Chapter Text
Chloe wakes up and the world is wrong.
Or, well, maybe not “wrong.” At least, not in the usual sense that something could be “wrong.” Rather, when she wakes up it’s to a familiar, yet still at the same time unfamiliar, sight. Her bedroom (because she recognizes it as her bedroom, no matter how long it’s been since she’s been in this particular one) looks exactly the same as she left it the day she left for America.
Not a single thing out of place.
Maybe that’s where this feeling of—wrongness stems from.
The first thing that tips her off is instinct (ingrained after only just days of near-death experiences and angry campers). In any other situation, for most other people, waking up in your childhood bedroom is normal. For Chloe, well, she’d just say that it’s been a long time since she’s been a child.
The second thing that tips her off is that she’s awake. Here’s how it stands, Chloe died. She knows she did, she can very distinctly recall that feeling of her own sword being torn from her hands as she stands stock still in shock. As her own sword in the hands of her best friend is jabbed into her gut. Hears the blood rush out as her knees slam into the dirt, hears a ringing in her ears as she tries to hold herself together.
She shudders, throwing the blanket off of her.
The third thing that tips her off is her location. Paris, to be exact. Last she remembered, she was in America, in some obscure area of the forest yelling out orders that could barely even be heard between the crackles of lightning and shaking earth.
Chloe grunts as she stands, the phantom pains of injury (because when she looks down, there is nothing to even indicate that she had been injured, not past nor present. Looking again, she can’t even find a hint of a scar and she thinks that might hurt worse) throwing her off balance.
She breathes deeply through her nose, scanning the room for any kind of clue of what she’s doing here. Groaning when she finds none (no hidden cameras, but that could be explained away by the threat of monsters. There’s really no other reason she could think of for this set-up though, other than some carefully constructed prank) she heads to the bathroom—something about her body feels wrong.
.
Standing in front of the mirror, Chloe can tell that something is definitely wrong. Her hands trace the edge of her jawline, poking and prodding at the muscles on her face. She looks younger, somehow; definitely not the eighteen year old she was when she died.
Her fingers tug at a strand of her hair, curly and long. If she had to garner a guess, she’d assume she was around fifteen (if the hair didn’t give it away, her location definitely did. The childhood home—hotel—she lived in for nearly fifteen years of her life until she was shipped off to America when things got too dangerous).
She sighs heavily, her head dipping down as she closes her eyes. Hands clutching the edge of the sink, she tries to stave off the approaching headache at what exactly this entails.
It’s not time travel, she knows that much. Or, well, it’s kind of time travel, but not really. She’s younger, sure, but nothing about this world feels exactly—right.
”Chloe! Are you awake?”
Her head jerks up in surprise, hands automatically finding the nearest sharpest thing that could pass as a weapon, at the moment it just so happened to be a pair of scissors. Her hands raise up, defensively covering her face as she faces the entrance to the bathroom, pressing herself into the wall opposite.
It takes one second for her to realize there’s no threat, it takes two for her to lower her hands, and it takes three seconds for her to recognize the voice. Her father. She glances between the door, her hair, and the scissors in her hand. Pressing her lips together thinly, she makes up her mind.
“Co-“ Chloe clears her throat, her voice feeling awkward. “Coming!” She yells back, before turning back towards the mirror and making up her mind. The blades snip against her hair, strands of it falling onto the sink and bathroom tiles. Long hair is impractical, after all. She ruffles the finished product, shaking her head to clear out lose bits of fuzz.
When she’s satisfied, she tucks the scissors into her waistband, covering it with her shirt (usually, that’s where **** rests, the pen cap clipped onto the pocket or waistband, easy to grab and easily hidden. As it stands, she is no longer in possession of ****—there’s a void in her chest, her hands feel empty and she feels restless without it. The scissors will have to do). She exits the—her—room, lifting a hand in greeting to her father before walking past; her back is turned and she misses the surprised look on his face.
She starts down the stares, hopping down two at a time. By the time she makes it to the ground floor, she feels uncomfortably out of breath. Chloe makes a mental note to work on that as she steps outside and heads towards the school building, lost in thought as she allows muscle memory to guide her.
.
”Chloe!” A hand grabs her by the wrist, tugging her into motion. Her legs move of her own accord as she’s dragged deeper into the forest, ears filled with the sound of cracking branches and angered roars. “We need to go, come on.”
She fights against the grip, tearing her hand from her friend’s hold. “No!” She yells back, “We can’t leave without ****.” Chloe rushes towards where the fighting is, stumbling over the unfamiliar terrain of the forest. “We need to help her!” She yells, hands finding a thick branch that was torn off of a tree in the monster’s rage.
A strong hand stops her, hooves clapping against the leaves as they push her towards the distant camp. She’s weak to fight against it, but she struggles anyway, fighting against the hold. “We need to go.” He says, his voice cracking with emotion as he drags her away. “Chloe.”
She doesn’t hear him.
”Chloe!” He yells, stubby fingers grabbing her by the chin. He forces her to look at him and she scans his stubbled face in desperation. “We need to go, Chloe. I’m sorry.”
Dark spots dance the edge of her vision and she feels her knees give out under her. She collapses under her own weight and, distantly, she can feel herself being moved along. Distantly, she can hear the angered roars of a monster that shouldn’t exist, and the war cries of a friend she could have saved.
.
Chloe breaks herself from her memories, stepping through the front door of the large school building. She grimaces at the shrill ringing of the passing bell and ducks her head to avoid the confused stares of the onlookers.
Schooling her thoughts, she runs through the possibilities. At the moment, she has exactly three working theories:
First, she’s gone insane. That everything she thought happened was all some elaborate—very elaborate—dream cooked up by some superhero fantasy. Completely plausible considering the large statue of what is clearly the city’s resident superheroes. Unfortunately, this is quickly disproven by the muscle memories. The instinctive need to scan her surroundings for threats, the scissors hidden close to her hand ready to eliminate any dangers.
Her second theory, time travel. This one, however, is quickly thrown out the window after checking the date; September 15, exactly fourteen days after she’s supposed to be on a plane to America. Evidently, by the fact that she’s very clearly still in Paris, she hadn’t traveled back into her younger self’s body.
Her last, and most probable theory, an alternate reality. She doesn’t recognize the resident hero, check one. Chloe Bourgeois exists, but she’s still in Paris, check two. She had used technology on her way to the school and hadn’t been horrifically mauled by a passing monster, check three.
Ultimately, Chloe decided, she was definitely in some alternate reality where Chloe Bourgeois existed but wasn’t a demigod. She’s not one-hundred percent sure on whether or not demigods even exist, but she figures that she’ll find out sometime in the future.
She sighs softly, slipping into her homeroom and sliding into an empty seat in the back of the classroom. She tugs the hood of her jacket over her head and sinks into her seat, she guesses she has to wait out the time until she can start investigating.