Natalie Jackson (I always believe that babies have intelligent brains in their heads, they just don't know how to make stuff come out right.)

I was watching Gnomeo and Juliet, my favorite movie, when someone set fire to the rain.

Yes, I know that's the name of a song by Adele, and it happens to be one of my favorites. But that's a pretty good metaphor to what the Russians did.

I could faintly hear Naomi and Andromeda playing Andromeda's new song. I liked it a lot, but I couldn't understand it very much. Why was Naomi singing a sad song, while Andromeda was singing a happy one? And what does "on the streets of gold" mean?

"You're not watching," I accused Ryan. "We're getting to the good part."

Little did I know how right I was.

The phone rang, and I picked it up.

"Jackson wesidence." I hated talking like that, but it was something I always tried to avoid and always failed.

"Hi, Natalie. I just wanted to know if Naomi was there." I fell silent. Did Ms. Peterson know that her husband was dead?

"Naomi!" I yelled. "Yes, Ms. Petahson. Did she call and tell you?"

"Yes, sweetie. She did. I'm very happy for your family."

"I'm sowwy for yours." I didn't know if that was rude or not, so I said it to find out.

"Thank you, sweetie."

We get it, I thought. We all know I'm a cute little almost-four-year-old. No need to bring it up over and over again.

"You're welcome."

"Did you want Naomi to go back?"

"Oh, no sweetie." There she goes again. "I just couldn't find her down here, that's all."

"Okay. Bye-bye!"

"Bye, honey." Well, at least she's switching it up a bit. I hung up. I've always wondered if that's why everything started to happen.

Naomi and Andromeda began playing an acoustic version of Haunted by Taylor Swift, but suddenly, all of the power went out. The gnome on the screen said, "It's okay! I'm o-" The light bulbs popped.

Then, an earth shattering boom sent chunks of our ceiling raining down on my head, and everything went cold and black.

Ryan Jackson

"Natalie? Naomi! Andromeda!" I screamed, watching stone fall all over the living room and on top of my sister.

I prayed that the bombs weren't nuclear. My skin wasn't burning and I wasn't disintegrating, so I was relieved. Then, I noticed the pile of stone beside the couch and yelled again for Naomi and Andromeda. They ran out of Andromeda's room, beat up but obviously alive.

"The bookshelf fell on top of us," explained Naomi. That explained why Andromeda had a sheet of music, two guitar strings, and a guitar capo in her hair.

"The ceiling collapsed and fell on top of Natalie! Help me get to her!" I was panicking. I'm not really a sentimental person, but I loved my sisters a lot. I would be totally lost without Andromeda, considering we did everything together, and without Natalie... well, she was an important puzzle piece in our family's lives, and when me and Andromeda were away from her for a long period of time, it was like there was a missing piece. But she would always call us every night. If she was dead, well, let's just say that there would be a whole lot of pieces missing from our lives. Not just on one corner, or right in the middle, but huge chunks of blank space all over the board.

Me, Andromeda, and Naomi dug through the plaster with our bare hands, and I was silently thanking the gods that we didn't live on the top floor.

After what felt like hours of digging, we finally got to our baby sister. She was curled up on her side, her blonde hair covering her face. Andromeda lifted her from the rubble and lay Natalie over her shoulder.

"Let's go. It's only about two o'clock, and I'm pretty sure the cops can make an-" Andromeda screamed as another bomb exploded only a block away. "On second thought, let's go down to the basement! I'll get Natalie down there, you and Naomi get food and stuff! Hurry before-oh, come on!" Andromeda's jeans caught on a piece of rock and she ripped her jeans in the process of getting free.

I grabbed my backpack and emptied my books and papers and all that stuff out. I shoveled food from the fridge into it, and Naomi did the same with Andromeda's backpack. Naomi managed to snag a picture of me, Andromeda, Natalie, our mom, and our dad, on the day Natalie was born. I didn't dare hope my cameras had made it out alive. The fact that Natalie was still alive was a miracle in itself. Naomi ran to Andromeda's room and grabbed some stuff. I did the same with me and Natalie's room, grabbing clothes and stuff that just couldn't be replaced-like pictures of us before our dad went out to fight, and Natalie's favorite stuffed animals.

I didn't know what Naomi got from Andromeda's room, but I had a feeling it was sheet music and jeans and t-shirts. I thought of something. My invisibility cap and Andromeda's knife.

We'd known about monsters and demigods and gods and all that after we were attacked by a gryphon in central park when me and Andromeda were eight. For our ninth birthday, I got my mom's Yankees cap. My parents weren't willing to give up any of their weapons (my dad's weapon rocked. Pen that turns into a sword? AWESOME!), so they gave Andromeda a tiny pen that turned into a knife. I guess that was their idea of a compromise. Andromeda's pen had managed to stay in her pillowcase, and my invisibility hat was partially underneath my dresser.

I stuffed both in my pockets and ran downstairs. I managed to get to the basement right before the next bomb exploded.

"Mommy? What's going on?" Natalie whimpered, waking up.

"Well-"

"Thought I'd find you down here!" Andromeda, Naomi, and I whipped our heads around. Standing in the stairway of the basement was a guy who looked to be about my mom's age with black curly hair, and mischievous brown eyes.

"Leo?" Andromeda asked in disbelief.

"Yup, that's me!" Leo held up his hand and it caught on fire. Naomi's eyes were huge.

As we scrambled to get out of the basement and into Leo's car, the cap fell off of Andromeda's pen, exposing the knife blade. It scratched Naomi's skin.

"Ow!"

"Oh, good, you're a demigod, too. It'd be a shame if we had to leave you right outside camp." I recognized this person. Piper McLean.

Andromeda ripped the knife out of my pocket and put the cap back on. Natalie was still clinging to Andromeda's neck, and the sight nearly broke my heart.

"Come on! Your mom's freaking out!"