[act one; chapter one - the realities of a half-blood]
There was a sharp, constant ringing in her ear. It was like a buzz, as though a bee was right there, nearly touching her. But as she peeled back her eyelids, and as the light of the sun outside invaded her vision, she remembered where she was.
She hears the faint yet incessant beeping of the alarm on her side table out of only one ear—her left—while the other remained silent. Numb. She reaches blindly for that table beside her bed, her hands searching for two small objects, the ones that restore her senses to her. She slips the hearing aids on and suddenly her world is flooded with sound. She can hear the birds outside and her brothers' faint snoring from across the cabin. She can hear the faraway sound of the Long Island Sound hitting the shore and the sound of the wind in the leaves. She can hear the world, and knows it is time to start on her day.
She rolls out of bed, muscles aching, screaming for relent. But still, she pulls on clothes and tugs her hair away, and slips shoes onto her feet. She rubs a special ointment onto her forever-there burns, the skin tight and rough. Dead and a constant reminder of a life once known. So, to forget, for even just a moment, Andromeda silently exits the cabin and begins her run, aware of the eyes that follow her, the ears always listening.
As she runs, she catches the smallest of glimpses of her hands, of her scarred knuckles, and remembers where they are there. She thinks of the scars all across her body, the ones that have healed and the ones that never will. She thinks of what they mean, to her and others, to the world, and it only causes her to run faster. To run away.
It was a talent of hers—running. Running from people and feelings and things she couldn't bear to deal with. If it meant that she would feel that sinking of her gut and too-fast thudding of her heart, she would run. Push her legs faster, harder, in hopes that the wind carries her away as though she were a stray feather, lost in the world.
So she adjusts her hearing. The world becomes but a whisper like the wind against her skin.
———
She had hours upon hours logged working in the infirmary. She was used to the early mornings and late nights, the emergency calls, and covering shifts. As a Legacy of Apollo, Andromeda beheld the power of the God of medicine.
But when little Will Solace (technically, he's her uncle, but she has made it a thing to ignore that fact) comes running to her in a panic, Andromeda has no choice, no choice at all, but to go running to the infirmary, especially when she was specifically requested by Chiron.
She had spent her whole night sitting beside this boy, the one with a mess of raven hair and sea green eyes that, on occasion, blinked open tiredly, confused and full of grief. He slept most of the time, but every so often he would wake. He would blink awake and look around, look at her, drool, and fall back asleep. She knew next to nothing about him, this boy, other than his name and age. Percy Jackson, twelve years old. Grover brought him, saved him after Percy had saved the satyr, but his mom had died in the process.
She understood that, which is why she left.
She wandered out of the infirmary and down the front lawn, eyes trailing over this place she calls home. Over the cabins and the volleyball court, over the art cabin and the Big House. Over everything she had ever known. But it is a blonde haired girl with stern gray eyes that causes her to pause.
Her best friend, Annabeth Chase, looks up and waves. Smiles and calls her over. But Andromeda does not respond right away as the words, the name, is quiet to her. She knows everything around her is loud and boisterous, yet her little world is the opposite.
She turns up the volume on her hearing aids and walks down the hill towards Annabeth.
The blonde grins at her. "Did you see that the kid drools?"
Andromeda lets out a laugh and nods. "Yeah. It was a little much of an abnormal amount."
The two girls break out into a fit of laughter, falling into a quiet world that was all their own.
———
The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.
Percy Jackson's legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but the raven haired boy held on to it. He held onto it tight. He figured because he had paid for that souvenir the hard way—he wasn't going to just let it go.
As they came around the opposite end of the house, Percy finally caught his breath.
They must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, he simply couldn't process everything he was seeing.
The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school–age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless he was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings. It was like a dream. The most magnificent dream.
Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed Percy popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them, her eyes watching something else, or rather someone.
The man facing him was small, but porky—in a strong, fit way that Percy couldn't ignore. He had a slightly red nose, big eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He wore a tiger-patterned Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except he got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even his stepfather.
"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody, well, except one person but you'll meet her later. And you already know Chiron..."
He pointed at the guy whose back was facing the two boys.
First, Percy realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then he recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.
"Mr. Brunner!" He cried.
The Latin teacher turned and smiled at Percy. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.
"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."
———
After an enlightening conversation with Mr. D, the God of wine and madness, Chiron began to show Percy around the camp, to and around all of the areas they hadn't been earlier.
There were twelve cabins, all nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings Percy had ever seen.
Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a common area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more Percy's speed).
In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined fire pit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl, about nine years old, was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.
The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.
"Zeus and Hera?" Percy guessed.
"Correct," Chiron said.
"Their cabins look empty."
"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."
Percy stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.
It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. He peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"
Before he could pull the boy back, Percy had caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign that anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad, so lonely; he was glad when Chiron put his hand on his shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."
He did so without question.
———
Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.
Number five was bright red—a nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists, not meticulous strokes of a brush. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside Percy could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared in the background. The loudest was a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALFBLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on Percy and gave him an evil sneer, one that made his skin crawl.
