My Friend's Kitchen is Almost Destroyed

This is my story.

It isn't a story of happy beginnings or completely happy endings for one reason: reality rarely ends well, and that's the way it is.

My name is Chelsea. My story begins when my best friend's housekeeper attacked me, then when I found out my friend was half-god. What did I do? Freak out. What else would any normal person do?

I went off on a challenging, life threatening adventure to find my destiny; to find out who I really was. Did I find it? Yes. In the end of it all, I finally figured it out, but it didn't come easily. Destiny isn't something that is easily come by. It's more precious to many than the most valued gem. Some are strong enough and brave enough, willing to risk it all to find it. Others are simply satisfied to live their lives in complacency, never giving their purpose a second thought. If anyone deserved to know, it was me, and the hundreds like me, but it didn't come on a silver platter. I paid for it with wounds, scars, blood, sweat and tears. Was it worth it? More than I can explain. Some are willing to do what it takes to find their purpose. I was. Are you? In the following pages, you'll read about my struggle for truth and purpose. Will you join me?

I guess I should start at the beginning: the very beginning.

Bernard Tyson was a rich business man who worked for a big rich company. It all began at a ten day business conference/retreat. That's when he met her. She had beautiful, long blonde-brown hair, a beautiful body and piercing crystal eyes. I only have one picture of her.

She and Bernard hit it off instantly. They were perfect for each other, but on the last night of the conference, they took their relationship too far. The result was me.

Bernard loved her. He tried to hunt her down on the last day and get a phone number, a Facebook account, an address, anything. He wanted to propose to her, but she was nowhere to be found. Back home, he searched for her on every search engine that existed. Months later, he gave up. The next week, there was a knock on his door. He opened it up and there she was, and in her arms was a little bundle. She handed the eight day old bundle of pink flesh to him and left. No money to help raise me, no apology, no nothing. What did my dad do? Give me up for adoption? Let my grandparents raise me? No, he gave up his busy, well-paying job and settled for a job with better hours, giving him time to spend with me in the evenings after I went to daycare. He held me, sang to me, changed my diapers, helped me with school, comforted me when I heard the other kids gossiping about me and the fact that I only had a dad, then he did the most amazing thing possible for me: for my sixteenth birthday, he gave me a picture of my mom. He's the most amazing person I know.

The only thing my mom gave me was my name, and something about that fixed everything.

So I grew up. That was interesting.

I never as a child understood my dad's cautiousness towards weird things. For example, we really never went to popular places. Weird stuff like that.

We were always moving, therefore, I was always going to different schools. Where this story begins is a high school in Los Angeles, CA. My dad didn't want the transfer to LA, but things were tough that year and he had told me it would only be a few months then he could be transferred somewhere else. That was three years ago.

So I was sixteen years old. I wasn't exactly a beautiful girl. Never really was. My form was kinda off, I was skinny, had off-blue eyes, a freckled face, wasn't into fashion like the thousands of other LA teens, and had shoulder-length blonde hair, the most beautiful thing about me. I was tall, too, and had dyslexia and ADHD, which means I couldn't read well, because the dyslexia, and also made school a pain. I also had a hard time focusing on things. I was also into different things. While the other teenagers were into the new trend, Beiber and what-she-did-last-Saturday, I was into paintball and archery, heavy metal music, although I have a deep respect for classical, and when I get lonely, I go outside, start a bonfire and just sit there. It makes me think of my mom for some reason, and when I think of her, I feel like every problem vanishes. Every test I knew I would fail, every book I had to finish for a report but knew I couldn't, it didn't seem like much at that moment. Almost like I could feel my mom's hand on my shoulder, letting me know it was ok, that somehow, even though there was no evidence, she still cared about me. Somewhere, somehow, she still loved me, and that was all that mattered.

I loved that feeling.

So back to my story. It began at the school. I was part of a group with learning disabilities, with a separate group of teachers that hopefully would be able to help us and work at our level. It rarely worked that way, and most times the kids' grades dropped and they got into trouble. It was a nice idea the school had, but it was failing. Miserably.

