My eyes opened slowly as if there were iron weights attached to them. The sky was the color of the blood of a fresh wound, and the clouds were as black as the cloak of death himself. The rubble of ruined buildings littered the streets, or should I say what's left of the streets. The streets were mainly just rubble mixed in with dirt and shards of glass. It strangely reminded me of crushed up oreo cookies. Almost all of the buildings were half destroyed or completely knocked down. Seattle's iconic space needle was half it's original size, but was still an iconic point in this ruined city. It stood taller than all the buildings around it. I remember looking at it when I was only a wee boy. My eyes used to light up when I saw it at night. I always thought it looked more like a beacon than a needle. It used to be a light that dazzled me when I was young and even today. But that light is gone now, and in it's place is a hollow tower of it's original greatness. It truly was a sad sight to see, especially if you're a fellow Seattleite. My head suddenly began to throb. I fell back to the rubbled with my vision blurring up. As I was losing conscious I heard a faint ringing in my ear. My eyelids opened as the ringing became louder and more obnoxious. When my eyes were fully opened I saw my white bedroom ceiling and the dark blue walls. It didn't take my mind long to figure out what I had just witnessed. It was another nightmare. These dreams were a recurring pattern in my world of sleep. It had been about two months since they first started. They didn't happen every night, but when they did it felt like it wasn't just a dream but instead a twisted reality that I was forced to inhabit. The time's they happened were unpredictable, but from what I noticed the nightmares always occur at least every three days. I wasn't counting how many dreams I had about this, but no matter how many times I had them they all were in the same place. It was always that ruined version of Seattle that looked like it came out of apocalypse monthly. It had been about two months since they first started. I yawned loudly as I rose from my bed. My alarm clock was still buzzing loudly. "Shut up," I muttered as I pressed the off button. I slumped back into bed to get five more minutes of sleep. Suddenly, a sting erupted in my forehead. I quickly got up and held my hand to where the pain was. I looked down to my lap to find my culprit. It was a blue rubber band. I began to hear the all too familiar laugh of my best friend, Rob "Goddammit, Rob!" I muttered loudly.
"Wakey, wakey, Percy," Rob said in a cheerful voice. As my vision cleared, I saw the joking smile Rob loved to parade around like a badge. His long dark brown hair was slicked back, and his green eyes appeared to be shining in the light that was shining through the window. Rob had been my best friend for god knows how long. Some of you probably had that friend that you can never trace the roots of your friendship. For me that was Rob. It didn't seem our friendship had a definitive beginning. We just were always friends. Even our parents had a hard time giving our friendship a specific date and time. That didn't bother me and Rob though. We hadn't cared about how we met. The only thing that matters is that we were friends now, but just because we had been best friends doesn't mean that he can't be a freeloading asshole who shoots rubber bands at people instead of walking them up because he thinks it's funny. In fact that's exactly what I would use to describe his personality. Well, I've been told that I'm a snarky, sarcastic asshole so I guess that it's no wonder we're best friends. It's a match made in heaven.
"Rob, seriously that's the third time this month. Can't you leave me alone for like… five minutes?" I said yawning as I looked up to see my brown haired friend.
"Well I would if you didn't have the habit of going back to sleep after your alarm goes off," he said with mischief in his green eyes. "Now get out of bed or else I'm going to have to do something drastic. Your mom's making blueberry pancakes, and She won't serve them unless you come down. He held up another rubber band with an evil smile in his eyes.
"Alright I'll be down in a sec. I'm just going to get ready," I said still yawning.
"Make sure not to be late or else I'm going to eat the rest," Rob said playfully .I quickly went to my wardrobe and got my clothes. Once I got dressed, I looked in my mirror. My blonde hair was golden, but there were tiny darker streaks in my hair. My eyes seemed no different from before. They were electric blue, but seemed to be slightly darker than they usually were. I didn't elaborate why I looked differently at the time and in my ignorance blamed it on the lighting. Satisfied with how I looked, I hurried down my stairs to the kitchen. I was greeted by the shine of white tiles and the smell of bacon cooking. In the small round table sat Rob who started eating without me.
