My dreams were weird, but the most vivid seemed to make the least amount of sense.

I was standing in a stone chamber. Typical. All around me bodiless voices muttered confusingly, echoing around the chamber.

"He will come!"

"We shall take the flames!"

"One may stop us!"

"But that shall not happen!"

"What if he doesn't show?"

"He must! He has no choice!"

I had no idea what any of that meant at the time, but then it got weirder. With each word, the people saying the phrases became visible. More and more pieces continued to appear the more they talked. The only one I could make out was a tall man. His skin was as black as the night, and if he was wearing any clothes they were black too. Perched on his forehead was a pair of black sunglasses with red tints, the only visible color on him. The man's skin was cracked, like a dessert terrain, and kind of like the Thing, but not orange. He looked straight at me.

"Show. Up." Chills shot up my spine, and I woke up.

I was lying in a fluffy white bed, on top of the sheets. It definitely wasn't mine. The room was to bright, almost like it was around mid-afternoon. But that wasn't right. I should've been waking up for school.

"Blaze," someone said, jerking me out of my reverie. I looked around and saw Slade sitting next to the bed I was in.

That's when I realized where I was. There were a lot of beds, though none of them occupied. The room smelled of antiseptics, though how I could recognize it I didn't know.

I glared at Slade. "What's going on?" I demanded. "Where am I?" But I had the slightest suspicion that I knew where I was, and I wasn't sure if it was a good thing. I tried to sit up straighter, but Slade pushed me back onto the pillows.

"Get your hands off of me," I said, shoving his arm to the side and sitting up. I immediately felt dizzy and decided to lay back down. I glared at Slade some more.

"What's going on?" I repeated.

"Um," he began. "I'm not entirely sure myself. After that Drakon thing shriveled up, this chariot descended from the sky. A few teenagers got out and dragged you onto it with them. They looked at me and Emma, who had run to you, and they told us to get in."

I nodded. "Okay, and?"

"The teachers had begun to notice us, so we got in quickly and flew off. These winged horses--"

"Pegasi," I corrected him.

"Yeah," he continued. "Those. Well we flew to this camp place and then the teenagers took you into this building where you've been ever since."

"And how long ago was this?" I inquired.

"Four days ago."

I sat there, shocked, at the fact that I'd been asleep for four days, and the fact that I'd just had a conversation with Slade Andrews that didn't involve punching.

"Did you say camp?" I asked Slade.

"Yeah. Camp Half-Blood. That's what the horse man calls it anyway."

"Oh my gods!" I squealed, then braced myself, waiting to be punched. Nothing happened.

Slade saw this, and then said, "Listen, uh, Blaze, Im really sorry about everything I've put you through since you arrived at school."

"Why the sudden change of heart?" I asked coldly.

"You saved my life," he said quietly. I almost failed to hear it. Almost.

I thought back to four days ago, when I had pushed Slade out of the Drakon's path and got eaten instead.

"What?" I said, faking ignorance. "I couldn't hear you."

Slade grinned sheepishly, like he didn't know whether I was kidding or not.

"Apology accepted," I said. "But that doesn't make us friends." And with that I promptly stood up and left, though nearly falling on my way out the door.

Slade had taken me by surprise. I didn't think he had an ounce of nice, or brain in his body. Even though he seemed sincere, I wasn't entirely sure I could trust him. He could be tricking me. He could just be trying to get on my good side now that I'd killed a Drakon.

I made my way out onto the porch of the Big House, using my vast knowledge of the Rick Riordan books to navigate the vast farmhouse.

For some reason, the people in the porch seemed to be waiting for me. Chiron the centaur, trainer of Demigods, in full palomino form, Emma, and a pretty blond girl who was not Emma.

"Hi Chiron," I said, holding out my hand to him. "I'm Blaze, and I like the Percy Jackson books."

"Ah, I see," he replied, looking down at me as I stood there. He shook my hand,  and looked like he was trying to hide a smile.

