When my eyes opened, I was sitting in a plane terminal, beside windows that showed off the planes landing and taking off and loading.

The terminal wasn't that full, there weren't many people walking around, and there were even fewer people sitting in the seats around me.

Two seats to my right, a little girl with brown hair and sea-green eyes sat, wearing a The Little Mermaid rain coat and little Finding Nemo rain boots. She couldn't have been older than six (8 years younger than me), and yet she was all alone, smiling contently at the airplanes gliding past the window to my left. I noticed she had a little present in her lap, it was badly wrapped in blue paper, and had a messy attempted bow on the top, but it was the thought that counted. I wondered who she was waiting for.

I didn't understand why I was here, so I just sat there quietly and watched.

One of the ladies behind the counter of this flight terminal walked over to the girl, and kneeled in front of her.

"Hello, there." She smiled. She must've looked scary to the kid, because she was wearing more make-up than a clown. But the girl just smiled.

"Hello!" She said cheerily. I couldn't help but smile, too. She had one of those cute little voices, and a mouth only half full of teeth. "Can you tell me when flight 103 from Toronto is landing?" She sounded really grown up for a six year old.

"Of course I can," clown-lady said softly. "It lands in ten minutes. We'll have to go to the landing terminal, so you can see who you're waiting for."

"My mom," the little girl giggled. "She's coming home. I want to see her plane land, and then you can help me find mommy in the landing terminomal." The fact that she couldn't pronounce terminal right made her even cuter, but I wondered still why she was alone here. If she was waiting for her mother, maybe her father or aunt or something else would be with her. How'd she even navigate herself to a terminal?!

"I can watch her until the plane lands." Offered the woman sitting behind the girl. She had sunglasses over her eyes, and was wearing an expensive looking black coat. Something seemed off about her. She smiled as if she were looking at her next meal. I didn't want to trust that.

"That's okay, I can do it."

Nobody seemed to hear me. I frowned, and repeated my sentence. Nothing. The clown-woman walked back to her desk in her too-high heels, and the other woman walked around so she was sitting in the seat beside the girl.

The girl seemed to be worried about this woman also, but she held a brave face. I moved over two seats so I was on the other side of the girl. Still, nobody seemed to notice. I wondered if I was invisible or if someone had taped a sign to me that said 'Don't talk to me or acknowledge me or I'll attack'.

"I'm...G." The woman said to the girl after a few minutes. The girl looked from the clown-woman, back to G, and I could tell she was about to say her name. Clown cut in.

"That's the plane, Sweety." She pointed at a Canadian Airlines plane descending from the sky. The little girl clutched the present in one hand and excitedly ran to the window, smudging her face up against it as if to get a better view. I stood and walked to her side, not that she noticed me.

The only way you could spot the plane was by the flashing lights. There was a storm brewing, and although it hadn't been this black moments before, I felt uneasy. It hadn't even started to rain when a lightning bolt shot at the plane.

With a loud 'crack' and 'boom' the plane's nose tilted straight down and the plane was on fire as it spiralled out of the sky.

"MOMMY!" The little girl screamed and started crying. My heart broke as the plane collided with the runway. It started pouring, but the rain didn't put the fire out. Plumes of smoke traced their way towards the sky, and firetrucks started making their way to the mess.

When I turned back to look at the girl, she was gone. G was gone. Clown-woman was gone. Everyone that used to be around me was gone.

Some how, the terminal caught fire. Chairs blew up. Windows shattered outward. The world went in slow motion. I dropped to my knees, and saw the only thing left behind in the room.

The girl's messy-wrapped present sat untouched by the fire burning around me. A white card was pressed to the top of it, a fancy little To: and From: stuck underneath the bow. In six-year-old-writing, it made my heart stop.

To: Mommy
From: Otrera

~

I woke up screaming and crying. When I realized it was only a dream, and that I was wrapped in blankets on top of a mattress, I started to calm myself down.

It was almost pitch-black in the room, not even the small round window on the wall to my left provided enough moon-light to see my own hands.

In the darkness, I reached my hand out to try and find a light. Finally, I found a cord, pulled it down, and a small light attached the wall lit up the whole room like a Christmas tree.

After my eyes adjusted to the blinding light, I scanned my surroundings.

I was in a small bedroom. The walls were white-washed along with the ceiling. There was a small side-table to the right of my bed. Well, I suppose it was meant as a side table. It was really just a slab of wood connected to cables attached to the ceiling, it was basically floating.

Other than a door to the opposite wall from me, that was all that was in the room. I stood up cautiously, and as soon as I did, I realized where I was.

You probably wouldn't have realized it this soon, but because I was a child of Poseidon, I got it. I felt the soft sways under my feet, and through the ship I could feel the waves churning as we glided over them. It should've been a bumpy ride...why wasn't it?

Alright, I was on a boat somewhere. If I could get to the top deck to scan the water, I could probably get a location. But I didn't know who else was up there, and whether they were my friends or not.

On the other hand, the small room was making me claustrophobic. I didn't want to stay in it any longer than I had to. I pushed the door open, and stuck my head out.

