Ebony Evans: Adventure of a Lifetime Chap. 2

I thought that I was going to open my eyes and see myself on the ground, a dead Percy next to me, and Mrs O'Leary passed out too. But, boy, was I wrong! I looked and saw that we were now near a lake, and on the other side of the lake was a building that looked like a shed. In the distance, I saw some buildings that looked like thy belonged at a camp, "Where are we?" I asked Percy.

"Camp Half-blood, the training place for demigods."

"Wait. I've never heard of a 'Camp Half-blood.'"

"That's because it's not in South Carolina. It's in New York."

New York! I slowly got off of Mrs. O'Leary and looked closer at the lake and the things surrounding us. Behind Mrs. O'Leary was a forest that was extremely thick. "No, can't be New York. This can't be real," I thought to myself, "this must be a dream. Maybe a splash of water will wake me up." I walked over to the lake, got down on my hands and knees, and was about to scoop up some water when I saw a teenage girl at the bottom of the lake. She long, wavy brown hair, with a shimmering green tee, and blue jeans. The girl waved at me, which caused me to jump up. I turned to look at Percy, who seemed to petting Mrs. O'Leary and talking to her, "There's someone down there, Percy."

"Those are just water nymphs. Completely harmless, but they're flirts none the less," he kept talking to Mrs. O'Leary. I heard him say, "You got that?" To which she barked in response and ran off into the dark woods. Percy then turned to me, "There's something I need to tell you before we go."

"Shoot."

He walked over and stood beside me, "My name isn't really Percy. It's actually Nico di Angelo."

"Why did you lie to me?"

"I don't know," he looked across the lake with a misty look in his eyes, "sometimes I lie to escape danger, and sometimes I just lie. It comes naturally to me."

"Why does it come naturally?"

"Because of my parentage, I guess." I wanted to ask him who his parents were then, but he cut off my thoughts, "Come on. We better be going." He started off to the left and I followed behind him. He didn't seem to be very excited about everything, and I was busting at the seems with excitement. Maybe this place is just what I've always dreamed about. I place where people would except me and where I could learn more about who I really was.

After walking for a bit, we came across a row boat. Nico pushed it into the water and both of us slowly climbed in. We both took a paddle and made our way to the other side of the bank, "Have you ever done this before?" Nico asked me as we rowed.

"I went to a summer camp where they taught me how, I thought that I had forgotten."

"Apparently not."

As soon as we made it to the other side, Nico helped me climb out and then he pulled the boat up onto the land. "Now," he said as we passed the shed I had first seen, "some of the things you find out about the world we live, and about yourself, it might be a little bit..." he seemed to be trying to find the right word.

"Shocking?"

"Yeah, it might be shocking for you, so I'd be ready."

"I handled the information of you and I being demigods pretty well, didn't I."

"Yes, you did. I also think you would like to know that most of the guys here call each other half bloods."

"Oh, thanks," I looked at Nico for a moment. He reminded me of most of the kids at my last school, which had been model and taught to make you feel like you were in a jail- how did I get out? Well, let's just say that I made a new entry way for them. Nico was wearing an aviator's jacket, it highly impressed me that he even had one, a T-shirt that was defiantly was from some sort of metal band, ripped black skinny jeans, black high top converse, and on his left hand was a skull ring that looked like it was completely made out of silver. I looked at his face, trying to figure out his age. He looked like he had some much on his mind, but yet, it was like he really didn't care about it at the same time. "So," I said casually, "this camp, what do you do here exactly."

"We train to protect ourselves from monsters, like hellhounds. We also do some of the stuff that most summer camps do. We kind of, relax here. That is, when we're not getting ready for a war."

I thought that he was just joking with me, but I could tell by how his face looked that he wasn't. "Oh."

"I'm not very good at explaining stuff like this. Annabeth could probably tell you a lot more than I can."

"Is Annabeth your girlfriend."

"No!" he said loudly. "She's just my friend. Nothing else."

"Sorry."

"It's fine. Annabeth and me," he smiled a bit, "now that would really mess with Percy."

"There's actually a guy named Percy?"

"Yeah, where do you think I got the name?"

"Are you two close friends."

"He's one of my only friends," he mumbled.

"Nico!?!" We looked up and saw a guy a few yards in front of of us. "Nico," he ran up to us, "everyone has been looking for you, of course, Annabeth told us you'd be back soon. Still, where have you been?"

"I was just hanging around."

"Oh. Another one of your trips, huh?" the guy looked at me, "Maybe not..."

"Connor, this is Ebony. Ebony, Conner Stoll."

"Hi," Connor said to me.

"Hey," I said. Connor wasn't much taller than me. He was skinny, had curly brown hair, blue eyes, and a look on his face that told me that I might want to hide anything that might be flammable.

"Well, I would like to officially welcome you to camp."

"Thanks."

"We better keep going," said Nico. I could tell by his tone that he was ready to stop talking to Connor.

"If your going to the cabins, then I'd like to follow you."

"Don't you have to take care of your cabin?"

"Travis got mad at me while we were teaching our cabin members the perfect way to pickpocket someone. Anyway, he told me to take a hike, so I left," he stuck his hand inside his back pocket, "but not without his wallet," he grinned.

"Fine," Nico said, "you can come with us," Nico then started off up the hill. I ran to catch up with him, not wanting to be stuck with Connor.

"Cabins?" I asked him.

"There just like normal summer cabins, but different. Once you figure out who your god parent is, then you'll be put in a cabin."

"What will I do till then?"

Connor came up beside me, "Then you'll be in my cabin."

"And that cabin is?"

"Hermes," Nico said, "the cabin of pranks."

"Don't call it that," Connor said, like he was hurt, "Travis and I both apologized for what our younger cabin mates did."

"Young campers! I have proof that you two were the ones who did it!"

"I'm not admitting to anything."

"Of course not," Nico mumbled.

As we walked along, I saw close up the buildings that I had seen back at the lake. There was several of them and bigger than I had expected them to be. All of them were designed differently, and I could only tell what one of the buildings were, and that was the stables. There were kids everywhere too. The oldest being about college aged and the youngest being about eight, and a few of them had a sword or shield by their side. What kind of summer camp is this?? All of them were wearing the same orange tee that had "Camp Half-blood," in big bold letters on the front. I really hope I don't have to wear one of those shirts, I look really bad in orange... Some of the kids waved at Nico and Connor, and gave me a nice smile. After walking a bit farther, we stood in front of several buildings that seemed to be made into a shape of some sort.

"These are the cabins," said Nico.

"Wow..."

"We use to have only twelve," said Connor, "but then something happened a few months ago and we needed to make more///