"-phrodite?" a male voice suggests, somewhere in front of me.
My eyes are still closed, so I don't bother to open them, trying to eavesdrop on the conversation. What? Don't look at me like that!
"What makes you think she's my half sister?" another voice asks, female.
Aphrodite. What? Half sister? Were these people some creepy Percy Jackson cosplayers?
"She might be Hecate. Look at her hair, and when she passed us on the bike, her eyes were purple," another, more sophisticated female voice asks.
Hecate? Were they discussing godly parents? Yeah, I'm dreaming, I'm definitely dreaming.
"She's sixteen, our age. Weren't demigods supposed to be claimed by 13?" a more high pitched male voice bleats.
Grover? No, what am I thinking? Come on, Adrienne, get it together.
"She's up," another male voice says.
This one's melodic, almost like how Will Solace's is described in the books.
Shut up, Adrienne. It's not true. None of it is.
I blink slowly, and open to my eyes to a sight I only see in my dreams.
I'm laying on a cot, underneath a big blue cabin- the Big House? - with strawberry fields surrounding me. A lava wall is a few metres away and I gasp.
"Camp Half Blood?!" I shriek, sitting up right.
"Or she could be a monster," the female voice from before hisses.
I turn to get a good look at her: she's tall, her blonde hair in a ponytail, with intimidating gray eyes. She's wearing a CHB t-shirt and denim shorts.
A dagger is sheathed at her side.
"IT'S ANNABETH CHASE!" I yell happily.
I don't know what I'm saying anymore.
Of course, I'm obviously dreaming, so I decide to go along with it.
I turn around to a hand grabbing my shoulder.
Cold sea green eyes stare at me, right through me.
"Who are you?" he asks.
Percy. Frickin. Jackson.
"Ohhhh my f***in' gods, it's Percy freaking Jackson! I ship Percabeth sooooo hard! Can I see Riptide? Is she in love with Jack? Do they go on dates a lot? Has a monster ever crashed your date with Annabeth? When are you proposing? When's the wedding? Can I come? What are you naming your kids? Did you really douse Clarisse with toilet water? Did you actually see the Fates cut a string and live to tell the tale? Who wrote the Percy Jackson series? Was it your Mom? How's Estelle? Can I have a blue cookie?" I ramble.
Everyone stares at me. Everyone being Percy, Annabeth, a Cherokee girl - PIPER MCLEAN?! - Will Solace, oh my gods, and GROVER UNDERWOOD?!
Best. Dream. Ever.
"Who. Are. You?" Percy asks again, narrowing his eyes.
I back up with a nervous laugh.
"I'm Adrienne Cadence and I'm a massive fangirl. Also, are you cosplayers or is this a dream? Am I really at Camp Half Blood? Am I a demigod?" I say quickly.
Annabeth squints at me and sighs, "Adrienne, all we need to know is how do you know so much about us?"
She fingers her drakon bone sword and I bounce excitedly, getting up and stretching my legs.
"It's the drakon bone sword you found in Tartar-Sauce!" I exclaim.
Now, it's pointing at my throat. She glares, intentions clear. Who are you and what are you doing here? Is her unspoken question.
I chuckle anxiously.
"So, um, there's a book series, okay? Well, there are a lot of them, but the main two are Percy Jackson and the Olympians and the Heroes of Olympus. They're written by a man named Rick Riordan. How he knows your secrets, I don't know," I explain.
Annabeth's face dawns in realization and she quickly runs to a cabin that has to be Cabin 6.
She comes back with a guy with shaggy blonde hair, glasses, and gray eyes - Malcolm Pace, perhaps?
"Malcolm, you remember Rick?" she asks Malcolm.
He nods "Of course, he's a big author now. I somehow can't find his books anywhere, though."
She whispers something in her half-brother's ear.
He frowns, "Do you really think Rick's spilling demigod secrets to the world?"
Annabeth nods with a groan, "I suppose we're going to pay a visit to our dear brother Rick Riordan."
"Wait, brother?!" I interrupt.
"Rick Riordan's a son of Athena?!"
