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That very night Percy is moved to Cabin 3 is the very night Camp Half-Blood doesn’t seem all that different from home.
It is not the feeling of the cabin when he stepped inside, or the outside, built of rough gray stone and coral that reminded him of the trips to Montauk Beach with his mom. It will never be those. It isn’t the dreams he had there at night, specifically that one night, of horses and large birds; two bearded men in robes at war.
It isn’t Clarisse, who, although was the Nancy Bobofit of Camp Half-Blood, Nancy Bobofit wouldn’t have been the reason he was here, in an empty room of dead, forbidden kids, long gone with no trace of their existence. Like a sound no one hears, already passed too late to be acknowledged. It definitely isn’t the absence of a home. Just a house.
But the one thing Percy is willing to accept is that even in a camp of kids who are meant to make him seem normal make him seem like a misfit– a fish out of water. Unorthodox.
He’s too demigod, in a world of demigods, and too freak in a world of plain mortals. In every part of the world, he’s a mistake, isn’t he.
Six beds span across each other and the long cabin, each window facing to the sea. It does nothing to soothe Percy this time. Not when he was never meant to be from it in the first place.
He wishes something could drag him away from this place. His fingers tighten against the blankets and release, doing so for almost every second Percy can count.
He wants his mom to take him away from here, or this whole thing that did once make him feel accepted, like they were his family. But she can’t, can she? Because of a minotaur that he had to kill, to what? Make it in a camp where kids wanted to risk their lives fighting Greek monsters– and hellhounds that bite and kill. And everything else in basically hell, at this point, to prove themselves to parents who leave the minute they’re born and just up and disappear. And have their kids turn on their illegal cousins (wow.) who never asked to be here in the first place?
He’s been unwanted enough, by stepfathers and real fathers, and. Family, thank you very much. It wouldn’t hurt to be loved by someone else, or family that wasn’t his mom.
Tossing and turning in this bed isn’t working. Not when his mom is dead and in hell with, what, Hades? And his knuckles have turned white, palms red, probably like his eyes that sting.
He mutters and groans at the thought of getting up, but the moonlight illuminates the floor, and it glistens below the window to the sea, and Percy needs to focus on something else before he tries to drown himself and gets killed by the Harpies, or whatever they’re called. It’s hard to love something without it not loving you, no matter how loyal he believes he is.
Percy saunters to, presses one hand against the window and gazes through heavy eyes. Like the floor, the ocean glistens under the light of the moon, and he’s vaguely reminded how things can change depending on the view. Just the other day, he spotted centaurs galloping(?) on the shore, rushing somewhere he didn’t bother learning of. Now, it's serene and desolate, uncaring of whoever stands in its presence.
It’s just. At home, he knew where he stood. The troublemaker of a sweet Sally Jackson, the dyslexic kid at boarding school, the kid who launched cannons and wrestled snakes, and got kicked from every school named. Here, like everyone else, he was the child of a Greek god.
Here, he’s the child of one of the Greek gods of the Big Three, and, almost ironically, that’s even worse.
Everyone stood, shooting arrows and swinging swords in groups or by themselves, and there was Percy, lingering in one place, clutching a weapon he could barely use with sweaty palms and a furrowed brow.
Here, the smoke was thick and the laughter too loud. Here, he sat at an empty table, giving offerings to gods who didn’t want him to begin with, hoping they’ll be some sort of solace and bring his mom back. Or, hey, let him go home!
Here, Percy stares up at the moon, not at all like the view back home. Endless stars stretching across a vacuum, and he wonders if there’s a Greek god for that too. He wonders if there’s a Greek god for loss, or homes, or memory, or misery.
He wonders if he could escape this place and give himself a quest, and walk down to Tartarus, or the underworld or what-the-hell-it’s-called, and find his mom and bring her back. Maybe that way, he can listen to her instead of the lapping waters and his own breathing, pointing out anything, like the ostensibly infinite number of stars in the sky, and this void of a cabin won’t be as barren as he hopes.