Good morning, Percy," Mom said sweetly. She looked like she had gotten prepared for work before hand because her blonde hair had been straightened and she was dressed in a dark blue business suit.
"thanks for breakfast mom," I said with a smile. She looked at me and gave a tired smile back. It was obvious that she had to stay up late last night to do work. Looking at her condition almost made me cringe. I guess I should fill you in on my family matters. My mother told me that father had walked out on us long when my mother was in her twenties. My mom came from a broken family. My grandmother died when mom was only four. Apparently after that my mom's father relied on the bottle to comfort his sorrows. He then stopped paying the bills or even working. The only thing he did was drink and drink. that caused the entire family to go into large amounts of debt. My grandfather didn't care though. The bottle was all he cared about at that point. When the old bastard finally kicked the bucket the damage was already done. They would have lost the house if it wasn't for my uncle Rodney. Uncle Rodney was my mom's eldest sibling, and he had fortunately had his college tuition paid for. He also already had a job as an electrical engineer. When he heard that his siblings were in trouble he didn't hesitate to come over and do whatever he could to make things right. He was barely able to keep the entire house afloat. He managed to barely keep the house from going into foreclosure, and he was barely able to keep the my mother and her three siblings from falling apart. Without him I'd be very likely that my life would be very different if I was born at all. But the damage was already done. My mother and her siblings college accounts were drunken and gambled away. Fortunately my moms siblings still had a good two years at most to build it back up but my mother had already graduated high school. She had to get college loans to stay leaving her with a mountain of debt by the end of college. And that's when she met my father. To this day she still hasn't paid off the debt that accumulated when she went to college. She always said it was fine but I knew it wasn't. A month ago I when I went down to get a glass of water. I had just had that nightmare, and I wanted something to calm my nerves. I went down the stairs quietly because mom also works a lot on the computer so it was common for her to fall asleep while working. To my surprise though, I saw mom talking on the looked absolutely horrible. Her blonde hair was disorganized and thrown all over the place, her face showed lines of worry and fear, and she was biting her nails which is a habit mom had when she was stressed. I remember her saying Rodney please, and when she said that I immediately assumed that she was talking to Uncle Rodney. It was obvious that she was asking for money from him. I didn't hear what he said back to her, but it was obvious it didn't make her happy one bit.
"I'm in over my head Rodney! Please I need your help! I have a son whose father isn't doing jack shit to help us, and you can't spare some money to help us!" My mom said screaming. Mom's eyes widened and her mouth opened at the realization of her outburst. "I'm sorry," she said tearfully, "It's just been so in 40,000 dollars of debt, and I just need some help please," mom said as small driblets of tears ran down her face. I had to bite my tongue to keep from making a sound. How were we in such bad shape. I knew we weren't in the greatest financial space before hand, but this was just unbelievable. My mother was able to make 60,000 dollars a year, but deducting all the expenses for food, clothing, etc she wouldn't have enough to pay off all the debt. she then said she was considering going into debt consolidation even though there was a chance that if she did she'd go bankrupt. After that I slid away undetected. I didn't even want any water. I had lost my will to drink when I heard that. If any of you had been in a bad financial position like this you'd know where we were coming from. The stress of the possibility that you may lose everything thing you have is something that can keep you up for more than one night. Anyway on to more lighter topics. As I sat down Robert flashed me His traditional sorry for doing that, but not really because I'm going to do it again the next chance you give me grin.
"Thank you robert for not only not waiting for me but eating half of the food even though this is my house, and you're lucky to be even allowed here much less eat here," I said snarkily.
"Blame puberty," he said with a stuffed face.
"That's your excuse for literally everything. When you fail a math test just blame puberty, don't give back money you borrowed, just blame puberty, become a psychopathic axe murder who rapes his victimes before killing them, just blame puberty and everything will be alright.
"That's my basic philosophy at least. Hey, there's still some bacon left," He said as he extended his hand.
"Oh, no you don't asshole." I picked up my spoon slammed into his fingers causing him to screech. Some electricity must have been in my strike because he convulsed for a second
"Jesus Perc! Is pig fat really that important to you?" he said as he sucked his wounded fingers.