The hallway looked just as bad as my room. A few small round windows too high up to look out of, whitewashed walls that were slowly peeling, and a few more doors. There was a hallway to my right, but it was a dead end. And then, obviously, there was the giant monstrous boar blocking my direct path to a stair case in the hall to the front of me.

It wasn't facing me, it was looking through one of the doors on the right wall (the left only held windows because it was just a wall connecting to the outside, duh), and making little angry boar noises.

It's tusks were stained red, and I didn't think it was because he liked cranberry juice.

I slowly closed the door and slipped back into my room. There was nothing I could use as a weapon against this boar. Well, maybe I could rock the whole boat enough to distract it, but what if there were other demigods like me on this boat? Stuck in their rooms, facing a monster in the hallway, unsure of where they are...

I took another look around my room, when a bizarre idea came to me. I was used to those, but that's not the point. I managed to pull the slab of wood from the wires which now dangled freely from the ceiling. If I couldn't distract the monster with water...Do boars play frisbee?

I slowly opened the door again, this time with my make-shift frisbee in one hand. The boar was standing in the exact same spot doing the exact same thing as before. I hoped it wasn't scaring some poor demigod in the other room.

To get its attention, I stuck two fingers in my mouth and blew as hard as I could. At the whistle, the boar turned to face me. I was surprised when he didn't charge at me, but I wasn't complaining.

"Hey, Boaris! Get it, Boar-is? You want to play frisbee?" I tried to sound excited, like when you're talking to a dog, and I waved the slab around to show it off.

The boar followed it with it's red gleaming eyes, making excited snorting noises.

"Go get it!" I threw the slab into the hallway on my right, and dived back into my room as the excited giant pig slid into walls as it ran for my 'frisbee'. The door shook as the boar bounded by it, and as soon as I was sure it was far enough down the dead-end hall, I flung the door open and jumped up the stairs.

If there were other demigods being held captive, it would be better that they stayed in their rooms until I had a good enough plan and was sure I wouldn't harm them by leading them to more monsters. I hadn't even bothered to look into the room with the open door as I passed it.

~

I snuck through the bowels of the ship with ease. There were a few monsters here and there, but not as big as the boar. I was almost close to the deck now. Maybe three more levels I'd have to navigate my way through. But I also knew I was close to a lot more monsters. The deck and closest levels under it would probably be full of monsters waiting to tear me to shreds. Why they hadn't smelled me yet? That was still up for debate.

It could be
1) They weren't allowed to eat their demigod hostages
2) They were so used to the smell of said hostages that they couldn't tell when one was out of place

Two more levels up, I had to hide from a group of empusa, blood-sucking children of Hecate. I managed to find an unlocked and empty room. It was, like the one I had woken up in, small. There was no bed, just a few chests tucked against the right wall and tables flooding the left.

I almost smiled.

I kneeled in front of the three large chests, and pulled the middle one open. Inside was a collection of shields and daggers. The one to the left held some jars of Greek fire. Finally, I clicked open the chest the the right. There was a gleaming three-foot celestial bronze sword, all by itself sitting on a thick pile of velvet. I took it in my hands.

It was perfectly balanced. I slashed the air a few times. The hilt felt snug against my hands. I grabbed a shield, and attached two bottles of Greek fire to a belt that then tied around my waist.

Now that I was armed, I felt safer opening the door.

The empusa had disappeared, but that didn't matter. I made a beeline for the stair case.

~

It was still dark out when I got to the deck. The air was cold and stale, and there were lots of lights. At first, I couldn't believe my eyes. There were at least a dozen people - demigods, I assumed - in a little cluster beside a table with food.

I was about to run and join them, happy that I wasn't the only half-blood on this gods forsaken boat, when I spotted a giant scorpion with the head of a goat (don't ask about details. It was disgusting) scurrying across the deck towards them.

I wondered why no one glanced up to look at it as it noisily made its way towards them. They didn't even pull out weapons. They were all going to get killed! So I tightened my grip on the sword, and charged.

The monster wasn't very quick, and he didn't even realize that I was leaping through the air trying to attack him until the last second.

I brought my blade down and cut his tail clean off. The tail disintegrated, and as I was about to finish the rest of the monster, four strong arms pulled me away.

"Tera, no!" One of the guys holding me down pleaded.

I watched in horror as some of the girls from the group ran towards the scorpion to help it??

"Stop it!" I shouted. "Don't help the monster, kill it!"

The two boys dragged me into the steering cabin and shut the door behind them. They kicked out a demigod at the wheel.

"Tera," someone's face hovered in front of mine as I was roughly pushed into a chair. One of the brutes who was holding had taken the wheel, but the other was too close to my face for me to get a clear image.

I roughly pushed him back, and screamed in frustration. My scream cut short when I saw who it was who had their hands on my shoulders and was kneeling in front of me.

"...Luke?" I asked in shock.

He nodded slowly. "Yeah, Ter-Ter [pronounced Tear-Tear], it's only me. Do you want to explain why you were trying to kill Dawnny?"

"Dawnny?" I asked confused as he pried the sword out of my hand. He took the Greek fire away, and put the shield on the ground beside him.

"The scorpion."

"You named that monster? Luke, it was going to kill you guys!"

The scar on his face made his grim expression even more eerie. "Tera, we're working with them."