Y/N woke up several times, but what he saw and heard made no sense, and he always fell unconscious again. Once, he was lying in a soft bed and was spoonfed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. Another time, he saw Ethan standing in the corner of the room, and he turned his head to speak to someone else out of Y/N's field of vision.
"Stop thinking about it," he said, "or else everyone will think you're going mad. And before you ask again, no, it can't be him. I've been with him for two years, and he never went out of the orphanage."
"Alright," a girl's voice said. "But the deadline's coming soon, and two arriving chased by monsters, it can't be a coincidence."
"Why can't it be?" another voice said.
"Because it can't," the girl said. There was a sound of movement, and she asked abruptly, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"
"What?" a boy croaked.
"What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!" the girl urged.
"Stop," Ethan said quickly. "He hasn't recovered yet!"
"But I need to know—"
Someone knocked on the door, cutting the girl off. Y/N passed out again.
The next time he woke up, he was still in the room, yet it was—different. It was quiet, and he felt way better than the last time; it wasn't hard to keep his eyes open anymore. A beam of light went from a window to him, warming his whole body. Overall, it was really nice. The only black spot was his terribly dry mouth.
Looking around, he saw a glass filled with an amber liquid on a small table, right next to him. He slowly reached out to grab it and raised the glass to his lips. He had expected apple juice, yet it tasted like ice tea, the best he ever had. Drinking it, his whole body felt fresh, full of energy.
"So? What did it taste like?"
Y/N almost spilled everything on him. He turned to his left and faced Ethan. He was sitting on a stool, next to a window. He wore fisherman shorts, a sunhat with banana drawn on it, and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. And he had goat legs. It wasn't a nightmare.
"Ice tea," Y/N said.
"Nice," Ethan told him. "How do you feel?"
"I could beat Sean's arse."
"So you feel good, I see," Ethan snickered. He took the glass from Y/N's hands. "I think you had enough."
"What do you mean?"
"Doesn't matter. By the way, I've got this for you. Thought you'd like it." Ethan handed Y/N something wrapped in newspaper. Inside was a long, pristine white snake fang.
It reminded Y/N of everything, and he looked at his right hand, the one who had touched the poison. A streak of burned flesh marked his palm, and it seemed the skin was more fragile there, but that was all. He looked at his leg; the same kind of streak marked his shin.
"What was that thing?" Y/N asked. "The two-headed snake, I mean."
"Er—I don't think it's a good idea to talk about it."
Y/N didn't really listen to him. "Didn't we saw it in class? In Greek mythology? Isn't it the Amphisbaena?"
"Yes. Yes, it is," Ethan said, moving uneasily on his stool. "But please, don't say its name anymore." He looked around as if the monster could appear out of nowhere. Then he sighed and looked at the floor. "You've been unconscious for seven days. I'm sorry," he said grimly under his banana sunhat.
"Sorry for what?"
"I abandoned you to go here and find people. I should never have done that. You almost died because of me. You see, I was supposed to protect you, and I let you alone with your fate."
"Well, I'm still alive. It's not that bad, is it?"
"Y/N, please try to understand. It is bad. Anyway, don't worry about it. Come, Chiron said he wanted to see you when you'd wake up."
Y/N stood up and put the fang inside his pocket, its point still out. He followed Ethan out of the room, and they arrived on a porch. It wrapped all the way around the building, which was a farmhouse. The landscape was breathtaking. The valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between there and the farmhouse, there were many 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 the 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 Ethan'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, but that had to be Y/N's eyes hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.
Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a table. One was in a wheelchair, a blanket on his knees, looking forty or fifty. He was the exact image of the Latin teacher. The other was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at any poker party.
"That's Mr. D," Ethan said. Was it respect in his voice? "He's the camp director, so be careful around him. And in the wheelchair, it's Chiron."
Surely hearing the sound of Ethan's hooves on the porch, the so-called Chiron looked back at them and smiled. "Perfect," he said. "Don't you think pinochle is better when we have four?" he asked the other man.
Hawaiian guy only grunted. He showed Y/N and Ethan two chairs, and they sat. He smelled so much wine Y/N wondered why he remarked it only now. Mr. D sighed and looked at Chiron. "Is it mandatory?"
"I suppose it is," Chiron said.
"Welcome to Camp Half-Blood," Mr. grunted. "May the odds favor me and get you away as much as possible of my eyes."
"Er—Nice to meet you," Y/N said.
"I must say, Y/N, I'm glad to see you alive," Chiron said as Mr. D shuffled the cards. "Ethan told us a lot about you. And it seems he wasn't wrong since you got here alive."
Y/N looked at him. Was he joking? "Does it happen all the time? The monsters and—well, you understand what I mean."
"Quite often," Chiron replied.
