Red Skies at Morning | Clarisse La Rue x OC | Percy Jackson AU

Part 1: Meeting Clifford's Ugly Cousin

Look, I was told that if I wanted to sell my account of the Second Titan War for some mortal to post on the internet for a bunch of other mortals to read as fiction, I had to put a disclaimer on the inside of the cover and ensure they included it.

So, as 11-year-old me would have told you, being a half-blood sucks, if you think you've got some dead-beat god's blood in your veins or relate too much to any of the "characters" in this "story," turn off whatever device you're reading this on and forget you ever heard of a half-blood. And for good measure, just don't touch any electrical device again; especially if they have a history of blowing up on you.

The first incident I can remember happened when I was four. My dad had just remarried and wanted to find a fun way for us to bond as a family. The best way to do that, according to him, was to go camping in British Colombia. But the "family" part was lost on my stepmother, who opted to stay home, so it was just my dad, my stepbrother, and me.

The first two days went smoothly. The drive out was normal, we didn't have any problems with the cars or the places we stopped to sleep. But on the third day, when we got to camp I started seeing this dark, hulking figure stalking us through the trees. I just glimpsed it out of the corner of my eye at first, but its appearance became clearer and more frequent as the hours went by; its red eyes followed our every move as we set up camp. I, being a toddler, cried to my dad that there was a giant monster hiding in the trees that was going to eat me.

He held me and assured me that it was just the shadows playing tricks on me. Repeating the same reassurances all parents tell their kids. "There's no such thing as monsters" and "the worst the shadows will do is scare you." He told me that if I didn't go looking for monsters I wouldn't find any.

So we continued setting up the tent, chopping firewood, spraying bug spray, and I did my best to listen to my dad; I tried to ignore the pitch-black creature and the shadow it cast over my small body as it stalked, I tried to ignore its piercing red eyes glowing behind the brush and its gnarly bared teeth, and I tried to ignore how every time I stole a glance– "Not looking, just checking," I told myself– it had crept closer than before.

The creature eventually inched its way right behind me while we were roasting marshmallows over the fire. I felt its breath blow against my back and heard the dirt shift as it lowered itself to pounce. But just then, lightning struck a tree near our campsite, splitting it in two, and rain began pouring seemingly out of nowhere.

Somehow my dad had failed to notice the massive storm brewing right above us, and we were completely unprepared for the wind and rain. The storm got so bad that my dad was forced to take us to a hotel. Then it persisted for the next two days until we gave up and went home.

My stepmom would tell you that the monster I saw in the woods was the first time I was afflicted by my "overactive imagination." This "imagination" would later have me completely convinced that giant men were walking around with one big eye in the center of their foreheads and a giant lizard with too many heads was selling donuts.

At first, my parents thought that my little toddler brain was misinterpreting unfamiliar things in my environment, but that explanation made less sense the older I got.

The Giant one-eyed men were of average height and apparently had two perfectly good eyes when my parents asked me to point them out, and the lizard was a regular, underpaid cashier. Nothing about the "people" should have been new or scary to me and my parents just couldn't understand why I insisted that something was wrong with them.

On top of hallucinating, I caused even more problems because of my "behavioral issues."

According to the numerous reports of teachers and classmates alike, I just loved to throw various objects at other students or pull chairs out from under them, despite never touching any of the objects. No matter what school I was in, someone would throw a stapler or a chair at a kid I was fighting with and everyone would swear up and down that I did it.