She reminded him of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.
He kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," Percy observed.
"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."
"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really..."
He smiled down at the boy. "The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."
"But, shouldn't you be dead?"
Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the Gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish...and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."
Percy thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made his Top Ten Things to Wish For list.
"Doesn't it ever get boring?"
"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."
"Why depressing?"
Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.
"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth and Andromeda are waiting for us."
The blond girl Percy had met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.
Next to her was a new face...well, not really. He had seen her during those in between times when he would wake suddenly, only for a moment or two at a time. He would see her face; he didn't think that he would ever be able to forget it, not truly. She had tan skin and long curly red hair, kind of like fire. It sat against her back in thick curls, the front pieces, he observed, were pulled back so tight it made him think that, perhaps, she didn't want to see it. Freckles delicately dotted the skin of her face. They almost looked like they connected like the constellations in the night sky...a piece of art. He also noted that she wasn't wearing an orange shirt like everyone else, but rather a dark brown tank top, denim overalls (the shorts ones), and a pair of Chuck Converse, the shade almost the exact same as her shirt.
Almost like a bug to a lamp, Percy was immediately drawn towards the girl with the flame-like hair. Andromeda, he suspected, was her name. She looked up and her eyes met his. They were the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.
And for the first time, sea green met amethyst, and the world went still. It was almost as though the entire world around them held their breaths, bit their tongue, and silenced all noise save for the bated breath that left Percy, and the pause of Andromeda's near-silent gasping breath.
He snapped away from her intoxicating gaze and continued on, not wanting to get caught staring. Though it was already too late for that, not that he needed to know.
When they reached the two girls, Annabeth looked Percy over critically, like she was still thinking about how much he drooled.
He tried to see what she was reading, but he couldn't make out the title. Percy thought his dyslexia was acting up. Then he realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to him. Literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book. He guessed that is what the book was about.
"Annabeth, Andromeda," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"
Annabeth answered with, "Yes, sir."
But Andromeda disagreed.
She groaned and threw her hands in the air with an exasperated sigh. "Come on! That's not fair. You're forcing me to show the newbie around, all while I could be doing target practice. I'm supposed to be taking that class."
The old centaur ignored the girl who huffed as she got to her feet, her gaze traveling over to Percy with pinched brows before turning back to Annabeth and Chiron.
"Cabin eleven," Chiron told Percy, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."
Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. A caduceus.
Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.
Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.
"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."
He galloped away toward the archery range.
Percy stood in the doorway, looking at the kids that stood before him. Every so often he glanced back at Andromeda for whatever reason, one that remained unknown to him. They weren't bowing anymore, not to him. They were staring at him, sizing him up, waiting for the moment he made the smallest mistake. He knew this routine. He'd gone through it at enough schools, during enough times in his life.
"Well?" Andromeda prompted. "Go on."
She placed her hands on his shoulder, guiding him towards the door and giving him a little shove, though it wasn't as harsh as he expected it to be.
Percy paused for a moment, seeing the color of her eyes. They seemed so familiar, the way the purple caught the sun and changed shades, flickering between a deep purple and then back to a crystal-like amethyst. Every time he looked her way, every time their gazes caught, he was instantly mesmerized.
Realizing he had stopped walking, he took a breath, followed by a step forward, into this strange, scary world.
So, naturally, he tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of himself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything more.
Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."
"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.
Andromeda answered with, "Undetermined."
Everybody groaned.
A guy who was just barely older than the majority of those in the cabin came forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."
The guy was about fourteen, and he looked cool, kind. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five multi-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his kind appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.
"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. Her cheeks burned red for a moment, causing her red haired best friend to smile, though it didn't quite reach her eyes.
"He's your counselor for now." Andromeda told Percy.
"For now?" He asked.
"You're undetermined," Luke explained with incredible patience. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the God of travelers."
Percy looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given him.
Andromeda, who was leaning against one of the nearby bunk's, noticed he had nothing to put there to mark it as his own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag, nothing at all. Just the Minotaur's horn. She remembered feeling the same way when she arrived eight years before. So, naturally, she felt sympathy that quickly washed away when she felt the shift of emotion within the cabin, a scowl finding its home on her face once more.
She looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen, others suspicious, several grinning stupidly, and nearly all eyeing Percy as if they were waiting for a chance to pick his pockets.
"How long will I be here?" He asked.
"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."
"How long will that take?"
The campers all laughed.
"Come on," Annabeth told him. "We'll show you the volleyball court."
"I've already seen it."
"Let's go. You can handle seeing it again, yes?." Andromeda insisted.
She grabbed his wrist and dragged him outside. Percy could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind him.
When they were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."
"What?"
She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."
"Annie." Andromeda warned, her amethyst eyes becoming darker in an instant, like a storm brewing.
"What's your problem?" He snapped, "All I know is, I kill some bull guy—"
"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told him. Andromeda, from where she stood behind the blonde, let out a deep sigh, her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. She shook her head, exasperated. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"
"To get killed?"