I was on the bus, on my way with twenty other kids to another hopeless day of school. "Thank god it's Friday", as my peers would say. I had too much on my mind. I had a math test that day. It didn't help when my friend Avril boarded the bus. She was my age, sported an punk-ish haircut, dyed black then purple in parts, always had her face in her iPod and had dark clothes and a short skirt that all didn't go together right and didn't cover much of her stomach. Why does she hang out with the dyslexic freak? I have no idea. For three years she's been my friend. She has other friends too, but hey, her even talking to me means something.

"Hey girl." she said and plopped down on the aisle seat next to me. "Okay, so you know that girl Katie Dennsworth?"

"Hi to you too, Avril." I said, trying to remember the answer to question twelve.

"I said hi." she said.

"'Hey girl', then a bunch of whatever, isn't exactly a hello." I smiled.

"Well," she said, pulling out her iPod, "that's a bit picky, don't you think?"

"Any tests today?" I tried. She rolled her eyes and flung her head back, getting her purple dyed hair in my face. "English. That is going to be a sucky test. Crammed in some study time last night."

"That bad?"

"Worse. A lot worse. I was hoping to get my mind off it."

"How do you think it's going to go?"

"I don't wanna think about it." she sighed.

"I have a math today. That is a hard test."

"I don't even want to think about English with dyslexia." she managed after a deep breath.

I shrugged. She knew I was dyslexic and was okay with it, but I hated the very thought. There in my room I had been the previous night working on the last few questions. The numbers and letters had gone all over the place on the page and upside-down. I hated tests.

"Well good luck." I sighed.

She snorted. "Miracle would be ideal."

Well, miracles happened that day, just not ideal ones.

After school I would be going to Avril's house for dinner. My dad was working late that night.

Let's just say my classes went...well. My grade...well I prefer not to talk much about it on any day. The rest of the school day went as usual. There were the usual group of popular girls who made fun of me and a few of the disabled kids. The classes went...well. I try my hardest, but overall I just do...well. Not much more than that, if you know what I mean.

Avril kept talking about this guy across from her in math class. I'd seen him. He had started coming to the school after winter break. Couldn't deny he was good-looking, but there was something about him that put me on edge. Avril introduced me to him. His name was Gavin. He had slick black hair, wasn't too tall, and had almost a Hispanic -looking face. Worse than good-looking, he was nice. So why did I not like him? Keep reading. Why did I tell you this? Keep reading.

So the bell rang and I was done with school for two and a quarter days. I walked out of the gates with my backpack hanging uncomfortably off one shoulder-the other strap was broken.

"Hey, wait up!" I heard Avril yell behind me.

Her house was only a few blocks from the school, so we were going to walk. She finally caught up to me and we walked to her house. I can't say I was fully prepared for what was about to happen, but it's like I always say. That is, if I had any good quotes, it would be.

What happened next I wasn't in any way prepared for. I was set on edge, but there was no distinct feeling that something terrible that would change my life was about to happen. Well, not much more needs to be said.

I got one warning, but didn't think to take it as such. Avril's family was somewhat wealthy, after her mom married a rich business man a few years after her birth. Who was her father? She doesn't really know. Her mom doesn't talk much about him. We're kinda alike like that. Remember that. That will be important later.

So anyway, they owned a large, hilltop, slightly Greek-looking house. It was nice. That hill was tall and steep. It was in a different part of town, one with grapevines, orange trees and other nice trees and plants and beautiful homes on top of hills. It was the place for rich people who wanted a house away-from-it-all. Well, we were walking up the hill, when suddenly, I got dizzy. I mean really dizzy. I never get dizzy. Well okay, there was that time I was getting treated for my asthma and the breathing treatment made me nauseous, but that was-heck, what am I talking about?

Then something else happened; it was almost like a Spirit passed me. I can't put my finger on what it was, but something formless yet with form, something there but not, and all I could think of to describe it is like when a car, or asphalt or something sits in the sun and the air above it starts to distort? Like a mirage but not? That's what it was like, but it was moving, and that's what all the air around me looked like. Only later would I find out what happened.

That was a warning, and actually something I had been hoping for for a long time...if only I could understand it.

"Chelsea, Chelsea, you alright?" Avril was repeating.

I hadn't noticed I was on the ground.

"Wha?" I tried to say. My mind was swimming in a badly polluted part of the ocean. "Yeah, I think so." I finally croaked, even though I thought I was going to puke.

"You sure?" Avril asked, then reached her hand out to me. "Here, let me help you up."

