Distractions had always been around Percy. Distractions were all he had, although he supposed being ADD helped. Was he lonely? He didn't think so, but then again, a deaf man didn't think he was missing out on not hearing any music. And a deaf man found ways to amuse himself, like noticing completely irrelevant things that would sometimes get him in trouble. Like an open door to a place that was usually off limits, or maybe a certain wall that always invited him to jump off it. It wasn't his fault he sometimes broke a leg, he would blame the wall. Or his bones. And then he'd get a metal brace in his leg that would quickly heal him in half a week, and he'd quickly move onto another wall. Or open door. Or random button. Seriously, who made huge, big, red buttons. That was just begging for them to be pressed. Granted, not everyone did it, but he wasn't everyone.

There he went, distracting himself again. But it was good, that way. It gave him something to do as he walked home, the buses not working because of the mass paranoia. Well, in all fairness, the Orthians had never advanced so far inland before, so there was reason for them to get a little worried, but for them to even shut the schools down, this far into Olympus, was a little over the top.

Percy walked along the houses that had blacked out windows (seven to each block), and scuffed his shoes along the blackened pavement (two hundred and twelve tiles). All the cities, even ones so far inland and away from the sea where the Orthians lived, were blacked out in case Orthians somehow managed to sneak past the front lines near the coast and two hundred kilometres inland.

Percy shivered at a chill wind that suddenly whistled through the dull buildings. The buildings were so dull, all the same shape and colour. Percy looked up at the cold mountains in the north, where the winds were coming from. The good thing about being in the north was that it was far away from the sea, the islands where Orthus was based. The bad thing was that it got cold. Very cold. Percy was regretting not bringing a jacket, and it wasn't even autumn.

Still, the mountains were nice to watch and Percy stood to watch them for a moment, or he would have if he didn't see a cat streak across the street. Another distraction. Weren't they entertaining. Percy looked across the road before crossing, although it was unnecessary. There hadn't been cars available for decades due to the war efforts consuming all fuel. Percy had only seen cars because of his father's importance, not that he knew what his dad had done to earn that respect. Probably from greasing all those palms at work. At work.

I'll be at work, he would say. Those four words had been the epitome of his dad's life. I can't spend time with my wife, Sally Jackson, the woman I loved because I'll be at work. I can't spend time with my teenage son who has no friends and is bored out of his mind because I'll be at work. I'm doing god knows what with important officials, sorry I can't tell you what but anything pertaining to the war is confidential, and that's alright because I'll be at work.

Percy sighed and shook his head. His mother never approved of resentment, and Percy didn't hate his dad. His moods were as irregular as his actions, and sometimes he'd find himself in a bitter mood. Sometimes he'd find himself in a happy mood, usually due to blue food his mom cooked for him. He liked food, especially blue food, something that he didn't advertise because of Orthus' flag being blue almost all over. Blue, like the sea. It made sense, since Orthus consisted of islands and archipelagos to the south and east of Olympus. Olympus' flag was green, for the land and fields that grew all over it, and if almost a third of the country was an arid desert or covered in dry soil, they didn't let it on. Never let the enemy know your weaknesses, right?

By now, he'd gotten back to his house. It wasn't big, and didn't stick out. A boring house was dull on the eyes, but it was better than living in a mansion that was easy to find. Not that Orthians could ever get far past the coastlines before being gunned down by Olympians, but paranoia was in the job description of a member on the war cabinet, and his dad (who was at work) fit the bill perfectly. Be a normal student in a normal neighbourhood in a normal city. Be treated like a normal citizen, all because his dad wanted to protect them.

He opened the door to his house and walked in to see his mother open the oven and revealed ranks of blue cookies marching out in a parade of sweet steam. Percy grinned broadly and ran to hug his mother. She stepped back a little instinctively, since Percy had grown taller than her three years ago and was now a foot taller, but eagerly met his embrace.

"How was school?" She asked, "And why are you back so early?"

Percy shrugged. "Just more paranoia from the government. They evacuated the schools. How many cookies are there?"

"I'm sure you can count them in your spare time." Sally said, "Did you get any schoolwork?"

Percy shook his head. "They don't bother any more. All the classes get interrupted, and all the students get moved around. What did you put in those, they smell great."

Sally laughed, "I put the same thing in them every time. And you ask the same questions. You'd think you'd remember what went in them after all the years of asking."

