Qia

Camp Athens - Closed

<Snipped quote by Qia>

Ha! Mercy lol

@Mjolnir

Well Apollo.. if he gives a shit. Though I can equally see them being like "we literally gave you a magical cabin and you choose the tree???"

Camp Athens - Closed

All the Hades kids like: "Don't be stupid, you're going to freeze to death."

Camp Athens - Closed

I guess through the mercy of the gods? xD

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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_{Location: Outside Seluna Temple
Interactions: Céline (@Beard Dad), Ramona (@enmuni), Elara}

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Orion had noticed Céline’s silence as they walked, the kind of silence that wasn’t born from awkwardness but from thought. She was dissecting her vulnerable moment, he guessed, replaying the confession she’d offered earlier. He didn’t interrupt. Pressuring others into speech had never been his way; some truths needed to settle like sediment before they could be sifted through. His own past had taught him that, nights staring at campfire embers while comrades swallowed words too heavy to voice. But he shoved the memories aside, focusing on the brittle crunch of snow beneath his boots instead.

He took the longer route, as he often did when he did not wish to encounter anyone. There were fewer faces, fewer questions, and fewer masks to deal with. All the while, Orion could feel Céline’s gaze on him even though he did not meet it, searching, almost hesitant. It was like she was looking for something in him that she wasn’t sure she had the right to ask for. He didn’t blame her. She’d mirrored his honesty, offering fragments of herself most would bury, a gift he didn’t take lightly. Now, as the temple’s jagged spire pierced the night sky, he wondered if she regretted that candour. If she feared the cost of trusting him.

Could she?

Orion wasn’t sure. Not because he questioned his willingness to help, but because he knew the pattern too well. People mistook his stillness for strength, his scars for wisdom. They leaned, and he bore their weight until his knees buckled. He’d been a pillar once: for his late wife, whose nightmares he’d soothe until dawn; for his son, whose small hand had clung to his the day a fever had him in its grasp; for Flynn, before time made them both into harder versions of their younger selves. Anchors sank, he’d learned, when the storms raged too long. Yet as Céline abruptly turned away, cheeks flushed with unspoken apology, Orion felt an odd pang. Her gaze, heavy with unvoiced need, had been… not a chain, but a bridge. And part of him ached to cross it. To ask what thoughts she had in her mind.

Perhaps it wasn’t a burden after all. Perhaps it was just… who he always wished to be: someone people could rely on.

The temple was drawing near. He could feel her hesitation crystallize beside him. And so he slowed just slightly, giving her the room to speak first.

“Would you come into the temple with me?”

Orion didn’t answer right away. He rarely did when the question carried more than one meaning.

Her voice had started light, almost normal in its attempt to coax, but he heard the true sincerity beneath it. A stranger coming to honour a fallen life… It was a kind thought. One he might have deflected on another day. But today—now—it didn’t feel so distant. He’d buried more than a few comrades without knowing their favourite drink or the names of their children. Some men died with no one to remember them but the ones who had the misfortune to live. So he knew that sometimes presence alone was enough.

But just as he opened his mouth to answer, she stumbled. Her hand caught his sleeve, fingers tightening instinctively as she pressed in, and without hesitation, he reached for her, one arm settling low around her back, steadying her.

“No need to apologize,” he said quietly, his voice rough but calm. “Take what you need.” She was breathing shallower now, her chest rising fast and uneven. He didn’t speak, though. Just waited. Let her find her breath. Let the tide pass.

That was when his eyes shifted toward some movement ahead.

He recognized Elara before she spoke, though her companion less so. Perhaps another one of the princess’s servants? That was the man’s best guess.

“Miss Elara,” Orion returned. “It wasn’t planned.” He didn’t elaborate further, didn’t say why they’d come or how far they’d walked or what the temple meant in this moment. His reasons were no one’s business but his own and Céline’s, if she chose to share them.

But when Elara turned her attention to the woman at his side, Orion’s gaze moved too. He felt the way Céline still gripped him, how her fingers had yet to relax. Not from fear. No, he knew what fear felt like against him. This was something more personal. The touch of someone trying not to lose her footing in a place trying to push her down.

He did not pull away. Instead, he angled slightly toward her, as if to shield her from the wind, and maybe from too many eyes.

“She’s with me,” he said simply. Still, he didn’t completely dismiss the kindness in Elara’s tone either. He respected what it cost to ask questions with care.

“Thank you...for the suggestion.” he said, with a nod that almost passed for warmth.

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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_{Location: Seluna Temple
Interactions: Ramona (@enmuni), Céline (@Beard Dad), Orion
Mentions: Katherine (@SpicyMeatball), Flynn (@The Muse)}

---

Elara stood first, brushing dust from her skirt before offering Ramona her hand. Her fingers closed around the other woman’s, and together they moved toward the nave, leaving the side chamber behind. The sanctuary ahead glowed faintly, candlelight pooling across the stone floor. Elara’s shoulders relaxed slightly, though her eyes stayed sharp, scanning the room. Three figures remained: the priestess, the owl-handler, and a stranger. The prince, however, was gone. No trace of his entourage, if he’d had any, remained either. Yet the air felt unsettled, as if a storm had passed without breaking

Elara’s gaze shifted toward the priestess. Katherine stood, posture straight, hands calmly folded before her, but something about her was too still. Her chin was held just a touch too high, her mouth set in a shape too carefully neutral. Not angry, not sorrowful… but braced. As if she'd only just finished steadying herself. Elara slowed her step instinctively, her eyes narrowing slightly as she studied the priestess. Whatever had transpired here had left a mark, invisible but unmistakable. The afterimage of a confrontation, perhaps. It was hard to say for certain. Still, the handmaiden nodded once as they passed, a silent nod of respect or, maybe, pity. Her grip on Ramona’s hand eased but didn’t release. Trust was rare; touch rarer. She wouldn’t let go unless forced.

Outside, the wind had died, but cold gnawed through Elara’s layers. She breathed in, letting the frost scrape her lungs clean, before stepping forward.

And then she paused.

Two figures were approaching through the snow.

The first she recognized easily. Tall, broad-shouldered, his long coat cutting a clean line through the white. Orion Nightingale. The prince’s shadow, though she had only ever seen him at a distance since the wedding. He had always looked like a man fashioned of myth and consequence, his presence carved from the same stone as old stories. It wasn’t just his blighted pallor or the impossible stillness of his movements. It was the quiet gravity that seemed to follow him. A soldier who didn’t need a weapon to be dangerous.

The second figure, walking beside him, was unfamiliar. A woman, hood drawn low, moving like someone wrestling something unseen. Elara’s gaze sharpened. She caught a flicker of hands tightening on Orion’s sleeve, not in fear but… anchoring. Another blightborn, perhaps? Or simply someone carrying too much? It was hard to say from where she stood.

