It was past midnight on a Friday night in June and I was rereading my favorite book, Percy Jackson And The Battle Of The Labyrinth for the 24th time. I had it practically memorized by now but that didn't keep me from reading it again.
I was at the part where Kelli the empousa is fighting Daedalus the inventor and Mrs. O'Leary the hellhound so that Percy, Annabeth, Nico and Rachel can escape on the bronze wings that help them fly away.
I could picture it as if it were happening in front of me in my mind's eye.
Suddenly, I realized that there was blue sky around me. I had my arms outstretched, a wide grin spread across my face. "Woohoo!" I yelled, laughing. I glanced to my right and saw Amber.
She grinned at me. "This is great!" She said, sounding overjoyed.
I mirrored her ridiculous expression on my own face. "I know right! You can see everything from up here!" I breathed in the wonderful fresh air that was rushing by my head, making my honey blonde hair whip around like a striking snake.
I saw our four companions spiral down on the mass of land in front of us. "Come on!" I shouted, looking back at Amber as I used the wings to slowly circle to a stop and land gracefully on the pavement.
"Lucky Zeus was in a good mood!" Said Percy in relief.
Annabeth nodded, but didn't seem to be paying much attention to him. She seemed more focus on the cloud of dark smoke billowing from where we had just exited the labyrinth a few minutes before. She looked sad. "All that beautiful architecture..." she said longingly. "Gone..."
Rachel came over to her, nudging her shoulder lightly. "Hey, Daedalus can't be beat that easily. This structure has been expanding for thousands of years! It's gonna take more than that to destroy it."
Annabeth smiled at her. She had gotten closer to the girl as time went on.
As they talked, me and Amber watched them, frowning. I hadn't given it any thought before, but how had we gotten here? It had all felt so right, but now that I had a moment to think about it, I couldn't remember anything before the flight we had just taken. "What just happened..." I murmured.
Amber looked over at me. "That is a very good question..."
Nico was slowly inching away from Amber and I. "Do you suffer from short term memory loss?" He asked us, his face dead serious.
I looked at the smaller boy. "Um...not that I know of..." I said. "How long have we been here?"
Percy, Annabeth and Rachel heard our strange conversation and walked over. "What's up, guys?" Percy asked.
"You're all book characters...and we", she gestured to herself and me, "are real."
Annabeth raised a light eyebrow. "Did you have too much nectar?" She asked.
"No. Listen, just go with it. Explain how long we've been here, who our parents are, everything." I said.
Annabeth hesitated, looking worried for our mental health, before she shrugged and started to speak. "We've been friends since we were 12, you two came to camp with Percy, helped him battle a Minotaur. Fern, your mother's name is Aloe Grays and your father is Apollo. Amber, your mother is Michelle Brooks, your father is Hades, god of the underworld."
"So...we're demigods?" I asked incredulously.
Nico waved his hand in front of my face. "Hello! Duh! How can you not know that!?"
Amber glared at Nico. "Give us a break." She snapped. I'm sure she didn't like bickering with her favorite character, but it was almost comical to watch.
I bit my lip. "So I have like light and healing powers? And Amber has underworldy powers?" I asked, knowing I must sound totally stupid.
"Yeah, obvio..." the rest of Percy's sentence was foggy and distant. Something had shifted in my mind, as if a door had been opened, and suddenly, an onslaught of memories, memories I never knew I had had, came thundering in, filling every corner of my mind. Somehow, I knew they were memories, not my overactive imagination. A younger me, joined by Amber and Percy, fighting the Minotaur near half-blood hill, getting claimed by Apollo at the campfire one night, befriending Luke and Annabeth, hatred towards Luke once he had turned, fighting monsters on The Princess Amdromeda, the war ship with Clarisse, seeing Bianca and Zoe die in such cold-blooded ways...a gush that just kept coming and coming, until suddenly, it stopped. Everything was sliding into place.
I hadn't realized it, but my knees had buckled at some point, and I could feel the hot pavement pressing into my knees. I looked around. Amber sat in a similar position. Percy held out a hand to me and I took it. He pulled me up. Annabeth helped Amber and we all just stood there for a moment.
"What was that?" Nico asked suddenly, looking skeptically at Amber and I.
"Memories." Amber informed him. "Memories from this world..."
"It's all real." I added breathlessly. "And we're part of it."
Percy shifted awkwardly. "So you didn't remember any of this? Nothing at all?"
Amber and I just shook our heads simultaneously.
"Wow. This must be the work of the Gods..." Annabeth murmured.
"It's like we've been trapped in the mortal world and our memories were blocked or something. And now, suddenly they're back. This is so weird..." I said.
"How about this, we go back to camp and discuss this with Chiron. We can find another entrance to the labyrinth after." Annabeth suggested.
I shivered. "Back down there? Ugh..."
Amber gave me a sympathetic look. At least she could feel comfortable underground. That was her domain. I was more of an above ground sky person. I was an Apollo kid! Jeez! No darkness for me!
Rachel somehow got this guy to drive us back to Long Island for free in his shiny black car. She must have been really rich.
No one talked through the whole car ride, still probably digesting what had just happened. Well, that's what I was doing at least. It took us a while to get back to camp, and was getting dark by the time we did.
Rachel thanked the driver, who didn't even ask for payment.
All six of us piled out of the car and hiked up the hill. There in the valley stood camp half-blood in all its glory, just how I had imagined it! It was amazing! The cabins, the big house, the lava wall, the forest, all there!
Then everything started getting hazy, the colors were getting dimmer, and finally darkness.