"You always said I liked banging my head against a brick wall." Percy grinned, "Speaking of which, I saw this guy sleeping underneath this bridge right next to school."

Sally laughed, having long since gotten used to the way her son's mind moved about. They didn't get any visitors anymore due to early curfews being established, but Percy remembered the embarrassment she had subjected him to when he was younger with the stories of how ridiculously Percy might act.

It wasn't hard to think of examples. When Percy was younger his body moved as quickly and unpredictably as his mind and mouth did. One particular incident involved Percy intentionally jumping out the third floor window and breaking his leg. In Percy's defence, the bird outside had looked a lot closer than it was that day.

Percy found himself staring out the window at the opposite house, with it's normal and dull black windows. Percy understood that the windows had to be dark so as not to make easy targets for potential bombs, but why not brown, or dark blue. Yeah, dark blue, always a nice colour. Percy would often find himself spacing out and somehow missing out on a couple of seconds of his life. It was unexpected and unpredictable, just like him, he guessed.

He turned and noticed from the clock hanging on the black wall that he'd spaced out for a lot longer than a few seconds. Almost ten minutes. That wasn't normal, but then again, nothing much was. One day Percy would find himself with his mother in their home, confined there because of "potential dangers to society". He would ramble on about everything and anything he could find that might distract him. It was surprising, in retrospect, that he had thought of so many things to talk about in their small apartment. The day after, there might be children running through the streets, laughing and finding distractions everywhere, making castles out of broken walls and guns out of rubbish.

Life was just unpredictable, and no one ever knew what was going to happen. He heard his name being called, and turned to face Sally who was smiling at him with a blue cookie in her hand and another in her mouth. "You never ate one. I figured you must have been thinking about something else."

Percy nodded vigourously and headed straight for the batch of cookies (twelve of them) that had cooled in the time Percy had been staring out the window. His smile broadened as his teeth sank into the soft, sweet surface of the blue cookie, and crumbs spilt out of his open mouth.

Sally rolled her eyes, having long gotten used to Percy's careless eating habits and reached out for another one. They ate in content silence, silence because Percy's mouth was full and after fifteen years, Percy had picked up on the fact that spilling food all over the floor and table wasn't a good thing. Three years ago, Percy had even started to remember without needing Sally to remind him.

When they had both finished their third cookie each, Sally said, "Percy, I need you to throw out the trash again. Eat the rest of your cookies later."

Percy rolled his eyes and nodded. All things considered, he didn't many chores around the house. He helped wash up after he finished eating the delicious meals Sally made, most of them blue. He also did the jobs that required strength like when things needed fixing. But for the most part, Sally managed the whole house by herself.

Speaking of which, he was brought out of his thought by Sally shaking him gently. She smiled and said, "The trash?"

Percy nodded, and quickly went out. He went down the stairs (sixty seven of them) quickly to get back to those beloved cookies. Those beloved blue cookies. Always important to remember that. A weird comment, seeing as Percy only remembered less than half of what was said to him, but Percy guessed that when he was unpredictable and slightly irrational, hypocrisy came with the territory.

As he came out of the crisp air, Percy bumped into someone and almost stumbled off the pavement, not that he would get run over by a car, there weren't any. He looked, but the man had just brushed past him, not looking or caring about anyone around him. It was sad how often Percy had seen people like that, only looking down, concentrating on what was happening around them and what they could do to avoid it.

That, in Percy's opinion, was what happened when people didn't get distracted. Their minds went in spirals until it crashed. As he was thinking these deep and philosophical thoughts, no doubt fit for a university if there were any in Olympus, Percy realized he'd already thrown away the trash without thinking.

He turned and saw someone lying on the pavement on the other side of the street, his form covered by the shadow of the buildings next to him. All Percy saw were his legs, which were covered in dark green jeans. Like Olympus' flag, or a tree, or maybe the sea. Well, maybe not the sea, if the teachings of Olympus were to be believed. According to Olympus, the sea was black and a sickly yellow, due to the pollution and poor waste regulation of Orthus. The residents on the archipelago had polluted the sea so badly there weren't any fish to be caught.

Turning back up, Percy bounded up the stairs, remembering the cookies he had been promised only when he had passed the first flight of stairs.

The thought of cookies was still in the forefront of his mind when he reached for the doorknob to the apartment. It was the last thing he was thinking of as the bomb that had been set inside went off.

But that was just life. Unpredictable.