Still, Elara didn’t stare. But she noticed as they got closer—because how could she not?—the ears rising from beneath the woman’s hood, long and almost like a moonlit hare’s. Not quite beast, not quite ordinary. The kind of detail people pretended not to see when they didn’t know what to say when coming across an obvious blightborn.

Luckily, Elara had spent a lifetime learning how to see what others often looked away from.

“Are you all right?” she asked, her voice low but clear. Her gaze met Orion’s, a glint of recognition there. “Advisor Orion.” She gave a faint nod. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” She didn’t bow, and her voice didn’t rise. But there was a subtle shift in her bearing: polite acknowledgment, tempered with quiet wariness. Then her attention turned fully to the blightborn woman.

“This place holds what comfort it can,” Elara offered. “The priestess is still inside, if you require her services, Ms...?”

Camp Athens - Closed

Anissa lay motionless, her body sinking into the couch’s buttery embrace as firelight danced across her closed eyelids. The leather sighed under her weight, warm where it pressed against her back, cool where her scarf brushed her throat. The sound of the fire filled the silence, its embers popping like distant fireworks, while heat pooled in the hollows of her collarbone, softening the knots in her shoulders. She breathed deeply—pine resin, woodsmoke, the faint musk of timber—a far cry from the boutique’s jasmine scent and chemical tang of dye baths. For a heartbeat, she could almost smell her mother’s hands, stained with ink from pricing tags, and could hear the clatter of hangers in the downstairs showroom. But here, the memories dissolved, replaced by the cabin’s earthy pulse.

What had Anatoliy said to her again? That things here had the potential to be too real?

Well, this was very much that wasn’t it? Except for the first time, it actually felt….good. She'd spent so long bracing against reality, against the too-bright lights of school hallways and the suspicious gazes of classmates. Her world had always been shadowed by the persistent need to pretend normalcy in front of her mother, to reduce her “histrionic” episodes. It was exhausting, always holding her breath, always waiting for the next shoe to drop. But this wasn’t that same suffocating reality. For the first time in years, she wasn’t holding her breath against her will.

Eventually, however, Anissa stirred, sitting up with slow reluctance. Reality hadn’t vanished—her suitcase and satchel still sat patiently by the door, waiting to be unpacked. The task felt strangely intimate, almost intrusive, but necessary. She slid gracefully off the couch, padding softly across the wooden floor to where her belongings waited. Taking the handle in her hand and wrapping the strap of her satchel around it, Anissa climbed the steps leading to the second floor, entering the room at the end of the hallway, which she assumed would be her bedroom.

And she was right. The bedroom felt immediately familiar, as though carefully curated to suit her. Dark wooden furniture, polished and sturdy, anchored the room, while heavy velvet curtains framed windows overlooking the serene, snow-covered beach. The bed, large and inviting, was dressed in plush linens of muted grays and deep purples, colours that echoed the comforting darkness she had always preferred. Beside the bed, a modest yet elegant desk held a simple brass lamp, its glow warm and gentle against the room's subtle shadows. A small bookshelf lined one wall, not yet filled with anything, but that promised an escape into the quieter worlds of the few books she'd brought with her.

Kneeling, Anissa first pulled the suitcase onto its back, the clasps opening with a click. Inside, folded clothes and neatly packed items stared back at her, an arrangement so precise it bordered on ritualistic. Her mother’s doing, of course. Every shirt, sweater, and skirt had been carefully tucked and arranged by someone who understood how desperately her daughter sought order in a life shaped by uncertainty, even if that order was only in the form of a potential: college.

Which, of course, was a lie.

She’d spun the tale effortlessly—enrollment forms forged, acceptance letters fabricated, glossy brochures left open on the kitchen table. Her mother had beamed, misty-eyed, chattering about twin XL sheets and meal plans. Anissa had let her. It was kinder, she’d told herself, than explaining the true reason behind her venture into Grecian myth (or supposed myth). Her mother deserved the peace of ignorance, a carefully preserved innocence that Anissa fiercely protected. After all, revealing the truth meant unravelling everything, exposing hidden fears neither of them, she felt, was ready to face.

Still, the full weight of her decision settled over her again. Anissa shook her head slightly, pushing the feeling aside as she began to unpack her clothes onto the bed. College or not, she was here now, at this strange camp that promised answers as readily as it threatened more questions. And whatever lay ahead, she knew one thing for certain: there was no turning back now.

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Anissa shut the suitcase with a muted click. Her clothes now lay imprisoned in dresser drawers, each stack regimented, sleeves aligned to the millimetre, a pantomime of her mother’s obsessive order. She straightened, rolling her stiff shoulders, and let her gaze drift across the room. Her room. The possessive pronoun lodged in her throat like a fishbone. Ownership required roots, and she’d always been a dandelion seed, adrift. Yet here she stood, claimed by four walls that seemed to appear to her liking merely with the touch of her finger.

That was when the wardrobe snagged her attention.

It dominated the far wall, its oak panels carved with vines twisted into knotted patterns that might’ve been roses or poppies. Sunlight from the balcony door gilded its brass handles, making them gleam like freshly minted coins. Anissa’s pulse quickened. It stood slightly ajar, the gap between doors a thin slit. Come, it seemed to whisper. See what else I’ve prepared for you.

Every detail of the cabin had been calibrated to fit her, it seemed: the fire lit before her arrival, the room designed in a layout she was used to, the small bookshelf just big enough to accommodate her books and journal. This wardrobe was no accident. It knew her the way a spider knew an insect before it struck its web. The only remaining question was which one was she in that scenario? The spider in hiding or the entangled insect?

Anissa approached slowly, her hands moving to grip the handles. Its carved wooden doors opened smoothly beneath her fingertips, revealing a neatly arranged space. Inside, garments hung in orderly rows: charcoal sweaters, slate-gray trousers, a black peacoat she might’ve chosen herself. But there, nestled between them all, blazed a betrayal of colour: a lilac dress, its hue so tender it seemed to glow. Anissa recoiled. Purple was her secret rebellion, the shade she’d loved as a child. The before times when she’d dreamed in bright watercolours rather than eulogies spoken by the remains of loved ones lost. She’d buried that girl years ago, swaddled her in blacks and grays.

So, who in the world was trying to dig her up now?

