Who do you remember after you die?

Joel walked around the chariot track. Nothing grand or fancy to it, he was just moving around the track, thinking about somethings he has on his mind. One thing in particular stuck out worse than the rest though.....his death. Joel died but not exactly, more like he was made to think he had before he woke up back at camp. And others died with him in that awful place..the mysterious man, the assassin, the other demigods that fell with him or lived to see the aftermath, it all ran through his head. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lite one of them, taking a drag of the cancer stick. He relaxed a little, although he knew that he was just getting a lie for stress relief, in reality he was even worse with each drag, but he felt better smoking than he did trying to deal with the memory. The worse of it was relieving the moment he died...and trying to remember the name of the girl that he keeps seeing at the moment, reaching out to try to catch him, try to save him. All he sees in her face, molded in a scream and then her hand fading into darkness...then he hits the ground and everything after that is just darkness...perpetual darkness. He shook his head, the thought fading away and then took another drag, glancing around for a minute, then dropped the cigarette and stamping it out before it catches the dry grass a blaze. "...Why can't I make it go away...I just want the memory gone.." He stated, expecting that he was alone so he didn't care for secrecy to his words.

The reins tightened around my forearms as I urged the horses forward into a trot, making the whole chariot shiver as it advanced on the sand. My cabin always requested those two black andalusians, with arched necks, legs as slim as twigs and shiny coats on which danced blue-ish reflections in the sunlight. I was lucky today, Lou Ellen had given me permission to bunk off the Archery lesson in order to train a bit with the Hecate cabin chariot. The team would soon be voted, and I wanted to be in it -- like 99% of my siblings.

The Hecate chariot was made out of sleek black wood with the silver moon-symbol at the front: a full moon in between a crescent and decrescent moon, one of the multiple emblems of my mother. The sides depicted one snake each, their bodies undulating in silvery-greenish paint.

It didn't look like much, but Lou Ellen had shown me all the various tricks and magic pranks they had included into it, and I had to say, I was glad I was inside it and not competing against it.

I was driving the chariot with the reins wrapped around my bare arms, wearing a black T-shirt printed with a pentacle, a pair of khaki camo pants and my combat boots. I had black fingerless gloves made out of leather so the reins wouldn't irritate my skin too much -- it was apparently one of the big problems during chariot racing and every charioteer had those now.
Bouncing at my side, my sheathed weapon was in xiphos-modus and my metal-thudded bracelet in which my shield folded was reassuringly strapped around my left wrist -- just in case, you never knew. A guy from the Hephaestus cabin had once told me that there had been an attack during one of the chariot races, Stymphalian birds or something. I'd better watch out if anything happens. I removed a rebellious streak of hair from my face and put it behind my ear; I had attached my dark hair into a long braid, but there were always some stubborn strands to escape it and fall around my face and neck.

In a glance, I caught in the whole chariot race track. It was very large, covered in sand and oval-ish in the way it had rounded ends after straight lines, delimited by poles. On every side were staircases for people to sit on and watch the race, but they were empty for now.

Wait, empty? I brought my horses into a quick stop and peered at somebody sitting there, smoking before stomping the cigarette out under his foot. He was rather near, so I could make out his features: he had dark, black hair that fell around his face in long streaks -- well, long for boy standards -- which contrasted against his rather pale skin. He had cheekbones as sharp as arrowheads and a rather pointed nose over thin lips. I frowned. I somehow... wait, where had I seen this guy? I squinted, trying to make out more of his face.

"Ex...cuse me?" I asked, feeling already ridiculous for asking him who he was. But the moment he raised his head to look at me, I finally recognized him.

There had been this weird dream I had had... it had felt so real. We had been in a mansion with a couple of other demigods. And they all died one after the other, leaving only four or so behind... I remembered his face because in the dream, we had explored the mansion together, until... well, until this crevice had opened and somebody had pushed him in. I could still see myself reaching out to catch his hand, his arm, his leg, anything to keep him from falling. But I had been too late. He had slowly disappeared into the darkness of the crevice, and I recall I had stayed a long time staring into its depths, too shocked to react, too shocked to actually understand.

And now here he was. Somehow, I hadn't really thought until now he was real. But I still remembered his name.

"Joel."

Joel looked up at the site of the girl and then hearing his name. He hadn't even noticed her when he walked around the track and then now she seemed familiar to him but found it hard to recall her. But he knew that he knew her, just..where from. Then it hit him like a punch in the gut, the girl from the dream, the one that tried to save him. He felt a rush of things come over him, but he wasn't sure what to feel. All he knew was that it felt like a weight removed to have run into the girl by chance. 'Is this some kinda messed up coincidence?' He thought as he stood up, trying to recall the name. 'Mara? No. Megan? Blah...no. Morgan? ...n-wait..Yes...it was Morgan' He thought trying to remember his name amoung the mesh of thoughts and feelings of relief and stress. He didn't really no what to feel or what to say really either. Standing up he made his way to her, and then he drew a blank. "I feel like I should say it's been awhile, yet at the same time it seems like this is the first time we've really met." He said, trying to find what words could express his confused state of mind.

