I walk into my school and smell the outrageous odor of perfume and sweat. I sigh and walk over to my locker and put my extra books away. It was the first day of the school year of my 11th grade year and it would be just another friendless year in my Hades of a life, or so I first thought.
As I put my books away, two people walk by the lockers and stop by the opposing wall. I then hear them start whispering in hushed voices.
"Dang it! There's a locker in between us!" I hear one of them say, a guy.
"It's not that bad Seaweed brain. We'll be in most of our classes together anyways." the second voice says, a girl I assume.
"But Annabeth, what happens if we need to talk to each other, privately? We need to be able to without someone listening in on us." 'Seaweed Brain' says in a whispered but intense voice. I huff and turn towards them.
"I can hear you ya know, if you two need lockers together; I can switch with one of you." I say. They both look at me.
"Really?" asks Annabeth.
"Yup no problems here. Doesn't matter which locker I get." I say nonchalantly, taking my books out. I look at the two of them. They both look around my age. Percy is a little taller than me, but not by much. The black hair he has reminds me of the toupe that my uncle jerry used to wear, and his eyes reminded me of the sea. I swear I could almost smell the sea air from him. Weird. Annabeth reminded me surprisingly like my mom. The cold stare from those gray eyes, that actually had more warmth to it than the normal person could tell. But unlike my mother, she had blonde hair, and was clad in a similar outfit to Percy's: Jeans and a T-Shirt. I put my books into my bag.
"There you go. Who am I switching with, Annabeth or Seaweed Brain?" I say with a smile.
The guy steps forward, "You'll be switching with me and it's Percy." he says, holding out his hand. I take it.
"Great Percy, my name is Theseus." I say.
"Like as in the hero from Greek myth?"
"Exactly like the demigod from myth, cool right?" I say grinning. I had always been a fan of the greek heroes. They inspire me to do my best whenever I can, and that anyone can do anything if they set their minds to it. Though, I did think the gods were all kind of jerks when first reading the stories. I still do in fact. I suddenly feel a shock go down my spine. I jump a little, and try to get my composure.
"That was weird…." I say to myself.
I shake it off and I notice that they're give each other nervous looks.
"What?" I ask. They both turn back, trying to hide their nervousness.
"Oh nothing. We just think your name is rather, er, interesting." Percy says with a smile, trying to hide his previous look. It wasn't working.
"Well we better get to class." Annabeth says. "Come on Seaweed Brain, we have to get to greek myth." They start to walk away and I say,
"Wait, um … can I walk with you guys. I have greek myth too." I ask nervously.
"Wouldn't you rather walk with your friends?" Percy asks, they looked nervous still, I'm used to it when people are with me, and I usually let them go. But I just couldn't this time. Whether it was some unknown force, or a simple desperation for friendship; I had to try.
"Well you see um…" I start and they look at me. "I don't really have any friends…at all" I say. They look at me confused.
"Come on everybody has friends, a group they hang out with, people they sit with at lunch…" Percy starts.
"I sit alone at lunch. At a huge table by myself; people sit on the floor rather than with me." I say. They look at me with a surprised look.
"Wow." Percy says.
"Yeah." I lean against the lockers. "Pretty sad right? People avoid me because I'm a bit strange and my speech is different. I know a lot about greek myth but nothing of conversation. It doesn't help that I can't read a room either. I tend to scare people off." I sigh. They look at each other and frown.
"You sure you're not over playing this?" asks Annabeth.
"Watch this." I stand up and walk over to Mark, a stocky irish kid from my class. "Hey-"
"Get away from me freak." Mark says and walks away. I walk back over.
"Still think I'm over playing it?" I ask them. "I understand that if you guys want to walk alone." I say. They look at each other and smile.
"Come on." Annabeth says. I give a small smile and sling the bag over my back. I take one step and I trip.
"Ouch." I say standing up. "I'm good to go." I say walking and smiling. I hear Annabeth and Percy starting up a conversation. Something about a camp. I shrug it off.
First and second periods go fast, Percy and Annabeth are in both in my first and second periods. I go to lunch and sit at my table, I start to draw a picture of some large black dog for no particular reason. I feel people sitting down at my table.
"No I'm not going to leave." I tell whoever just sat down. It was common that if others didn't want to sit with me, they'd go sit on the ground. They were polite like that. However, there were a few who had the courage to ask me to leave. Didn't want me thinking we were buddy buddy or anything, nor did they want others to think that. Most of the time I just left, didn't want to cause trouble. If I was having a bad day though….one way or the other; they left me alone. I wasn't having a bad day or anything. I was just in too good of a mood to let anyone ruin it.
"We didn't ask you to." says a familiar voice. I look up and see Percy, Annabeth and six others.
"Hey guys! Sorry about that." I say with a smile.
"No problem." Percy says with a smile. I look at the other six, analyzing them to see if I recognized them. I usually recognize most people around my school. It's pretty easy with a photographic memory. Oh, did I not mention that? I didn't recognize any of them. They must be new.
Annabeth suddenly looks like she was hit by the same lightning I was this morning.
"Oh, you probably don't know everybody." She says. "Everyone introduce yourselves."