Anissa’s fingers trembled as they skimmed the dress’s fabric. It seemed a material that defied logic, neither silk nor satin, but something spun from ghostlight. It brushed against her skin like the touch of moth wings, fragile yet humming with a latent power that prickled her nerves. The texture reminded her of the Elysian fog from her dreams, that ethereal mist that clung to her ankles as she’d wandered obsidian shores, the air thick with the scent of impending storms. The gown’s bodice curved as if moulded to her shape, its seams seamless, its weight nonexistent. The skirt billowed like a breath held too long, ruffles cascading like liquid light, while the open back, held by filaments finer than spider silk, felt less like an invitation and more like a dare. A dare that demanded more than her typical quiet bravery.

Her thumb snagged on the hidden embroidery, however, and she froze. There, nestled in the lining, the pomegranate glared up at her, its threads the rusted crimson of old blood. Each seed bulged grotesquely under her touch, as though the fruit might split and bleed anew. The sight punched the air from her lungs as the dream’s suffocating grip returned: the figure looming in kelp-strewn darkness, his voiceless command as he offered the split pomegranate, its juices staining the water and the sand like a wound. She’d woken, gasping, her sheets tangled, the taste of salt on her tongue.

Now, here was that same cursed symbol, stitched into a dress meant for her. A message. A claim.

The pomegranate god.

Whoever had stitched that symbol had seen inside her dream, or worse, had authored it. The same someone who’d written the letter. The same someone who claimed to be her father.

Her jaw tightened.

Was this meant to be comforting? Some twisted token of affection? She wasn’t sure what infuriated her more: that they thought they knew her well enough to pick this colour… or that they’d been right.

Anissa seized the dress, crushing the delicate fabric in her fists. The material resisted, slithering against her gloves as if alive, but she twisted harder, wanting to ruin it, to erase its perfection. Tears blurred her vision, morphing the lilac into a sickly bruise. Without thinking, she whirled toward the balcony, shoving the doors open with a violence that almost cracked the frost-kissed glass. Winter lunged inside, clawing at her throat, her wrists, the sliver of skin above her scarf. Her breath tore from her in ragged clouds as she marched into the cold, the dress held aloft like an offering, a sacrifice to Aeolus.

Wind screamed across the lake, tearing at her hair, her clothes. She tensed, arm cocked to fling the gown into the gale, to let it shred against the pines or drown in the icy blue water. But her muscles locked, her hand suspended mid-air. The dress fluttered wildly, its lilac hue glowing somehow against the sun’s light, beautiful and complementary. A choked sound escaped her, part sob, part laugh. Because she knew deep down that destroying it wouldn’t erase the truth. It wouldn’t unmake the pomegranate’s promise, or the god who’d sewn his sigil into her life and her soul.

Plus...it was beautiful. And Anissa had never been the type to waste a beautiful thing.

Slowly, her arm lowered. The dress pooled in her arms, weightless, unrepentant. She stared at it, her reflection fractured in the balcony’s ice-glazed railings: a girl made of shivers and sharp edges, clutching a relic of a future she couldn’t outrun. A prophecy sewn in thread.

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Location: Anissa's Cabin
Interactions: N/A
Mentions: N/A

Dress Reference cus I'm not the best at describing clothes

Camp Athens - Closed

<Snipped quote by Pristine1281>

Auto? What do you mean?

@The Savant

I think she means move her.

Camp Athens - Closed

She didn’t look back right away. Not when he went quiet. Not when he didn’t follow. Not even when she thought she heard his voice start to offer a parting word that never quite arrived. Anissa simply kept walking, the snow crunching beneath her boots and the wind tugging lightly at her coat.

But a few steps before the gate, she did glance over her shoulder.

Anatoliy hadn’t moved.

He stood just where she’d left him, slightly hunched, shoulders curled inward as if the cold or the conversation, if it could be called that, had knocked the air out of him. His hands were at his face, shielding something she wasn’t supposed to see. When they lowered again, the smile he wore looked like it had been sewn there with trembling thread.

He didn’t try to catch up. Didn’t call after her. Didn’t ask for her name. And that last part landed harder than she expected. It shouldn’t have mattered. It was probably better for her, even, given she was strange enough on her own. But for a brief second, it hit a bit too close to something else. All those years when people didn’t bother to ask either. They had stared and whispered about her like she was a living urban legend, but few had ever truly asked. Her name, her story, what she liked, feared, or wanted. Not unless they thought they could get something out of her. Or prove something about her.

Anissa had long since told herself she didn’t need to be seen to matter. That being mysterious, distant, and untouchable was safer.

So why did that stitched-together smile stick out as much as it did to her?

Perhaps because she’d worn it too.

She turned back toward the gates, mouth set in a faint line, pretending she hadn’t noticed. Pretending it didn’t matter. And maybe, if she was lucky, she’d convince herself by the time the frost melted from her gloves. That was when she made note of the device embedded in the gate: a small black panel, smooth, featureless until she drew close. It was a biometric scanner, the thing she’d seen the others press their fingers to, although she hadn’t given it much thought until now.

She hesitated.

Then, glancing sidelong to ensure no one stood too close and that none were within arm’s reach, Anissa gave a breath before peeling off one glove. The cold bit instantly at her fingertips, but it wasn’t the cold that made her tense. It was a habit. A fear.

She flexed her hand once, the skin already prickling, before slamming her hand against the panel.
A chime. The sound of gears turning. And then the light. Not the one beneath the piece of machinery, but the one beneath her skin.

Veins ignited into violet-black filaments like dark ink injected right into her bloodstream. The darkness spread, branching under her knuckles, a living frostbite that throbbed with a cold deeper than any winter cold she’d ever felt back home. And, for a heartbeat, her hand was a relic, a thing unearthed from some eldritch tomb, pulsing with a power that hummed all the way to her chattering teeth.

Anissa jammed her glove back on before anyone could notice, flexing her fingers to bury the light beneath the warm material of her gloves. The gates yawned wider, and she stepped forward before the hesitation could catch up to her, snagging one of the folded maps from the wooden pocket. As she moved quickly through the entrance, the enchanted guide clutched tightly in her hands, she kept her head down and her breath steady.

Nothing’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong.

As if the mental mantra could help her outrun the chill still coursing through the palm of her hand.

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The gates creaked closed behind her, the camp stretching out before Anissa in a patchwork of snow-dusted cabins and towering pines. Nearby, a loose cluster of new arrivals had begun to gather closer to the main hall, already mingling in a way that suggested they belonged. She didn’t stop, however, as she felt no need to pretend she wanted to be welcomed. Instead, her footsteps carried her further from the gates and closer to the outer curve of the field, the map in her hand shimmering faintly, almost as if it was reacting to her touch, waiting for a choice. Her eyes scanned its layout, immediately making note of the few clustered near the beach and then the ones tucked into the trees. But one held her attention without effort: Cabin 26. Close to the water, just far enough from the central foot traffic. Isolated, but not exiled. She pressed her gloved thumb to the rune beside 26. The paper glowed briefly in acknowledgment. Claimed. Then, Anissa adjusted the strap of her satchel and angled toward the south path, the lake barely visible through the trees. That’s where she’d start.

