FOTIA - percy jackson

𝟎𝟐𝟐; festivities to fear

It smelt of playdough and old paper, the walls were scratched and scraped from years of kids playing pranks and accidentally damaging furniture. No matter how cramped and sweaty the place was, she would always remember it as the first place she genuinely and consistently laughed.

Caliz Chung and Charles Beckendorf stood at the end of the steps. "Ready?" Beckendorf, the head camper of the Hephaestus cabin called out. Loralai hummed, then confirmed, "Ready."

She turned her back from the cabin and rolled her small suitcase down the stairs. Almost immediately she was smothered in a hug from her half-siblings. "Welcome home," Caliz mumbled into her shoulder, earning a large beam from Loralai.

They all pulled apart from the hug. Charles whispered enthusiastically, "Moving day, woo!"

The Hephaestus Cabin was exactly how Loralai had imagined it. There was a large and circular metal vault door that opened with a hiss of greeting. Inside, there was someone working cutting metal with an electrical saw. The person wore a shield of silver over their face to protect themself, with a tiny window so they could see.

Sparks flew all around, dancing and bouncing off the metal walls. The floor was a dark wood, but somehow Loralai could sense some sort of coating had been put over it to stop it bursting into flames.

She breathed in the atmosphere. It smelt like burning wood and iron. The loud saw rang through her ears, so loud Charles had to shout over it to tell them to quiet down.

The sound died down, the girl using the saw flicked off her mask with a glare at Beckendorf and a smile at Loralai. She stepped forward, Loralai recognized her as Nyssa Barrera. Loralai had seen her around camp, but never properly talked to her.

"Hi, Loralai," Nyssa said breathlessly, sweat dripping off her forehead. A red bandana was wrapped around her short brown hair, and her muscles were prominent from working with tools.

Her skin was coco-brown, so Loralai thought she must've been Hispanic, with a slight flare when she said the 'r's in Loralai's name. "Hi, Nyssa," Loralai said, walking forward and leaning over her bench to see what she's working on.

She thought it would've been something intense, like a fancy machine, but it was just a slab of metal that read: NYSSA'S CAVE.

"Oh you're decorating a ..." Loralai's voice trailed off. She wanted to say, "Are you guys decorating a cave in the forest," but that sounded stupid.

"A sign for my room," Nyssa explained. Her eyebrows shot up when Loralai tossed her a confused look. "Oh," she said, "Caliz didn't tell you about our rooms."

Loralai grinned. "We have our own rooms?" It was a refreshment from the crowded Cabin Eleven.

"Yup," Caliz chimed in, "under our beds. It's like a secret compartment."

Loralai's mouth dropped. "Cool!"

Then the head counselor, Beckendorf, directed her to her bunk. It was nothing special. What was underneath it was what really got Loralai excited. She had managed to open the compartment via her techno kinesis, but Beckendorf laughed and said there was a level and that she doesn't need to do that every time.

She was lowered into the empty room by an industrial lift, which had chain decoration that clinked when it lowered. Finally, with a boom, she reached the bottom.

Loralai stepped out of the elevator, Caliz trailing behind her. The room was spacious, and had metal walls like the room upstairs. It had a tiny bathroom separate, which Caliz said was because people would sometimes stay down in their rooms all night working on things.