Fire. That was all Percy felt. No distractions around, just fire. That didn't help him. He wanted to scream but his mouth didn't seem to exist. Was it melted off? Was it? What had happened? Why couldn't he scream? Why, why, why? Percy was on fire, and he felt so cold.

Cold, like the ice cream his mom had used to buy him when he was a kid, when there still was ice cream around.

"Blue's weird!" Percy had said when his mom had used to get him the bright blue colour that no one else ever seemed to eat. Sally had just smiled and said, "Isn't blue your favourite colour?"

"Well, I guess," Percy had said, looking away, "But the teachers at school say we're not meant to like blue, cuz blue's the colour of Orthus."

"Do you think that?" Sally had said, holding the sky-blue ice cream in her hand. It was starting to melt and trickled down the cone. Percy had thought it was like the snow that melted in the mountains at the start of every spring. He had liked springwater, it tasted good, even though it had rocks and moss and other green stuff in it.

"Do you think blue is Orthus' colour?" Sally had repeated getting his attention again. Percy thought and had said, "Course not! It's the colour of the sky, or the colour of your shirt, or the colour of my teacher's eyes. I don't like her much though, she's always really mean to Orthians."

Sally had smiled and handed him the ice cream cone, which Percy dug into dutifully. "You see? Nothing's defined by a colour, or a voice. Everything's a lot more complicated."

Percy had frowned, and opened his mouth which was dripping with blue ice cream, like he had dipped his head in blue paint. "What does define mean?"

Sally had laughed, and ruffled his black hair, "Define is when people try to say what something means. But it's always complicated, so it's hard to define things."

She had looked down and saw Percy looking at the bricks on the walls they were walking past. He had been poking the cracks and running his fingers along the grooves of the bricks. She had probably laughed, but Percy didn't know. He had been concentrating on something else.

Too bad he couldn't concentrate on it now as he screamed his throat raw. So cold, so hot, so cold, hot, cold hot. He couldn't even put a single word to what he felt, no matter how badly he wanted to scream. It was kept within him, and it hurt.

He had seen that hurt in his dad in the few times he came. He remembered seeing the guarded look in his eyes whenever he came back. There was this one time Poseidon came home and Percy had thrown himself at his father in joy. Looking up into Poseidon's eyes, Percy had expected to see pleasure or startlement. What Percy hadn't expected see was hardness. Percy's smile had faltered, and Poseidon had looked away awkwardly. Sally had quickly come and pulled Percy back, he had gotten too big for his mom to carry, and told him to go to his room.

Some children looked at this as a punishment, but Percy had never felt the same way. His room was a place where he could think and imagine the wildest things he could. Going to his room meant a break from everyday life and reality.

Still, as Percy had bounded up to his room, he could hear raised voices, although he didn't stop to wonder what they were talking about. He hadn't even consider the fact that they might have been talking about him. Some minutes later, Poseidon had come to knock on Percy's door, and Percy flung it open and smiled broadly at him. He had already forgotten how Poseidon had looked at him without any emotion and had asked, "Wanna see my room?"

Poseidon's eyes had flickered, and shown the surprise that Percy had expected downstairs. "Yes, that would be wonderful."

Percy had started to show Poseidon the toothpicks that he had bent into various shapes when Poseidon had cut in. "I'm sorry you don't see me much. I-I'm just busy at work and everything."

Percy had nodded once then went back to his fascinating imaginary world, where the concerns of a nation had been insignificant and the worries of an insecure parents completely groundless. "I know. You're busy fighting monsters and stuff, right?"

Poseidon had laughed and had said "Yes, monsters. In more ways than one. Do you ha-?" Poseidon had trailed off. When Percy had looked up at him expectantly, Poseidon had just shaken his head and asked, "Are you well?"

Percy had nodded once and gone back to his game, tossing toothpicks and small bits of concrete around a make-believe battlefield. His parents had tried to get Percy interested in conventional toys, but when it was clear that it made no difference to Percy, his parents had let him play with scraps. Toys, after all, were a rarity. They used resources that would be better put into fighting back Orthians. Monsters and soldiers had fought valiantly in Percy's universe, also known as his room, and Poseidon had looked on with a small smile on his face.

"How do you tell them apart?" Poseidon had asked, looking at the toothpicks strewn around. Percy had looked at him in puzzlement. Of course the toothpicks were different. They were of different lengths. Some were bent to the left, some curled around, while others had strands sticking out of both ends. How could anyone not tell the difference?

