Half-Blood Means Two Things || Marauders Era | Percy Jackson ||

|| 11 - I Threaten My Professor With A Knife ||

Ow.

My head hurts... and my leg... and my throat... and my face...

But why?

What happened?

Then the memories came back to me like a sledgehammer to the temple. If my head didn't hurt before, then the onslaught of memories made it throb.

I shot up into a sitting position before my eyes even opened -- waking up alert was just as ingrained into me as my knife skills. Even if my entire body felt like it had been stepped on by a Cyclopes, I would always come up into a somewhat defensible position. (You can thank the Hermes cabin for that, 'cause I basically had to sleep with one eye open at all times.)

However, because I could not feel my legs, I couldn't get up onto my feet, so I just sat there, face scrunched together in pain, fists up, mustering as much scariness just in case there were any monsters around.

Ow.

My eyes flew open, and I was delighted to see that there were not any monsters around me. 'Cause, you know, I was at Hogwarts, not Camp Half-Blood.

Spots danced in my eyes so bright and painful they might've been spotlights. I blinked a dozen times as I tried to wake myself up. My brain strained to grasp everything around me but failed. There was no sound except the rush of blood in my ears, and no sight yet. All I could see were bright white dots flooding my vision. So I relied on the smells. There was a hint of disinfectant and something bittersweet floating under my nose.

Oh, gods... my nose...

My nose felt as big as a plum, and probably just as purple. I raised my hands to it gently and winced when my fingers touched it. I definitely bruised it... probably from face-planting on the ground... in front of the whole school... and McGonagall.

Oh, gods, I'm never going to live that down, I thought to myself miserably, already imagining all the jokes Ayla would make once she'd found out about my brilliant collapse in front of half the school.

Then, I had my sight back.

I looked around. I was laying in a bed with white sheets that smelled ridiculously clean. All around me, there were identical beds, but no one else was in the room. That was probably because moonlight streamed through the windows. It's gotta be the middle of the night, I realized.

The whole room was dark, but I could see well enough thanks to the bright moon.

I was in some sort of infirmary, except it was much nicer than the one back at Camp Half-Blood -- which was normally filled with all sorts of nasty smells and even nastier demigods that made those smells. And the beds were way softer than the hard cots at Camp covered in stains that no one particularly wanted to know what they came from.

There was a rocking chair off to the right, and just in front of it was a sort of nightstand with a few things on it. There was a piece of paper and charcoal with something scrawled on it in cursive. I couldn't read it, 'cause the constant throbbing of my head made my dyslexia even worse than normal. On top of that was a bowl of water -- cold, I figured out after I stuck my finger in it -- and a rag. Behind that, there was a weird-looking teapot and a teacup.

Oh, thank the gods, I thought and reached toward the pot. I poured myself a glass and tried not to think about how it was tea. I'd had tea, like, twice in my life, and I despised it. I didn't understand how hot, barely-flavored water was appealing to people. Even some of the strongest tea still tasted bland and extremely watered-down to me. Which Chiron didn't enjoy since he loved tea. Honestly, that centaur could drink tea forever if he was allowed, but Mr. D refused to let him drink only tea. He was very picky about the drinks at Camp since he was the god of beverages -- specifically wine.