Life is Heroes of Olympus

Chapter I

Word Count: 8609

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It was raining. Hard.

Raindrops flickered on her eyelids, forcing them to open. She was laying on the ground on her stomach in the dirt, no memory of how she got there.

Where am I?

The girl stands up slowly, and tries to regain her bearings. A feat that is mostly impossible to do with the storm clouding her vision. The trees around her were being walloped by the wind, and it became apparent that she was in some type of forest. She glanced around until she faintly saw a lighthouse behind her, just up the hill. The same lighthouse that towered over her hometown, the place she grew up as a kid.

I'll be safe if I can make it there! I hope...

She climbed the hill, a hand in front of her face to shield her from the unholy wind. After what felt like hours of stumbling, to the point where her entire being was soaked through and through, she emerged at the top of the hill.

There she saw it, a storm so large that there probably wasn't even a place for it on scale. The hurricane, or tornado, she couldn't tell, sat in the middle of the bay, moving closer to the small fishing town that was cradled in it.

Holy shit.

The storm carried boats out of harbor, throwing one sideways where it collided with the lighthouse, causing the top part of it to crumble off and fall right where the girl would be.

Whoa! No!

Pipers head shoots up from its place on the desk, expecting to be dead. But instead of a storm, she's in her photography class, the class where she... fell asleep.

That was so surreal.

Malcolm's pen dropped on the floor, and he waited till our teacher- Mr. Castellan- was turned before he leant down to pick it up.

Everything's cool, I'm okay.

Mr. Castellan kept prowling around class, giving some lecture that was apparently so boring that Piper had fallen asleep to it. Michael waited till the teacher turned again, then threw a paper ball at Nico. Said boy glared, and the pencil in his hand snapped. It really fed into the 'goth' look he had been going for lately.

The phone on Drew's desk buzzed, receiving a call from one of her many 'fangirls'. At least, that was most likely in Pipers eyes.

I don't remember falling asleep, and that sure didn't feel like a dream. At least not a normal one.

Mr. Castellan asked a question that she didn't think anyone knew, that is until Drew raised her hand as daintily as possible and answered.

The teacher rambled on about.. stuff, as Piper looked at the objects now scrambled on her desk from her startled awakening. The photo she took, the one for the Everyday Heroes contest, peeks out. It depicts herself, back turned, facing a wall of strung up photos from her time here.

Look at this crap! How can I turn this in for the contest? I can hear the class laughing at me now.

Piper picked up her camera. It was old, but she preferred it to the new and fancier ones (And there was no way she could afford the ones Drew and Octavian probably have). She tucked it slightly under the table, and faced it to herself, clicking the button to take a photo.

"Shh, I believe Piper has taken what you kids call a 'selfie'... A dumb word for a wonderful photographic tradition." Good going. Now the whole class is staring at you! "And Piper... has a gift. Of course, as you all know, the photo portrait has been popular since the early 1800's. Your generation was not the first to use images for 'selfie-expression.'" He chuckled, "Sorry. I couldn't resist. The point remains that the portraiture has always been a vital aspect of art, and photography, for as long as it's been around. Now, Piper, since you've captured our interest and clearly want to join the conversation, can you please tell us the name of the process that gave birth to the first self-portraits?"