At about 3 p.m., Luke took his spot at the doc, his eyes scanned the water, noticing a fish, seemingly a pufferfish, swimming close to a black object. He assumed it was just dead grass or something, but continued as the fish swam around.

It looked as if it was carefree, problemless. Not having a care in the world sounded wonderful to Luke. Being able to train without the weight of guilt pressing at him. It never slowed him down, but it waivered his focus every so often. No one paid attention to it, though. They never needed to. His emotions were as hard as stone. Nearly impossible to break through.

The fish swam close to the shore, bringing Luke's gaze with it. He noticed the plot of sand he had picked the stone from just the day before. To his surprise, there was a stone that looked exactly like the one from yesterday. He walked over and picked it up. It was scaringly the same as the original. Luke flipped it over, seeing writing on the back.

Bet you can't get 5.

Luke stared at the rock for a long moment, wondering who could have wrote it. Wondering why they wrote it. Had someone been watching him? No. And even if they had, they would have never know the exact kind of stone Luke had yesterday. Let alone know where he picked it up from. Maybe this was all just a dream and he'd wake up from it in just a minute.

Shoving the stone in his pocket, he looked for a different one. Part of him wanted to see if the mystery person would leave another note. He watched as the stone left his hand and left the water. As the rock sunk, he began walking away, hoping to get a bit of alone training time before dinner.

---

Luke woke up the next day, a pain shooting down his leg. He'd forgotten he'd fallen asleep in his clothes from the day before, not being bothered to change. The stone was still in his pocket, it had probably pressed on a nerve that caused the pain. The writing was still clear as day, but it didn't mean anything. It's probably all the pressure making him feel this way.

Today he went earlier than normal to the dock. He had been visited in his sleep by Kronos, reminding Luke quite bluntly that the day was coming closer. Something he didn't want to be reminded of.

Once again, there was a stone in the sand. It was the same one from yesterday. Luke picked it up, wondering what the stone could say if anything at all.

Don't be so tense when throwing it.

The message was simple, but probably not something Luke could do at this moment. Especially now that he had another person to worry about. He'd concluded that someone was in fact watching him, he just didn't know who or why. He, giving in to his Hermes inherited nature, quietly decided he would wait around all day until the person shows themself.

It was going to be a long day of waiting ahead of him. But maybe, just maybe, this would give him something to focus on that wasn't Kronos.