Then I looked at Emma and started to blush. I hoped it wasn't visible, but it probably was.

"Hi Emma," I said, waving cheerfully. I looked at the other girl. "I'm Blaze."

She stared at me coldly. "I know. Emma told me about you."

"So do you and Emma know each other?" I asked, trying to break the ice a bit.

"As of yesterday, yes. I'm her half sister."

I stared at Emma. "Who exactly is your parent?" She stared at me for a second.

"How are you so comfortable with this?"

"I'm not. This is all shocking," I lied. "But I do read Uncle Ricks books."

"Well so do I, but I was still completely stunned when Athena claimed me last night," she said this almost, resentfully.

I mentally facepalmed myself. I wondered why I hadn't realized it before. Ever since I discovered my fire powers I read and re-read the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus, hoping that one day I'd get to go to camp, if it was in fact real. I should have realized it was; much sooner.

"So...Athena. Cool," I said, embarrassed. The other Athena child stared at me cooly. "And Slade," I continued, trying to avoid contact with the scary blonde girl. "Was he claimed too?"

"Yeah," Emma said, nodding. "Ares. He was claimed as soon as we got here."

I facepalmed myself for real this time. Slade, son of Ares. Duh!

"What is it?" Emma asked, this time sounding concerned.

"Oh, nothing," I said nonchalantly. I looked out across the valley of Camp Half-Blood, seeing the cool cabins, the sparkling sea side. "Just, uh, wondering how Greek deities are real," I lied again. "And wondering when I can climb the lava wall."

The rest of he day went by quickly because I knew so much all ready, though I tried not to show it.

But, as standard protocol, I needed a tour. Chiron led me from the Big House to the ring of cabins, away from Emma and the girl who I still didn't know the name of.

Chiron stopped by the central hearth. He stared in to the flames. "Blaze, I've been needing to talk to you, but refrained from waking you earlier. How-" but he was cut off at the sound of footsteps.

Chiron and I turned to see who was coming. Running up to us was a short, grinning Hispanic boy. His eyes sparkled mischievously and his fingers never stopped moving. I assumed he liked fidget spinners.

"Chiron, is this the newbie?" He asked good-naturedly. He smiled at me. "I'm Jorge, head counselor for the Hermes cabin." He looked back at Chiron. "Have you explained things to him?"

"This is Blaze Turner. He is an avid reader of Mr. Riordans books. Our corespondent in the mortal world."

"I see," Jorge said. "He's not the only one who showed up that way. Well, come on Blaze, I'll give you a tour, although you may not need it."

I nodded, and followed Jorge away from Chiron and the cabins.

Jorge seemed really cool. He was fourteen, two years older than me. He told me he had been chosen as head counselor because no one could pick pockets as well as he could. I hoped he was kidding about that.

Even though Jorge seemed so chill during the tour, I wasn't ever going to let him use anything of mine that was valuable. He had the kleptomaniac vibe about him, if you know what I mean.

Jorge showed me the woods and the canoe lake, the armory, the amphitheater, the climbing wall, and all the other features camp provided. When we were done I was covered in sweat from the heat. Jorge took me back to the Hermes cabin where I would stay until I was claimed.

As a "Welcome back to consciousness" gift Emma had given me a sleeping bag and some basic toiletries that she had extra ones of. She had called out to me on my way to the showers with Jorge.

"The head counselor for the Athena cabin, Grace, you met her earlier, she bought that for me. And my other siblings," she shuddered.

"What is it?" I questioned.

"It's just weird saying that about fifteen or so people that are around my age." She laughed. "Anyway, they gave me some stuff, but I have a bunk in cabin six. So here," she said.

Jorge and I showered quickly and hurried back to cabin nine. Jorge also stole me some clothes from the camp store, which seemed wrong, yet oddly impressive. It felt good to get into new, fresh clothes after being in ones that smelled of Drakon insides for four days.