The path twisted, snow thinning as pines gave way to the lake’s frozen breath. Olympian Lake, the map had labelled it, though now it lay nameless and still, a mirror polished by the cold. Wind skimmed the surface, etching fleeting wrinkles into the ice. Anissa halted at the shore, arms crossed over her chest.

It reminded her a bit of home.

Not the boutique or the ghosts, but before. When she was still a kid and everything strange about her hadn’t quite broken the surface yet. There had been a beach not far from their apartment, tucked past the seawall and down a slope where tourists rarely wandered. Her mother used to take her there on slow afternoons, thermos in hand, and they’d sit cross-legged on a checkered blanket while gulls cried overhead and ferry horns called from across the bay.

Back then, her mother’s laughter had come easily, full-bodied and sun-warmed. Anissa remembered the way the salt wind tangled her curls, the way the pebbles clicked under her palms as she arranged them by colour or shape. The world had felt distant, but not in a lonely way. Just far enough to feel safe. And for a while, she’d even felt like any other girl, with cold fingers and wind-chapped cheeks, as her abilities had yet to rear their ugly heads.

Anissa drew in a breath, feeling if not at peace then something adjacent to it. Then, her gaze lifted toward the cabin just beyond the trees: number 26.

It stood with its warm, honey-toned exterior catching the light in a way that almost made it look alive. Snow clung to the roof in soft ridges, melting slightly near the chimney where faint wisps of smoke suggested someone had already seen to the fireplace. Which meant that someone had lit a fire. For her. The gesture felt alien, almost intrusive, a kindness she hadn’t earned and didn’t trust completely. She hovered at the edge of the clearing, half-expecting the cabin to dissolve like a mirage. But the smoke kept rising, very steady and very real.

Her boots crunched forward through the snow, and she didn’t pause again until she was on the front step, map still in hand. Inside, the cabin quickly revealed itself: vaulted ceilings, stone fireplace, wooden beams catching the morning light like golden threads. Everything was warm. So safe. And apparently, all hers. Andromeda had made no mention of sharing the space, and for a moment, Anissa wasn’t sure what to do with that. She’d only ever lived with her mother, two people in a compact apartment above a boutique where walls were thin and privacy was more courtesy than guarantee. It had been enough, though. Comfortable, even. But this?

This was silent, spacious, and entirely hers to explore. It pressed against her ears, amplifying the rustle of her coat as she shrugged it off, dressed now only in her dark knit sweater, high-waisted leggings, and the blush scarf still looped loosely around her neck. She left her suitcase by the door, toes curling in her socks against the hardwood floor. Her gloved hand brushed the couch, leather cool and supple under her fingertips.

Then, Anissa proceeded to do something completely uncharacteristic.

Without thinking, she vaulted over the couch’s back, knees tucked to her chest, and landed in a graceless heap on the cushions. The impact jarred her ribs, and a laugh burst from her, breathy and disbelieving. She sprawled, arms flung wide, scarf half-strangling her, hair a wild halo against the upholstery. Because this was hers: this cabin, this quiet, this strange, impossible reprieve.

For a second, Anissa allowed the fire’s heat to seep into her bones, her laughter fading but her smile remaining.

Then, she closed her eyes.

---

Location: Outside Camp Entrance --> Anissa's Cabin
Interactions: N/A
Mentions: Anatoliy (@The Savant)

TL;DR

Scene 1: Anissa decides not to emotionally ruin Anatoliy yet and walks off, only to feel weirdly guilty when he doesn’t even ask for her name. She scans herself into camp, and her death touch makes a brief appearance. Cute.

Scene 2: She skips the group orientation vibes, claims the most introvert-friendly cabin, and reminisces about a happier, ghost-free beach memory from childhood. Then she faceplants onto her new couch after realizing she might be allowed to feel safe here. For now, of course.

Camp Athens - Closed

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Anissa blinked at the minuscule creature in Anatoliy’s palm, a drab tuft of fur and twitching whiskers, more lint than living thing. The dramatic tension of a moment ago deflated like a popped balloon, and her brow lifted slowly.

“…So you were talking to a…a rat?” There was no real malice in her voice, just flat disbelief delivered with the polished dryness of someone who has absolutely seen weirder things and nevertheless refused to normalize them. Still…the absurdity of her life, including this moment, almost made her smile. Almost.

However, as Anatoliy stumbled through his introduction, Anissa tilted her head, dark waves brushing against her scarf as she studied him like one might study an unfamiliar painting at a gallery: half critical, half intrigued.

“Anatoliy Voronin, son of Artemis,” she repeated softly. Her gaze shifted briefly to the gate, then back to him. “That’s…kind of a mouthful.” And for a fraction of a second, something flashed behind her dark eyes.

He knows.

There was certainty in the way he said it. Ownership. As if the answers to his questions, unlike hers, had come with a concrete name and a divine signature. His godly parent had not chosen riddles and metaphors. Half-truths. An invitation disguised as a warning. No shadows at the foot of his bed. No cryptic dreams where gods remained faceless, pulling the strings from just out of reach. No waking with seawater on the floor and no explanation to offer. The contrast stung more than she wanted to admit.

Not that she planned on revealing that to the boy with the talking rodent.

Instead, Anissa simply tilted her chin just so, sculpting her mouth into a smile. “Lucky you.” And nothing more to his confessed worries about entering the camp. They were cute at best, understandable even, but Anissa had long since passed the stage where uncertainty terrified her to such a degree.

She’d been baptized in the too real long before the frozen purgatory before her. It had seeped into her childhood bedroom, where shadows pooled into shapes that whispered her name. It had followed her to school, where locker doors clicked and trembled under unseen fingers, and mirrors in empty bathrooms sometimes reflected blurred, shifting silhouettes that stared too long. She’d pleaded with her mother through tear-clotted lashes, “Please, let me transfer,” only to be met with a referral to a therapist who scribbled histrionic in neat, dismissive cursive. Her classmates’ desks inched away from hers as if her curse were airborne, their giggles sharpening into barbs: Freak. Liar. Ghost girl.. And after a while, she’d found herself wearing their scorn like a crown of thorns, sharpening her posture, her wit, her smirk, until she could slice back without flinching.

So yes. Walking through these gates? It was a relief, almost insulting in its triteness. Because at least here, the abnormal like her seemed to wear their truths openly and pretty proudly thus far.

Her fingers idly adjusted the strap of her satchel when a sharp whistle suddenly shattered the stillness, drawing her back to the present. Anissa winced reflexively, her gaze shifting toward the commotion.