When she grabbed my hand, she hesitated, almost like somehow she knew what had happened. "What?" I asked, standing, trying to regain my equilibrium.

"I don't know...that just reminded me of the time..." She trailed off in thought. The only time I saw her do that was when she was talking to me about her dad that she never knew. She snapped out of it. "But you're sure you're okay?"

"Yeah." I lied, taking a huge gulp from my water bottle. I wasn't okay. I was freaked out. Stuff like that just doesn't happen to me. So that was my warning, but it didn't do much. A second later everything went back to normal. If you've gotten this far, good for you, because things only go downhill from here.

The rest of the walk was kind of a blur. Avril was going on about something on Twitter, but I couldn't focus. I was noticing little different things I hadn't noticed before. Like the ladybug on a leaf on the side of the sidewalk. Or the bird resting in an orange tree branch. Or the school bus racing up the hill behind us going maybe 70 miles an hour. That's fast for a school bus. Even worse; it was from our school. Even, even worse; we were on the right sidewalk. The bus came out of the left lane, into the right, up on the curb of the wrong side of the road and went right for us. I grabbed Avril's black sweatshirt and yanked on it. She yelped slightly, but turned to see the calamity about to befall us. What do we do? Get out of the way.

We jumped into a grove of orange trees. Guess who followed us? Right into the grove came the school bus. I turned around to see how far it was from us and wanted to see who was out to kill us. The figure behind the wheel was distorting. I couldn't get a clear look at his or her face.

As far as I could figure there were two possibilities: One drunk school bus driver was just by chance following us at high speed, or someone wanted us dead. I didn't have time to choose.

Avril was screaming. Me, I wasn't thinking straight, otherwise, I would've been doing the same, but I knew one thing; we needed to get to the top of the hill. I pulled Avril to the left, ducked under some trees, and right behind us, the bus tipped over into some trees. Then, it exploded. Go figure. But I was seriously enamored with the explosion. The heat of it on my skin let an impression in my mind I would never forget; being so close to death and yet missing it by a nose. This wouldn't be the last time I felt this. I turned around and saw the orange-black mushroom cloud explode into the air in a dance of heat and gas. My eyes filled with the flame, but Avril just kept running and screaming, completely ruining my moment. She couldn't even be the faithful sidekick who turns around to bring the hero back into reality, completing the scene. I waited, because I completely and blindly expected her to, but when I turned around and saw her staggering a few hundred feet ahead of me, I came back to my senses and started running.

Soon, she was up the hill. I was only a minute behind her. I had never realized she could run before. Her average speed was text. You know, the speed people go while they're on their phones. Ha! I just used there, they're and their in one sentence...fine, you don't care.

Both of us were panting. From the top of the hill, we could see the orange trees below, many of which on fire and the police, ambulance and firefighters already approaching the scene. My asthma started to act up. I swallowed it and willed myself to walk...a few feet to the nearest bench in the front of the main building for the winery and orange tree fields. Avril joined me...then started laughing hysterically.

"What in the name of Metallica are you laughing about?" I liked to use popular band names as curse words sometimes for fun. I wasn't having fun. It just felt natural.

"Don't you see?"

"Um, no not really!" I snapped sarcastically.

"We were probably just part of a movie."

I let that sink for a minute. Then I spat, "Wwhatt?" And pronounced it just like that.

"How long have you lived in Hollywood area?" she asked. I just glared at her. "They do this kind of stuff all the time."

"Explode school buses and kill teenagers." I said flatly. "Movie set accidents happen all the time. Besides, we're not technically dead. We probably just walked onto a movie set without realizing."

"But don't they do most of the explosion stuff in the computers?" She looked up...almost like she was thinking about it. "You know, like what is commonly referred to as 'movie magic'?"

She thought about that for a few more seconds. "You are really in a bad mood right now, aren't you." I flipped.

"That's it?"

"I can't expect to understand Hollywood!"

I was silent for a second. "I'm pretty sure they don't drive school buses into-um, orange fields."

"Well, when the new Jason Bourne movie comes out, I'm going to look for myself in the bus crash scene." I just rolled my eyes. Then I noticed an ugly cut on my arm, then I thought a little bit about how I'd just acted.

"I'm sorry." I told Avril.