Jorge and a few other Hermes kids started a game of poker before dinner, but I didn't feel like playing much. The little money I had in my backpack ( it was retrieved for me when I was unconscious) didn't want to be lost to some kids I hardly knew, and Jorge, so I took a walk.

My waking late had caused me to miss the afternoon activities, so I wasn't yet prepared to climb the rock wall. It glowed faintly in the fading evening light, the lava pouring down the sides.

I walked a lap around the central green of the cabins before I came to a stop in front of the Hermes cabin again. I sat there, on the grass, thinking.

Even though I had more knowledge than most brand new Demigods, my mind was still buzzing from the excitement that the day had brought. I couldn't wait to immerse myself in the camp life (insert meme here).

The other part of it was that I had fire powers. I guess I knew everything they told me was true, because I had those powers. I guess the other possibility was a particle accelerator and the F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M matrix (Flash stuff) but I'd never encountered dark matter before.

When the conch horn blew for dinner time, the other Hermes kids filed out of the cabin. I was overtaken in the crowd of Demigods that poured from the building, both claimed and unclaimed. The Hermes cabin easily had the most campers in it at the moment.

No one came out of the Poseidon, Zeus, or Hera cabins, for obvious reasons. If you don't know why then read The Lighting Thief. Sorry, got a bit carried away. Hera is the goddess of marriage, so she only has kids with Zeus, so the cabin was just honorary.

And Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had sworn on the River Styx not to have any kids after there was a war between all their children. The oath was broken by each of them, but Percy Jackson--the son of Poseidon--was probably in Camp Jupiter (the Roman camp) settling down with Annabeth Chase now. I had no idea where Nico--son of Hades--ended up but he was probably living somewhere with Will Solace.

By the way, I ship Solangelo so hard. Anyway:

I think Thalia, who was Zeus's daughter, was still a Hunter of Artemis at this point, but I don't know.

So yeah. Knowledge. Learning. Back to the story.

There were a good number of campers from the Ares, Apollo, Demeter, Athena, and Hephaestus cabins, but the minor gods' cabins seemed to have fewer children than the others.

All the cabins fell into line and we all walked up to the dining pavilion together. I kept both eyes of the Hermes kids so that none of them could steal my meager supply of cash, which I probably shouldn't of been storing in my pocket. I don't think it'd be safer in bank vault though.

Once everyone was seated by cabin (each cabin to a table), Chiron stood up from the head table and announced, "We have a new demigod among us tonight! Welcome Blaze Turner, who has finally awoken from his encounter with the Lydian Drakon!" He gestured to me at the Hermes table.

Several kids stared at me as if they hadn't heard the news yet. Others looked at me with mixes of admiration, jealousy, contempt, and laziness.

There was some scattered applause like they weren't sure whether to clap or bow down in my greatness. Ha, just kidding.

"There will be capture the flag on Friday," Chiron continued. I was slightly disappointed that capture the flag had more fans than me but I was too busy clapping and cheering with everyone else. I was ready and itching to go.

It was the next day that I realized that wasn't entirely true. I was honestly not in to good condition. I had always been able to convince myself I was I pretty good shape what with P.E and everything, but when actually compared with athletic Demigods who'd been training much longer than me, and not obese kids in the school gym, I was suddenly not as good anymore.

The first class of the day was boot camp, run by the Ares cabin. It was right before breakfast, and was more boring and annoying than it was strenuous, but I was still sweating by the time it was over.

Boot camp included an obstacle course--like the ones Marines use to train--a mile run, twice, and about 30 minutes of push-ups.

Slade and I didn't talk much during the exercises, but every time he walked close to me--when the Ares campers checked the rest of our forms and what not--he looked like he always wanted to say something to me. He kept his mouth shut though. Maybe I would need to talk to him later.

When all was said and done I was sore, yet could already feel the physical changes that were happening to my body. I imagined myself after a whole summer of that. Blaze 2.0 I though. Cool.