A girl around her age stood near the center of the gathering crowd, dark hair catching stray flecks of snow, her fingers still poised at her lips. “Attention, new campers,” the stranger called, waving a hand as figures slowly turned toward her.

Anissa watched with faint, detached interest as the girl—Andromeda Bolton, daughter of Hecate—awkwardly introduced herself. Her eyes narrowed as the map board rose from the ground with a flick of her fingers. A soft breath escaped her lips, part resignation, part bitter amusement.

Of course, Anissa thought. Dramatic entrances and enchanted bulletin boards. Why not add a skywriter next?

Andromeda’s voice droned through protocols and cabin assignments, but Anissa’s attention snagged on two words only: New Year’s Eve. A party. Her throat constricted. As if anything about this place screamed confetti and cheap champagne. She wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with parties, but they’d become a foreign concept somewhere between her first screaming vision in public and the slow, quiet exile that followed. Sleepovers rescinded. Birthday invites that never came. Even the shallow popularity her looks had once granted her hadn’t been enough to compete with the unease she inspired.

She hooked a strand of hair behind her ear, exhaling.

Not that I care.

The girl shifted her weight then, focusing back on the iron gates, their twisted bars now parted like the jaws of some slumbering beast as campers continued to scan their fingers, trickling into the compound. She cast a cursory glance at Anatoliy before hoisting her satchel higher.

“Well, I’m going in,” she declared, already starting to move forward.

---

Location: Outside Camp Entrance
Mentions: Andy (@Mjolnir)
Interactions: Anatoliy (@The Savant)

Hexcode: #5a3e85

Camp Athens - Closed

The airplane cabin hummed with the quiet, steady rhythm of engines, its luxurious calm a distinct contrast to the turmoil within Anissa Quinn's mind. The scent of freshly ground coffee wafted gently down the aisle, mingling with hints of rose from the hand towels passed around earlier. Plush ivory seats lined the first-class compartment, each designed to cocoon its occupant in comfort, creating a private sanctuary thousands of feet above the Atlantic Ocean.

Outside, through the curved plane window, the horizon blurred softly between twilight and dawn, streaks of lilac blending with indigo. The surreal beauty of it momentarily drew her gaze away from the letter that had consumed her thoughts since boarding. Yet, even as she admired the colours, Anissa's fingers compulsively traced the folded edges of the heavy parchment nestled inside her coat pocket.

She had read it countless times, each word burned into her memory, each phrase resonating deeper each time she revisited them. What would it hurt for a third time…or a fourth…or…:
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𝕸𝖞 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖙 𝕬𝖓𝖎,

𝖄𝖔𝖚 𝖒𝖚𝖘𝖙 𝖍𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖜𝖔𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖜𝖍𝖞 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖜𝖘 𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖈𝖍 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝖞𝖔𝖚, 𝖜𝖍𝖞 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖆𝖎𝖗 𝖈𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖘 𝖛𝖔𝖎𝖈𝖊𝖘 𝖓𝖔 𝖔𝖓𝖊 𝖊𝖑𝖘𝖊 𝖘𝖊𝖊𝖒𝖘 𝖙𝖔 𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖗….

𝖂𝖍𝖊𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖘𝖙 𝖘𝖕𝖔𝖐𝖊, 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖍𝖎𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖎𝖗 𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖐𝖘 𝖇𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍 𝖘𝖈𝖔𝖗𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖉 𝖘𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖓 𝖌𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖘, 𝖓𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗 𝖔𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖑𝖊𝖙𝖙𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖒𝖔𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗 𝖘𝖊𝖊 𝖍𝖔𝖜 𝖉𝖊𝖊𝖕 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖎𝖗 𝖌𝖗𝖎𝖕 𝖙𝖗𝖚𝖑𝖞 𝖗𝖆𝖓. 𝖄𝖔𝖚'𝖛𝖊 𝖆𝖑𝖜𝖆𝖞𝖘 𝖜𝖆𝖑𝖐𝖊𝖉 𝖔𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖓𝖆𝖗𝖗𝖔𝖜 𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖊 𝖇𝖊𝖙𝖜𝖊𝖊𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖑𝖎𝖛𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖊𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖊𝖉, 𝖓𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗 𝖋𝖚𝖑𝖑𝖞 𝖕𝖆𝖗𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝖊𝖎𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗 𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖑𝖒.

𝕯𝖔 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖗𝖊𝖒𝖊𝖒𝖇𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖎𝖆 𝖙𝖗𝖊𝖊 𝖇𝖞 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖔𝖑𝖉 𝖈𝖍𝖚𝖗𝖈𝖍 𝖔𝖓 𝕸𝖆𝖎𝖓 𝕾𝖙𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖙? 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖔𝖓𝖊 𝖜𝖍𝖔𝖘𝖊 𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖘𝖘𝖔𝖒𝖘 𝖆𝖑𝖜𝖆𝖞𝖘 𝖋𝖊𝖑𝖑 𝖙𝖔𝖔 𝖘𝖔𝖔𝖓, 𝖑𝖊𝖆𝖛𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖕𝖊𝖙𝖆𝖑𝖘 𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊 𝖙𝖊𝖆𝖗-𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖉 𝖈𝖔𝖓𝖋𝖊𝖙𝖙𝖎 𝖔𝖓 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖕𝖆𝖙𝖍. 𝖄𝖔𝖚 𝖋𝖊𝖑𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖔𝖗𝖗𝖔𝖜 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗𝖊 𝖇𝖊𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖞𝖔𝖓𝖊 𝖊𝖑𝖘𝖊. 𝖄𝖔𝖚 𝖓𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖗 𝖒𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖉 𝖎𝖙, 𝖇𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖘𝖎𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖑𝖉 𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖉 𝖔𝖋𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖙𝖆𝖇𝖑𝖊.

𝕬𝖓𝖉 𝖞𝖊𝖙, 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖛𝖎𝖙𝖆𝖇𝖑𝖊 𝖈𝖆𝖒𝖊. 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖜𝖔𝖒𝖆𝖓 𝖉𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖉 𝖎𝖓 𝖘𝖊𝖆𝖜𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖗, 𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖎𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖘𝖔𝖗𝖗𝖔𝖜 𝖙𝖍𝖗𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖘. 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖗𝖆𝖎𝖓-𝖘𝖔𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖉 𝖕𝖚𝖉𝖉𝖑𝖊𝖘' 𝖜𝖍𝖎𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝖌𝖚𝖎𝖉𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖙𝖔 𝖘𝖊𝖈𝖗𝖊𝖙𝖘 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖉𝖎𝖉𝖓'𝖙 𝖜𝖎𝖘𝖍 𝖙𝖔 𝖚𝖓𝖈𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗. 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖓𝖔𝖙𝖊𝖇𝖔𝖔𝖐 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖐𝖊𝖊𝖕 𝖇𝖊𝖓𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖕𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜, 𝖎𝖙𝖘 𝖕𝖆𝖌𝖊𝖘 𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖉 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖎𝖓𝖐 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖘, 𝖙𝖗𝖞𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖙𝖔 𝖉𝖊𝖈𝖔𝖉𝖊 𝖛𝖎𝖘𝖎𝖔𝖓𝖘 𝖓𝖔 𝖔𝖓𝖊 𝖊𝖑𝖘𝖊 𝖈𝖔𝖚𝖑𝖉 𝖕𝖔𝖘𝖘𝖎𝖇𝖑𝖞 𝖋𝖆𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖒.

