Well, long time, no see! It's been awhile, hasn't it? I'd be surprised if I still had readers after keeping you all waiting two months for this sequel. I guess I should start off by explaining, because I owe you guys that. You see, when I finished Lightning Thief, I was drained. My inspiration juice (hey, I've been writing all day. Don't get on to me about my bad puns) was completely dried up. I needed time to refresh myself... so I took a rather long break from writing. But I'm back now! I've already written the first four chapters, so there's no excuse for me not to update by next Wednesday, at the very latest. Hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer (man, it feels good to be doing these again) : I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

The darkness was suffocating.

I couldn't see, I couldn't hear, I couldn't touch… it was as if all of my senses had been cut off by the impending gloom. I tried to scream, but no sound left my mouth.

And then, as if someone had switched on the light, the darkness all but melted away and I was faced with a scene much more horrifying.

A giant creature was slithering on the ground in front of me. At first glance, I thought it was a lizard, but I soon saw it was much worse.

Its head was a rooster, with the black, beady eyes and the bright red wattle under its shining beak. The green, scaly body clearly belonged to a lizard, but the tail was a snake's. It was huge in size—about the same width as a fridge and stood six feet tall—and that made it all the scarier.

And then I noticed what it was doing: it was circling a pine tree with an odd type of malice on its face, the long tail wrapping around the trunk with an almost evil kind of longing. With a jolt, I realized it wasn't circling just any old pine tree; it was circling Thalia's pine tree.

My surroundings came into focus: I was standing on a grassy hill, the moonlight reflected in the dew. Stars shone above me, twinkling innocently. Below me, I could see the place I'd been longing to see for months: Camp Half-Blood. It was sleepy and quiet, and I suspected no one knew a monster was slithering just inside their boundaries.

Yes, a cold voice rang in my head, followed by a malevolent laugh. Destroy. Destroy! The pathetic heroes won't know what hit them…

The rooster-lizard hybrid stopped circling. It gave a long, low hiss that sent shivers up my spine.

It is time, master? A cold, hissing voice said icily. The voice sounded like two knives scraping against each other.

Yes. The cruel voice said. It is time. Destroy! The malicious laugh rang once more in my head.

The monster's mouth opened wide, as if smiling, and bared its fangs with almost heinous enjoyment. They were long and slender, and looked completely lethal. They were all but dripping with poison.

It was eyeing the tree hungrily, inching ever closer with each rotation. And then it hit me what it was going to do.

"No!" I screamed, standing, helpless and unable to move, at the edge of the scene. "Stop!"

The monster faltered, as if it could hear me. It looked my way and hissed, its black eyes narrowed.

Hmm, the voice purred. It seems we have an unwanted visitor. Go on, then.

The monster opened it mouth, revealing yet again the horrible fangs. A drop of green poison dripped from the fang, landing on the grass with a sizzle. The small circle of grass immediately turned brown and wilted.

The monster advanced and bared its teeth more prominently and, before I had time to react, lunged.

Before the heinous fangs could reach me, though, the scene changed and I was standing in a dark cave-like place. The walls were made of jagged rock, and shadows drifted lazily across the room, though there was no one there to make them.

Something sat huddled in a corner. It seemed like it was nothing more than a solidified shadow, and the other shadows gave it a wide berth.

The boy is a threat, said a cold voice. I winced as I heard it; it sounded a lot like the voice I heard on the hilltop with the monster. I would prefer he not reach his safe haven, but the girl is seeing too much. She will want to bring him with her to safety.

What do you propose? hissed another voice from somewhere. I didn't turn around to search for it though; it was as if the dark shape in the corner was freezing me to my spot.

Stop her…

A sharp crash splintered me out of my sleep. I sat up in bed, shaking and sweating profusely. I groped my bedside table for my dagger, still halfway inside dreamland and ready fight an intrusion, but withdrew my hand immediately when I felt a sharp pain run up my hand. I examined it in the pale light coming from my window, and saw a trickle of dark blood slowly meandering down my palm. I looked at my beside table and saw that my glass of water had tipped over and broken, spilling the water onto my floor and littering my table with sharp-edged glass.

Cursing, my heart still racing as if I was fighting a monster, I wrapped my hand in my pajama shirt to cork the bleeding. The cotton seemed to stop it up pretty well, though my shirt was now dotted with red.

With my un-bleeding hand, I carefully extracted my dagger from the mess of glass. When my fingers closed over the smooth metal handle, my breathing slowed immediately and a type of calm settled over me. Nobody would be hurting me if I had my knife on hand.

I looked out the window; moonlight was pouring through the gauzy curtains and the sky beyond was black, the stars shining dully in the Virginia sky. My clock read 1:47 in the morning. I slid out of bed, my hand still cradled in cloth, and set off to find the first aid kit.