Mr. D finished shuffling the cards and stared at Y/N. "Tell me you, at least, do know how to play pinochle."
"Uh, I must have some remainders."
"I must have some remainders, sir."
"Sir," Y/N repeated.
"I like this one," Mr. D told Chiron. "At least, he knows a little the greatest games ever invented by humans, not like the other, your student."
Chiron nodded and smiled as if remembering something funny.
"Along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, pinochle is one of the greatest indeed," Mr. D continued. He handed the cards out. Ethan eyed intensely the Diet Coke on the table.
"You can take it, Ethan," Chiron said.
"Yeah, yeah, you can," Mr. D mumbled with a gesture of the hand.
Immediately, Ethan took the can and crunched it. Wait—what? Y/N stared with bulging eyes at Ethan. He was eating the can as he would've with fries. What—am—I—doing—here?
"Your parents never told you anything?" Mr. D sighed. Apparently, it wasn't the first time the scene happened in front of him.
Y/N was surprised. He hadn't realized he had talked aloud. "I—don't have any."
"And didn't Ethan explain you anything?" Chiron asked.
"No. He said he would once we'd have gotten here."
Chiron nodded. "Understandable. If that snake chased you from Vermont, I can't imagine how easy it would've been for it with you knowing everything." He seemed to think for a moment. "Well, Y/N, you already know Ethan's a satyr, don't you?" He showed the fang's tip pointing out of Y/N's pocket. "And you know you killed a monster. But what you surely don't know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods—the forces you call the Greek gods—are very much alive."
Y/N looked at Ethan, waiting for the laugh that should have taken him. Yet Ethan was focused on his Diet Coke can.
"You're telling me God exists?" Y/N told Chiron.
"Well, now," Chiron said, "God—capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."
"But you were just talking about—"
"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus."
"As Zeus," Y/N said, "Hera, Apollo?"
A distant thunder on the cloudless sky punctuated his sentence very theatrically.
"Young man," Mr. D said, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."
"But—how?" Y/N blattered. "It can't be possible. They—can't exist. Or why else didn't they show up until now?"
"I love mortals!" Mr. D laughed wryly.
"Y/N," Chiron said, "it's up to you to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time? And can you imagine what it would do if people didn't believe in you?"
"I wouldn't like it," Y/N said.
"Exactly!" Mr. D agreed. He gestured neglectfully with his hand, and a glass of wine appeared out of nowhere. Y/N remained speechless. Ethan and Chiron looked as if nothing strange had happened.
"Mr. D," Chiron warned, "your restrictions."
Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise. "Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"
More thunder rolled.
"You—you—" Y/N stammered.
"I?" Mr. D said.
"You're Dionysus?" Y/N asked, his mouth hanging open.
"Amazing!" Mr. D said. "Ethan, you're sure he's so smart, your mate? He took his time."
"The game goes to me," Chiron announced as he set down his cards.
Mr. D threw his in the air and sighed. He stood up. "I'm tired. I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. Ethan, you come with me. We need to talk."
This time, Ethan shivered, and not just a little. "Yes—sir."
Mr. D turned to Y/N. "Cabin eleven, Y/N L/N."
He remained with Chiron for a moment. It was awkward. At least for Y/N. Chiron was just looking at the landscape with a smile on his face.
"Is everything alright with Ethan?" Y/N asked, a little concerned.
"Old Dionysus isn't really mad, don't worry. He hates his job, that's all. He's been... ah, grounded, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."
"Mount Olympus? In Greece?"
"Come on, Y/N, of course not. Greece is the cradle of the 'Western civilization', true, and gods are intimately linked with it since they saw its birth. But Mount Olympus moves, as the gods do, to follow the Western civilization. It went to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps—Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods. Then it went to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England and around the United Kingdom. And yes, now everything is in the United States. Look at the country's symbol, the eagle of Zeus."
It was a lot to take in at once. Y/N was a little—not to say completely—lost.
"Who are you, Chiron? And why am I here?"
Chiron smiled. "That's the question, you may say. And the answer will come in time. Now, let's go to cabin eleven. There are so many people you have to meet."
And then, he shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair. That had to be impossible, yet he did rise. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. He became taller than any man, and, as he got out of the wheelchair, Y/N saw the front of an animal, muscles and tendons under thick white fur, rising. The wheelchair wasn't a wheelchair. It was a kind of container, an enormous box on wheels. It must have been magic otherwise, it would never have been able to contain Chiron's body. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the bow was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.
"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Y/N L/N. Let's meet the other campers."
A/N: Hey! Quick chapter, not a lot of things done. I'm doing one of the major acts of my HP fanfic, so you surely understand I'm focusing on it for the moment UwU.
I hope you liked the chapter anyway ^^
See you next time and happy reading!