Diana Ladris woke up to find a tiny girl pouring icy cold water onto her face. She had gray eyes that peeked out from behind pink square-framed glasses. Her loosely curled black hair was pulled into low pigtails with scrunchies. Diana guessed that she had probably been in either late elementary school or early middle school before the FAYZ began. She definitely hadn't come to the island with Diana, Caine, Penny, and Bug.
"What the hell is going on?" Diana asked.
"Hey, don't be mad at me for waking you up so early. You were the one who told us that we needed to get going at 6," the girl replied.
"I never said that. I don't even know you," Diana shot back. Her voice sounded different. Overnight she seemed to have lost her usual slow, sardonic drawl. It had been replaced by a quicker, sharper, and slightly higher pitched voice that sounded like it had been designed for barking orders.
"C'mon, Thalia. I've been a hunter for two whole months now. You can't tell me you've forgotten me," the girl said.
Diana wasn't sure why this complete stranger was acting like they were friends. Why was she calling Diana Thalia? And what did she mean when she called herself a hunter? Diana scanned her room for clues, only to find that she wasn't in her room at all. She was sitting in a silver sleeping bag inside of a white silk tent. The smell of pine needles and dew-covered grass had replaced the faint smell of perfume that permeated her room back on the island. After months of being in the FAYZ, Diana was used to strange things happening, but even she was having trouble wrapping her mind around this.
"I don't know who you are, where I am, or who Thalia is. I'm going to need an explanation. Fast," Diana said.
"I'm Elisa Gleet. We're outside of city lines now so I can't tell you what town we're in, but I do know that we're in northern Minnesota," the girl said.
She wasn't smiling, but there was a chirpiness to her voice that made Diana think she hadn't yet realized the severity of the situation.
"You didn't tell me who Thalia was," Diana said.
"Don't you know? You're Thalia," Elisa said.
Elisa stood frozen with an oversized smile plastered onto her face. Then, once it became apparent that pretending like everything was alright wasn't going to solve her problems, she began repeatedly snapping her fingers. Diana assumed that this had to be a nervous habit of hers.
"Have you done anything to anger one of the gods recently? They might be messing with your memories," Elisa said, speaking so quickly that Diana was barely able to understand her.
"I hate to break it to you, but I'm not Thalia Grace. My name is Diana Ladris. There's nothing wrong with my memory, but I don't doubt that I've done something to anger whatever gods you're talking about. I seem to have a natural talent for pissing people off. I wouldn't be surprised if it extended to supernatural beings as well," Diana said.
"Okay, this is just too weird," Elisa said.
Elisa's eyes darted back and forth, as though there the solutions to all of her problems were hidden somewhere in the tent. Without warning, she stood up, paced around in a circle, and then sat back down again. With each step she took, she increased the speed of her finger snapping. The sound was beginning to get on Diana's nerves. She was trying to remain calm, and Elisa's frantic behavior wasn't helping her do that.
"Okay, this is just a theory, but I think that the gods have put your brain in Thalia's body," Elisa said, once she had stopped snapping.
"Eureka, you've got it," Diana muttered, "Now what do I have to get back to my own body?"
"I have to say, you're taking all of this surprisingly well for a mortal," Elisa said, smiling again, "Then again, you might just be a demigod who doesn't know it yet. I could see Atë doing something like this to claim one of her children."
Diana had not expected Elisa to regain her composure so quickly. She almost had trouble believing the girl who was currently trying to come up with an explanation for Diana's strange situation was the same person who had been a fidgety mess less than a minute ago. If Elisa's theories had made any sense whatsoever, Diana would've been thankful to have her on her side.
"I was having a hard time following what you were saying before, but now you've totally lost me," Diana said.
"Atë is the Greek goddess of mischief and, possibly your mother," Elisa said.
"I'm pretty sure I would know if my mother was a goddess."
"What about your father? Have you ever met him?"
"Yeah, but I'm not sure why that's relevant."
"It's relevant because it means that you're definitely not a demigod."
"What on earth is a demigod?"
"The child of a god and a human. Thalia is one, and so am I. Her godly parent is Zeus, the king of the gods, and mine is Hermes. He's the god of thieves, travelers, the road, medicine, and a whole bunch of other stuff too. I was thinking that you might be one, but if both of your parents are mortal that's not possible. Perhaps you're just a mortal who can see through the mist. They're rare, but they do exist. Have you ever thought that you saw a monster, but when you asked your friends about it they all said that they just saw a regular person?"
Diana wasn't sure what to say to all of that. Elisa had started talking fast again and, to make matters worse, she hadn't explained what "the mist" was at all. Diana decided that asking Elisa for explanations was only going to make things even more confusing. Maybe, if she told Elisa her side of the story, the strange young girl would be able to make sense of it all and find a solution that way.
"I've met monsters before, but so has everybody else I know. Up until this morning, I was trapped in the FAYZ," Diana explained.
"The FAYZ?" Elisa asked. Much to Diana's surprise, her expression and tone of voice remained unchanged.
"Yeah. It's the giant dome that appeared over Perdido Beach California. How is it not on the news?"
"It is, we outsiders just call it the Perdido Beach Anomaly, or the PBA for short. Even the gods can't figure out what it is or how it happened."
"Of course they can't."
Elisa looked up at Diana with wide, expectant eyes but she quickly looked down at her shoes when she saw the scowl on Diana's face. Perhaps, she was just as unsatisfied with Diana's explanation as Diana had been with hers.
"Well, if this is the work of something inside the PBA, the gods will probably want to know about it. Do you think that we should go to Mount Olympus to let them know what's going on?" Elisa asked.
"Why are you asking me? I don't even know where Mount Olympus is," Diana countered.
"Well, you're stuck in the body of Artemis's lieutenant, so I think that technically makes you in charge," Elisa said.
"The lieutenant of who? In charge of what?" Diana asked.
"Artemis, the goddess of the hunt. You're in charge of her hunters, who are a group of girls that travel across the country killing monsters. They rarely stay dead for long, but-"
"Sorry to disappoint you, but none of that is really in my skill set."
"You didn't let me finish! All of us Hunters have sworn off romantic relationships in exchange for partial immortality. We don't grow old or get sick, but we can still die in battle. So, it's important that you back into your body before anything bad happens to Thalia's."
"So, you're telling me the Greek gods are real and they've voted me the president of your supernatural celibacy club?"
"I guess that's one way of putting it."
"I never thought that I would ever say this, but I need to get back to the FAYZ. Fast."