I Meet a Guy Who Rides a Zombie Horse

I awoke to the sound of... was that classical music? I could tell I was laying on a small couch with a woven blanket that only covered half of me. My head and feet were on the arms of the couch. I looked around carefully, my head still trobbed. I noticed one of those mini-fridges. It was left open a crack and I could see inside. It was stock full of only Deit Coke. Weird. I continued to look around and saw a ping-pong table right in the middle of the room. Aside from the standard paddles and ball used to play, there was Ritz crackers and Cheese Wiz in the center. Even more weird. Along one wall there was about five or six of those old games in arcades. One was a Super Mario Bros and was left on. It flased the normal three modes Easy, Medium, and Hard. But it also showed a fourth mode. Something called Idiot Mode. OK, now this is outright strange. On the other side of the room, Annabeth was sitting sideways in a red velvet chair, her feet hanging off the left arm. She was flipping through a pamhlet with a picture of a huge town with Greek style buildings. The title was odd and written in a laugnage I didn't understand.

"Ugh. I feel horrible," I murmured. It wasn't meant for Annabeth to hear, but apparently, she did.

"Must be since you blacked out. What'd you dream about?"

"Um, peacocks."

"Huh. One of Hera's sacred animals."

"Hera. Like the Greek queen of the Gods," I remembered from history class, "But what's that got to do with real life?"

"Oh, lots my young pupal. Oh, that reminds me," She looked towards the room the music was coming from and yelled. "Chiron! Chiron, she's awake!" She returned her focus to me, "Would you excuse me for a moment?" She stood and set her magazine on the ping-pong table, then preceded to walk to the room she was yelling to. The classical music stopped and she came back following a man in a wheelchair with a scruffy bred. They came over to the couch I was laying on.

"Hello, I'm Chiron. I'm in charge of the camp and this is the big house. The infermory was full, so we put you here, in the rec room. Pleased to finally meet you Mandy."

"Uh, hi. What camp?"

"Oh, you'll see soon enough. Do you have the strength to get up?"

"I think so." I tried to sit up, but groaned and fell back. "OK, maybe not."

"Here. Drink this." Annabeth handed me a small glass that might have even been a shot glass. It was filled almost to the top with a liquid that looked kind of like lemanade. I dipped the cup to my mouth and drank. I tasted like happy memories. I remembered my good times with Andy, times before I started going crazy. I immediately started to feel better than before any of this madness had ever started. I empitied the glass and the bitter memories of Andy followed. Parciularly the day before. My mouth felt dry but at least my head no longer hurt.

"What was that?" I asked Annabeth.

"Necter, drink of the Gods." She said it calmly, but I shot straight up on the couch.

"WHAT!?"

"Oh, the video will cover it. Come on I'll show you the way." She walked into another room and I stood and followed.

.......

The video left me a little shaken. OK, so I was trembling and about to fall over. Don't judge me. I walked back into the rec room and steadied myshelf with the ping-pong table. I looked up to see Annabeth and Chiron both staring at me.

"Wow. You're really shaken up, aren't you? I've never seen a reaction like this before. I mean, Nico freaked out, but he thought it was all awesome. He was only ten, of course." Annabeth said to me. I looked towards Chiron. I pointed a shakey finger in his direction.

"You're, you're...."

"Yes, I am." He slightly nodded his head. I moved my finger towards Annabeth.

"And, you?"

"Yep. I'm a demigod." She replied much more calmly than I could ever pull off at that moment. I turned my hand and pointed at myshelf.

"And, I, I am, too?"

"Yeah. Or as my boyfriend would say," she started immatating Percy's voice from yesterday, "You're a demigod!" She ended with jazz hands and smiled. Then, she went back to her usual voice. "Wanna tour the camp with me, or Chiron? 'Cause, I'm free for a while."

"Um... sure? Just one question before we go."

"Shoot."

