A New Start

   My life was pretty good. Defeating Gaea and making peace with the Romans can make you pretty popular. Greeks lived in New Rome, and Romans trained at Camp Half Blood. It was pretty much awesome.

But with my luck, I should have known it wouldn't last.

On September first at nine o'clock, we all sat around the campfire. I shared the warmth of Annabeth and the other campers, along with the warmth of the fire which rose high into the sky with our high spirits.

Piper and Jason had their arms around each other, Leo looked happy, but his eyes showed sadness as they always did.. I wish I knew why. Frank and Hazel were holding hands, and were singing their hearts out, but with funny voices. I smiled. The night was perfect.

Why hadn't I expected for something to go wrong?

Right in the middle of the chorus of the song, Argus, our security guard with lots of eyes, came rushing up to Chiron, a male teenage body in his big, bulky, eye-covered arms.

"Chiron!" he wheezed, out of breath. "This boy just came up to me, and started rambling about revenge and titans, and Zeus knows what." Argus looked pained. "Then he just collapsed! Good thing I was there by the pine tree, or who knows what would have happened to him!"

I looked over at Annabeth, who didn't look very surprised. This happened quite often now that the war was over. Demigods end up here, looking confused and scared, and yes, they sometimes collapsed.

Hazel in her purple Camp Jupiter shirt looked confused, along with Frank and Piper. Leo mumbled under his breath, "Seriously? That was my jam!" Jason just looked annoyed. Clarisse had looked like she might die of boredom during the songs, but now she seemed interested.The other campers shifted around, trying to get a better view of the newcomer.

I stared at the guy in Argus's arms. He had dirty blond hair, was wearing a red t-shirt, and he had large dark circles under his closed eyes. He seemed about Nico's age. I looked over at Nico. He seemed fairly interested, with his eyebrows raised, but impatient, with his foot tapping the ground.

I was curious to know who this guy was and how he ended up here. And what was with the mumbling about titans and revenge? That seemed suspicious to me. I had bad experience with titans, and revenge didn't sound too pleasant.

Chiron didn't seem too happy to have his campfire disrupted. "Take him to the hospital wing, and feed him some ambrosia," he said in a flat voice, waving his arm.

The fire was very low, and Chiron sighed. "Everyone go back to your cabins now. The campfire will have to end early today." He galloped away on his horse legs.

Campers started to shuffle away back to their cabins, grumbling about new kids and how they ruin all the fun. I took Annabeth's hand and started to lead her away. Piper and Jason had already left, and I didn't want to be the last one out.

"He's kind of good looking," Annabeth mumbled, staring after Argus and the boy in his eye-covered arms. "But I'm waaaayyy better looking than him, right?" I joked. "You can't resist all of this," I say, gesturing toward myself.

"Sure, seaweed brain," Annabeth said. She treid to hide her smile by turning away, but I saw it.

I gave her a kiss on the cheek goodnight, she went over to the Athena cabin, and disappeared behind the door.

I disappeared behind my door too.

I went to sleep that night, not knowing that I had just met the demigod who would change my entire life.