"Blame puberty," I muttered as I took the entire plate for myself.
"Oh, so you're going all alpha male on me now, and hoarding all the food for yourself," he said snarkily. What's next are you going to take all the females for yourself while you leave me with a mound of dirt to pleasure myself with?"
"In a perfect world I'd be the only one with proper gentials to reproduce with, so I could pick and choose. But that isn't that far off from my idea of paradise." I quickly checked the wall clock to see how much time I had left, and of course just when I started eating I only had five minutes left. Yeah that's just great. Now I have to guzzle my food down my throat like I'm in hot dog eating contest. Oh, and for the people who are…. slow I'm being sarcastic. Alright that's one time I've insulted your intelligence in this story so let's see how many times I can. As I munched down everything I couldn't help but notice how relaxing life is like this. Sure sometimes none debt related problems can come into our lives, but we can deal with them. The idea of how peaceful it was made me smile. But those relatively sunny moments are soon going to be covered by the black cloud of debt. Remembering the gigantic hurricane heading our way made my smile disappear as quick as it came .I didn't know how long we had until we had to face this problem, but I knew no matter how long it took we'd have to deal with it either way. The thought made my food taste bland and soggy even though pancakes was one of my favorite meals for breakfast. Rob began to poke my arm with his fork like I was an odd piece of mystery meat that you see being served in your stereotypical shallow slice of life high school books. He smiled at me. His teeth were nearly white except a few blemishes on the top. I smiled back at good thing about Rob is that he's able to tell when your upset about something. Granted he doesn't do anything to significant on most occasions, but who said he needed to. Rob knew I liked to keep my problems to myself, so he figured that he would show that he cared about my problems in a tiny way. Letting me now that I'm not alone per say. He knew trying to squeeze into my problems would only make it worse. My mentality back then was to keep it locked up and let it die out like it was an animal in a cage without any food or water. The flaw with that is that the cage is only so big. You can't fit an elephant in a lion cage no matter how hard you try .To a degree I still do that now. Not that I don't rely on peoples help, but if I think the problem can be handled on my own I'll handle it on my own. Mom said that it wasn't healthy to keep things bottled up, but from experience it worked wonders for me.
"Oh look at the time! Boy's it's time to head off to school," Mom said. I cursed under my breath. I had barely finished half of my food, and now I'm going to be hungry until lunch. That's just perfect. I cleaned my plate off, got my bag, and waited for Rob at the door. Before we left mom kissed my cheek. "have a good day you two. I'll see you when you get home Percy."
"Ok, love you to mom," I said quickly as Rob and I headed out the door. The walk to our school was normally long, tedious, and boring, but today was different though. The smell of spring flowers from people's yards gave the air a pleasant smell . It was definitely a step above the rather bland and depressing look of winter this year. We didn't get a lot of snow this year so the trees were stuck in this dead and barren state. There was rarely enough snow to give the trees that genuine white christmas look, so through the entire winter we were stuck with this gray, depressing look of Seattle. Now it finally seemed like nature was beginning to get back it's personality. The walk to school wasn't long one, but looking back on it I could remember every detail of the walk. The temperature was in the high sixties, the morning dew soaked my shoes as we cut through someone's lawn. Hell, Rob even made his typical immature jokes, and incase any of you were wondering yes I did laugh. I was twelve at the time so what do you honestly expect. We were about two minutes away from school I felt a large spherical object hit my head as I was walked. I turned around with rage in my eyes to see the culprit. Rickey High looked at me with that disgusting smug smile on showing off his clear white very sight of him made me want to barth on his silky blonde hair. Rickey was your typical douchebag pretty boy. He had a build that represented a model even though he's in seventh grade, designer clothes that was probably worth more than my entire house, hair so light that you might mistake him for an albino if you're far away, and pale blue eyes that seemed to be almost white. His personality consisted of such a generic middle school bully he might as well be on your typical kids comedy like Icarly or Victorious. He reminded me of that bully from altered fates. They were essential the same people with both of them thinking they're better than you, and will eventually get their ass kicked by the main protagonist. Oh I just spoiled something there, but this is the prologue and I bet 87% of you have already figure out how this chapter will end. The only real difference between them is that Colt takes tennis lessons. It's kinda hard to imagine this towering figure in white shorts and a polo shirt
