undoing [percy jackson]

i. welcome to westover hall

ANDROMEDA

It'd been four-ish years since Andi was adopted by the Mills and she was thriving, so she should've known something was about to go terribly wrong.

She realized something was off as soon as she opened her eyes to see a ceiling that was most definitely not the ceiling of her bedroom. This ceiling was stone and much, much taller, and was intersected by wooden support beams. There were no stick-on stars that glowed in the dark, and no ceiling fan Cass refused to turn on because she was always afraid it was going to fly off and kill her in her sleep, to which Andi would always remind her that ceiling fans can't do that.

Andi sat up and looked around the unfamiliar room. The walls were the same stone as the ceiling, certainly not the off-white walls they had just painted that summer and decorated with posters and strings of polaroids. The room was half-ringed with tall windows set into the walls, creating little alcoves. The bed she was lying in wasn't nearly as comfortable as the one she'd fallen asleep in. Springs dug into her back and the bedspread was just a thin crimson red blanket rather than the lilac comforter Andi had picked out herself. She only had one lumpy pillow, and the frame was a dark wood, not the white metal she'd adorned with fairy lights. To her right was a cheap-looking nightstand topped with an ancient desk lamp.

There was another bed opposite hers, but it was empty, the blanket slowly slipping off and onto the floor. She spotted two identical wardrobes up against the wall to her left and two doors, one on the wall to her right and on the opposite wall. A rug that had clearly seen better days was sprawled across the wooden floors. Nothing about this room was even an ounce as comforting as her room was. This definitely wasn't the kind of place she could call happily home. It had to be some kind of dorm room, but how did Andi get here and what was she doing here? She went to public school.

The door on the wall to Andi's right flung open and a girl strode out. She was pretty, her facial features soft and delicate, her skin a warm brown. Her black hair was expertly weaved into two tight plaits. She was wearing a crisp white button-down with a pleated black-and-red skirt over black knee-high socks. A red bow trimmed with black was clipped to her collar. Her lips sparkled with glittery lipgloss, but she didn't seem to have put on any other makeup. The room behind her looked to be a plainly-designed bathroom.

The girl's dark brown eyes landed on Andi. She grinned and finished securing her stud earring. "Hey there, Sleeping Beauty. You better hurry up and get dressed if you want to get to breakfast before the pancakes are all gone."

Andi frowned. "What? Where am I? Who are you?"

"Very funny," the girl said, rolling her eyes. She crossed the room to rip Andi's blanket away. "Come on, we don't even have a full schedule today. There's no point in trying to get out of classes."

At Andi's blank stare, the girl added, "Earth to Andi! Hello, the winter dance is tonight, remember?" Andi shrugged helplessly. The girl scoffed and walked off to the wardrobes, opening one and picking out a black blazer with brass buttons from a rack full of them. She pulled it on, grumbling, "You're hopeless. Honestly, you'd forget your own damn head if I didn't remind you."

"Hey!" Andi protested. She finally got up out of the bed and joined the girl on the other side of the room. "I'm being serious. I don't know who you are."

"You're seriously telling me you don't recognize your own best friend?" the girl rebuked. Andi opened her mouth to answer, then closed it as a thought occurred to her. This was familiar. Not familiar as in she'd experienced something similar before, but familiar as in she'd read about something similar. Whatever the hell was happening right now was just like the beginning of The Lost Hero, the first book in the sequel series to Percy Jackson and the Olympians.