I left my room and crept along the hall, past the twins' room and the bathroom, coming to a stop at the stairs. Hairs on the back of my neck stood up suddenly, and I looked behind me, but the darkness was too thick to see anything. My nightmares had left me with an uncanny feeling that something was watching me.

Still feeling uneasy, I climbed down the stairs and rummaged through the kitchen drawers, my dagger still held tight in my uninjured hand. Finally, I located a couple stray bandages and put my hand under the sink, cleaning out the cuts with the running water. I looked briefly at the calendar hanging over the sink; it was only a week until the end of school, and I felt a brief upsurge of happiness that summer—or more importantly, Camp Half-Blood—was so close. But then I felt my neck tingle again, and that happiness was diminished and was replaced with an odd type of fear.

Impulsively, I looked over my shoulder. I saw nothing but the backdoor and the vast darkness that was visible through the window. My eyes told me nothing was there—but my instincts were telling me otherwise. And the past few years, I'd learned to trust my instincts.

I dried my hand with a rag and stuck on the bandages, my eyes still trained on the door. I half-expected the rooster-snake monster to come crashing through the windows.

When my bleeding hand was more or less taken care of, I slowly walked to the door and looked out the window. I was met with darkness, not unlike I'd expected. Moonlight spilled over the ground, lighting up the twins' plastic toys that littered the grass. I cautiously pushed the door; it opened with an ominous creak. I stepped outside and listened: all was silent except for the thud of the door behind me falling back into place. I was about to turn and go back inside when I felt an unnaturally warm breeze against my neck.

A low growl echoed through the yard, and I clutched my knife tighter.

As if melting out of the shadows, a huge creature appeared before me. It towered over me, and its foul breath washed over my face. Its fur was black as coal and its blood-red, canine eyes glinted hungrily. It pawed the ground, its claws upending tufts of grass and dirt.

A part of me groaned; of all times to have a hellhound thrust upon me, why did it have to be now?

I didn't have much time to sulk though; the hellhound was already leaping through the air, snarling. I gave a surprised yelp and flattened myself against the house, barely missing its huge paws. It landed on Helen's flower pots, and I heard the shrill tinkle of clay as they were destroyed under the hellhound's weight.

The hellhound gave another low growl and turned. I stepped away from the house and leapt forward, meeting its retaliatory lunge. I managed to slash its ankle, but the cut wasn't deep enough to kill it. It angrily swiped at me, managing to give me a slice in the cheek. I backed up quickly and stumbled on a toy truck, falling on my back and landing on something hard.

I quickly got back up, ignoring the sharp pain in my back, and slashed again. I managed another shallow cut to its shoulder, but that just earned me another cut in the face.

I twirled and slashed, circling around the monster in a type of messed-up dance. I was hoping to confuse it, and then maybe it would be easier to strike. The hellhound's ferocious eyes followed my movements, its snarls ripping through the night air. It tried to pounce, but I was too quick. By the time it was leaning on its haunches, I was already out of its way.

I tried to stab the monster, but it was tough. Every time my blade got close to its fur, it repositioned itself and tried to paw me, using much the same technique I was.

I decided it was time to break the synchronized waltz. I stepped out of our circle and backed away as much as I could before the monster could realize I'd gone, and got an idea that, looking back on it, was very risky and very Percy-ish.

I aimed my dagger at the monster and threw it. It was a perfect shot; the blade hit it right in the shoulder and the monster wailed and stumbled. For a second, I'd thought I'd won. But then the hellhound ripped out the blade with its teeth and dropped the dagger at his feet, growling once more.

I was stunned; my knife had sliced clear into the hellhound. Why had it not killed it?

The monster noticed my momentary confusion and took advantage of it. He lunged, arching through the air almost gracefully, its teeth bared. The hellhound was already so close that there was nothing I could do but hit the ground and roll out of the way.

One of its claws caught my arm and dragged a deep cut. I cried out, trying to rip my arm from the hellhound's grip, but the claws were in too deep. With my free arm, I groped frantically to see if there was anything I could use as a weapon. My hands closed around a yellow Tonka truck. With all the force I could muster, I threw the toy at the hellhound. It hit it right in the eye. It wailed and let go, giving me enough time to roll over to where my dagger was.

I clutched it tightly and prepared to get up, but before I could, the hellhound had pounced on me, its claws sinking into my shoulders. The pain was intense. Black stars momentarily dotted my vision, and when I could see clearly again, I saw the hellhound's fangs inches from my face, its mouth opened in a growl.

Quickly, I stabbed upward. The hellhound faltered, stopping mid-growl, and burst into a flurry of dust.

I continued to lie there, surrounded by the remains of the hellhound, spitting some of it out of my mouth. I tentatively touched my injuries, wincing, and withdrew a hand covered in blood.