𝕴 𝖉𝖎𝖉 𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖆𝖇𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖔𝖓 𝖞𝖔𝖚, 𝕬𝖓𝖎𝖘𝖘𝖆. 𝕴'𝖛𝖊 𝖒𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖑𝖞 𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖙𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝖞𝖔𝖚, 𝖍𝖊𝖑𝖉 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖆𝖙 𝖆𝖗𝖒’𝖘 𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖌𝖙𝖍 𝖋𝖗𝖔𝖒 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖆𝖗𝖐𝖓𝖊𝖘𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖆𝖙'𝖘 𝖈𝖗𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖉 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖘𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖆𝖞 𝖔𝖋 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖇𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖍. 𝕭𝖚𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖛𝖊𝖎𝖑 𝖎𝖘 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌. 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖜𝖆𝖑𝖐 𝖌𝖗𝖔𝖜𝖘 𝖒𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖑𝖔𝖚𝖘 𝖊𝖆𝖈𝖍 𝖉𝖆𝖞. 𝖄𝖔𝖚 𝖇𝖊𝖑𝖔𝖓𝖌 𝖆𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖌 𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖘𝖊 𝖜𝖍𝖔 𝖚𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖜𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖎𝖙 𝖒𝖊𝖆𝖓𝖘 𝖙𝖔 𝖙𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝖎𝖓 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖜𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖌𝖔𝖉𝖘.

𝕮𝖔𝖒𝖊 𝖙𝖔 𝕮𝖆𝖒𝖕 𝕬𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖓𝖘. 𝕱𝖎𝖓𝖉 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖘𝖜𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝖞𝖔𝖚'𝖛𝖊 𝖆𝖑𝖜𝖆𝖞𝖘 𝖘𝖔𝖚𝖌𝖍𝖙, 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖙𝖗𝖚𝖙𝖍 𝖔𝖋 𝖜𝖍𝖔 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖆𝖓𝖉 𝖜𝖍𝖔 𝕴 𝖆𝖒 𝖙𝖔 𝖞𝖔𝖚.

~~𝕱𝖗𝖔𝖒 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖔𝖓𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖇𝖊𝖑𝖎𝖊𝖛𝖊𝖉 𝖍𝖆𝖉 𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖘𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖓 𝖞𝖔𝖚
🥀

For days, she’d ricocheted between rationalizations. Perhaps, she’d caught a stalker’s fascination, though if that were the case, they would have to be both omnipotent and omnipresent to hold the knowledge expressed. Another idea she’d briefly considered was that it was a powerful delusion conjured by sleep-deprived neurons. But certainty had crystallized in the pit of her stomach when even that could not explain how real it had felt in her hands, how she would have to be mad to have written the words to herself somehow. Her mother, of course, remained oblivious of the whole thing, and Anissa intended to keep it that way. Let her believe the boutique’s resurgence and Anissa’s sudden “college tour” to Greece were unrelated. Better to preserve the fragile peace they’d carved out than watch her mother’s resurrected smile fracture under fresh dread.

Especially when whoever it was sent by hadn’t even bothered to leave their name, despite surreptitiously claiming to be her long-lost father, finally returned from a terribly long milk run.

Growing up under her mother’s careful, attentive gaze had been both sheltering and isolating. The boutique, filled with decadent fabrics and ornate accessories, had always been their haven, its comforting familiarity so different from the whispers and stares Anissa endured elsewhere. She admired her mother fiercely; the woman who never complained, who wove resilience and elegance into every facet of her life, who’d sometimes managed to camouflage her daughter’s strangeness beneath couture. Yet no amount of love or skill could bridge the widening gulf between the normal life her mother envisioned for her and the unsettling truths Anissa had often had to face alone.

Like the night she’d been fourteen, pacing the boutique’s backroom after closing, studying her reflection in the full-length mirror as her mother adjusted an emerald velvet dress around her shoulders. Her mother's gentle chatter faded suddenly into a muted hum, overtaken by a different voice whispering frantically into Anissa's ear. “She took my pearls, buried them beneath the floorboards, make her give them back. GIVE THEM BACK” The voice had crackled like static, desperate, insistent, leaving Anissa's fingers shaking and her breath caught in her throat. When she'd snapped out of it, blinking back the unshed tears, she’d met her mother’s concerned gaze with a forced smile, pretending the tremor in her voice was excitement for the fabric's softness and not fear of her first spirit encounter clinging desperately to her reality.

The memory sent a chill skittering up her spine even now, pulling her abruptly back into the present, to the quiet hum of the engines, the soft lighting, and the surreal peace of the airplane cabin. Ani leaned back into the plush seat, willing her racing heart to slow. All those memories, all those moments…she could never truly outrun them. They’d followed her onto this plane, she was sure of it, and they’d be waiting for her wherever she landed. It was only a matter of time….

Her gaze flicked nervously around the cabin, briefly catching her own reflection in the darkened windowpane, a study of many contradictions—wide-eyed but mesmerizing, pale but glow-kissed in the cabin light, faint shadows beneath her brown eyes that popped with her eye liner, belying sleepless nights spent dissecting every line of that letter. Not to mention the dream that had come not too long after it, erasing whatever doubts she may have had at the time.

Three nights after the letter arrived, Anissa found herself drifting seamlessly into a vivid dream. She’d found herself on a shore defying logic—obsidian sands shimmering with bioluminescent flecks, an ocean stretching placid and endless beneath a bruised sky. No moon, no stars, only brilliant streaks of violet and gold smeared across the heavens as if by a god’s careless thumb. The horizon hung low, heavy with impending storms, clouds churning restlessly in the distance. The ocean before her stretched endlessly, eerily calm, its stillness more unsettling than any violent wave.

It rose from the water’s glassine surface, a colossus draped in kelp that writhed like living serpents. Shadows clung to its form, obscuring features yet, at the same time, sharpening its aura of dominion. In its hand, a pomegranate split open, seeds glistening like gems. Juice dripped from its fingers, staining the water crimson where it fell. No words passed its lips, yet Anissa felt the offer reverberate through her: a summons, Persephone’s bargain, a descent into realms where sunlight dared not reach.