"My name is Jason." says the blond- superman looking boy. "And this is my girlfriend Piper."
"Hey." says a girl with choppy brown hair.
"Frank." Says a big asian kid.
"Hello, Hazel's is my name." says a girl with golden eyes.
"My name is badboy supreme, super awesome-" says a boy who looks like a latino elf. A girl with brown hair and almond eyes cuts him off.
"His name is Leo and mine is Calypso." she says.
"Well hello to you all, mine name is Theseus." I say. "I'm guessing you all are new to the school?"
"Yeah" says Piper.
"They're from out of town one might say." says Annabeth.
"Ah." I say. That explains why I didn't recognize them before.
"Anyways, what are you guys doing here? You could be sitting somewhere else. Not that I don't enjoy the company. I do. Really, but….. Uh, people might get the wrong idea if you're sitting here with me." I say
"Ahh you're alright." Percy says. "Just don't try to steal any of our girlfriends." he says putting an arm around Annabeth, chuckling a little. I look at all of them and then I laugh. I get a few strange looks from around the lunch room. I know guys, I wasn't expecting to laugh at school either.
"What's so funny?" Frank asks, a little defensive. I look at them; still laughing a little. They all look a little mad. I realized how that could be heard.
"Oh crap. I'm so sorry. No, it's not like that. It's just that all your girlfriends are beautiful and the thought of them going for me is hilarious." I say. Finally calming down and taking a sip of water. "You have NOTHING to worry about ladies and gentleman because I present to you Theseus Charalampos Greyson, the world's least attractive! I thank you!" I say bowing. I get more looks. Both from the table and the lunch room. I sit down "What? No applause?" I say with a grin.
"Uhhh…. I'm not sure how to respond to that." Piper says.
"Me neither." Jason says.
"You have absolutely no confidence do you?" Percy asks. I frown and sigh.
" It's just, that's how I feel sometimes ya know. I've been alone so I have some anxieties about what I've done to be hated. So, sometimes I think I'm ugly, sometimes I think there's something wrong with me, sometimes I think I'm weird." I pause. "No wait I am weird. Whatever. Anyways, that's why I say that. " I continue to work on my picture.
"That's kinda sad dude." Leo says. I hear a thwack, followed by a 'Ouch!' I look up to see Leo rubbing his arm and a rather cross calypso.
"What was that for?!" I hear Leo exclaim.
"That was rude!" Calypso retorts.
"Well it's true!"
"But you shouldn't say that outloud. You might hurt his feelings!"
"I actually find his honesty refreshing." I say, turning back to my drawing. "I mean it is sad from an outside view. But it's better than being with people who don't like you."
"I mean, I suppose that's true." Calypso says with a wince of pain.
"Listen. My feelings aren't hurt. I've accepted my reality. Yeah, it sucks sometimes, but hey, my teachers like me, and I have my art."
I finish and I hold up my picture. "What do you guys think?" I say. The blood seemed to drain from each of their faces simultaneously; like they were all somehow linked. I look at them confused. The picture is of the black dog I was drawing before. I had started to draw it without thinking, and now that it was done. I realized something….the thing was absolutely terrifying. It had paws like Clifford the big red dog, but the similarities ended there. It had glowing red eyes,and fangs that would make a T-Rex whimper in terror. It's claws alone could cut a mango just by being within the vicinity. No wonder the blood drained from their faces; this thing was terrifying to me and I'm the one who drew it!
"P-percy… that's a…." I hear Hazel shakily say.
"Uhuh." Percy says, gulping. I look at their faces more closely. I realize the looks on their faces wasn't one of terror of the unknown, but rather the terror of something they had seen in their lifetimes. A trauma of sorts. Had they seem something like this before? All of them? If so, where? I hadn't ever seen something like this. Was it from where they were out of town? I hear Annabeth begin to speak.
"Um...Theseus. Where did you come up for the idea to draw this?" She says with both a terrified and confused tone.
"Um. I don't know? Sometimes I draw things that just come to me. Maybe from my dreams?" That does start to make me think. Where do I get these ideas? I always just seem to draw things that I've never seen before. My mother always told me that maybe they're how my system works through my dreams. I can never seem to remember them.
Another reason I'm weird I think. The ring of the bell comes echoing through the hall and I realize we'd been here for the entire lunch period. Huh. Time never flew so fast. I look bac up to them and they all still look a little frightened, but much better now. Like the bell snapped them out of their panic. I want to ask them why they looked some afraid, but I don't want to bring up their past trauma.
"Anyways, I'd better get to class. Thanks for sitting here. I really enjoyed it. Catch you guys later!" I say, stuffing my sketchbook into my bag and taking off.
"Wait Theseus!" I hear Annabeth call out. I turn around.
"Yeah what up?" I say with a slight frown. She looks nervous, I could tell that she didn't look that way very often. She shakes her head.
"Ah nothing. See you later." She says smiling. I give her a quick smile.
"Yeah see ya!" I say, taking off to my next class, and for once, I felt glad. Not only because I was heading to art class, but because for once, I hung out with some people I could tell who were genuinely nice. My world was changing, I could feel it. They were different than anyone I had ever met. I just didn't know how different, and how much my world would change in the course of a few days…..