Hey, guys! I'm back! I didn't die, I just had this huge writer's block. I immediately apologize if it will take long for me to upload the next chapters because, tomorrow I'll be leaving for San Francisco so I won't be able to update a lot, but I will! So read, review (constructive criticism is always well accepted), if you don't like it and want me to know at least say who you are so I can answer (have courage of your actions!), but now enough blabbing, read and enjoy!

Annabeth's POV:

That morning I woke up when my alarm clock began it's annoying beeping. Awesome! It's Friday! I thought. I immediately got out of bed and headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth and have a quick shower. As I was done in the bathroom, I headed back to my room and put on a pair of shorts and white V-neck t-shirt with an owl drawn on it, and a pair of white sneakers. Then I put my hair up in a ponytail got my backpack and went downstairs to have breakfast with my family. As I got to the kitchen I saw my step-mom pouring some coffee in her cup. She must have heard me because she looked up from her cup and smiled warmly at me.

"Good morning, Annabeth" she said brightly.

"Good morning, Helen" I said with a smile as I dropped the backpack near the kitchen entrance.

"How did you sleep?" she asked

"Perfectly fine" I said "How about you?"

"I forced your father to take his antihistamine and to blow his nose a lot before going to sleep, so perfectly fine without his loud spring-allergy caused snoring" she said. I laughed as I poured my own cup of coffee.

"He really hates that medicine does he?" I said smiling.

"Hey! It tastes horrible! Just like the medicine for my heart" my dad said coming downstairs

"Morning, Dad" I said as he passed next to me and kissed my cheek.

"Morning ladies" he said also kissing my step-mom's cheek.

"Honey, the medicines you take for your heart are either sugarcoated pills or with no flavor at all" my step-mom replied.

"They taste awful anyway" Dad said.

"You're such a baby, Dad" I said. He shrugged while my step-mom laughed silently. Then they started chatting and flirting while I was happily having breakfast with cookies and plumcakes. I had just finished drinking my coffee and eating half of my second plumcake when my step-mom spoke up.

"I'm going to wake up the boys, or they'll be late" she said and was about to walk towards the door when I said, as I swiftly swallowed my plumcake.

"I'm on it, Helen" I said getting up from the stool and heading towards the door

"You sure?" she asked. I nodded my head as I finished my last piece of plumcake. I went out of the room and back upstairs towards the twins' room. As I opened the door I saw their sleeping figures sprawled on their bunk bed. Matthew was sleeping on the top bunk and Bobby on the lower one. I noticed how Matthew had lost his pillow and it was now on the ground. Got the pillow and hit them both with it.

"WAKE UP! SLEEPY HEADS!" I shouted hitting them with the pillow.

"ANNABETH! We don't want to get up!" Bobby complained.

"Come on, boys! It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life-"

"Annie, please! No Michael Buble!" Matthew said.

"I can start with Justin Bieber if you want. You know, after that little prank of yours…" I threatened.

"NO! We're up!" They said. Matthew immediately climbed down the top bunk as Bobby scrambled out of bed.

"I told you changing all her songs in her iPod with Justin Bieber ones would backfire" Matthew grumbled. I laughed and followed them back downstairs.

I was in my classroom, waiting with my friends for Mrs. Henderson our music and drama teacher to come to class. We were fooling around when the teacher finally entered the classroom. As she came in we went all silent and swiftly sat in our seats. She was followed by a boy around my age, which makes him 17. He wore a blue t-shirt and dark blue jeans with matching shoes. He was kind of tall and lean. He still had a baby face. He had messy jet-black hair and what caught my attention mostly, his mesmerizing sea-green eyes. As he came in the room he had a bright smile on his face, that would cheer anyone up. He wasn't utterly handsome, but he was cute. He still had to grow up; no wonder they say girls grow up faster than boys.

"Good morning, class!" said Mrs. Henderson "Sorry I was late, but, we have a new student with us, Mr. Perseus Jackson, over here"

"Please, it's Percy" he corrected.

"Right, sorry" she said "Anyway, Mr. Jackson is going to join us for the rest of the year. Percy, why don't you take a seat next to Miss Chase" she said.

"Sure, no problem" he said. He looked around for a second to find the only empty seat in the class with a girl next to it, the girl being me. Long story short, after that day, it didn't take long for me and Percy to become best friends. Turns out that like me and some of my friends, he is a demigod, a son of the sea God, Poseidon, actually. While my mother is Athena, goddess of wisdom and battle strategy. That's why I live with my dad and Helen, my step-mom with my two half siblings. My brothers were two troublemakers and even if I complained a lot about them, I loved them very much and I knew they did too. But now, we're off topic, back to Percy, or Seaweed Brain. We would hang out together all day, tease one another, argue, fight sometimes, but then we would always get back to be all buddy-buddy. But good things, don't last forever and I learned it the hard way, but not because of my father's early passing.
I knew he was sick and that his heart was giving him a hard time, it was a genetic disease, that luckily neither Bobby or Matthew inherited and neither did I, but that's because I'm half-goddess and was born by parthenogenesis just like my mother, Athena, born from Zeus' head, difference is, I was born from my mother's head. Gaahh! I'm going off topic again! Anyway, it wasn't my father's early passing that changed my life. Percy has been next to me for the whole time and so were the rest of my friends, but mostly him. My family and I managed to make it through and I had a happy graduation. Of course I missed my father, but I knew I had made him proud, he said that to me before his passing.
When I graduated, Helen had a surprise for me, actually for us: the whole family was going camping! But that was the day my life changed, the day my life went downhill.

Camping, day 3

"Helen, may the boys and I go for a walk?" I told my step-mom, who was preparing the trouts we had caught today while fishing.

"Okay" she said smiling.