"Why does that Super Mario game say Idiot Mode?" I pointed my finger at the game consul on the other side of the room. Her head dropped suddenly. I took a glance at Chiron and saw his eyes closed.

"Leo." She fianaly said, "Leo, made it. He was bored with the regular modes, so he made a new one."

"What's so bad about that?" I didn't understand why she was so upset about that. She looked up at me and I could see tears forming in her eyes.

"Leo's dead." With that she grabbed her pamhlet and left the Big House.

........

When I finally caught up with her, I asked, "Why? How? Please tell me."

"The war. The war with Gaea ended just a few weeks ago. Leo gave his life to defeat her. He didn't tell anyone about his plan except Hazel and Frank. He knew we would try to stop him, and he was right. We hoped he would have survived the explosion and have came back, but he hasn't. We can only believe he died back there."

"Oh. I'm so sorry. Really. I am. It must be hard."

"Ha, hard?" She laughed, "Oh, it's worse than hard. Every time I think about it, I feel guilty. You can ask any of the six left. We all feel the same. Even Nico, and he wasn't even one of the seven!"

"Then, why don't you think about something else. How about that tour?" She looked up at me and smiled a weak smile.

"OK. But first, let's find Percy. He loves tours."

"OK, let's."

We found Percy by the lake, staring up at the sky. He had a vacant look in his eyes.

"Hey Annabeth. Hey Delyla." He greeted us without even looking. 

"Call me Lyla," I told them.

 "Hi Seaweed Brain," Annabeth replyed. She got a small smile out of him. "We're going on a tour. You wanna come?" He grined hugely and turned around.

"You kidding? Of course! Where to first?"

"I was thinking the cabins."

"Sounds good. Let's go!" He stood and we began walking towards the area for cabins.

"Hey, Percy, can I ask you a question?" I asked him after walking for a while.

"Sure, go ahead." He answered

"Before I blacked out yesterday, I saw you with your eyes closed. What were you doing?" It was I question I had been wondering a while now.

"Calling Blackjack."

"Blackjack?"

"Blackjack, my pegasus. Wanna see him?"

"Sure. What not?"

"Hey, Annabeth. Let's take a detour to the stables to see Blackjack."

"OK," she said calmly. I don't think she really cared. She was probably think about Leo again. I completely regeted even bringing up the game thing. We turned to the right and started walking to the stables.

When we got there, we were in for a surprise. Or at least I was. This boy with black hair, a dark leather jacket, (even though it was hot outside) dark jeans and pale skin was riding up to us on a horse. The surprising thing is the horse looked like a freshly risen zombie horse. I probably had a totally shocked look on my face, but the others were calm.... except the boy on the horse. He looked winded and tired. Almost as if it took all his strength just to ride the horse.

"Percy! Annabeth! Person I've never seen before! I just came from the underworld!!" The boy shouted from on top of the horse.

"Nico, didn't Will tell you no underworldy stuff for a while?" Percy spoke up.

"Yeah, and you're lucky I didn't shadow-travel. But this was an emergency!!"

"What is it?"

"It's about Leo. I was just talking to my father when he told me he's not dead!!!"

"WHAT!?" We all said in uniosn. Yes, even I joined in. I was astonished.

"What do you mean by Leo's not dead!?" Annabeth asked Nico with a freaked look on her face.

"I mean, Leo's NOT dead!! He never arrived in the underworld! He survived!!!"

"Well, what do we do?" Percy asked.

"I say all seven of us go up to Mount Olympus and ask where he is."

Then, Annabeth chimed in. "Hey! Why don't we take Lyla with us? She can see Mount Olympus and she still isn't claimed, yet."

"Good idea, Annabeth," Percy said, "let's go get everyone and tell Chiron where we're going, RIGHT NOW!!!!" And with that, Nico got off his horse and it sank straight into the ground. The three of them ran in the direction of the cabins and left me hanging. That's when Nico turned around and told me something quickly, "Wait at the Big House, demigod who I haven't been properly introduced to, yet! We'll leave soon, so be ready!"