THE HEALER| Heroes of Olympus

five

My vision started like this: 

Octavian, was speaking to the mob, shaking his fist. I couldn't hear him, but the gist was obvious: We need to kill those Greeks!

Reyna, the praetor, stood to one side, her face tight with suppressed emotion. Bitterness? Anger? I wasn't sure. She'd given the Greeks a fair chance...right up until the Argo II had started destroying her city.

The scene shifted. 

There was a rapid series of images I'd seen before, but I still didn't understand them: Jason riding into battle on horseback, his eyes gold instead of blue; a woman in an old-fashioned Southern belle dress, standing in an ocean side park with palm trees; a bull with the face of a bearded man, rising out of a river; and two giants in matching yellow togas, hoisting a rope on a pulley system, lifting a large bronze vase out of a pit.

Then the weirdest part I saw myself, Jasper, Piper, Jason and Percy, standing waist-deep in water at the bottom of a dark circular chamber, like a giant well. Ghostly shapes moved through the water as it rose rapidly. I clawed at the walls, trying to escape, but there was nowhere to go. The water reached their chests. Jason was pulled under. 

Percy stumbled and disappeared.

How could a child of the sea god drown? I didn't know, but I watched myself in the vision, alone and thrashing in the dark, until the water rose over my head.

This time, I saw an empty highway cutting between fields of wheat and sunflowers. A mileage marker read: TOPEKA 32. On the shoulder of the road stood a man in khaki shorts and a purple camp shirt. His face was lost in the shadow of a broad hat, the brim wreathed in leafy vines. He held up a silver goblet and beckoned to me. Somehow I knew he was offering me some sort of gift—a cure, or an antidote.

"Eliana!" A voice shouted pulling me from my dreams. My head bounced back and forth as if someone was shaking me. I slowly opened my eyes and groaned. My head was throbbing. When my vision came into focus I saw Jasper looking down at me. He had my head in his arms and he looked really concerned. 

"What happened?" I croaked. 

"Nemesis knocked you out and then got on her bike and left." He said, "You've been out for almost ten minutes." I heard the concern in his voice. 

"Sorry to worry you." I said. He mumbled something in Latin and helped me sit up. 

"We should head back to the ship. I saw the others already re-boarding." He said, and I nodded agreeing. Annabeth wouldn't be too happy we found nothing. 

When we arrived back on the Argo II, Percy was toting a steaming five-gallon plastic bucket that smelled horrible. Annabeth had a patch of black sticky stuff in her hair. Percy's shirt was covered in it. Leo's hair was greased back. He had welding goggles on his forehead, a lipstick mark on his cheek, tattoos all over his arms, and a T-shirt that read HOT STUFF, BAD BOY, and TEAM LEO. I didn't want to know. 

Frank stumbled up behind them, which made the hallway pretty jam-packed with demigods. Frank had a big smear of the black sludge down his face.

I looked over their shoulders and saw Jason was awake. He seemed to remember everyone which was a good sign. 

"How'd your search go?" Percy asked looking at me and Jasper as we stood there the only ones empty handed. 

"Well, about that..." we said sheepishly. 

"We sorta had a run in with Nemesis and she blasted us both away so we didn't have time to get anything." I explained. I left out the part about my visions. I found it was best not to share those until it was needed.