This time, she was the one bound for hell.

Not as a translator, not as a guide, but another poor, lost soul who had yet to comprehend the cost of being claimed by the dead. What it meant to be chosen not with love but with inevitability.

When she dared blink, the figure had vanished, leaving only the fruit adrift before the abyss reclaimed it. But the vision’s aftershocks lingered. She’d woken with brine stiffening her hair, the pomegranate’s cloying sweetness clotting in her throat, her pulse racing, certainty carved firmly into her soul: the letter had been no coincidence, the dream no mere figment. Her father's claim was real. Still… she’d tried to shake it. Even searched “pomegranate dream meaning” one night, like it was a fever she could self-diagnose.

Half the results were biblical, while the rest had said she was either fertile, cursed, or emotionally constipated. So, no help there.

Whatever awaited her in Greece was inevitable, a destiny she could no longer ignore.

The plane shuddered as it cleaved through puffy cumuli, turbulence rattling the ice in abandoned glasses. Anissa’s fingers retrieved her phone, its screen glowing with the artist she hadn’t stopped playing since boarding (she was a fan, what else could she say to explain it?). She slid the earbuds in slowly, the silicone tips sealing her into her own private underworld.

And I've been sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool…

The cabin’s opulence dissolved, replaced by the black-sand shore of her dream, the pomegranate’s garnet seeds glinting like eyes in the dark. She pressed her temple to the window, cool glass grounding her as the singer’s voice slithered into her skull, a serpent offering knowledge she both craved and feared.

Do you feel like a young god?

No, she thought. She did not feel like a god. She felt like a lit match in a gas leak, all spark, no control. Chosen? She was chosen only in the way a rabbit is chosen by a hawk. Powerful? Her “gifts” had always been a curse, peeling back veils to reveal horrors that sometimes left her mute for days. Yet the song thrummed with a truth she couldn’t outrun: power wasn’t purity. It was the hunger in the god’s gaze as they devoured their humble and foolish earnest supplicants.

Her lips moved soundlessly with the next verse as the cabin plunged into temporary gloom. The plane lurched again, and she let her eyes close, surrendering to the vertigo.

This is how it happens, she realized. Not with a portal or a bang, but a slow bleed. Camp Athens wasn’t a destination, it was an autopsy table. They’d crack her open and pluck out the long, rotten core, the thing that drew spirits like flies to meat. The letter’s author knew it. The drowned woman knew it. Even the pomegranate god, offering her a choice that wasn’t a choice at all, knew it.

Revelation or ruin, the distinction mattered less now. The shadows had already tasted her. All that remained was to see which would claim her first: the gods waiting below, or the ones she’d carried inside her all along.

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Fresh snowfall clung to Anissa Quinn’s boots, softening her footfalls as she trudged up the winding path toward the camp. The trees flanking either side of the trail stood like sentinels, their bare branches powdered with frost, crackling faintly under heavy snow. Wind hissed low between them, not sharp enough to sting but cold enough to gnaw at exposed skin. Anissa’s breath fogged before her in shallow bursts, her gloved fingers curling tightly around the handle of her suitcase as it rolled reluctantly through patches of ice and half-buried gravel.

She wasn’t dressed like someone bound for possible danger or someone seeking sanctuary, for that matter. Instead, Anissa wore a long, black wool coat cinched at the waist with a wide leather belt, the lapels turned up to shield her neck from the cold. Underneath peeked dark leggings tucked into heeled ankle boots—not the most practical for trudging through snow, but the fur lining offered some compromise. Her mother had always insisted on style even in practicality, and the coat, at least, was warm enough. A soft blush scarf was looped around her throat, matching the inside of her satin-palmed gloves. Her hair was worn loose today, dark waves tumbling over her shoulders, already dusted with snowflakes that clung to it unwilling to let go. Her face also bore traces of makeup: faint shimmer along her cheekbones, mascara clinging to her lashes despite the chill. Her lips were slightly chapped, but still painted with a warm rose tint that defied the ice-cold bleakness around her.

Dragging behind her was a pale pink suitcase with gold metal corners, the wheels rattling against frozen patches of earth. Her carry-on, slung across her body in a black faux-leather satchel, was just as sleek-looking and carefully maintained, with a silver zipper shaped like a crescent moon. Attached to the strap was a small rabbit’s foot charm she’d found in her mother’s sewing drawer when she was thirteen. Sentimental superstition. Even now, the soft fur grazed her hip with every step like something she couldn’t quite leave behind. Perhaps as a reminder of the person it had belonged to, that she had.

Ahead, through a thinning cluster of trees dusted in white, the girl was finally relieved to see the silhouette of the top part of a gate emerge, tall, imposing, and etched black against the purity of winter. Its iron spires reached skyward like talons petrified mid-strike, the sight spurring both intimidating and oddly reassuring feelings within her. Frost had filigreed the metal with crystalline lace, transforming the structure into a macabre masterpiece of beauty and menace entwined. This was no sun-dappled refuge of canoe rides and campfire songs. The few earlier fantasies of normalcy she’d had, of bunk beds, friendship bracelets, some sanitized version of belonging, now seemed laughably naive. The camp’s austerity was a confession: Here, we do not pretend or hide what we are and what we can do.

There were no cheerful banners to gaslight her into forgetting why she’d come, no kindly counsellors to dilute the truth. The gate’s severity was a contract etched in iron. Once she passed its bars, the luxury of her ignorance could no longer be kept. Containment, possibly, but also, weirdly enough, catharsis.

Her steps faltered as the flutter in her chest metastasized, wings beating against her ribcage. She paused, scarf slipping as she tilted her face toward the gate’s apex. The cold gnawed at her exposed throat, but the true chill came from within—a creeping certainty that the camp’s walls were not barriers, but sieves. They’d let the right horrors in. Keep the wrong ones out.

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Crunch.

Anissa froze.

Her pulse quickened, breath catching softly in her throat as every muscle tensed in sudden awareness. Her mind immediately raced for explanations: a deer, perhaps, or a branch heavy with snow finally succumbing to gravity.

But she knew better. She always knew better.

“Just keep walking. You’re almost there,” she murmured softly to herself, her voice offering more comfort than courage. Anissa resumed moving, faster now, snow and ice protesting beneath her impractical footwear. She forced her gaze straight ahead, locking onto the gate that appeared more and more, even as every instinct screamed that she was no longer alone.

Yes, she was no longer alone. She could spot a few figures now standing at the camp’s entrance, two, maybe three, their shapes blurred by distance and snowfall. Human? She willed herself to believe it. To quicken her pace. But the presence behind her pressed closer still, a pressure against her spine as tangible as a cold breath on her neck. Her boots skidded on ice, the suitcase lurching sideways. She caught it, heart jackhammering, and turned.

