annabeth continued to ignore me.

Just as Percy was about to take his first bite of his favourite pancake, there was a flash of light, followed by,

"Hello, little brother.".

and cue the stunned gasps from everyone.