He wonders who would stop him if death were the most expected here.
Monsters would stop at nothing to kill him, and kids would stop at nothing to alienate him. Would be the same thing if this didn’t happen as well back home.
“Your dad’s Poseidon?” He remembers one of the few, brave kids who didn’t shirk away at him asking in front of the pavilion. He’d kicked away a volleyball somewhere and sulked off not too long after that– not that anyone cared, of course! That he was there in the first place, he means.
And Percy had nodded, flipping over a fallen rock in his hand that shone like abalone he’d found near his cabin that very morning. Yeah, he thought. Lucky him.
“Camp Half-Blood is your home now,” someone said, their tone cheerful. Percy had laughed bitterly under his breath, his fists clenching at his sides. If this is home, why does it feel like a prison?
Wearing a shirt that now felt like a worn-out Halloween costume, the way it itches and tickles his skin. Standing on the sidelines watching everything unfold, the way someone would if they watched a live recording of the Trojan War.
Son of one of the most powerful gods, with a cabin focused on their domain. Being watched every minute, not having to share a room, and call “lights out,” and the lights would shut off the second he did. Easily being able to slay every monster, which will be so, so many, that come his way. With no trouble in the world.
So, why are his eyes wet? Why does he shudder, and twist, and turn in the bed he lied in? Why does he stare at the ceiling after every nightmare and wish to throw away every sword that Luke beckons him over with, or shoves into his shaking hands?
Why did he curl in his bed, his mind filling in the static in lieu of creaking floors and opening doors, the sound of his mom checking in on him late at night? Why do those memories come flooding back when no one else opens his door but him? Why does he find that being a Pine Tree would be a better fate than this, because at least you wouldn't be conscious, And why now?
Leaning on the window, tears threaten to fall, and cold fingers trace the outline of the sea. A mind, imagining the boundary line out of this place it knows it can never reach.
But his mom wasn’t practically dead for nothing. She didn’t die for Percy to be sulking, watching on the sidelines, or gazing out the window on a Summer’s night, or yearning to instead be a shadow on a hill beneath daffodils or something instead of this, instead of feeling a breeze that was once a guarantee, that yes, this is real. And it still is a guarantee, that yes, this is real .
Which means that, unfortunately, Percy has to endure a bit longer. Endure like he did at Yancy protecting Grover against Nancy Bobofit. Endure like he did at home against Smelly Gabe. For his mom.
He doesn’t need their love. He’ll save his mom, and they’ll go home together. Percy won’t have to suffer through this anymore, to the point where he’s about to lose his sanity the way he’s being treated here. He’ll set his mom free, and no one needs to listen, no Greek god needs to care. All he needs is a quest. Damn this camp, for all he cares. Except Grover, the one thing he likes.
There’s still hope he can carry in this cabin, void of the nameless life that’s almost faded in the corners of the walls, or echoes like a passing sound. There’s still hope in the glistening seas below the moon and every star that soothes him instead. There’s still hope for the horse and the golden eagle, and the two bearded men fighting down the surf.
More importantly, Percy thinks, wiping his eyes that have grown heavy with his arm, and flopping down on his bed, there’s still hope for him. Who ever heard of staying in camp forever? He just needs to wait until everything passes over, and everything will be alright.
He’ll never have to return to a place he’s not wanted.
Old habits always die hard, he thinks, tucking the blanket over him and laying his hands flat on the blanket, focusing on the tides and everything else outside. Not the door, or the walls, or any type of dream.
He changes his mind about no Greek gods needing to care. Maybe just one, and he wonders if there’s a Greek god for hope. He wonders if they’d like him.
The son of a sea god. A sea god for a parent, who’s scent of their domain would forever remind him of his first night here, them, and not being able to save the parent who truly mattered.
“Lights out,” he forced out, voice miserable, with a tint of something new.