After boot camp I went off to Ancient Greek with the Athena cabin, where we talked about and debated the different points of Greek mythology and I learned to better write and read Greek. The head counselor, Grace, she kept glancing at me, and I couldn't help but look back. She was as pretty, if not more pretty than Emma. But, she seemed to hate me, so, yeah.

Chiron and the other counselors watched me intently the entire day, probably trying to figure out who my godly parent was.

I had an opportunity to climb the rock wall that day. I don't know if Chiron talked to him or not, but Jorge seemed to keep wanting to hangout with me. Maybe he was trying to find out what my parentage was, but I hoped he was genuinely trying to be my friend.

Jorge expertly began to scale the wall while I stood on solid ground and looked up at the stone mass. I stepped up to the base of it and placed my hand in a crevice, slowly pulling myself up. I picked up speed as I got better at holding myself up in the air.

I was a quarter of the way up, still not entirely comfortable with the shaky moments of the two slabs of rock.

I shuffled to one side as a stream of lava came down from above me. I knew that it wouldn't harm me whatsoever but I didn't want anyone to see me forging up a wall through lava, completely unscathed.

Jorge poked his head over the edge. He had reached the top. "Come on Blaze!" he called, laughing. "Show me that you're Drakon slaying material!"

I realized that Jorge was messing with me, but I don't like to be doubted. I increased my pace up the wall. The clashing of the rocks knocked my right hand off the wall once, but I just reached for another handhold. After another few minutes of sweating, I reached the top and sat next to Jorge. We looked across the camp, just sitting there for a few minutes, and then realized that the lava had started to pool dangerously close to our feet.

That night I again sat with the Hermes cabin and other unclaimed Demigods. I knew exactly who I though my parent was, but I didn't want to tell anyone about my fire skills. According to Jake Mason in the Lost Hero, fire powers weren't always a good thing. They often caused major incidents, and the last one died (you all know what I mean).

I walked over to the huge brazier with everyone else to sacrifice food to the gods. I tossed in my entire cup of strawberries halfheartedly. I later regret the decision of choosing the strawberries. The gods better of appreciated them.

"Come on Hephaestus," I murmured so no one could here me. "I'm waiting."

Nothing happened. I sulked away to my seat and shoveled down my food quickly, not talking to anyone. Chiron reminded everyone of the capture the flag game that Friday, and then we toasted to the gods. I almost refused to, but I didn't think that would be smiled upon.

I was walking away from the dining pavilion, towards the cabins, not wanting to participate in the camp fire singalong when Jorge hurried up to walk with me.

"Hey," he began. "What's up?" I shrugged him off. "I don't want to talk about it," I said. I didn't mean to be so harsh, but he looked a little hurt. "Well, Chiron told me to tell you to meet him at the Big House before you turn in. Just though you should know." Jorge walked away, looking dejected.

I didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment, but Chiron probably wouldn't of been happy with me if I didn't turn up, so I made my way to the Big House in the fading light, while everyone else went to the Amphitheater.

I wasn't particularly paying attention to where I was going, so I tripped over the porch. I picked myself up and knocked on the door. I stood there, waiting.

The door opened and sitting there was Chiron, in wheelchair form. His fake legs were covered in a blanket and his hands were crossed in his lap.

"Come in Blaze," he said. "We have a lot to talk about."

Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω

Well hello, you awesome readers. Sorry about the slightly late chapter. But thanks for tuning in to today's chapter of A Spark is Lit! The book is coming along, I think. Who liked the cliffhanger? Does anyone wanna guess what Blaze is gonna talk to Chiron about?

Remember, this book will be entered in the Watty Awards as soon as it's eligible, and is entered in the PJO Watty Awards, so please comment and vote! I love reading all the comments I get, so keep them coming (And it doesn't hurt to follow me too 😊). So please, add this book to your library, because there will be two chapters up a week. Thanks so much!

~ Jared_o_saurus