★ 𝟐 𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆𝒅 ★ p. jackson

013

Esmeralda Beckendorf hated being alone, she couldn't stand it.

It was 2:47am when the daughter of Hades woke up in a cold sweat. This has not been the first time she'd woken up in the night, nor the second, nor the third. This was the sixth time and she was bringing to get sick of it, literally. Em pushed the sheets off her bed and stumbled to to bathroom. It was much easier to navigate the Hermes cabin during the school year now that most of the campers had gone home for the school year.

She looked at herself in the mirror, she's gotten notably pale and her skin freckled with beads of sweat. She ran some cold water and splashed her face. Being a demigod came with a price, it came with a few actually but one of the worst ones was the reality of your dreams. However Em's dreams never got this bad. They all started the same:

She was standing in the middle of camp, her brother Charles, Annabeth, Percy, Grover, and her other friends would stand to her left. Luke stood on her right. The dream would vary here, she could either: walk towards her friends, or walk towards Luke.

Say she chose option A. She'd walk towards her friends, and suddenly they'd become mist. She'd try to grab at them but they dissolved before her fingers. Instead a faint image, like an Iris message, would appear in front of her. And it was Luke, her friends body's lay lifeless before him as he destroyed anyone who came in his path.

Option B was no better. She'd walk towards Luke, and he'd dissolve like the rest of her friends. The same misty image would appear except this time it was her, sword in hand as her brothers blood dipped from the blade leaving crimson stains on the floor. Luke stood next to her with a cruel smile on his lips.

At this point in her dream it was just her. She was alone in the center of camp with no one to her left or right. As if the gruesome death wasn't enough already, the camp began to stir. Life poured out of the cabins. But they weren't demigods, they were monsters. Thousands of them, some she could remember from Greek legends but others were completely new too her.

Esmeralda would then pull out her sword, but the blade was already soaked in blood. Who's? She didn't want to know. She would close her eyes in hope that she'd wake up when she opened them, but the second her eyelids fluttered close she would hear it. The voice that hadn't disturbed her since she was seven.

It would laugh, a terrible sound. "Look what you've done." It would say. "You're stuck, give it up, give in to me."

She hadn't known she was resisting but it didn't matter. The voice would laugh again and she'd beg it to stop. When it didn't oblige, she'd scream and drop to her knees. The ground opened at her feet creating a gash in the earth. More monsters would pour out along with the souls of the dead. She hasn't noticed it the first time but precious stones and metals would fly out as well. Rubies, emeralds, gold, and silver would all pour out of the earth.

"You foolish girl."

That was the last thing the voice would get to say before she'd open her eyes and wake up in a sweat.

Esmeralda made eye contact with herself in the mirror, taking steady breaths to calm herself. She'd told no one about her dreams and refuse to do so. She wouldn't even tell Percy during their Iris meetings. She couldn't tell him something this important over messages because he'd worry, and she couldn't tell Chiron or her brother because they would wonder why she hadn't told them sooner. It was only December and she couldn't wait for summer to come around anymore.

She returned to her bed and flopped down trying to ignore the pounding in her head. Em stared at the ceiling until light began to make it's way through the windows. She'd fallen back asleep just as the sun began to rise. No one in the cabin bothered to wake her up. Luke was the only one who wasn't frightened or threatened by the girl, now he was gone. Travis and Connor Stoll had grown scared of her ever since Luke left. And any newcomers were smart enough to stay away since she practically radiated death.