I urged the horses to the side he was standing at and stopped at two meters from him, jumped off the wooden vehicle and looked at him. Seeing him from up near, the scene of his fake death seemed even more real and I couldn't help but feel again the profound shock that had wedged itself inside my mind during the dream.

"Indeed it is," I replied, my voice somewhat absent.

I remembered the way we had explored the mansion and wandered through that room full of ghosts. And later, I had seen him in one if the crystals. It was so weird to see him in front if me, as if he had suddenly emerged from a parallel dimension and was not, well... From here.

I frowned at him, not in a reproaching way but more in a reflecting way.

"So... You remember me." It was funny enough to say that. I had always thought people's dreams were kind of... Personal. Obviously not, if you could meet real guys there.

Joel just stood there for a moment as his thoughts finished composing themselves so that he could have a coherent conversation with Morgan. "Of course I do, you're the only face I see when I die.." He told her. Yes it sounded creepy, but given the situation as a whole, who honestly can blame him for the way he worded that.

He died in a dream house of horrors, and the only person he could remember seeing was this girl whom now stood before her, equally as shocked about this all as himself. It's a wonder that Joel has any kind of clarity at the moment with the thoughts coursing through his brain. "So...I guess a good question is what happened after I fell in the pit." He stated, though he wasn't sure whether he wanted to hear the answer or not. It seemed like...well..a forbidden territory to know the things that transpired after his death.

I swallowed. It kind of hurt to hear him say that, since it renewed the pain of the loss in my dream. But I was so happy he was there, alive, I just couldn't.... anyway.

"After you fell, I didn't go back to exploring for a long time. When I finally got back, we were moved into one room. Somebody else died. We were no more than four or five at the end." I looked away, then back at him. "Dominik was the murderer, in the dream. The son of Aphrodite."

One of the horses found a couple of grass blades growing between the sand of the track and stone of the bleachers, and I quickly caught the reins in order to keep them from going away too much. The andalusians may not be strong, but they were swift and fast, and I didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon chasing after them.

"I see. Did anything else happen? Before you found Dominik out?" He asked. If she didn't answer he wouldn't blame her, before his death he had seen plenty of people die...even the trophy room for their souls to be trapped. Regardless, if there was anything else that happened he would like to know it. His thoughts passed on from the house though..as if a weight was being removed by talking to Morgan. He wasn't sure if it was knowing the killer was caught or the replacement for the question of if the others from the dream were real too. Morgan was here living and breathing, so it would only make sense that the others were alive as well...unless something happened to them after the dream.

He glanced around the place for a moment and then motioned to the stands as a, 'would you like to sit?', request without really saying it to her.

"Basically just a lot of pointless killing and a ready-for-asylum game master," I stated, looking down at my feet. I noticed I had mud and sand on the tip of my boots.

I think it was understandable; I didn't really want to talk about it because the more I did, the more it felt... real. And it was just a dream, just a single dream, random images compiled together.
Or not. You know, demigod dreams. I guess Hypnos and his sprogs Morpheus, Phantassus and Icelus had had quite some fun that night, messing with our nervous systems.
Talk about a pair of jerks.

I pulled on the edges of my shirt and folded my arms over the printed pentacle, something I often did when I was nervous or felt the need to somehow draw back. I bit my lip on the side, where I had a little bruise, tearing more skin away, but didn't wince at the pain. Finally, I looked back up and Joel gave me a 'lets-sit-down'-look, to which I nodded. I slid my hands up the reins and pulled the horses towards the edge of the track before binding the leather reins around the handrail in a knot then jumping over it. Joel chose a place a bit above track level, and I followed him up, sitting down next to him.

There was that moment of silence, weird silence because there was a lot to say. Finally, I broke it.

"I never quite saw you at Camp," I carefully said. "Well, I got a Quest two weeks after I arrived, and I came back from it five days ago, but still.... "

I wanted to ask him who his god parent was, but I didn't want to talk too much. Besides, asking about god parents seemed like a cliché question here.