"Well, isn't it the two lovers. Do you guys ever separate from each other?" Rickey said smiling cockishly. I felt like punching all his clear white teeth out, and replace it with a bloody mess. But unfortunately I knew if I tried not only would I get my ass kicked, but I'd get in trouble as well. Blowing up any electronic was also out of the question because if I did that he'd likely be horribly to the point of no return. But as much as I hated Rickey, he did have a point. Rob and I were with each other nearly twenty four seven. We did have other friends, but when we saw them me and Rob were usually together. So, it could be easy to mistake me and Rob had something going on. Some people actually asked if we were dating, but we both denied it right away. Rickey knew we weren't gay, but he still called us fag, queer, homo, and of course who could forget to gay to live. His cocky didn't waver as he said, "You guys know me that you're mistakes right? Homosexuality wasn't designed to exist," he said as he flipped back his starchy hair. I clenched my teeth. I knew he was batting me into a conflict, but he was just so damn good at doing it. I couldn't help but to respond.
"Screw off you bigoted ass wipe," I said irritably. His snarky smile grew. He was like a mosquito draining blood from his victim if the blood was my life force and tolerance.
"Big talk for someone who should be wearing a dress." My blood began to burn like it was oil light on fire. I charged at him. Looking back on it that wasn't a good idea considering he was a towering 6.2 and I was only 5.7 at the time. He didn't react as I ran towards him. Just as my fist came close to his face I felt a sharp pain in my stomach. I didn't even see him swing his fist. It was like the wind had socked me in the gut .I moaned slowly as I kneeled down and clutched my stomach. "Well, it look's like someone just tried to attack me," he said as a sadistic grin popped on his face. "So that mean's you accept the consequences of whatever's going to happen next," he said as he cracked his knuckles.
CLUNK!
Rickey staggered back in pain as a tennis ball bounced on the ground. I took that moment to stamper away from him. Rob picked me up and we made a quick dash.
" Hey, maybe you shouldn't pick on someone who should be wearing a dress," Rob said as we dashed away.
"Just you wait! Both of you will pay!" he screamed at us. His white hair was in his eyes as he screamed. We didn't stop until the school was close in our sight.
"Whew! You really saved my ass out there, Rob," I said painting like a dog.
"Well, I couldn't just leave my best friend to get beat up by an albino," Rob said.
Our ears were met with the ring of a bell and the rumbling of feet. Hundreds of kids crowded together at shoulder length struggled to get into the three tiny doors. I didn't even bother trying to join into the fray. If I was a bit earlier I would have clawed my way through the door, but since I was late I'd have to wait for the crowd to die down. Once the crowd died down we slipped in effortlessly through the door. Once we were in we quickly hurried towards the elevator. Now that was something worth fighting for. Everybody hated walking up three flights of stairs just to get to their class, and everyone was willing to fight tooth and nail to get in. Now you may be thinking that I'm overaccterating how popular the elevator is, but I'm being 100% serious with you. By the time I was able to get in someone had kicked me in the groin and punched my neck, so to say the least the experience wasn't very pleasant. The elevator had ten people inside despite being made to fit only eight, so we all were packed in like sardines. Not like I was even paying attention to the fact that I was packed in with a bunch of sweaty teenagers because my crotch was still killing me. Once Robert and I were off the elevator, he and I went to our separate homerooms. No words were exchanged as we went our separate ways. We both knew that we're going to be stuck with each other when school let's out. When I got to my class I was greeted by a hello from Mr. Brunner who was sitting in his desk. Mr. Brunner was my english teacher and my homeroom teacher. He's a middle aged teacher who thinning brown hair, bushy eyebrows, a scruffy beard that was half it's original length now that it was spring , and dark brown eyes that seemed to stare into your soul when he was upset. He also always seemed to be nice to me for some reason like I was special which I would immediately say I was even before it happened. I realized why he was treating me like I special when I met his brothers two years later, but of course that's another story for another day. I took my seat next to the window. The early morning sunlight poured through the glass and blinded my eyes. I quickly turned away but there were little green and purple dots in my eyes. I called those little dots floaters because guess what they float in your eyes. Yes I'm being