Percy had probably forgot the question, as Poseidon asked again, "Percy?"

Percy had looked up with wide eyes expectantly. Poseidon had hesitated again, then had asked, "How have you been eating?"

Percy had shrugged again and went back to his work. He hadn't understood anything his father was asking. Why was it important how well he was eating? It just didn't make sense, not in Percy's universe (room).

Percy hadn't remembered much more of Poseidon's visit, only remembered hugging his father as he left. "I hope I can see you again, my son. I do care for you." He had looked at Sally sadly then left.

Like Percy wanted to leave, wanted to leave this life of pain, if this was all it amounted to. The pain didn't come in waves, it was just there, not hot, not cold, just there. It became a part of him, the tearing of his body, until he blacked out again.

"Why are we doing this? It doesn't make any sense." Voices above him. Voices above him as he floated. The pain was gone, and his skin clenched and cringed at the sensation, or absence of it.

"We have no choice. He has dominion over his inventions, it is not up to us." Percy was floating. It felt nice. Was this what swimming felt like? He had seen Orthians in textbooks swimming, and they always looked grim and violating. What about fish? Were they grim and malicious, or were they free like Percy.

"This isn't right. He's too unstable." Were they talking about him? He had been described as unstable, not too his face of course, but in conversation that were meant to be private. He had very good hearing, sharp senses all around. He just never applied any of them in real life.

"Do not judge him by what you see. He may surprise us." Surprises were good, weren't they? Percy always thought so, but his teachers never had. They didn't like surprises. Order was key to defeating the Orthians. Order and discipline. That was the way to defeat the unruly chaos that would come if Orthians came forth.

"You must be ever vigilant", the teachers at his school had said. "You may not be able to contribute much now, but when you grow, it will be up to you to cary the burden of Olympus."

Percy had asked something, but he hadn't remembered what. He just remembered being sent to the principal's office for another talking Percy had liked surprises. Maybe that was why he was considered as unstable or unusable. He had grown up in a lower class area, the better to hide his identity. It was stressed to him over and over never to reveal who his father was, and for some reason it was a secret he had been able to keep.

"Fine. It's not like we have a choice. Let's just get it over with."

And Percy, who was floating, felt himself sink back into unconsciousness.

"Mom, does dad love us?"

Percy had remembered asking Sally the question when he was seven or eight. It was something his classmates had yelled at him when they found out Percy's dad wasn't around. This had been when they were living in a larger apartment, and had room for both a living room and a kitchen. Sally had been chopping onions, and when she'd quickly whirled around brandishing a knife, Percy had flinched.

Sally had smiled and laid down the knife and asked, "Who told you that? Was it someone at school?"

Percy had nodded and Sally had sighed. "Why do they think dad doesn't love us?"

Percy had shrugged and said, "It's cuz he's never around."

Sally had frowned slightly. Percy normally never remembered things that had happened at school. His attention span was just too short to take in anything he wasn't interested in, and back then, school had been the combination of everything boring in Percy's life squashed into eight hours every day.

"Do I love you?" Sally had asked. She had knelt and laid her hands on Percy's shoulders, getting Percy's shirt slightly oily from the food she had just been preparing. Percy had nodded fervently to Sally's question, and she had continued, "What if I had to leave to protect you. Would I still love you?"

Percy had thought for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Are you saying dad's like that?"

"Yes," Sally had said. "He isn't always around, but it's because he loves you."

Percy hadn't looked up since the moment Sally had put her hands on his shoulders, and he had muttered, "Will you ever leave me?"

"Of course not, sweetheart. I'd never leave you."

"Why not?" Percy had muttered. The floor had always interested him. All the cracks, like rivers in the skin of the wood. But he hadn't been able to lose himself in the endless patterns this time. He seemed to be fixed in the real world this time.

"Because I love you." Sally had said, "Why are you suddenly worrying about this kind of stuff?"

Percy had shrugged again. He had shrugged a lot, and he still did. It was like he was shaking off the weight on his shoulders that came from not knowing what he felt. "Cuz all the kids say that dad never loved you, and you weren't worth loving."

"Percy, love is complicated." Sally had said. She had sat down on the floor and was now looking up earnestly into Percy's eyes. "But everyone has different ways of expressing their love. Just know that your father does love you, and I love you as well. But do you know who has to love you the most?"

