I've never ran so fast. As I run to Thalia, I get more annoyed than scared. Only one thing could have done this. Water. I turn and face the Hunters. "Did any of you idiots take my friend near a lake that happened to have algae at the bottom?" I ask, anger creeping into my voice.
The Hunters shift uneasily. "Well?" I demand. A Hunter friend of mine named Phoebe speaks up." Uh, well there were these naiads who wanted to join, but we couldn't add them to the Hunters because of their fragile life sources. They attacked us, and we had to fight back. One dragged Thalia underwater. She summoned some lightning to get away from them, but lightning and algae make a nasty combination. We were in the area so we came here," she says.
"Sister, if I may," I say to Artemis, "How did you not know she can't be in water? She is your lieutenant. You tell eachother things. I know for a fact she would say something," I say. Artemis arches her eyebrows at me. "Little sister, you are aware that Thalia Grace was only trying to save her sisters. It is what the Hunters are for. Perhaps, if you would leave that Di Angelo fellow, you would understand the value of being a Hunter, Selene," She says. I set my jaw and narrow my eyes at her. "That is none of your concern, My Lady," I say, "You may scorn love, but I don't," I tell her. I turn my attention to Thalia placing my hand gently on her forehead.
"Selene," Artemis calls and I turn away from Thalia. "Yeah?" I ask. Artemis shoulders her bow, "You are always welcome amongst my Hunters, I just hope you'll consider my offer," she says. "Well," I say softly, looking at Nico, "Maybe one day, I'll have a reason to join you. I hope I don't need to though," I tell her. Nico sees me looking at him and I quickly look away. Chiron looks up from healing Thalia. "She should be waking up any moment now. That mix of lightning and water wasn't good for her at all." Chiron says. Then everything goes uphill as Thalia wakes up.
• • •
We sit in the living room of the big house making Thalia drink nectar. "Look, I'm fine guys," Thalia says. I study her, looking at the familiar choppy black hair, freckles, electric blue eyes, and her punk rock fatigue. Her black jeans are tattered and held together by paper clips. Her black leather jacket sports multiple rock band buttons and her skull earrings glitter in the light of the chandelier in the living room. "Selene do a scan. Watch, I'm fine," she says. I stand up and walk less than two feet over to her. "Sel be careful, you blacked out last time you did this," Nico warns me. "Correction, DeathBoy, this is just a scan. I actually ejected Calypso's sickness into my own body to get it out of hers. It overloaded my system causing me to faint. I could have died. I didn't. So no, the last time I scanned someone for sickness or injuries, I was fine. It was the last time I healed someone." I say. Nico just rolls his eyes. "I could literally see your life aura fading, you idiot." Nico says. "Oh really, you wanna play like that you little-" Thalia cuts me off before I could hurt Nico's feelings "-Hey, are you going to check or not? You lovebirds can finish arguing later. I need to check on my Hunters," Thalia says.
I gently pick up her wrist and close my eyes,concentrating on finding anything wrong with her. I don't find anything. "She's good," I say. "Exactly," Thalia swings her legs over the side of the couch and stands up and gathers her weapons and hunter attire. She raises her hand to her forehead as if to make sure her silver circlet, the mark of the lieutenant, is still there. It was. "Where is Artemis?" Thalia asks. "She should be on the porch," I answer. Thalia nods and heads outside. "Anyways, Selene as I was saying, you almost died and I wasn't about to let that happen," Nico explains "That's sweet of you, really, but I can take care of myself,okay?" I tell him
"Taking care of yourself isn't overextending yourself, Selene," he retorts. "Well what did you expect me to do? Let Calypso keep seizing? Let her temperature keep rising? Let her pulse and heart overwork themselves?" I ask, "No, Sunshine, I wouldn't have done that." I say. You may call me dramatic but when your significant other- excuse me significant annoyance decides that saving your friend is a crime try not to yell or verbally defend your actions. I storm out of the big house, through the crowd of Hunters, past the satyrs and campers playing volleyball, and to the Hephaestus cabin. Leo wasn't in there but I wanted to check on my painting.
I go down to bunker nine and almost die of two things; a heart attack, and the zombie soldier charging at me with an imperial gold blade. As he comes toward me it feels like my brain is being microwaved and filled with helium. Then I plant my feet and summon my bow. I am fully aware that I only have one shot because the zombie is staggering wildly. I reach back and pull an arrow out of my quiver and knotch it in the bow. I pull back and fire.