sarcastic there again for people who are slow learners. Well I've insulted you the viewers intelligence twice now! Maybe this can become a thing. When the announcements began to drone over loudspeaker is when I began to enter what I call stand by mode. Stand by mode is basically my body shutting down until further notice. My vision goes fuzzy and sounds become blurry. The only clear thing is my thoughts. My thoughts began to wander back to the dream that's plagued me for two months. It wasn't rare for my mind to wander my nightmare, but no matter how hard I thought upon it I never came up with anything. Mom and the psychiatrist thought that the nightmares were rooted with some psychological issues with my father or more accurately lack of one, but I've never actually felt bad for not having a dad. With the divorce rates being fifty percent I can't see how I'd end up more psychologically damaged than my peers whose parents are divorced. Some could make the argument that I would end off worse because I've never had a father figure in my life, but I've also never really felt alone or uncomfortable without one. Now the real question is if my lack of a father figure isn't to blame here than what is? My thoughts were interrupted short when I heard the dull sound of chairs clanning and my peers getting up. Discarding my previous thoughts for another time, I headed to my next class. That day was actually a typical school day for me. I sat through Mrs. Manzi's boring french class, I eat the sandwich mom made me,and I rushed through my homework in D.A or directed advisory. When the bell finally rang I casually met up with Rob and left the building. After talking with some of our other friends, we both left the area. The wind was beginning to pick up as we walked. I noticed Rob looking at me oddly.
"What? Do I have something on my face?" I said calmly.
"No, no you just look weird," Rob said as he looked away from me.
"Pshh. I'm beutiful Rob, so you should shut your pig faced mouth," I said sarcastically as I turned my head with a hmph. Despite the way I played off his statement, I couldn't help but look at reflection each time I saw glass or any other shiny surface. From what I saw, I fit the description of weird. My eyes which were once electric blue were sinking into an darkish, almost purple color. My hair wasn't looking much better either. It had lost it's golden blonde look and had more dark strands in it.
"Shit. Maybe I'm sick or something," I said with a little quiver in my voice.
"Relax. It's probably just the lighting," Rob said trying to reassure me.
"No, no that can't be it." I looked up to see the sun shining. "There's nothing blocking the sunlight."
"Hey, you probably shouldn't worry about this too much right now. For all we know nothing could be wrong with you. If you aren't suffering from any physical pain than I wouldn't stress about it too much.
"So basically you're saying that I shouldn't be worried that my eyes and hair have changed color? That's a swell idea Rob!"
"Relax it was just a joke, Perc."
"Really because I doubt you can't tell a joke without a dick involved." He playfully shoved me. The wind felt like daggers on my skin and made me shiver. The news didn't predict that it was going to be windy, but it wouldn't be the first time that they were wrong before. As we walked, the wind began to pick up more intensity. New green leaves were knocked off their trees and sent into the air.
"Hey guys," a harsh tone said from behind. When I turned around I saw Colt 's silk blonde hair, snarky smile, and smoky, black wings. I stepped back quickly. I was almost going to say "the fuck!" but Rob beat me to it " Well, isn't it nice to see you two again. I still haven't paid you back for trying to attack me son of Zeus, and I suppose I can also deal with that little nuisance that threw a tennis ball at me. A forceful blast of wind struck me like a metal bat. I braced myself for the hard brick wall, but was surprised when my body slammed into the cold, hard ground. I was in a dark alley. As I struggled to get up, moaning was evident ahead of me. There I saw Rob lying on the ground. Colt was tracing a dagger near Rob's throat. There was a small gash on his forehead. "So Robert, describe to me in detail how funny it was to throw that tennis ball at me. Don't be shy," He said mockingly. Colt cut a wound on Rob's arm. My anger began to flare. Using my newfound strength, I charged at Colt . I didn't even get close to him. I was brushed aside like a paper bag into the wall. He fixed his gaze on me. "Wait your turn son of Zeus. I'll handle you after I deal with this little nuisance," Colt said as he immediately went back to torching Rob. I didn't even know what he was talking about when he said called me a son of Zeus, but I didn't even care. My rage was growing by the millisecond. I grabbed a stray rock on the floor and sprinted at Colt
"Get the fuck off him!" I screamed as I threw it at him. The rock slammed into his cheek with tremendous force. A deep gash broke through the skin of his cheek. A golden liquid dripped out of the wound. A powerful gale of wind immediately slammed me to the ground.