Percy had shaken his head and Sally continued, "It's important that you love yourself. Just so long you love yourself and know that you're worth loving, then it doesn't matter who else loves you. Understand?"

Percy hadn't. He'd just shaken his head again. But the talk with his mother had been enough to let him forget what his classmates had said, and he had started getting the itch. This itch wasn't the type that he could get rid of by scratching. This was the itch that meant he was going to do something. This was the itch that started at the back of his head and worked its way to his hands, the itch that always followed him messing something up or fiddling with something he wasn't supposed to. The itch in his eyes that made him notice everything and nothing, skimming over each blacked out window of the dreary city he lived in and taking in everything for a second before he forgot it. The itch in his feet as they insisted on tapping a random and pointless rhythm on the black pavement of empty streets of the city.

He had itched like that more times than he could ever remember, ever since he was a toddler. So when Percy woke for real, staring at a bright ceiling and found he was itching, he wasn't worried.

But then he realized that the current itch was different.

It started as a prickle in his arm, his heart, his whole body. It felt like insects crawling over his skin, like the cockroaches he sometimes saw crawl through cracks in the brick walls of broken buildings. Percy walked by them every day on his way back home. Buildings that had been attempted to be built, but dropped halfway. He remembered the posters that were stuck on the wall, promising New buildings for faithful Olympians! and Hope and creation right around the corner!

But then these insects started biting into his arm. Percy jerked his body to try and stop the feeling, but he was restrained. Small stabbing pains that went through his flesh (hadn't it been burnt?) and into his bones (hadn't they been shattered?) and drove him absolutely crazy. Percy fidgeted and struggled and his breath started coming in short gasps. The explosion. He remembered it. Well, he remembered heat and fire for a second before blacking out.

Who? Why? How? It didn't make sense? Why did it happen? It wasn't fair. And how was he alive? What had happened to Sally? She had been inside right? He would have been inside. But how had he survived? It didn't make sense. How, how, how. Where was he? His breathing became ragged and his eyes dilated. His mom, his great, great mom. Where was she?

"I told you we shouldn't have cut down on his morphine level," came a voice to Percy's left. He turned around and saw a blond girl with intense grey eyes glaring down at him.

"Wha- who are you?" Percy gasped. His arm was now throbbing, along with the rest of his body. The girl frowned, and said to no one, "I get that we need to talk to him, but we can't do that when his heart rate's over one-seventy." She paused, as if someone invisible was talking to her, and sighed. "Fine, I'll do my best, but can I at least give him some valium? Looks like he's going to hyperventilate."

Now that the girl mentioned it, Percy realized his heart was beating fast against the pressure that seemed to rise from the pain he was feeling. The leather straps on his bed were biting into his skin, but he didn't feel it because his arms were already burning up.

He looked over to the girl and saw that she was injecting something into his arm. He tried to jerk it away, but his arms were restrained. Amazing the things he could forget, wasn't it? He watched the syringe go in, but couldn't feel anything. Almost instantly he felt himself calm down. The burning sensation was still there, and his heart was still trying gouge its way out of his chest, but he was still calmer. He felt like he could lie down for a long time.

"Okay, that should be better," the girl said. "Now tell me what happened."

Percy looked up at her and said, "Why are your eyes so grey?"

The girl's expression didn't change. "I ask the questions, not you. Now tell me what happened."

"That isn't really fair," Percy said, "How about we each ask a question, and we each have to respond."

"How about I cut off your morphine entirely." was the cold response. The girl started to fiddle with the dials and the burning instantly increased. Percy's eyes widened and he clawed at the blankets. This hurt worse than the time he had shoved a melted cookie right into his mouth and burnt his throat as the molten dough had trickled down his gullet. Even worse than when he had been caught in the explosion and sent flying, because that had been quick.

Suddenly, the pain stopped. He looked up at the girl, who was frowning slightly and looking into the distance. Maybe she was crazy. Did she have voices in her head or something? Then she rearranged her face into the emotionless mask and said, "My eyes are grey because they're modified. Now your turn. What happened?"

Percy smiled weakly and said, "Thanks. That wasn't so hard, was it? My name's Percy, what's yours? Sorry, I'd shake your hand but I'm a little tied down at the moment."

"Tied up." The girl had narrowed her eyes at him, but seemed to have corrected him almost unconsciously. Percy turned his head at her, and asked, with eloquence and locution, "What?"