Joel sat down, thinking about what she said, though not sitting on it for long as they needed a better subject to talk about than all this..mess. Then he heard Morgan change the subject and his mind let a sigh of relief pass. "I'm not that hard to find...just look to the trees once in a while." He said as his way of saying that he spent a lot of his days in the forest. Which was exactly what he did, when he was around others he caused the trouble for a good laugh or two, but he went to the forest a lot more, because he felt like it was better to mess with people where he can't be seen. Especially shooting arrows at their feet to scare them, now that was his personal favorite for gags.

"In an attempt to avoid a conversational cliche, what do you think my god parent is just by looking at me alone." He asked her. He made her do the guessing because he could tell the chariot was designed by Hecate cabin, he'd seen them tweaking it a time or two, so he knew what it was.

"Haha, funny enough, I spend a lot of time in the forest too," I smirked. "Though you'll probably find me near caves."

I just loved underground areas. And speleology was my baby. I was in love with the unique shapes of stalactites and stalagmites, the noiseless running of clear underground rivers, the darkness of the carved-out tunnels and this seemingly protective shell around me.
Whereas I'm hopeless at orientation above ground level, when in a cave or in a tunnel, I knew exactly where I was, probably because my mother was Hecate, and she presided over underground areas with the other chthonian divinities.

At his question, I turned and looked at him. He had black hair, pale skin, dark clothes... he looked like a chthonian demigod, just like me. He was not a child of Hecate though -- I'd knew if he were.

"Um, let me have a few guesses. Thanatos?" I wondered. I didn't know a lot of Thanatos kids, but there again, there were quite a lot.

Joel sat there and stifled a laugh for a moment. 'Do I really look that much like the Greek underworld kids?' He thought as he shook his head no and waited for her next guess on the topic. He doubted she would ever get it though. No one ever guessed his god parent because of the Norse demigod minority that he was part of. The greek demigods forget that the one's like him and the Egyptians roam this place as well because of how small they number in comparison. Sometimes Joel wonders if he ended up at the wrong camp.

He shook his head.

Damn.

I looked out at the sand of the chariot race track, biting my lip and squinting as I thought. Okay, not Thanatos. Not Hecate either, I'd know him.... Who then?

"Nemesis? Melinoe?" I asked, as the names came into my mind one by one. "Hypnos? Oizys? Momus? Apate? Or one of the rivers: Styx, Acheron, Cocytus, Pyriphlegethon,... Lethe?"

Really, there were a lot of Underworld deities. I had probably forgotten a lot, shame on me.

"Or are you the son of a nymph?" I suddenly asked. I hadn't met a lot of children of nymphs, but it could be possible. "A lampad, perhaps?"

Joel looked at her, almost insulting her intelligence with the way his face was formed, though he didn't really mean to do so. It was just an impulse to look at people that way, especially when they tried to guess who his dad was. He shook his head to thoughts that she came up with and then chuckled at her. "You're problem is that you forget the one's like me exist with all your majority of this camp being nothing but Greeks. It's like my kind doesn't exist because of the shadow your group casts" He said as though he weren't even a demigod in his own eyes. He knew he was but just listening to her constantly missing the mark by guessing left him feeling like just another mortal rather being the son of the dad he had.

I could've slapped myself.
Fact was, there was a clear majority of Greek demigods here. Egyptians and Norse kids... to be honest I hadn't actually met one. It was just so weird... Like they came from a kind of other dimension. It made me feel all unsteady.

Again, I gazed at him. He didn't look like an Egyptian guy, but there again, I hadn't met tons of them. The only god I could think of was Anubis, but were there children of Anubis?
I wasn't that good in Egyptian mythology -- I was when I was younger, before I had discovered the Greek, the Celtic and the Norse.
Perhaps he was a Norse... hmm, let's just give it a try, I could not humiliate myself more either way.

"Okay. Hel? Vidarr?" Vidarr was a forest god, but who knows, he might be his son. "Ullr? Skadi?.... Ran? Holler? Nótt? Hödr? Forseti? Hœnir?" I stopped, squinting again into the distance. I did know many Norse gods, but there were not many I'd assign as Joel's god parent. Or wait a second... it seemed crazy, but... "Loki?"

Joel listened to her ramble off some of the Nordic gods that she knew. She hadn't realized that she hit the mark with Holler and as she kept asking he felt it better to toy with her as he normally did with people, listening as she continued to ramble of the names of gods like it was a celebrity bingo game. Then she said Loki and he just had to stop her. "Okay you've embarrassed yourself well enough..my dad is Holler the god of Disease and Destruction." He stated to her

"I found it, though!" I grinned, then shrugged. "Late, but I found it. And you gotta admit, your dad is not a common one. The only gods most people know of Norse mythology are Thor, Loki and Odin, mainly because of the Marvel's."

When he said I had embarrassed myself enough, I gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder. "I'd ask you the same question but seeing my chariot and my shirt, it's pretty obvious who my mother is."
I pulled my ankles up and sat cross-legged on the marble stand, then put my elbows on my knees.