The arrow goes flying and I pass out for the second time today. Come to find out, I don't blackout. Instead, I'm blinded and the pressure in my head drops so quickly I fall to my knees. "Get up," I mumble to myself, the zombie was hit, but slowly getting back up to charge at me again. I take a deep breath and concentrate on Nico's face, all the good memories I've had with him. Help me, I say. I have no hope that this will work but I'm desperate. Suddenly the room gets twenty degrees colder.
I feel Nico in the room. I think I'm going to die but I hear the familiar sound of Nico's voice. "Selene?" he calls. I sense the zombie is fully reformed now and I hear the zombie let out a guttural cry. The zombie runs, and I can hear its loud footsteps. I'm terrified it'll attack Nico, but with being blind, I can't do anything but listen as the zombie attacks him, but he's ready. When the zombie gets close, I guess, I'm speculating at this point, Nico turns it into a zombie puree and with a horrible wail, it disintegrates. I try to stand up and fail miserably. For some reason every muscle in my body burns and aches. I scream in pain and Nico runs over to me. "Selene look at me," he says, but my head is lolling onto his chest. "Selene, what happened?" he asks. I start crying. I feel very undignified crying like this, but my body is not working, my sight is gone, and I almost just got killed by a zombie.
Nico scoots back so he can hold my head up. "Your pupils are gone," he says, he sounds extremely scared and I can't see him, but I imagine his black hair in his eyes, his eyebrows frowned, and those coffee brown eyes alert with panic. "Why are your pupils gone?" he asks. I try to pull myself together but it doesn't work so I just talk in between sobs. "I can't see you," I tell him. "Everything hurts," I sound so heartbroken and I can practically feel Nico's heart shattering. "No, no," he says "We're going to fix this," he says then scoops me up and carries me out of bunker nine and into the big house. My friends are all still there talking and laughing but the joy dies as Nico runs with me in his arms, to the living room.
"Heal her, Solace," Nico demands. Despite his angry tone he gently puts me on the couch. "Why? What's wrong with her?" Will asks and I feel his hand on my arm. "Selene," he wipers sadly he clears his throat and lifts his other hand to check my pulse. I wince, "Ow," I say. My eyes have been closed since bunker nine but Will gets a medical flashlight, lifts up my eyelid, and shines it in my eyes. "Di Angelo, why in TARTARUS is she blind?" Will yells "I DON'T KNOW! ASK SOMEONE WITH A MEDICAL BACKGROUND! MAYBE YOU SHOULD ASK THE ZOMBIE THAT ATTACKED HER!" Nico hollers back.
"I need some air," Nico says. I was busy trying to get my sight to work to notice he left. I don't know what he does but the room goes silent. I silently pray to Leto for my sight back. She speaks in my mind. "My beautiful child. You must have your vision for your quest. That, I can help you with. But the quest, I most likely won't be able to help. I will try my best to send people to help because Lord Zeus only allows indirect contact when it comes to quests." "Quest?" I ask "Yes, my love. A quest. You must find the god of dreams. He will be in florida. I do not know why. And dear, If anyone asks, we never spoke." she says.
Then her voice fades and I can see the backs of my eyelids. I open my eyes and look around and notice everybody went outside. For no apparent reason, panic wells in my throat. "Nico?" I call, trying to get up. To my pleasant surprise, Leto healed my whole body, not just my sight. "Nico," I call again. I walk to the door and see that it's open. I walk out and everybody turns in surprise. "You're okay," Nico says as he stands up and bear hugs me. He pulls back and studies my face. "Can you see me? Like, does your vision work now?" he asks. I smile. I put my hand on my other arm and look at him. "Yeah I can see. The glories of Leto," I say. I cough. "But, uh, I um, I was assigned a quest," I say. Annabeth perks up when she hears the word quest. "A quest? For what?" she asks. "I don't know exactly, but Leto said that I had to "Find the god of dreams" and for some reason he'll be in Florida," explain. "I should go with you," Leo says. Everybody turns to look at him. "Why exactly should you go?" Reyna asks. "Because I had a dream about it," he says sheepishly. "I need to sit down," I say. Nico leads me to his chair and remains standing. "Okay, so we know what we have to do sort of, but why me and why do we need a quest?" I wonder out loud.
"Well, I think we're about to find out," Nico mumbles. Then a tremor passes through the camp and we quickly stand up and run to the amphitheater. "Chiron! What is going on?" I demand, once we get there. "We have yet another quest to assign." he says "A quest to reunite the twins," he explains. "Artemis and Apollo?" I ask. Chiron just shakes his head sadly. "A quest to reunite Thanatos and Morpheus. With them fighting, everybody is in danger. Endless sleep is Death and a short death is Sleep. They will try to take each other's spheres of control." he says "Three must unite them or the world we know today, will perish." Chiron says.