"Oh! Looks like someone's getting a little ballsy!" He said sadistically. "I'll make sure that you're death is extra painful!" A twisted smile appeared on his face as he turned his attention back to Rob. "But first." Colt walked back to Rob and held the dagger to his throat. "I'm gonna kill him."
"Don't you dare you fuck!" I struggled to get up, but another gale of wind slammed me back.
"Ah, ah, ah! You'll have to wait your turn for me to kill you," he said mockingly. My anger began to morph into fear for both Rob's and my life.
"Please. Don't do this," I said sorrowfully. Rickey's smile grew into a sadistic grin. He pressed the knife against Rob's throat. tiny beads of blood appeared on Rob's throat as he pressed it down. Rob's eye's seemed to spring back to life as the blood began to leak from his neck.
"Stop now!" I stuttered. "Please!"
"You see maybe I'd consider sparing his life if you didn't throw that rock at me." He slid the blade slowly across Rob's neck. Rob's mouth seemed to open slowly and close as if he was trying to speak, His eyes flickered rapidly like he thought he was dreaming this scene, and this entire time he stared at me with eyes that practically screamed help. Rob's eye fluttering stopped when Colt cut his entire throat. Colt let go of Rob's hair. Rob fell to the ground lifelessly. A pool of blood began to gather around Rob's throat. I didn't make an effort to get up. I didn't have the strength or will to move. My body had completely shut down. I barely even noticed the pain of the dagger as it went directly into my stomach. The warm red liquid began to pour out like a river. I made no effort to even fight. It was hopeless after all. Rob was dead and I was stabbed. Even if I tried to fight I'd be killed quickly, So I just laid there waiting for death to whisk me away to gods no where. I heard Colt spit. "Pathetic. You're the only son of Zeus I've seen to just give up, but I guess I can't expect more from a demigod who was raised by mortals," He said with disgust. He turned his head back to Rob.
"Oh, it looks like your friend managed to live getting a slit throat. I guess I didn't cut deep enough. Well, that's okay. It's an easy mistake to fix." He held up his dagger and walked towards Rob. Athena told me that my transformation occurred at age twelve because that was the time that your average demigod powers begin to appear, but she also said that being fatally wounded by Colt could have possibly accelerated the process. I can't help but disagree with that because when I saw Colt going to finish Rob off I felt something powerful and dangerous bellow through me. Newfound anger began to pour into me, but this anger was different. It was a primordial anger that was beyond human rational. No thoughts came through me but to kill the threat. .I remember hearing jolts of electricity as my wound quickly closed. I got up quickly despite slipping a few times.
"Let him go," I said coolly.
"Oh, so I guess I did a poor job on yo-." He stopped. Colt's face contorted from cockiness to fear in an instant.I didn't even register it at the time. I moved as fast as the wind and grabbed Colt. I was moving so fast that a brick wall was the only thing that stopped me. I slammed my hand onto Colt's forehead. I pulsed as much electricity as I could into him. He screamed in agony as was being electrocuted. He was eventually reduced to nothing but a pile of ashes, burnt meat, and bones. I felt myself calm down. I then immediately turned my attention back to Rob. He was bleeding out pretty bad, but I could still see him breathing. I began to run to him only to fall back down. A dark aura began to form around me. I couldn't move. I could only watch as everything began to get consumed by darkness. The alley, the rock, Colt's remains, and Rob were all consumed by the waves of darkness. What I saw next was worse than I could have ever seen in my nightmares.