The Mark of Athena (Fan-Fiction)

Chapter 36- Piper

     Someone opened her door. It was Annabeth. She raised an eyebrow. “Why are you on the floor?”

     “I f-fell,” Piper admitted.

     “Is that all?” Annabeth asked with a sour expression.

     “Um, nightmare…” Piper trailed off when she saw Annabeth’s worried look.

     “Piper, why do you keep having nightmares and visions?” Annabeth asked anxiously. “You keep pulling away.”

     “I…” Piper clamped her mouth shut. And her dream spilled out. She was babbling and needed to stop, but she ended her little speech with, “If I tell you guys, I think Gaea will make my dream happen!”

     Annabeth’s eyes were huge. “Why… didn’t you tell us?”

     “The same reason I told you: Gaea could make the dream real, Annabeth. I don’t want my best friends to die.” Piper lifted herself from the floor and sat on her bed. “I’m tired of this, Annabeth! I can’t keep letting Gaea attack me like this!” She opened her door and went to a place nobody knew existed on the ship.

     Down by the engine room, there was a supply closet. You would have to go through the engine room, where it was searing hot. Piper, needing to get away from people lately, went down there. Between the bottom shelf and the ground, there was a gap where a person could easily fit if they curled up into a ball.

     Piper curled up, one side of her body touching the ground, the other side touching the shelf. She managed to reach up and swing the door so it was barely open.

     Everything was perfectly quiet. The snow had melted when she had the Curse of Gaea, so the whole ship hummed from the air conditioning. The supply closet was cool. Piper rested her head on the ground.

     She was perfectly alone. Her thoughts roamed around freely. She wondered what happened to her. Was it because she was kidnapped? Whatever the reason, she wanted to stay in the supply closet for life.

     The door opened. She sucked in a breath. It was just Leo. He reached down and accidently grabbed her leg. He yelled, she screamed and flinched.

     The shelf above her shook, for when she flinched, her whole body slammed into the shelf. Suddenly the shelf gave way.

     The shelf came down and hit her on the head. Before she could crawl away, screws, bolts, and rolls of paper towels came raining down on her head.

     She blacked out. The last thing she remembered was Leo yelling for help.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

     So Piper wanted time to be alone, and she got it. Blacking out was the best thing that had happened to her all day. She could think freely. She wasn’t interrupted with horrible dreams… nightmares, which is what she meant. The only thing bugging her was the pain in her head.

     When she began to wake, she kept her eyes closed. Being a daughter of Aphrodite, she could surprisingly keep her face perfectly smooth like an actress.

     She heard voices. At first it was only a slight buzzing, like a bumblebee, but then she could identify the voices and each word like a TV being turned on.

     “So, she was hiding in the supply closet?”

     “Like I told you, I went to get some paper towels because I spilled some coffee, I accidently pinched her leg, she screamed, and then boom. The shelf hit her on the head and she passed out.”