"Disease and destruction...," I said in a low voice. "Must be fun. I hope your powers are not... apocalyptic."

Joel smiled at her and glanced out at the track as she went on thinking about his father's sphere's of control and what Joel's power possibilities could be like. "You'd think they'd be spectacularly dangerous and that I could be locked up for them..unfortunately I took after the disease side..and not even an offensive ability. My powers are that it's next to impossible for me to get sick, I'm immune to most anything.." He stated to her calmly. Then he got the sick thought in his head that he should sell himself to the center for disease control and let them run tests to see what is safe to use on humans.

I frowned lightly.

"A power? Shouldn't it be an ability?" I asked.

To be immune meant that he didn't really control it, right? A
nyway, that was one cool power. I knew that Apollo kids in general had a stronger immune system than the average demigods or humans, but being right away sickness-proof.... that must be amazing. Imagine it, you scale up mountains in T-shirt because either way, you won't catch a cold. But no, then the problem would be he would still feel the cold. And probably get frostbitten. Dammit.
However.... admitting he went to one of the reactors in Fukushima or in any place where radioactivity was high, what would happen to him? He wouldn't get any disease like cancer or such.
But wait, he had said 'most anything'.

"Most anything... what do you mean? Are there sicknesses you catch like, let's say, leprosy or cancer?"

Dear, that was one cheerful conversation topic, but I kinda wanted to know.

Joel shrugged a bit at her response about the terminology of his supernatural gift. "What does it matter what they are called really? It's beyond the mortal world.." He said to her and then went silent for a few minutes before she questioned just what the extents of his immunity was. "I don't know. You go so many years not catching things that are common you find it hard to think what it is that you can catch. I've just lived with it under the assumption that if there is something out that my body can't fight by itself then I haven't found it.." He told her. It was the truth to the extent. He had ideas of what he could catch, but he hoped that he was wrong and that he was completely free of any kind of disease or illness.

"You are so lucky," I whispered, shaking my head in disbelief.

I was thinking about all the persons who had serious illnesses, cancer, malaria, AIDS, leprosy, Crohn disease..... All the persons who had died because of those. And here we had somebody who had been perfectly sickness-proof until now. What a lucky b*stard.

"I'm always amazed at everybody else's powers," I told him. "I've been here for a couple of weeks, and I still am not inhabited to all this, it's so... out-of-place. Even my own powers surprise me, which is not a good thing seeing I have to be most focused. Magic has a way of... twisting around users." My foreign accent poked through at several words but I refused to feel embarrassed. It was not my fault if I was not a native speaker in English, and most people at my school did not have my level.
And he had probably already deduced I was not American or English, I mean, it really wasn't that difficult.

Joel shrugged at her comment of being lucky. He listened to her as she talked about her own abilities, that which he has not seen, and tried to place her accent as she spoke about them. "Where are you from?" He asked all of a sudden, trying to figure out where he knew the accent from. It made him feel dumb for not knowing it, though at the same time he didn't blame himself much due to not going out of the country near at all.

Oh dear. Tough question.

"I'm French and German," I told him. "I live in Berlin."

Short version. It was only partly true, but the whole story was a bit complicated. In fact, I was Greek through both my mother and father but due to an unfortunate series of events, he had gotten lost in the Sea of Monsters and I had been adopted by a family. Hecate had manipulated the Mist such as to make them believe I was actually their child. But I had found my father again during my Quest and yeah.... it's as complicated as you imagine it.

"What about you?" I wondered.

"Born and raised in the states..I was a trouble maker of a child, and when I was 7 I broke an antique that was dear to my grandma. I regret that, but not as much as I really should. It upset me to see her feel like she lost a piece of herself but..I don't know it's like I can't really grasp the situation to it's full extent. Anyway...I was born in Utah, but around my 7th grade year I moved to Arkansas and made friends with another demigod, neither of us knew about our parents at the time. But then the summer after that school year ended I moved again and ended up here. I never got to say good bye." He said to her, giving the short end of his back story to her. Granted she didn't ask for it, but he felt rather obligated in some way to explain himself.

I listened to him, my gaze focused on my shoelaces.

"So are you saying you did just wind up here?" I asked. "You didn't meet a satyr or another demigod, or anybody, really, who would have taken you to Camp?"

It was a bit odd, people didn't just stumble upon Camp Half-Blood.

No, a satyr found me. On my 15th birthday everyone left at the end of the party and then satyr came knocking and basically said pack your sh!t and come on. I didn't want to go but in the end the choice wasn't mine apparently..because now I'm here." He told her in response to her questioning.