𐌙/𐌍 Ᏽ𐌵𐌀𐌋𐌄 & 𐌕𐋅𐌄 Ᏽ𐌐𐌄𐌀𐌕 𐌌𐌙𐌕𐋅𐌔 ¹

Chapter 2

2
𖧷

Re-meeting With Friends

  The exact same morning that day, I was already leaving for my errand running.

  Well, I couldn't really leave without permission this time like I had done with Zaak last time, for some reason.

  When Zaak and I had gone down to the outside, no one even looked at us walking, but now, each step I took I felt like I was being watched. Not by one or two, but many, many people. The whole orphanage seemed to be looking right at me like I was an antelope in the middle of a street in Manhattan.

  Everything felt so weird at that point that I couldn't even eat because I felt awkward with so many people looking at me.

  I tried not thinking about it, but even when I was asking for permission to have a summer camp with the director, his assistant kept analysing me like a hunter with their prey, she seemed to be looking right at my bones instead of my actual body.

  Only when I left the building that I felt better, like a rest after a heavy workout. No one was looking at me, or even minding that I was on their way, they just passed by me and didn't even complain.

  When I was about to head towards the bus to get me into Manhattan, I stopped and picked up a picture from my pocket–my friend, Annabeth on vacation in Washington, D.C. She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Her blond hair was pulled back in a bandanna. She was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with her arms crossed, looking extremely pleased with herself, like she’d personally designed the place. See, Annabeth wants to be an architect when she grows up, so she’s always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She’s weird that way. She’d e-mailed me the picture after spring break, and I had found an “illegal way” in Hive's standards to print it, and every once in a while I’d look at it just to remind myself she was real and Camp Half-Blood hadn’t just been my imagination.

  Me and Annabeth set to find a place into Manhattan to get a bus together for Long Island ... Alright, I confess, she most likely ordered me to do it than made an agre-ement on it.

  We chose Manhattan so we could see Percy and get him if he's free already and done with his school year.

  When I got to our meeting point, Annabeth still wasn't there. That was completely weird for her, like, utterly and madly out of her usual style. She's always on point, no matter for what.

  Unless I hold her up by messing up something with a kid from another cabin, then she often starts scol-ding me like she doesn't care what she has to do, or where she has to be.

  I felt like I was being stood up, but I knew Annabeth would be here on time if she could be. If she wasn't there yet, she's super busy, that's normal.

  That's what I tried telling myself. Spoiler alert, did not work.

  I went looking around to see if she, by some weird incident, got lost, or she was being chased by a monster that was trying to kill her.

  I couldn't find her in a whole 15 minutes, she was nowhere to be found. If I was worried 20 minutes ago, I was beyond lost at this point. What had happened to her?

  My last resort was ... well–

  Just the moment I thought about it, I slammed my fist into my palm and at the exact same time, a wall behind me simply opened with a loud CRACKK.

  "Oh, sh–" I muttered to myself and looked back at it.

  I could see the large hole on the wall made from a big circular object, like a ball at a hundred miles per second passed right through it. I could see the air still shaking from the thing that raced by, and I could see the exact same thing, passing right by my cheek and leaving a sensation of heat and a small scratch on my face.