The trail behind her stretched empty, tranquil. Mocking her unease.

Trees stood silent on either side, branches heavy and still. Her eyes darted nervously from shadow to shadow, searching for movement that wasn't there. The oppressive silence felt louder somehow, punctuated only by the ragged cadence of her breathing and the distant murmur of voices ahead at the gate.

“You're finally losing it, Ani,” she whispered harshly, breath frosting on the air. She turned forward once more, shaking her head, determined now to reach the gate before paranoia consumed what little composure she had left.

The figure materialized inches from her face, its form coalescing from snowflakes and dirt.

Frost rimed its outline, a negative space shaped like a man, features smeared as if by a thumb across wet paint. Cold radiated from it in waves, searing her lungs with each breath. Anissa recoiled, but her boots rooted to the earth, muscles locked in primal submission. In turn, the apparition seemed to shudder, fingers elongating from vapour and shadow. Its mouth gaped, a black hole howling in silent form. She felt the plea in her mind instead, not quite words, but a raw, magnetic need she could not comprehend.

Anissa had seen spirits before. Felt them. Spoken to them. The dead clung to her like perfume that never washed out, always there, always familiar. But this was different. This wasn’t the slow, aching sorrow of a lost mother looking for her child, or the furious grief of someone murdered and buried beneath the wrong name. This wasn’t one of the ghosts she’d grown used to parsing through tears and riddles.

This was an incarnate absence.

There was no true emotion in it. No voice. No name curling at the edges of her thoughts, begging to be remembered. It didn’t ache with longing or throb with unfinished purpose. It simply was, and its presence left her gut empty, her body humming with the basic understanding that she was in the presence of something that should not be.

Not a ghost. Not even a soul.

Just a scar in the world, still bleeding.

And then it was gone, as abruptly as it had appeared. Not cauterized, but no longer allowing itself to be seen if she had to guess. Anissa stood unmoving for a moment longer to make sure, ears straining for an understanding that didn’t come. The silence had returned, but it wasn’t peace. It was the aftermath. Her breath steamed out in tight, shallow exhales, clouding the air like smoke from something just extinguished.

She didn’t move until the frost began to bite again through her gloves.

Even then, her limbs obeyed stiffly, as though whatever she’d witnessed had rearranged her bones beneath her skin. Her boots scraped against the ice, suitcase lurching behind her like a dragged body. Her fingers curled tighter around the suitcase handle, and she found herself wondering, without meaning to, what kind of violence had created what she’d seen. What kind of death? Who had it been? More importantly, how much of them was left to even be called human?

But no answers came. Just the snow. The wind. And the faint creak of the camp gates ahead, now visible in full, iron black and waiting. Whatever happened here, she thought grimly, she would probably find out with time. For now…there were people to make note of. Possibly to speak to.

She spotted him standing a few paces from the gate, rigid, like he wasn’t sure whether to storm the place or bolt for the trees. His clothes didn’t scream demigod or danger, just… forest-dwelling sad poet with poor layering instincts despite his coat. Dusky work pants stuffed into boots that had seen too many winters, as far as she could tell. She clocked the hat, the faint tremor in his shoulders, the blank expression trying too hard not to be fear.

Stylish? No. Curious? Definitely.

Anissa tilted her head, considering her options briefly, before making her way over to where he stood. She slowed as she neared him, her suitcase wobbling behind her, boots sinking deeper into the snow. He hadn’t seen her yet—or maybe he had and just didn’t care. That in itself was strange. Most people looked at her at least once. He, on the other hand, seemed busy murmuring to the inside of his coat. Not muttering nervously or praying under his breath like the truly unhinged, to be fair, but speaking softly, pointedly, as if someone (or something) were answering back.

Anissa arched a brow. Wonderful. Either he was like her… or much worse.

Still, something about the way he looked at the gate made her pause instead of pass by. If anyone here might understand what it meant to be haunted, it was probably the boy holding a conversation with his pocket, wasn’t it?

She cleared her throat gently, boots now crunching to a stop a few feet away. “Are you... waiting for an invitation?” Her voice carried that polished, mildly condescending lilt—part defence mechanism, part default tone. “Because I think we’re free to go in, if that’s what you’re wondering.” She stated this while gesturing to a few of the others as they walked right through the entrance to the camp.

That was when her eyes, while shifting around, spotted her, a vision of cashmere and composure, gliding through the snow as if it were a Milanese runway. The girl was practically elegance weaponized: Cream turtleneck tucked into a pleated skirt that would’ve fluttered if the air weren’t so bitter. Knee-high boots, long coat draped over her shoulders, a quilted designer bag swinging from one arm like she was late for lunch on Madison Avenue. Every piece of clothing screaming of old money and opulence.

Anissa’s brow twitched faintly.

She was pretty, with a capital “P”. A dangerous kind of pretty. Just her luck.

“Of course,” she murmured under her breath. It wasn’t envy. It was more so the reflexive bristle of someone trained from youth to spot perfection before it walked past them—and maybe to loathe it a little, just in case.

That was when Anissa’s attention slid back to the boy before her. Maybe not as perfectly packaged, but at least he seemed as out of place as she felt. And maybe that was reason enough to stick with him for now.

“So,” she continued, her voice a little softer while edged in something amused, “do you have a name, or should I guess?” Her head tilted slightly enough to catch the winter light across her cheekbones, the gesture effortless and way too practiced to be unintentional.

---

Location: Outside Camp Entrance
Mentions: Chariselle (@PatientBean)
Interactions: Anatoliy (@The Savant)

TL;DR

Scene 1: Anissa flies to Greece in first class because, let's be so for real, trauma should at least come with leg room.She reads a creepy-but-weirdly-poetic letter from someone claiming to be her deadbeat god-dad, who didn’t sign his name but absolutely knows everything there is to know about her. Cue a recall of a dramatic dream sequence: she's on a cursed beach, a seaweed-covered shadow-daddy offers her a bloody pomegranate. Then, she wakes up mildly soggy and deeply unsettled, listens to Halsey, contemplates fate, curses the gods, and prepares to be metaphorically autopsied at Camp Athens. Yayyyy

Scene 2: Anissa hikes through Narnia to get to the camp, which looks more like a prison than a camp. Something that isn't a ghost pops up briefly, kinda scares her, and then pops away. She continues on of course, rattled but absolutely still her fabulous self *flips hair* Spots Anatoliy talking to himself and of course judges him a bit for it. Then she spots a goddess (Chariselle) but still decides to at least ask Anatoliy for his name.