The sky darkens with a cloud of bronze feathers and metal wings as the Stymphalian Birds swarm over camp, shrieking and diving like razor-edged missiles. Campers scatter, shields up, hair on fire (literally, in the case of the Hephaestus cabin).

Annabeth’s shouting orders. Percy’s swinging Riptide at anything that dive-bombs him. Tyson’s waving a frying pan with heroic enthusiasm. Nothing is working.

Then you sprint out of your cabin holding… a speaker. A cheap, neon, glitter-stickered, obnoxiously loud speaker. Everyone stops for half a second.

“Wait—what are you—” Percy starts.

Too late. You slam your thumb onto the volume button, crank it to MAX, and hit play. A high-pitched, bubblegum-pop, sugary, aggressively auto-tuned song BLASTS through camp. Something so catchy and awful it feels like it was engineered in a lab to torture teenagers. The Stymphalian Birds SCREECH. They spiral mid-air. They crash into trees, each other, the ground—desperate to get away from the sound. Campers stare, half relieved, half suffering.