"The phrase is to be tied up, not down." The girl said, "And you were supposed to answer my question."

"I gave you more information. Shouldn't you pay me back?" Percy asked, "Oh, by the way, where am I?"

The girl's eyes and her expression didn't waver, as she pressed a button on her ear. Percy wasn't sure how it worked, but it seemed like her earlobe glowed for half a second and she started to talk again. "Chiron, get me out of here."

She paused as the person on the recieving end, probably Chiron (weird name, sounded like a siren. Like the sirens that went on whenever there was a threat of bombings.) talked to her, and said, "I know what my talents are, but can he's just so dense. Get one of the Stolls or Clarrise to do it."

"Who stole Clara's what?" Percy asked nonchalantly. "Do you have an earpiece in your ear, by the way? How can I get one?"

The girl had stopped talking with Chiron and looked at Percy as if she was about to leap into a deep chasm or run straight to Orthus. Then she said, "I'm Annabeth, you're in a government facility that we residents like to call Camp Half-Blood, the Stolls and Clarrise are other residents, I do have an earpiece in my ear, and you already have one."

For once, Percy was shocked speechless from trying to interpret all the information the girl, no, Annabeth had given him. He remembered her name, and that he had an earpiece in his ear. Then his eyes shot up to meet Annabeth's grey ones as she said, "Now. Tell. Me. What. Happened."

Percy thought back and said, "Well, I was throwing out the trash, and then I walked back up and there was an explosion. That was it."

That was it. His mom gone. She had been so good, always there, always loving him. And no more blue cookies. It was stupid, he knew it was, to sum up their love with blue cookies, but there it was. He loved his mom because of her blue cookies.

Everyone has different ways of expressing their love, she had said. Percy realized he was crying. How had he expressed his love? By eating her blue cookies? It just seemed unreal and false. What had he ever done? A wave of sadness suddenly washed over him, leaving his face cold as if he'd just been doused in cold seawater. Not that he'd ever been doused in seawater before, but he thought it would have been an interesting experience. He wondered what it would taste like. Maybe like the instant rations Percy and his mom had sometimes had to eat when times were bad.

"Don't be picky," she had said, "There are a lot worse things than eating salty food."

"But it's not blue." Percy had said childishly. Well, he had been nine, and that was still a kid, wasn't it? Well, what was a kid? A kid was someone who played around, someone who was loved. So who was he now? Could he afford to play around? Was he loved now?

He was aware of Annabeth looking at him with those piercing grey eyes and talking to Chiron on her earpiece. "This is why I said the Stolls should have done it. This kid isn't capable of lying anyways, it's not like you needed me, and they're good at detecting lies and weeding out information." Her brow wrinkled slightly again in annoyance and she said, "I know I was insensitive, I just wasn't thinking, alright? Just talk to him tomorrow or something."

Percy tried to calm down, tried not to get distracted by his own thoughts, which was incredibly hard. He looked all around him but nothing caught his eye. A blank room with blank walls, blank chairs, and a blank bed. They were all white except for his arm.

That got his attention. His arm was dark black. That definitely shocked him. He turned up and looked at Annabeth. "Why's my arm black?"

"I just answered five of your questions, you should answer four more of mine?" Annabeth said with finality. "Did you see anyone outside?"

Percy shrugged and said, "I think so. There was a guy I bumped into on the way up the stairs. But what's this agreement about asking and answering questions?"

"You were the one who made it up." Annabeth said it slowly like she was trying not to punch him. Percy frowned and asked, "When did I say that?"

Annabeth stood up abruptly and for a moment Percy thought she was going to drop kick him. Instead, she walked off and slammed the door behind her as she left.

Percy stared at the door quizzically, then shrugged. He wondered when someone else would come and visit. He needed distractions, craved them. Because without them he would think about his mom, and how she wouldn't be there for him anymore. And he would realize that he was alone.

So, that was the first chapter to my first PJO stories. Please tell me what you think. I'm not sure if I crammed too much info in there, or if there wasn't enough action or too much of Percy's inner thoughts, so if you have suggestions for improvements, don't be shy.

I'm also writing a Kingdom Hearts story at the same time. I know the two fandoms don't cross over much, but if you do happen to share interests in both fandoms, go check Veritas et Caelum out. I'm interested to see if I can update two stories at once regularly. I know some who can juggle several, and I know some who can't, so we'll see.

Thanks! 'till next time.