It was the perfect dream. It always starts perfectly. I was lying in the warm summer grass in the middle of the fields of Camp Atlas with Rami. My best friend. He's my favorite person. We met when he first arrived at camp, grew up together, and got into trouble side by side. He was talking about the sun and how it orbits the earth and how time works or something. His voice floated in the warm air, half-lost to me, I was enjoying being with him. His chocolate-colored skin made me think of an old Greek legend about the god Helios, a story my mother would tell me when I was young.
Then he said something that made me listen. 'A daughter of trickery' He said, his voice garbled and slurred but I knew what he was saying. The warmth drained from the world. A biting frost crawled up my skin which wasn't unusual but still didn't feel right, and then—suddenly—I was falling, the incoherent and slurred lines of the prophecy were being screamed at me from all angles.
'Her name shall echo—'
'The end of gods—'
As the wind whipped through the darkness, my body weightless and out of my control, I saw a flicker of something different. Something—gold.
I knew this dream. I had it almost every night. Constant falling, my arms reaching up trying to find something to grab onto, anything. Then I woke up.
***
Gasping, looking around my room in a panic, my heart racing, my mind reeling, I clutched my bed sheets and took a shaky breath. I locked my eyes on Aelia, one of my roommates and one of the Roman ambassadors, she was sitting in the bed across from mine. She had been reading her novel, and I knew she hadn't slept at all, but now she was looking at me with pure worry.
'Astrid?' She asked me 'Astrid? Are you OK? Did you have the dream again?' She knew me better than most of the other campers here, Aelia was more of an observer than an interacter, I nodded and Azia, my second roommate, badass daughter of Sekhmet and one of the Egyptian ambassadors, walked in from the common room. Aelia immediately said to her 'Astrid had the dream again'
Azia turned and looked at me and with a sigh she sat down on my bed 'Was it the same as usual, did you see anything different?'
I looked away from her. Every night, the dream is the same, but tonight… tonight there was a shimmer, a golden light that wasn't there before. I tried to hold onto and understand it, but it slipped away like sand through my fingers.
'I-. . . I saw something golden . . .' I looked at her, her curly black hair was pulled back in a braided bun like she usually does before training.
I hadn't seen Cora, my third roommate, ultimate best friend, the biggest brainiac you will ever meet, and one of the Greek ambassadors, yet so I assumed she was in the common room with my cousin Erik.
Azia nodded slightly. 'Okay, golden . . . That narrows it down to almost everything known to gods,' she sighed. I knew Azia didn't like being in the dark about things. She and Cora teamed up last year when I started having these dreams to try and figure them out, but to no avail.
I yawned and climbed out of my bed, Aelia was still sitting with her book, her short brown hair falling in front of her face, Azia had walked over to her closet and started getting ready for the day, I flung on my gym leggings and my black hoodie with the words 'Camp Atlas - Norse AMB' printed on the back, everyone got a jacket like that when they arrived at camp, they got their region printed on the back and the ambassadors got a different one when they got promoted.
I fixed my hair quickly and walked into the common room. Cora and Erik lay on the couch side by side.
They got together about two years ago. It was very weird at first, especially for me, but we got past it and now they are inseparable. I walked over to the kitchen where Rami was standing making pancakes.
'Got any for me, sunshine?' I asked him, he turned around, his stupid smile, and his messy hair, I laughed as he had batter on his nose.
'What?' he asked. He wiped his nose but only put more batter on it, making me laugh more.
'Rami, you are so stupid,' I chuckled and wiped it off with a cloth. He pushed a plate towards me with three pancakes on it; he knew me all too well.
'Am I stupid now? Go eat frosty.' He smiled, he had always called me frosty, ever since I met him, I went and sat at the table, and Rami grabbed a plate and sat across from me.
I poked my fork at my food and looked at Rami, his deep brown eyes, his kind smile, his knowing gaze 'I had the dream again . . .'
'Was it the same as before? Me and you in the field?' He asks, I've told him the dream a million times, it always starts with the two of us in some part of camp, I nod and he takes my hand 'That prophecy doesn't mean anything, you aren't going to destroy the world, you're too sweet' I look up at him and can't help but smile, he had that sort of contagious happiness, he was like a ray of sunshine, literally. He is a son of Ra, the Egyptian god of the sun.
'Hey Rami?' Evan called from the boys' room 'Is that your pancakes I smell?'
Erik laughed from the couch 'Evan, he's the only one that cooks in the morning, what else do you think it would be?' Evan walked through, his dark brown hair dripping from his shower earlier as he walked to the plates sitting out, filled with pancakes.
Cora rolls her eyes and turns to face Evan 'Could you not drip your wet hair all over the floor? I cleaned yesterday.'
Cora is a daughter of Athena and is a bit of a neat freak, she hates our room being a mess and hates when someone messes up the common room after she has cleaned.
Evan picks up a pancake and takes a bite before pointing at Cora 'No.' He smirks and we all laugh.
Cora sighs and rolls her eyes 'At least put a shirt on.'