"I know." She smiled slightly. "Let's get to my house. Maybe we can just take showers and pretend like this didn't happen...until the next Bourne movie comes out."

"You're impossible."

"It's incurable."

So we arrived at her gorgeous house. We were able to sneak in the front door and make our way upstairs. The house had a large entry room, a larger living area, a huge kitchen, and a ton of bedrooms and bathrooms. I won't try to explain it too much, but imagine a small mansion. Now imagine it Greek style. You know what it looks like.

Upstairs, we cleaned up a little, all things considered. We were dusty and had a couple scrapes and cuts, but that was okay. By the time we were finished and walked downstairs, Avril's mother was just walking in.

"Hey hon!" she said when she saw Avril. She gave her a hug, then gave me one too, happy to see us. She was dressed nicely in black pants and a dress shirt. She was a lawyer, was in her early forties but looked younger. A lot younger. "Did you see the bus crash?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah," Avril stammered, "we saw it as it was happening. Pretty wild, huh?"

"I just hope no one was hurt." Little did I know the bus crash was just the beginning of my problems.

A couple hours later, we heard the housekeeper call, "Dinner's on!" She was a middle aged, overweight woman who never failed to creep me out. Her name was simply Ms. Martha. I had talked to Avril about her before. She had no idea why her parents hired her. She said she thought her dad did it, but anyway, she had darker skin, not a very kind face, and messy brown hair. She gave me the willies. Her voice even sounded creepy.

A few hours into my visit, Avril's mom had to go to the office for a while. She had explained she needed to clear something up with a client, and her dad was working late, probably with my dad. They knew each other and worked together quite a bit. That left us all alone with Ms. Martha.

We ate a delicious meal of lasagna. She was creepy, but she could cook. "This is great, Ms. Martha." I said. She just smiled crookedly. Her dark brown eyes just stared down at me. I suddenly felt bad for complimenting her.

I was about to take a bite when she said, "Last you'll ever enjoy, dear." My forked stopped half way in my mouth. Something about not only what she said but the way she said it chilled me to the bone. Even Avril turned her head and looked at me, hoping she'd misheard her. I turned around, but Ms. Martha wasn't there.

"Avril?" I asked timidly.

"This isn't normal." She said flatly. Before we could even think about what was going on, a large beast broke through the kitchen window. It was the ugliest thing I'd ever seen.

It looked like a cross between a dog, a wolf, and an orc from Lord of the Rings. And it was huge. About twice the size of a Great Dane. It had long, gray fur, like a wolf, a long tail and legs like a dog, long claws maybe eight inches long each, hideous yellow teeth, two of which extended over its mouth like a Saber Tooth Tiger, and the next two to the inside were like fangs. It was snarling at me. In my view, there were two options: one, this thing escaped from a top secret cloning laboratory where an experiment had gone bad, or two, this thing purposely was sent to kill us.

I chose the latter.

I was paralyzed. My first thought was 'run', but something in me knew that wouldn't work. This thing would outrun me and rip into me. Could I fight? What would my weapon be? Where is Ms. Martha, and will she return? Is she some kind of wolf cloner? Well, I didn't have time to answer all those questions, because the beast charged us.

Avril screamed. I grabbed her and pulled her with me out of our stools we were sitting on at the countertop. We ducked underneath the stools. The whatever-it-was jumped over the stools and onto the counter. I was able to keep Avril under control. I mouthed What's going on to her, and she just shook her head to say she had no idea.

If we didn't think quick, we were going to be fresh game. I looked everywhere for a weapon. It wouldn't be long before it came under the stools and found us. It looked like many things, but dumb was not one of them. I looked on one of the counters. There was a wooden sheath for the kitchen knives. If I could grab one of the sharpest, I could injure the thing. I probably couldn't kill him, but at least it would give us time. I whispered to Avril, "I'm going to make a distraction. You're going to run under that table, I'm going to grab a-" But I wasn't quick enough. The thing came underneath the counter and snapped at me through a bar stool. Thank god, Avril went for the table. I went around the island and pulled a plate off the counter. It fell and shattered. The sound brought the beast to the other side. I made a break for the knives, my heart thumping in me faster than I thought possible. I grabbed the sharpest one I could find, but there was something strange about it. It was black. It shimmered in the kitchen light, and seemed to have a dark, evil aura about it. I didn't have time to examine it because the thing had found out it had been tricked. It came around the counter and looked me dead in the eyes. He charged.

