𝐔𝐍𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐍, p. jackson. 𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴!

||*. 010 𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐲

"I don't think I've ever been in a convenient store." Gwen admitted to Annabeth as they walked through the building doors.

     "Never?" Annabeth was surprised.

     "I mean maybe once when I was small, but I don't remember." She shrugged as the two made their way down the candy isle.

   Gwen knew Annabeth had probably seen a lot more of the world outside of camp than she had. Annabeth was on the road for a while with Luke & Thalia so she had assumed her friend gathered some skills along the way. And she hoped among those skills, was knowing the good candy from the bad.

   The two girls were standing side by side, glaring at the large array of color bags and and bars, having not a single clue what any of the names were. Gwen read the one right infront of her, 'BIGOOF'. Wow interesting name.

     "I thought we were only getting chips and soda?" Annabeth questioned.

     "I change my mind. You know what any of this stuff is?"

     "Nope. You?" Annabeth was just as stumped.

     "Nope."

Gwen scanned the candy one last time, bitting her lip in deep concentration, before deciding to just grab a hand full of everything. She made certain to get a lot of blue stuff, it looked the most tasty in her opinion. With full hands she turned to her side to see Annabeth had vanished.

"Annie?" Gwen said, dropping a candy bar or two.

"Next isle!" Her friend lightly shouted.

Turning around the corner Gwen saw Annabeth in the same predicament. Her hands were full of canned sodas and unknown chip brands. And they walked like that all the way up to the register to pay.

Gwen was pulling change out of her pocket for the left over 26¢ when she felt something. And it wasn't just Annabeth tapping her slightly, it was a presence. Something was here.

"You feel it?" Annabeth whispered as the grocer was bagging up their last items.

"Yeah. You think we have a problem?"

"I'm not sure," Annabeth grabbed the bag from the worker and the two headed back for the bus. "I'll go check things out, you get back with Grover & Percy. Be there in a minute."

"Woah, hey!" Gwen argued. "I'll just come with." She was not about to leave her best friend to possibly battle a monster alone.

"I've got a plan, it's fine." Annabeth tapped her pant leg pocket where she kept her Yankees hat.

"Fine." Gwen took the bag of snacks and parted from Annabeth.

"Look, I'm not against the idea of consensus, I'm just not sure the song is doing what you think it is, that all."

Gwen had just walked in on Percy & Grover's conversation on the bus about the... rather unfortunate song from earlier. But, Percy had abandoned that conversation completely once he saw Gwen.

"Hey, your back." Percy stated with a half smile as if she had been gone 10 years when in reality, it was more like ten minutes.

"Yeah," Gwen sighed a little, her mind still stuck on Annabeth. "I got some candy for us too." She dropped the bag into Percy's lap.

The boy took a look at what was inside. He pulled out a blue and white plastic bag and examined it with joyful eyes. "These are my favorite!". He picked up another, similarly, blue box. "So are these!"