I woke up with a gasp, and sat up in my bed. I looked around; neither Oscar nor Jake were awake. I don’t know how long I sat there, processing what I had just seen; but by the time I finally looked up from my hands, my silent tears had dried. I laid back in the bed, and closed my eyes. Yet I still saw my mother’s terrified face as she realized she was in trouble as if it had been burned into my brain. So that’s how she died; it had been more than just a car accident, somebody drunk driving or texting; my mom had been… murdered….

When morning came, I couldn’t be more glad. I had been unable to fall asleep after the dream; every time I closed my eyes, the scene re-played in my head… I saw the cynocephali turn his car into my mom’s, and her last few seconds of life. Needless to say, the fact that I hadn’t been able to sleep for most of the night showed; but nobody asked.

At breakfast the next morning, Chiron asked me if I had had any dreams or anything, where a god spoke to me or something. I denied it, and pretended as if the dream I’d had never happened. If I was right about who my grandfather was, and I’m pretty sure I was, then the angel had been wrong. I would never find my place here; I would always be the freak. No, it was better to pretend that I was unclaimed than to tell them who I was.
I tried to eat something, but I felt sick. I couldn’t stop thinking about the car, the man with the head of a dog, and my mom. She had been murdered…
As I picked at my food with my fork, I felt somebody’s eyes on me. I looked up, already knowing who it would be, and made eye contact with Jake. “I know you’re lying,” his eyes seemed to say. Maybe because it had been him who had saved me, or something else, but for some reason, I trusted him. “I’ll tell you later,” I mouthed to him. He nodded to say that he understood.
After breakfast finished, I walked over to the lake, my sketchpad in my hand (I had brought my backpack to Camp Half-Blood). I sat down, opened my sketchpad to a clean page, and uncapped my pen. I must’ve zoned out after that, because I looked down at the page several minutes after; and on it was a reincarnation of the angel that I had seen. I looked at the page, about to tear it out of the book and crumple it up, when somebody’s voice interrupted me.
“Wow, you’re a really good artist,” said Jake as he came and sat next to me. “Who’s that?” he gestured to the sheet I had been about to tear out of the book.
“It’s-it’s who I saw in my dream yesterday,” I said quietly. “But… this wasn’t the only thing I saw. Before he talked to me, I-” I choked on my words, then added quietly: “I saw how my mom died.”
The story spilled out of me. I told Jake all that I had seen in the dream; how my mom was murdered, and how the angel came to talk to me. He stayed silent, letting me talk, until I was finished.
“So this angel…” he started, probably unsure of what to say. “You think he’s your grandfather? Do you have any idea who he is?”
“Thanatos,” I whispered as a single tear traced down my cheek. “The god… of death.”