Rami leaned back in his seat, letting go of my hand 'Yeah please put a shirt on, it's bad enough you make Marcus, Erik and I see that every morning but don't subject the girls to it' he chuckles and Evan tosses his pancake at Rami, I laugh and Azia walks in the common room and goes over to the pancakes.
Evan smiles at her 'Azia doesn't mind being subjected to my being shirtless, does she?'
Azia looked him up and down and smirked 'I don't mind.' They tried to hide it, but it was no secret that the two were totally into each other. She took a bite of her pancake and sat down at the table 'Where's Marcus?' she asked as we hadn't seen him this morning.
Erik, Evan, and Rami started laughing 'He spent the night in the barracks with Bo' Erik said, Marcus had a knack for sneaking out of the house and down to the barracks to flirt with Bo or one of his other 'good friends'.
Aelia had appeared in the kitchen behind us and none of us noticed, she had a habit of that, a very annoying one. Being a daughter of Pluto she could manipulate shadows and used that to get around camp undetected一It was especially popular on Halloween when she would pop out of nowhere and scare us while we were watching horror films on the projector.
'Isn't Bo a Norse demigod? Is Marcus even allowed in those barracks?' we all jumped and looked at her 'What?' she asked as if she had been there the whole time and none of us had noticed her 'Ah, I did it again. Right, sorry. Continue.' She took a bite of her pancake and sat next to Azia.
Azia finished her pancake and looked at Aelia 'I mean we only have five days until the selection ceremony for the games, I'm sure he's just trying to blow off steam' She realized what she said and looked around the room, Cora and Erik looked into each others eyes with a sadness I had never seen before, Rami's eyes locked onto mine and we shared an unspoken understanding that at least one of us was going to get taken for the games. I felt my stomach drop, my hands clenched on the table in anger, trying to push down my feelings of denial and sadness.
A little background on the games, they started around the same time as Christianity when the gods were trying to do everything they could to get rid of the belief, so they created a series of different battles that they would put their demigod children through, the strongest, bravest and most powerful demigod would win, the rest would, well, not survive. The winning demigod would be raised into godhood and the god that picked them would get bragging rights for having the best bet.
Rami was the most powerful demigod I knew. There was no way that he wouldn't be chosen, I couldn't imagine camp without him.
Then I looked at Erik, but he couldn't look me in the eyes, we both knew this day was coming, as the two Norse ambassadors, one of us would be chosen, and our parents, Thor and Loki would be fighting to see which one of us that they would choose for the games. But as cousins? We knew that if the other was chosen, we would never see each other again.
Cora's eyes meet mine, and I see the same fear I'm feeling, the unspoken understanding that whoever is chosen will be lost to the rest of us forever. A daughter of Athena — someone who's always been the one with the plans, the strategies — and yet even she doesn't know how to fight this.
Azia cleared her throat after sharing an uneasy glance with Evan 'Sorry…' she said in a hushed tone knowing that she had brought up the one subject that we had all been avoiding, all been brushing off with laughter and jokes, but one simple word and it all rushed back. The dread. The fear. The inevitability that from the people we enter the games with, only one of us will live.
We all sat, picking at our breakfast when Marcus tripped through our front door, for a son of Aesculapius, grandson of Apollo, and the camp's best doctor, he was definitely not graceful 'Hey guys, good morning huh? I slept great!' he whistled softly as he began collecting his breakfast and eating it. I guessed he could sense the tension in the room because he said 'Okay, who brought up the games?'
With those words I simply couldn't sit there any longer, I left the table, walked to the front door, and sat on the porch, overlooking the beautiful landscape that is Camp Atlas, the four cedar wood barracks set up looking the ambassador's house, the man-made lake to the right that I freeze over on the winters and we all go ice skating, the communal showers and large training pool that sat to the left of the house where I met Cora for the first time, the tall trees with the sweet summer breeze flowing through them gently, even through the enchantment that the Egyptian demigods cast over the camp to defend us from monsters, the warm summer sun cast a sort of glow, over the camp. I took a steadying breath, trying to remind myself that this is my home, I will never leave here. Then, of course, as if by magic, Rami was there, sitting beside me with my skates in his hands.
'What are you doing Rami?' I asked him wearily, he had a tell for whenever he had gotten a really great or really dumb idea, his crazy smile, his honey-sweet eyes, he grabbed my hand and pulled me up.
'Come on Frosty, we're going skating' he smiled at me and I felt my worries melting away into the back of my mind, he led me towards the lake and I leaned down to freeze it, my hand rested just on the surface of the water as I felt my body become overwhelmingly cold, the lake started to grow cold and icy until it froze over, I laced up my skates and glided smoothly around the edge of the lake, Rami walking beside me on the ground, I sped up and circled the lake a few times before spinning into the middle laughing, Rami's easy smile always manages to calm me, but I can see the hesitation in his eyes. He's afraid, too. But he's too proud to show it.
So instead, he makes jokes, brings pancakes, and tries to make me laugh. And for a moment, I let him.
I let myself believe that maybe the dream and the games can wait just a little longer.