Devastation can happen when you least expect it. Though most are oblivious to the occurrence that lingers ahead, someone, maybe only a solitary soul, but someone nevertheless always knows. When tragedy struck Artemis' hunters, it was done completely in the dark, as if we'd been lingering in a pitch black night, unable to see the truth.
The temperature is glacial. A dull numbness was seeping through the exterior of my boots, the color of the crescent moon itself, and into my toes. The force of a sheer breeze sends chilling vibrations down my spine and crystalizes my lips, turning them a sickly shade of lavender. Slender icy fingers clutch at my heart, attempting to puncture it to allow the cold to freeze it, too. As I blow a strand of my choppy, ash colored bangs away, I reach for my bow. An immense buck wanders the premises of the woods, weaving quaintly in an out of the trees as it goes. I pull back my bow and squint through one eye, waiting for the opportune moment to release my grip and impale the buck straight through the eyes. His beady black pupils stare at me from the distance. I take this miniscule hesitation of his to my advantage and released my hold. The arrow spirals through the air and hits him almost where I wanted, slightly misaligned due to his delayed reaction of sprinting at the last second. I jostle after the collapsed carcass of the animal, bow in hand, ready to heft the game back to Artemis.
When I get back to headquarters, a circle of shimmery tents set up in the form of the Greek omega, which if you ask me is audacious to call headquarters, Artemis has scrawled out a brief note that reads:
Gone out hunting. Be back shortly.
Thinking nothing of it, I dump the buck face-first next to the entrance of her tent, feeling content that Artemis would have a pleasant surprise when she returned. Upon barricading myself in blankets back at my tent, with a cracked and weathered terracotta mug filled to the brim with coffee, a bloodcurdling scream pierces the air. I jump, sloshing coffee all over my jacket. I curse in ancient Greek.
"Just great, now my boobs will smell like hazelnut," I murmured under my breath. I vacated the tent, and inhaled sharply, filling my nostrils with the crisp, clean scent of snow. A few feet into the woods, lies Kambia, a tall, thin Huntress known for her good aim, sprawled out like a corpse. Her hair, a rich honeycomb color, is spread out in a tangled mess, encircling her head like a halo. Her once tan complexion is white as a sheet. Her lips are cracked and bloody, and in the middle of her chest is a deep hole, carved out by a knife.
"Who did this to you?" I breathe wispily.
"Prometheus… has an army. He stabbed me. Run. Warn the others." She whispers hoarsely. I watch helplessly as her eyes went lifeless, and then I run. I bolt past the trees, tripping over the underbrush, the snow and my own two feet as my puppet limbs obey the single command given to me from Kambia. Run.
Suddenly, I feel the grip of a firm hand, sturdy as iron, deeming me motionless. I hear the distinct sound of a dagger being unsheathed. An abysmal voice rings in the silence of the woods.
"Sweet dreams," it hisses, and I shriek as I feel my side being gouged with a knife. I double over in pain clutching my sides. The sturdy fist, or maybe a boulder, I'm not quite sure, slams into my head, and the whole world blurs around me. I hear the Huntresses' battle cry as they engage in war around me. Dead bodies of Huntresses, hellhounds, and hyperboreans fall to the floor. And here I sit, a miserable little pygmy, defenseless. I try to stand, but instead, I am knocked out cold with a wooden club. Not dazed this time, unconscious.
Behind a wall of smoke and flame, death and destruction, blood and gore, I lay, descending into a deep sleep, accelerating into the abyss with every breath.
I awake in the Huntresses' infirmary. I've only been there once before, when a girl, Alana, had gotten fatally injured in a freak attack with a drakon in a period of Artemis' truancy. It was a tent similar to the ones in which we slept, only larger. Velvet pillows differing in shades of silver cascaded from a silky rucksack, carpeting the floor. Metallic baskets overflow with an assortment of ointment capsules, and antidotes. I try to roll myself up into a sitting position, but a screaming pain as noticeable as an emergency alarm shoots up my left side. I gasp in agony and lie back down to examine the injury. I twist sideways, crying out with the effort. Peering at the nasty gash, I realize just how horrific it is. Blood rushes furiously like raging rapids from the throbbing wound. The nearest pillow is submerged in my blood. It requires every ounce of my energy to cover the spout with my hands from which a scarlet waterfall emerges and apply pressure to slow the blood flow.
To my relief, Artemis burst through the entrance to infirmary.
"Are you alright?" She gasps genuinely. It sounded as if she had only inquired perfunctorily, but I know she was merely gulping for air because she had just come from a deadly battle scene. Though Artemis puts all of her Huntresses before anything else, my well- being was the least of my concerns.
"Did you kill them?" I demanded.
"Every last one. Now let's see that impale of yours, shall we? " She lamented in reply. Reluctantly, I hoist up my hunting jacket and unveil the grotesque slash engraved in my skin.
"Gods, Thal." She began. "That's no insignificant matter." Artemis hesitated, as if what she were about to say next pained her deeply. I projected her thought aloud, "I'm still fighting tomorrow."
"I can't let you do that." She recanted my statement solemnly. I set my jaw and contradict her wordlessly, purely by the expression I wear. Returning the silence, she selects a bandage from one of the thinly wired baskets and starts wrapping my lower torso, where the wound remains. I wince, grinding my teeth to resist the wild urge to scream. She bandages me in three layers, like a decrepit and corroded millennium old mummy.
Suddenly, an arrow with a scroll fastened to it floated gently down into the infirmary. Artemis froze upon seeing it, her icy blue irises swelling with anticipation.
"What is that?" I demand. I've never seen Artemis look so grieved in my life. Artemis says nothing; she only unravels the scroll and hands it to me, her face unmoving, as if it was a stone engraving. Taking the scroll in my hands, I begin to read:
Warrior maiden of the bow
Olympus perish or overthrow
Three beholders of the blade
In their hands a fate is placed
Sacred covenant shall not last
Bury three half-bloods in the past
I examined the prophecy over and over in sheer horror.
"Artemis?" I inquired shakily "You have a daughter, don't you?" I accused, aware of the tremor in my voice. All the goddess of the hunt could reply back with was a miserable little nod.
TO BE CONTINUED