The nightmares plagued Percy from then on out. He could hear the corn, could hear every word they screamed. He saw them dance in the dark moonlight, saw the way their stalks erupted from the earth in all their blood-red glory. He smelled what that field was made up of.

They beckoned him each night, set their sights on him. In the mornings, he woke up with blood staining his fingernails. When he saw Nico, he wanted to take that boy back to where he had found him.

Nico... The nightmares were worse for him. Nobody believed his words, no investigations were done. In the eyes of the police, that field was nothing more than the remains of a myth. Nothing could be done about Nico's "madness".

Locked away, sealed behind concrete walls. The corn still found him as he slept, they still stained his hands as he clawed at those padded walls. They screamed his name in hopes that one day he'd return.

The corn never stopped screaming during the droughts. Stay away, legends started to warn. Myths ran down generations. Stay away from the cornfields at night, stay away from the cornfields at day. Stay away from the corn in hopes that it would never learn your name.