I wielded my hopeless weapon. Imagine fighting a Triceratops with a BB gun. That's how I felt, but by instinct, I jumped and stabbed the thing in the head.

It whimpered and cried, and pawed at its head, but not for long. As I was about to run, it looked at me and snarled. It hated me. Then the weirdest thing happened. I looked over to the stovetop, then something in my mind clicked. Before I could do anything else, fire emerged from the stovetop and consumed the beast. It panicked. It ran wild around the house, then, something just as strange happened. It fell with a thud and turned to dust. I nearly fainted.

Avril started to come out, but too soon. Ms. Martha was back. She simply appeared next to me. I had my magic kitchen knife. She had a black sword about three feet long. Then, as she grinned at me her eyes turned blood red, her fingernails turned to talons and wings suddenly sprouted from her back. Well, that didn't look good.

For a moment, I wanted to believe that some Hollywood goofs were filming a movie, but I knew that wasn't true. She wanted me dead. She swung her sword at me. I ran. At least I wanted to, but when I opened my eyes, I wasn't running. I had blocked her ugly black sword with the bronze kitchen knife, but that didn't last long. She swung again and slashed my hand, making me drop the sword. I felt the blood rushing to my new cut, but there wasn't much time to think about that. She roared in my face and I tried to run, but tripped and fell. This was it. I was going to be killed by my best friend's housewife. How ironic.

Then, another interesting thing happened. A young man burst through the door-maybe about my age-, holding a long sword...even longer than Ms. Martha's. He ran to us and began to fight her. He slashed, she guarded, but I could already tell she was not as good of a sword fighter as he. He finally stabbed her in the chest, and just like the wolf, she dissipated before my eyes. He sheathed his sword and looked at me. "You okay?" he asked. What a question. I wanted to kill him.

It was Gavin from school.

"Tell me what on earth is going on!" I said for the tenth time. Avril had finally come out from the table.

"Oh god, what just happened?" she said.

We were sitting in the living room on the couches while he paced the floor, saying some pretty weird stuff. I insisted we call 911, but Gavin kept insisting, "No! That will ruin everything!" Oh, and I had an intense asthma attack. I had already taken several treatments from my inhaler. I didn't know this guy well, but here he was in my friend's house after he'd just saved me from an angry psychotic housekeeper. And he won't talk.

Finally, he spoke to me. "Okay, I hate what I have to do, but you need to know. You two are in danger." That was it?

"Well duh!" I yelled at him. "We get attacked by a wolf and a dragon lady-"

"A Kindly One." He corrected, then winced. "Wait, what did you say?"

"A wolf and a dra-"

"You mean like a Hellhound?" He asked.

"I don't know, genius. You tell me!"

"A Kindly One with a hellhound. Interesting." Then he stared me dead in the eyes. "Please listen. I can help you. It will take a long time to explain, but you're in danger."

"Start explaining." I ordered.

He sighed. "I am on a mission. A quest. Normally a Satyr would be doing this kind of work, but being an intern I was chosen to give a mission like this a shot to prove myself. I am a half-blood, and in short, so are you two."

I looked up at him. Half-blood?

He continued. "This means you're special, but you're in terrible danger. I need to get you to safety. That's my mission"

Avril beat me to it. "Where's safety?" She asked timidly.

"New York." he replied, a gleam in his eye. "Camp Half Blood. We need to go, and fast. I've asked for backup, but I don't think there's time."

I thought about that. He looked at Avril. "When your parents get back, they won't even remember that there ever was a Ms. Martha. Normally half-bloods are found at a much younger age by monsters like your housekeeper. By some miracle you've been protected until this time, but you two are particularly strong now. You don't realize it yet, but you are growing in your strength, which will bring more stuff like this. Which is why I need to get you to New York." A question was lingering in my head. "You said you were a half blood. What exactly does that mean?"

He took a deep breath, then smiled and shook his head. "It's half god." Then he straightened. "I am Gavin, son of Apollos the Olympian."

"Wait," Avril asked, "Olympian as in...?"

"Mythology?" he answered. "Yes."

"That...is insanely cool." Avril said, smiling.

I was still freaking out. So I'm half god?

"Don't worry." Gavin told me. "You'll get used to it."