"YU-HUU!" the boys shouted, high fiving each other. I shook my head.

"Annabeth" Helen called motioning me to come to her. I walked towards her waiting for her to speak. "I know it's not your fault, if being a demigod attracts monsters, but… please be careful" she said putting a hand on my arm.

"I will" I said. She smiled, gave me a little hug and let me go.

"Annabeth, come on!" Bobby called.

"I'm coming!" I said walking back towards them. We walked for a while in the woods, well, I was walking. The boys were running around chasing each other. Sometimes, I would grab Matthew and put him on my shoulders to play with him, or give a piggy-back ride to Bobby. They, were 7 and kind of short and skinny, so I could still do it. It was fun, I enjoyed very much spending time with my half-brothers.

"Can we play hide and seek?" Bobby asked.

"Please?" Matt said with pleading eyes.

"Nah. Come on, hide and seek is getting old" I said.

"You don't want to play just because you suck at it!"

"Alright… fine, just stay in the nearby area" I called as they started running.

"Yeah, yeah! Start counting!" Bobby shouted. I shook my head and started counting on the tree next to me. As I was done, I started looking for them. I looked behind the trees next to me, behind bushes, but I couldn't find them.

"They're right… I do suck at hide and seek" I mumbled to myself. That's when I heard a sound. I looked behind me and saw nothing, then I heard it again. It was someone calling me. Somehow, I hadn't noticed the woods were getting foggy and the air chilly. The figure running towards me got cleared and I recognized him as Matthew.

"ANNABETH!" Matthew called running to me and hugging my waist.

"Matt, what's wrong?" I asked hugging him. He looked scared, like really scared.

"I-I was hiding w-when I saw th-th-this… thing!" he said between sobs.

"Matt, calm down. What thing?" I asked him looking at him dead seriously in the eyes.

"It had… a lion head and body a-and… a scorpion tail-" Realization dawned on me.

"Manticore…" I breathed "Where's your brother?!" I asked worriedly.

"I-… I don't know…"

"Matt, I'm getting you as close as I can to the camping site, then go to mom and tell her to start packing, while I go looking for Bobby. Wait for us at the entrance" I instructed. He nodded then we started running towards the camping site and as it got in site, Matt ran towards it while I went back looking for Bobby.

"Bobby!" I called "Bobby!" no answer. "Oh, shit…" I muttered "BOBBY!" I kept calling, then I heard a sound. I proceeded silently in the woods, mentally cursing the fog that didn't make it easy to see where I was looking. Then I saw a huge figure: the manticore. It looked like it was eating something. A sick thought came into my mind. What if I was too late? Then the miracle. I saw Bobby hiding behind a tree. I silently walked behind him and put a hand on his mouth. He started to struggle, but then he saw me and hugged me silently. Then I motioned him to walk slowly and silently while the manticore was busy with its meal. It was all going perfectly when a root cracked under Bobby's foot. The manticore stopped eating. My heart started racing and my ADHD kicked in. I gripped on my brother's shoulder to prevent him to run if the manticore didn't hear us, but we weren't that lucky. The manticore turned around and started growling at us with its bloody mouth. I slowly reached for my dagger as it looked at us slowly turning around.

"Bobby, I need you to back away slowly and go back to mom" I instructed but Bobby stared wide eyed at the monster and didn't dare to move. The manticore started walking towards us. "Bobby, back away" I ordered. Nothing. The manticore kept getting closer. "Bobby, move!" I ordered. The manticore was preparing itself to attack, but Bobby was too scared to move. Then I did the only thing I knew I shouldn't have done, but it was necessary. I pushed Bobby to knock him out of his trance and the manticore charged. I made it just in time to run towards it and hit it's paw.

"BOBBY! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!" I yelled, he seemed to finally comprehend what I was saying and started to run away, but that small distraction caused the monster to hit me and throw me on a tree. I shook my head to get rid of the dizziness and attacked the monster again. I managed to hit him on its paw when it tried to hit me. The monster attacked again, but I sliced it's scorpion tail. It roared in pain and anger. I tried to attack again, but the manticore blocked my hit and slammed me on the ground with its huge paw. I lost my knife at the last second and was struggling to reach it. Then something made the manticore turn around roaring. It let go of me and what I saw next scared the crap out of me. Bobby was threatening the manticore with a stick. I forgot completely about the pain in my ribcage, grabbed my dagger and ran towards the manticore that was ready to strike on my brother. I hit it's paw but the monster slammed me on another tree in anger, then got back to the closest living thing next to it: Bobby. It raised its paw again, ready to strike.

"BOBBY! NO!" I yelled and did the only thing I could do. It seemed like everything went in slow motion. I ran towards my brother as the monster's paw was coming down to hit him. I threw myself on him and pushed him out of the away using my whole body and with the hand holding my dagger, I threw the blade that went straight in the monsters' throat, but in that exact moment I felt huge pain on my waist. Then I fell on the ground with Bobby as the monster disappeared in a ball of yellow dust. Then there was silence for a few seconds. I painfully put a hand on my waist, and when I looked at my side, I saw a huge and deep cut with blood soaking my shirt.

"Bobby, are you okay?" I asked. No answer. Worry crept into me. I painfully crawled closer to him. "Bobby?" I called, but then I saw blood on the ground where his head was laying on. Worry was replaced with fear. I immediately turned him around and saw him; that's when I broke "BOBBY! NO!" I cried, hugging my brother's dead body, ignoring the pain in my waist. When the manticore was about to hit him, I had pushed Bobby away to prevent him from getting hit, but what I didn't see was the pointy rock near the tree he was standing in front and it's emerging roots. When I had pushed him, Bobby had tripped on the root and his head landed on the rock. I had saved a brother, but I had killed the other.

That was the day, my life changed…