The Demigod Diaries

Chapter 12- Quests and Unrest

•Connor Stoll•

Camp Half-Blood was in ruins. Cabins collapsed from explosions, shrouds burned for the dead. We were losing this war, but that didn't mean we hadn't done a number on the Romans. They spent their entire day regrouping at their base at the bottom of the hill. Octavian would not rest, though. He stood down there screaming in his squeaking childish voice pitiful insults and meaningless curses aimed toward our camp. I wished Stella was here. She would climb up a tree and shoot the darn kid with deadly accuracy all the way from up here just to shut him up. But no, that would only lead to more fighting and problems for us Greeks.

Travis was still in the infirmary. It had been days since the first battle, and his head injury was more serious than it let on. A major concussion. The main reason he wasn't better now was because Will refused to give him more ambrosia and nectar. He will recover in time, there are more serious injuries than short term memory loss. Will and I had gotten into a big fight over it, too. Will had been acting very rude and irritable lately, mainly because the entire Apollo cabin was in charge of taking care of everyone, but were still needed in battle for archers and half of them were injured or dead. He'd been working more than double-time and the stress was getting to him.

I wasn't going to lie and say I didn't miss Stella. I could listen to her talk for hours, though she hated talking about her old life and she would get frustrated when she couldn't remember things from her godly days. Not that she was supposed to, she shouldn't have remembered anything thanks to the Lethe. But she was extraordinary, she was digging up bits and pieces every day. She should remember a ton of stuff by now. If she's okay. I couldn't forgive myself for yelling at her to tell Percy and Annabeth when I should have been saying goodbye. It could have been the last time I'd ever seen her. No, I refused to believe that. She will make it out and she will come back to me. To me? She was never even mine in the first place. To us. We need her, I need her.

"Connor!" Naissa was running toward me from the top of the hill. It must be something important if she came all the way to the beach to tell me.

"What's wrong?"

"I've got something you might want to see."

• • •

What looked like a massive blue lightning bolt was shooting up from the ground in Epirus. From what I could see around the bolt, the Argo II floated in the sky, and a few demigods lay in the green grass below. A few familiar demigods. The screen of Chiron's little magical tv, a gift from Hermes, flickered and went blank, leaving everyone in the room speechless.

Not even a minute later, a sharp pain erupted near my temple. I doubled over and clutched my head, unable to hold in the scream rising in my throat. Images began to flash through my head. Stella slashing through thick chains holding down massive elevator doors. Stella in the hands of a monstrous beast. Stella falling from nearly forty feet, flung down by the beast made of the land around him. And then, Stella laying on the floor of Tarturas, unconscious, a spot near her temple bleeding uncontrollably, Gaea with a sleepy grin on her stupid stone face, a bloody dagger in her hand.

"NO!" I screamed out loud, wanting desperately to reach out and pull the limp girl into my arms and save her. But Chiron told me, she took a swim in the Styx, and one can not be saved when stabbed in their Achillies heel.

I could see images of a little girl, her light brown hair blowing behind her in a long curtain as she ran through glimmering streets, dancing to the music that filled the warm air, laughing as Poseidon chased her around the throne room and spun her around and carried her on his shoulders. I could see her dancing in the sun of her old backyard, shooting a black Matthews compound bow, reading a book on a window seat in a light blue room with oars as a headboard on the bed behind her and an entire wall with shelves filled with books. I could see her in the strawberry fields on her first day at camp laughing and running through them, her long brown hair flowing behind her like when she was a child. I could see her on a sunny day before the war began, sitting on the beach with me, wearing a tie dyed tee with the sleeves cut off and blue jean cut-offs.