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chapter twenty-five. ☄︎. *. ⋆
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THE NEXT MORNING, we awoke to a ships's whistle and an Australian voice speaking enthusiastically over an intercom.
"Good morning, passengers!" it said. "We'll be at sea all day today. Excellent weather for the poolside mambo party! Don't forget million-dollar bingo in the Kraken Lounge at one o'clock, and for our special guests, disemboweling practice on the Promenade!"
That woke me and Annabeth up pretty quickly. She sat up and looked at me with wide, confused eyes, but it was hard to take her seriously when her hair looked like a Stymphilian bird's nest.
"What'd he say?" she asked me.
"I'm pretty sure it was something about disemboweling practice," I said, my brow furrowed. "C'mon, let's check on the guys."
They weren't awake, surprise, surprise. Annabeth and I shared an eye roll, then had a little fun pulling their covers off of them to wake them up.
Well, it was supposed to be a little good-morning prank, but it completely backfired on us when we pulled off Tyson's blanket to reveal that he finds it more comfortable to sleep in his underwear.
Once everybody was nice and fully dressed, we ventured out into the ship and were surprised to see other people. A dozen senior citizens were heading to breakfast. A dad was taking his kids to the pool for a morning swim. Crew members in crisp white uniforms strolled the deck, tipping their hats to the passengers.
Nobody asked who we were. Nobody paid us much attention. But there was something wrong.
As the family of swimmers passed us, the dad told his kids: "We are on a cruise. We are having fun."
"Yes," his three kids said in unison, their expressions blank. "We are having a blast. We will swim in the pool." And they wandered off.
"Good morning," a crew member told us, his eyes glazed. "We are enjoying ourselves aboard the Princess Andromeda. Have a nice day." He drifted away.
"I've never been on a cruise ship before," I said warily, "but this is.. not normal cruise ship behavior."
"This is weird," Annabeth agreed. "They're all under some kind of trance."
When we passed the cafeteria, we saw our first monster. It was a hellhound—a huge black mastiff with its paws up on the buffet line and its muzzle buried in the scrambled eggs. I assumed it was a baby, because it was small compared to other hellhounds I'd come across. Still, all four of us tensed and reached for our weapons.