"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"
He shook his head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories..."
"Yes."
"Then there's only one."
"Yes."
"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So..."
Andromeda grimaced at the name of the hero, at the name of the cowardly man. He didn't deserve the title of hero in her opinion, not many of them did. He was a man who had left someone who had done nothing but help him alone, he had abandoned her, left her behind as though she was nothing more than a means to an end. That's not the kind of person she believes deserves praise. Nor the title of hero.
"Monsters don't die, Percy. Not exactly. They can be killed. But they don't die." She answered.
"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."
Andromeda sighed, but continued nonetheless, "They don't have souls, like you and me and Annabeth. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form and come back to do the same thing as before."
"You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"
"The Fur...I mean, your math teacher. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."
"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"
"You talk in your sleep."
Percy looked down at his shoes, a sudden flurry of...embarrassment crawling up the back of his neck, tinting his cheeks.
"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"
Annabeth and Andromeda glanced nervously at the ground, as if they expected it to open up and swallow them whole. "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all," Annabeth answered.
"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?" Percy asked with a whine. "Why do I have to stay in Cabin Eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."
He pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or...your parent."
She stared at Percy, waiting for him to get it. He didn't. Not right away, at least.
"My mom is Sally Jackson," He said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."
"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."
"He's dead. I never knew him."
Andromeda sighed. "Your father's not dead, Percy."
"How can you say that? You know him?"
"No, of course not."
"Then how can you say—"
"Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."
"You don't know anything about me."
"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."
"How—"
"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too." Annabeth added.
He blushed in embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are." Annabeth explained, watching as said topic began to cause Andromeda to twist the rings on her fingers. They both watched, unknowingly, as the redhead was sucked into her head, into a world and life she had once lived. The one that was taken from her with a burnt house and dead mother.
"You sound like...you went through the same thing?" Percy inquired.
Andromeda nodded. "Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."
"Ambrosia and nectar."
"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better." She rocked back and forth on her heels, arms crossed over her chest. She shook her head and looked away, eyes trained on something, or maybe someone, far away. "It would have killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."
A half-blood.
Percy's face twisted slightly, thinking about their words. Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"
All three of them looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward them. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.
"Clarisse," Andromeda snapped. "Buzz off, why don't you? Maybe polish your spear while you're at it."
"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."
"Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which Percy somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though he had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."
"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward Percy. "Who's this little runt?"
"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."
He blinked. "Like...the war God?"
Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"
"No," Percy said, recovering his wits. "It explains the bad smell."
Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."
"Percy."
"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."
"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.
"Stay out of it, Wise Girl."
Annabeth looked pained, but she really did stay out of it, though it was reluctant. Andromeda tailed after Clarisse and Percy, looking all too bored and unimpressed, though Percy wasn't sure who it was directed at—him or the daughter of Ares.
Percy handed Annabeth his Minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before he knew it, Clarisse had him by the neck and was dragging him toward a cinder- block building that he knew immediately was the bathroom.
He was kicking and punching. He'd been in plenty of fights before, but Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged him into the girls' bathroom.
"Come on Clarisse, pick on someone your own size, huh?" Andromeda's tone of voice was opposite of her words. While what she said was, well, perhaps amusing to some degree, her tone was dead serious.
Clarisse's friends were all laughing as she dragged him into a stall, and Percy was trying to find the strength he'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.
"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed him toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."
Her friends snickered.
Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers while Andromeda suddenly held a knife in her hand, sharpening the gold blade, though her eyes never strained from the group of Ares kids.
Clarisse bent Percy over on his knees and started pushing his head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. He strained to keep his head up.
Then something happened. The plumbing rumbled, the pipes shuddered. Clarisse's grip on his hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over his head, and the next thing he knew, he was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind him.
Percy turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. A cackle could be heard from farther away, easily identifiable as Andromeda. How Percy knew that, though, he wasn't sure.
The water stayed on Clarisse like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall. She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.
As soon as they were out the door, Percy relaxed slightly and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.
The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at him in shock.
He turned to find a somewhat dry Andromeda, whose brows were furrowed as if trying to figure out a puzzle, one where she had been missing a single piece for so long, but had just finally found.
Percy looked down and realized he was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around him. He didn't have one drop of water on his clothes. Nothing.
Percy stood up, his legs shaky.
Annabeth said, "How did you..."
"I don't know."
"I mean, it was super cool but we seriously need to figure that out." Andromeda said as she walked towards them.
They walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave the three a look of absolute hatred, her gaze centered on Percy. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."
Both Annabeth and Andromeda knew he should leave it alone, but Percy didn't. "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."
Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet. As they walked away, a gold knife embedded itself in a banister next to Clarisse, causing her to snap her head towards the culprit. The brunette scoffed before turning away with her friends.
Percy turned to find Annabeth staring at him and he couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at him for dousing her.
"What?" He demanded. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."
CHAPTER 1 OF THE REWRITE AHHHH!
Here it is, I don't really have much to say. Anywho, I hope you enjoyed, and are excited for this like me!