Stoll Her Heart: Tratie's Story

4. Ghosts

Chapter 4

(Back to omniscient pov)

Camp Half Blood is quite the bustling place. Between sword and combat training in the arena, the rock climbing wall, the ropes courses, archery targets, and much more, campers are busy, not to mention their lessons in basic Greek language and culture.
For a kid to learn that they're the child of a Greek god they thought was just a myth it takes proof. The Camp is solid proof, good luck to you trying to disprove it... Farm Road 3.141, Long Island NY. Who knew it would become home to so many demigods trying to learn how to survive.
As Katie eats her early morning breakfast, she thinks back to how all her life, she thought she was nothing special, just a random kid who likes to garden alone. She had always had a knack for it, being able to plant and maintain a perfect garden by the age of three. Then, her own favorite activity betrayed her when a six foot long bright green worm burst out of her tomato patch and crows swarmed her. Using her small child sized spade, she managed to demolish the worm and banish the crows. Katie, at the age of 11 then, was an incredibly down-to-earth girl, assuming the attack was a dream or a prank from her brother. Her only friend, Rosalind, seemed more disturbed by it than her when Katie told about it the following day. When a large hybrid wolf/beetle almost killed her the next week, Rosalind panicked and revealed goat legs- a satyr. Katie was then led by Rosalind to Camp Half Blood but entered alone. Rosalind had sacrificed so much to get Katie to safety...To that day, she hadn't fully found out what happened to Rosalind after that incident. Maybe she died. Every year, on the anniversary of the day Katie arrived at camp, the day Rosalind disappeared, Katie stayed by the white fimbriata rose bush she planted in the satyr's memory all day. It grew nicely-few people knew about it because of its location behind the Demeter cabin by the woods. Katie tended to it well, and it flourished.
Thanks to the satyr, Katie grew to be the successful head counselor of Demeter.
Katie had left everything behind for Camp Half Blood. Her family, her school, her garden. The tomatoes were just ripening too. Even if she never saw that season's harvest, Katie's biggest regret is not saying goodbye to her parents. Her brother. Anyone. All she has left is the demigods at Camp Half Blood.
But loneliness. That is all Katie felt sometimes, with only a few friends from Demeter to really have some fun with. Sometimes, Katie knew, she came off as defensive and a bit harsh. Inside though, her heart aches for somebody to tell her it's not your fault. No one, everyone behind her. In the past. Ghosts from the past. Katie was beginning to think that's what she is too-a ghost.

Travis pov:
The shoes take Jonas further and further away towards the giant one-eyed thing. I chase after him, shouting for help and reaching desperately to try to save my friend. Strange winged monsters surround me, snatching and biting. Jonas is so close-too close- to the one eyed figure and I can't reach him. Connor is somewhere behind me, trying to fend off multiple angry bird ladies.
We should have known the shoes were a trick... Too cliché of an attacker on three 'demigods' of Hermes, Coleman said. I have to push thoughts of Coleman away for now, the "satyr"(?) was lost to a fight with that awful-
"RAWWRRGGHHH!!!" The cyclops has reached Jonas now, Connor and I run-

I wake up with a start. Slightly shaking and covered in a cold sweat, I control my gasps. Luckily, it is still well into the night so no one noticed my bout.
That dream-that memory- has been haunting me since I arrived at Camp when I was 10. Our journey to Half Blood Hill was a struggle. One moment, Connor, Jonas, and I were normal kids coming home from school. Telling stories, shoving each other around, being kids.
Jonas was just describing a moment when, the week before, a big man who said he was from the shoe store gave him a cool free pair of sneakers. He said the man's name was Hippolytos- we thought that was the coolest name.
As if the shoes were reacting to our words about Hippolytos, Jonas' shoes sprouted wings. Then things happened so fast... Coleman, our friend from our class, bursted out of a bush, the harpies and winged monsters chasing us toward where Jonas was being pulled by the shoes. Towards the cyclops.
Jonas could not be saved, and Coleman saved us by sacrificing himself, but not before he shouted something about finding the Camp, he called reinforcements? Coleman performed a killer attack and single handedly got rid of all the scattered monsters surrounding us.
Connor and I were left alone and crying in the middle of the street at dusk. Then a strange man with so many hands, I now know him as Argus, picked us up in the strawberry truck and brought us here.
Connor and I never saw our mom again. Chiron told us not to worry but a few years later, when we looked there, we found our house with a for sale sign outside.
It was completely empty.
We tried not to think about Jonas or Coleman...We know they died heroes. Now, roughly six years later, I'm still tortured by the memories I can't escape. I'm not sure about Connor, how much he remembers. Chiron told us the two of us were lucky to survive together. As brothers.
As we tried to adjust to life at Camp Half Blood, there wasn't much Connor and I could do. At night, one of us was always crying. The head counselor, Luke, (who is long gone now, with a longer story to go with it) sometimes tried to comfort us but he knew it was no use.
Instead, Connor and I found inspiration in something familiar, the most well known talent of Hermes campers — pranking. Within no time, we had a reputation as the best pranksters all around the Camp. As soon as Hermes needed a new head counselor, our fellow campers unanimously decided to make both Connor and me head counselors together.
We learned to live that way. We figured out how to not think about the treacherous journey to Camp Half Blood. Most people have no idea how we started pranking. I don't even know if Connor still thinks about our journey here much.
The only thing is, I do. At least in my dreams. I guess that's why I started star gazing, to escape sleep and the dreams to come with it.
Is it a coincidence that Katie is one with this hobby also?
I yank myself out of my cell of memories. With these thoughts swirling through my head, I finish getting up and ready and leave the cabin. Camp is always crazy-busy in the morning, I don't get it. You would think a camp full of teenagers would be a ghost town in the mornings.
I feel like a ghost, a hollow shell as I always feel after I have revisited the past during the times sleep betrays me.
Katie is in the strawberry fields, as always, but as I watch her for a second, I notice that she is kind of out of it. She is harvesting strawberries slowly and sometimes misses the basket when she tried to put them in there. What's up with that?
I pass by and she keeps glancing up at me but in a strange way. Not the usual "don't you dare try it, Stoll" but, I don't know, a different look, like not annoyed at me. Well I've never seen that before.
Suddenly, in the distance, I see an area of trees completely fall. There's an explosion and a loud cry.
"RAWWRRGGHHH!!!"

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