Child of Hades {Interactive Story} (PJO/HOO/TOA)

SIXTEEN: Roll Away Your Stone

At dinner, Simon, Matt and I sat at the head table with Chiron. We'd each been gifted gold laurels to wear around our heads. The welcome we received had not been what I was expecting. Everyone had cheered and congratulated us. A few told me I'd surprised them, and some said they'd known all along that I could do it. Tiana and Eleo stayed close by after we'd left the dining pavilion.

Chiron led us towards Fireworks Beach, where some of the Hephaestus cabin had set up a whole display. Usually the celebration tracked down to the amphitheatre, as I'd been told. But on this special occasion, sing-along and the rest of the festivities would continue on the beach.

The fireworks display was incredible. Hephaestus-made fireworks erupted in a variety of shapes and sizes, a trio exploding to show mine, Simon, and Matt's faces, followed by another trio of our godly parent's signs colouring the night sky. Terra led the sing along, which I did take part in. All three of the camp harpies came around to dish out some fancy looking deserts. Terra decided to open the floor to anyone who wanted to lead a song, but regretted it when Greg Giovani, a fifteen-year-old new camper and child of Hermes, planted his feet firm in the sand and began an hour long stand-up comedy routine he had totally stolen from a real comedian on tv.

In all honesty, as much fun as I was having with Simon and Matt, I just wanted the party to be over. I wanted to crawl back into a warm bed that was my own, in my own cabin, and I wanted Matt to send me into a dreamless sleep so I wouldn't have to think nor dream of this quest. It was over. That was that.

~

That week, every morning, Matt and I would wake up at six o'clock at the persistence of Terra and join some of the others for support group.

"Why are you still here?" One of the campers wondered. They hadn't meant it to sound so abrupt, I could tell by the way they sank into their chair afterwards. "I just mean, you don't have schizophrenia, right?"

"No, you're right." I replied. "I don't have schizophrenia. But I do still have a lot of grief to cover, and other problems to get over. Demigods are expected to be strong, always. Unless you have a label, like PTSD, or schizophrenia. But you don't need to always be strong. Even if you're just a typical, everyday demigod, it's okay not to feel alright sometimes. There's still a lot I have to do before I'll be alright. Sometimes it's good to just listen."

Matt grinned at me.

Terra, as new support group leader because of Caleb's absence, had admitted that she was better on external injuries as opposed to internal. I told Chiron I wanted to learn how to be a psychiatrist, and that when I learned enough I could take over for Terra. He promised that when school started after summer he'd enrol me somewhere.

Then, it was Friday. I had yet to see what we would do while the rest of the camp divvied up into groups and played Capture the Flag. Terra had told me that if I really wanted to, I was allowed to play, even if for my first time I would be mostly watching. She cleared me for use of a weapon and said I could start lessons for it on Monday. I turned down both offers. I didn't want to play that game. I didn't want to learn how to fight with a weapon. I was perfectly fine doing what I'd always done (though Terra told me I had to stop putting in my headphones and pretending most of my problems didn't exist, and to stop shutting down instead of talking about the quest and what happened on it).

At midday, Terra came around and collected all the demigods from support group from whatever activities we were at, and led us to the Big House. Matt turned to me.

"Capture the Flag. We don't get to participate, but we do get to help plan it."

"How do you plan a game of Capture the Flag?" I asked. "Don't they just go to opposite ends of the woods and try to... Capture a flag?"