Five days until war.
Imagine you just moved to a new school, you're starting to fit in then your old school announces a rivalry with your new school. You're the only person but the principle that knows that you're from that school. Long story short, it sucks.
That's how I felt.
Everywhere I went it was me trying to tune out everyone because almost everyone was talking about what battle strategies would work.
These kids knew a scary amount of information about the campers at Camp Half Blood and Camp Jupiter. Luckily they still didn't know that I was one of those campers.
When I trained with the other children of the big three I kept thinking of ways that I could secretly make sure they didn't hurt any of my friends. But then they would help me or do something that pushed me away from the road of betrayal.
"Neptuna? Do you have the answer?" Ricky eyed me.
"Sorry, what was the question?" I realised I had been staring at the wrap covering my Camp Jupiter tattoo.
"What is Felicitas the goddess of?"
"She's not."
"Explain."
"She's not a goddess, she's a personification."
"Of what?"
"Success."
"Good. Next time pay attention."
"I was!" I lied.
"And I will ignore your lie. Now," He turned back to the class. "Who can tell me what Faunus and Pan have in common."
The rest of class, I wasn't listening. To be honest I didn't really care. The only time I looked up was when alarms started blaring all around the room and lights started flashing.
"Everyone follow me!" Doleo jumped up and yelled over the alarms.
"Hurry." Rickey ordered then jogged away.
"Come on!" Doleo yelled.
"What are the alarms for?" I jogged to catch up with her.
"I'll tell everyone once we get back to the cabin." She huffed.
We entered the cabin. Doleo immediately went around to all of the windows and doors then blocked them off.
"Everyone check every single corner, every single niche and cranny. If anything is suspicious or out of place tell me." Doleo ordered and immediately everyone started running around.
I didn't.
"What's this about?" I questioned.
"There's been a breakout. I don't know the details. The protocols are for everyone to return to their cabin and stay there until the praetor or a higher-up tells us that the situation is controlled."
"Who escaped?"
"I have no idea."
"Where did they escape from?"
"One out of two places, our prison or Hades' prison."
"How can someone break out of Hades' prison?"
"I have no idea."
"Camp Ops has a prison?"
"You ask too many questions, but yes." She sighed and glanced nervously around the room.
"All clear." Liza grumbled.
"Message!" Doleo announced and placed her dog tag on the floor.
There was no shimmering, instead the magical tag glowed brightly and a scratchy, worn voice boomed forth.
"Attention all cabin leaders and instructors, a prisoner has escaped from the prison. Be warned, target is extremely dangerous and extremely clever. From this point forward no one shall go to any location alone. The prisoner has a small black skull over their head, but he is unaware. It is relatively safe for all campers to leave their cabins, but threat is still eminent." The voice echoed around the room and the dog tag returned back to normal, Doleo placed it back around her neck and sighed.
"Everyone partner up. If you don't stay with your partner then there will be consequences."
"You're with me." Liza nodded toward me.
"Fine." I sighed.
"Doleo, you don't think it's—"
"We don't speak of his name. If he escaped then he would be coming after Carrie. And if that happens—"
"Then I don't know if Carrie can win."
"We can only hope."
"He can win." Liza spoke, though it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself more than Doleo.
"You can't truly believe that Carrie can kill his own—"
"I don't know, but as long as he doesn't join the other camps in the war then we won't have to kill him... right?"
"He did control the titans, and the giants, and the—"
"We get it, he's a bad guy but—"
"But nothing." Doleo growled.
"He's still human." Liza retorted.
"Who?" I questioned.
"No one." Liza huffed and jumped into her bunk.