Through the haze of the pain, there was a nagging question in the back of my mind: why had there been a hellhound in my backyard? Hellhounds can only be summoned from the Underworld, so that left two options: Either the hellhound found its own way out of Tartarus—which was unlikely because, with the Underworld being in California, the hellhound would have had to travel across the country to find me, and there were likely many more half-bloods on the journey that the hellhound could've attacked—or someone had set that monster on me.

But who? Luke?

My stomach twisted at that thought. Despair peppered my injury-induced pain. Luke wouldn't have wanted me attacked… would he? I liked to believe that he didn't, but then who had tried to get me killed? Then I thought about my dream, and the cold voice saying "stop her…"

"Annabeth?"

With difficulty, I scrambled to my feet, only then realizing I was lying in a mound of dirt the hellhound had overturned. My father was standing in the doorway, his hair ruffled from sleep, looking at me. His expression was not one of shock to find me amid the rubble, dirt-stained and bloodied; it was not one of anger that I'd ruined the backyard in one of my monster-fights. It was one of sad understanding, and I suddenly realized what I must do.

I stepped forward. "I need to leave." I stated. "Get back to camp. Something's wrong, and I have to go."

"Do you need me to drive you?" He said calmly.

I shook my head. "No. I have to… make a stop on the way."

I'm not sure where it came from. I guess it had been sitting in the back of my mind from the time I woke up. The thing was: if camp really was in danger, there was only one person I knew of to help me.

But my dad nodded, like he'd expected this. He stepped aside and I walked past him into the house.

The kitchen was eerily dark and silent. Bandage wrappers lay on the table where I'd left them. The slightly bloodied dishrag I'd used to clean my glass wound was draped over the side of the sink. It seemed impossible that I'd just been attacked mere feet from its strange calm.

My dad walked in from behind me and pulled out the first aid kit. He made me sit down as he cleaned my wounds with antiseptic. The amber liquid burned my cuts, hurting almost as much as the actual injuries had, but I bit my tongue and kept my silence, refusing to cry out.

"Did I wake Helen and the twins?" I said quietly.

He nodded, dabbing my arm cut. "The twins have gone back to bed, and Helen's upstairs. I told her to wait."

I remembered there was a window in the master bedroom that overlooked the backyard. "Did you… see?"

He looked at me in the eyes, and it struck me how weary he looked. It was easy to forget that, in his lifetime, he'd been acclaimed as one of the best military historians in the country, fallen in love with a goddess, and had to deal with a daughter running away from him. Maybe I haven't given him enough credit, I thought guiltily.

"Only the end of it. I rushed down to help, but by the time I got down here, the monster was gone. It was terrifying, Annabeth."

"Sorry," I mumbled, though I knew I had no need to apologize. I hadn't summoned the monster, so why was I feeling like I'd caused the distressed look in my father's eyes?

"It's not your fault," He said, going back to wrapping a bandage around the deep claw mark in my arm. "I'm proud of you."

I smiled tentavley. My father stood up and closed the first aid kit. "Guess I better pack," I said, not looking at my father.

Without hesitating, I rushed up the stairs as quietly as possible, leaving my father standing in the kitchen. When I reached my room, I quickly got dressed and stuffed everything useful into a backpack—spare clothes, a toothbrush, celestial bronze weapons, a handful of drachmas and mortal money—and slung it over my back. I slipped my knife into the waistband of my jeans, and stuffed my invisibility hat into my pocket.

I looked in the mirror hanging over my drawers. My hair was bushy and matted with mud, and, though they were no longer bleeding, my cuts looked gruesome. My pajamas, lying on the floor in a heap, were dirtied and had two rips near the shoulders, where the hellhound had clawed me. They, too, were stained with blood.

I quickly ran a brush through my hair, wincing as it caught on the knots.

I took one last look around my room, fleetingly wondered when I would see it again, and left.

When I came back down to the kitchen, my father was sitting at the table, holding a cup of coffee in his hands. I rummaged through the first-aid kit, threw the antiseptic and a handful of bandages into my bag, slung it once more over my shoulders, and looked at my dad.

"Well," I said. "Goodbye. I'll contact you when I get to camp."

He got up from the table. "Just be safe, okay? I don't want anything to happen to you."

I almost smiled. "I'm a half-blood. This is what I do. Trust me, I've been through worse."

He hesitated, rolling on the balls of his feet, and then leaned forward to hug me. I was startled at first, but returned the favor.

"I love you," He whispered before pulling away.

I just smiled weakly, unsure of what to say. It was times like these that always made me feel awkward around my dad—those unexpected moments where he sprung his love on me.

"I better get going," I said, turning my back on him and marching through the front door.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on my debut chapter. Review?