It's Either War or Peace

Zoey Cornell's Point of View

“Busted,” Lee whispered to me, putting his hands in the back pockets of his gray jeans.

I smiled and remembered Apollo and Poseidon’s faces when Lee and I were simply standing side by side. My smile quickly faded though.

Without a word, Chiron and Dionysus guided us back to camp, bringing the pegasi along. It was pitch-dark outside now. Camp seemed kind of creepy when we finally arrived.

“What were you thinking?!” Chiron yelled. We were by the entrance of Camp Half-Blood and some campers were still awake. They stared at us while we walked behind the yelling Chiron.

“We know what they are!” Mollee yelled over Chiron’s voice.

Chiron stopped yelling and turned around. “Is this true?” he asked.

Grover, Percy, Lee, Mollee, and I nodded. Annabeth was muttering to herself.

“Then you will go to your cabins. NOW!” Dionysus yelled.

We ran off but being the badasses we were, we didn’t go to our cabins. We ran to what I think was the Mess Hall.

“Time to pay Rachel a visit,” Lee said. He elbowed Percy and Percy blushed. Annabeth rolled her eyes.

“Let’s go tonight,” Percy said.

Grover freaked.

Percy grabbed my hand to guide me to where Rachel was. My hands were cold and Percy could feel it. He gave me and encouraging smile and squeeze of the hand. We and everyone else walked towards the Big House.

“Prophecy time,” Lee whispered. I could tell it was to himself.

After about two minutes of walking, I started to hear a woman’s voice coming from behind us. I turned around. A woman with blonde hair and gray eyes looked at me.

“I’ll be back,” I told everyone. They stopped walking and watched me as I walked over to the woman. “Hello Athena,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

“Having a good trip? And here, keep this handy,” Athena said. She gave me a green and blue bracelet. It changed to just green. “You are nervous. Make sure this is always blue and green. It means you are fearless. Good luck.”

I thanked Athena and walked back to the others.

“What’s that?” Annabeth asked.

“A good luck charm,” I said. The bracelet turned gold. It said the word proud on it.

“That’s cool,” Mollee said, standing next to Lee. We all smiled.

Once we got to the Big House, we walked in. I sighed and we all slowly walked into the attic. It was scary unlike my attic back at home. Percy walked over to a horn and touched it. He mouthed the words minotaur horn and turned away, hiding painful memories that I knew of thanks to his books.

“Rachel, Rachel, Rachel,” Lee annoyingly whispered.

“What?!” a voice suddenly yelled. Rachel’s.

“We need the prophecy for Mollee and Zoey,” Lee responded, stressing my name. Soon a green light came and Rachel’s eyes went blank. Then we saw dust and Rachel spoke:

“Start this quest
At a homely place,
Finding the monster
To end its days.
Feel no sympathy to the creature
For to only find out it will raise
And only to realize this is
A past feature.”

Rachel passed out. I looked at Percy, silently asking if she was okay. He nodded and I sighed of relief. Mollee looked confused. Her eyelids were red and puffy and she had tears.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She nodded. “It’s just that I know where to start.” She mouthed the word Chicago.

I nodded. I could tell she had painful memories there. So did I.

“Now what is that supposed to mean?” Lee asked.

We all laughed for whatever reason. But then dead silence took over us. It wasn’t just me; we were all scared.