The ocean seems endless.

It stretches in every direction, a crystal blue like none I've ever seen before, so rich in pigmentation that I can't quite find the edge where the sky ends and the water begins.

In this ocean, there is an island with a sprawling tropical resort. Pretty women are walking to-and-fro everywhere; my spirit ignores all of them and somehow, without my control, enters a building, leaving that beautiful ocean behind.

The room I find myself in is sleek and unending, just like the sea, covered in mirrors and windows and off-putting ivory. There's a woman inside, with eyes like emeralds, talking to a boy younger than me.

"Now Percy," the woman starts, handing the boy a pink drink. Something clicks deep in my subconscious about the name Percy.

I see the the woman is trying to convince the boy to drink the beverage now in his grasp. Unexplicably, I have a horrible gut feeling about it, and I say, "Wait, don't!"

But it's pointless. Percy tips back the drink; in a flash he's turned into a guinea pig, which the woman lifts up and laughs at wickedly.

"See, Percy?," she says, "You've unlocked your true self!"

Then, the woman flicks her head up, from Percy to me, and her eyes narrow.

I don't get to see her reaction.

Within a moment, the room is gone and I am at Camp Half-Blood, in the dining pavilion. I see Aria and Kiera are still sitting with the Hermes cabin, alone and unclaimed.

"I can't believe AJ just disappeared," Aria says. "One minute, I believe we have a new friend, the next minute, she's gone."

Kiera sighs. "She probably went on some mysterious quest with her new siblings or something. I don't know and I don't care."

I try not to feel hurt by this apathy. I wish I could say something to them, tell them we could still be friends, but I practically have no voice.

"Still, I'm worried for her. She just got here, and now she's already on a quest? That's dangerous." Aria bites her lip and pushes around the chicken on her plate with her fork like she's lost her appetite.

"Well," Kiera replies with a scowl, "If she dies, it's her fault. She took the risk of going on a quest."

If I die?! Anxiety bubbles up in my chest. I can't die! I won't die!

But as I try to reassure myself I'll be all right, my own thoughts begin to be drowned out. I can hear the ocean, even from here. The lap of the waves, the caw of the seagulls.

The voice of my sister, telling me to wake up.

So I do.