Annabeth nods, and goes off to who knows where with Malcolm.
"How are you here, exactly?" Percy asks, face brightening back to his normal, cheery self.
"I have no idea," I moan. "One second, I'm riding my bike, the next second, a big black dog jumps on me and I'm out cold. I woke up here, at Camp Half Blood."
"Is this a dream?"
"Pinch yourself," Percy shrugs.
I blink incredulously.
"Okay," I mumble, and I close my fingers around my skin and wince.
"Definitely. Not. Dreaming."
"Is there a way we can find out if I'm a demigod?" I ask. It would explain why I never really knew my mother at all.
"Yes, and I hope you're not disappointed if you're a legacy - it's probably why you weren't claimed," Piper adds.
Percy is deep in thought.
"I'll go get Chiron," he nods.
I bounce on the balls of my feet in anticipation.
A few seconds later, a centaur, Chiron, clomps out of the Big House.
"Ah, Adrienne Cadence, I suppose?" he asks.
I nod nervously.
"You come from a different realm." he says, cutting straight to the point.
I blink. "What?"
"You are no doubt a demigod, I sense that, but the reason you have not been claimed earlier is because you were in a different realm hidden by what you know as the fourth wall."
I try to process this information.
I'm from another realm, where everything's fiction instead of fact.
I'm a demigod.
WAIT.
I'm a demigod!
"What about the other three walls?" Percy squints.
"I was just about to ask that." Grover nods.
Chiron facepalms.
"Boys," Piper groans.
"Piper, you up for a sleepover with the rest of The Seven, Grover, Juniper, Tyson, Ella, Will, Nico, and Reyna?" Percy calls.
Piper, who is cleaning Katropis, nods.
Wait.
The Trials of Apollo.
If the books were true, didn't the events of ToA happen?
Or they didn't happen... yet?
Is this the reason I'm here, with the life of a demigod?
To try and fix what happens next?
I shove that aside and focus on my more important question.
"Who's my godly parent?" I ask.
Chiron squints and studies me.
"By the looks of you, I would say Hecate. Your personality says Aphrodite, though recent campers have thankfully changed that stereotype," he shoots a glance at Piper who smiles.
"-but if I were to try and accurately guess, I would definitely say Hecate."
"I might have magic!" I sing happily.
"Although," Chiron mutters. "-you may be Hypnos."
"Sleep is for the weak," I state plainly.
"We can rule that out for sure," Grover mutters.
"Hecate," Percy confirms.
After showing me around camp a bit, Percy sits down at a table with a very cute - and I mean this in a platonic way - and adorable cyclops.
"Tyson!" I fangirl.
"Adri knows my name!" he says happily.
I want to hug him to death.
"Hermes table, right?" I ask for confirmation.
"Unclaimed as of now, so yeah," Percy answers.
He mutters something under his breath and his cup fills with blue coke, a cheeseburger appearing on his plate.
I sit down at the Hermes table where two brown haired, mischievous brothers greet me.
"Hey there-" the younger one, Connor Stoll, I suppose, says.
"-Adrienne." Travis finishes.
"Heard you were unclaimed, so welcome to the Hermes cabin until then!"
I smile a little and give a wave.
"Before you start eating, be sure to scrape your food into the fire and pray to a god," Connor advises.
I nod, I know that already.
"Alfredo pasta," I say to the empty plate.
It appears, the aroma of parmesan and basil filling my nostrils.
"Lemonade," I add. The cup fills up.
I lift my plate, walk to the fire, and scrape a bit in. I pour a few drops of lemonade in too.
"Oh, Mom, whoever you might be, please claim me soon," I whisper, and I walk back to begin eating.
About halfway through my pasta, everyone gasps.
I lift my head to see what everyone's looking at, and they're staring at me.
Well, about two inches above my head.
"What?" I ask, annoyed.
Then I freeze.
My head.
Above my head.
Oh, Gods of Olympus-
Why is everyone bowing? I strain my eyes to see what's above me: A fountain.
A fountain.
The fountain of youth.
Then comes Chiron's voice.
"All hail Adrienne Cadence, daughter of Hebe."