The girl in the shadows
Luke Castellan didn’t know how long he had been running for, it was somewhere in between hours and days.
The scent of damp earth and water stuck to his clothes as he trudged through the darkened woods a few hours away from Camp Half-Blood. His shallow breaths grew heavier as he ran, his mind filled with thoughts of everything that had happened. First he, Thalia and Annabeth had been found by a Satyr, brought to this camp for people like them and then he had to watch as his best friend was turned into a tree- an actual tree. Anger was the only thing his brain could stay focused on, he didn’t know where he was running, only that he had to get away from this camp of the gods. It was supposed to be safe, supposed to protect him. He, Annabeth and Thalia should’ve been able to stay and rest, not keep running, only Thalia was now a Pine Tree. His brain focused, he had to keep running.
Then he found her.
At first, he thought it was just a trick of the moonlight. A girl—small, barely seven years old—was curled up at the base of a old tree, tangled in shadows that seemed too deep for the dim evening. Her dark hair layered around her, with her pale skin a stark contrast. The strangest thing? She didn’t look like she was breathing.
Luke’s heart skipped a beat. He stepped forward cautiously, as though he was half-expecting her to vanish like a ghost. But as soon as his foot touched the ground she stirred.
Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing eyes a deep blue, similar to the darkened blue the sky might be during sunset—deep, endless, flecked with glimmers of starlight. She sucked in a breath like she hadn’t taken one in years.
Luke stumbled back, a knife slipping into his palm out of habit. “What the-”
The girl sat up, blinking, disoriented. She looked at him, then at her hands, flexing her fingers like they weren’t quite real. Her voice, when it came, cracked as it was, sounded like a whisper wrapped in echoes.
"Who... are you?"
Luke swallowed hard. The air around her felt heavy, charged, like the moment before a storm. "I could ask you the same thing. Who are you and what are you doing out here all alone?"
She frowned, like the question confused her. "I don't... I was asleep. I was waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
She hesitated. "For someone to wake me up."
A chill ran down Luke’s spine. He glanced around. No signs of other demigods. No tracks leading to or away from her. Just her, alone in the woods, as if the night itself had placed her there. His grip on his dagger tightened.
“Where are your parents?”
The girl blinked, tilting her head. “Nyx,” she said simply.
Luke felt his stomach drop. Nyx. The primordial goddess of the night. A being older and more powerful than the Olympians themselves. And this girl—this tiny, eerie girl—was claiming to be her daughter?
“I’m Melaina,” she said softly. “Melaina Kalina Arete.”
Luke’s instincts screamed at him to run. To leave her there, to forget what he saw. But something about her—about the loneliness in her voice—felt too familiar. He knew what it was like to be abandoned, to be nothing more than a pawn to the gods.
And if she was really Nyx’s child, then the gods had left her here for a reason.
Which meant she was just like him.
Luke exhaled slowly and crouched down to her level. “Alright, Melaina,” he said, offering a hand. “You’ve been waiting long enough. Let’s get out of here.”
For a moment, she only stared at him. Then, hesitantly, her small fingers curled around his.
The night shifted around them.
Luke didn’t take her far—just a small, abandoned cabin nestled in the trees, an hours away from Camp Half-Blood. It wasn’t much, but it was safe, hidden. A place where he could come back to visit without drawing attention.
For the first few days, she barely spoke. She would watch him, silent and curious, as if trying to understand him. But Luke kept coming back. Bringing food, blankets, stories. Slowly, she opened up.