Camp Hermit-Blood: The Titan's Curse

Zedaph

6:46 AM.

Zedaph turned in his bunk. It was just one of those nights where it was impossible to sleep. He just couldn't get comfortable.

The clock on the nightstand on the floor below him switched to 6:47 AM.

Zedaph gave up. He sat and turned on a flashlight, reaching over to a shelf next to his bunk. He grabbed a notebook and a pen and started jotting down ideas for Zedvancements. He was horribly homesick. He thought about how well the other hermits' bases were probably going. At this rate, his would just be a boring boulder on the side of the Hermissippi forever. He had plans for his base, not that he was in any place to carry them out.

Annabeth had added a few tweaks to his base plans a couple weeks ago, and Zedaph had to agree that it definitely made his amateur architecture look a lot better.

Voices from outside caught his attention. It couldn't possibly be time to wake up already, could it? Zedaph glanced back at the clock. 6:53 AM.

He listened for a minute as they started to fade. And then his curious side took over and he attempted to get out of his bunk to investigate.

"Attempted" being the key word here. It was more like falling. Again.

Zedaph seemed to fall out of his bunk quite often.

He let out a dazed groan and got off the ground. The voices had sounded female. Hunters, maybe?

Silently, he changed into warmer clothes, opened the door, and crept outside, wincing at every sound he made. The moonlight reflected off the snow, making the whole camp seem brighter than it actually was. Zedaph squinted at the three figures walking away from him, toward the dining pavilion.

Two of them were walking together, wearing silver parkas and muttering to each other - definitely Hunters. The third trailed behind them slowly, as if trying to stay hidden. He probably was. Zedaph jumped in the bandwagon and followed them.

Zedaph didn't even need to listen to what they were saying to tell that one was Zoë Nightshade, the lieutenant person. The thees and thys and thous gave that away. He couldn't tell who the other girl was, nor the boy following them, who he quickly concluded was either a stalking satyr or a demigod who wasn't supposed to be awake.

They were saying something about a shirt and someone named Phoebe. Zedaph vaguely remembered a Hunter named Phoebe bonking Connor and Travis Stoll during Capture the Flag.

The Hunters stopped at the dining pavilion. Zedaph lost sight of the kid following them as he got a little closer so that he could hear better.

A hand grabbed Zedaph and yanked him behind a pillar.

Zedaph almost yelped, but then a hand covered his mouth. Zedaph looked into the freckled face of Nico Di Angelo, the geeky new kid.

From this new plot twist, he could only conclude that the girl with Zoë was Nico's sister, Bianca.

"Shh!" Nico hissed, pulling his hand away from Zedaph's face. "I'm listening."

Zedaph blinked at the unclaimed demigod, then silently nodded, turning his attention back to the two Hunters.

He suddenly remembered that Zoë and Bianca were going to leave for a quest this morning.

Oh, Zedaph was so dumb. They were getting ready to go. At... he reached for his communicator to check the time before remembering that he had left it in Hermitcraft almost a year ago. Old habits die hard. He guessed it was about 7:00 in the morning, almost time for the campers to wake up and go to breakfast.