In The Light of Zeus
Chapter 1: The Children of Zeus
My world is surrounded in darkness, pure darkness. I feel sad, misery, I feel pain. No where specific is the worse part, I can't pinpoint where on my body it hurts… It just hurts everywhere.
"Carter." A low raspy voice calls through the darkness. This voice is all to familiar, the voice that has haunted my dreams for years. "Carter." I hear the voice call out to me. I try to turn my body to look around but it won't budge as the world of darkness begins to shake. "Carter." I hear again.
"Shut up!" I scream back to it and my eyes fly open, causing my mother, who was over top of me saying my name, to jump backwards. "Mom…" I breathe and looked around to see I was still in my room. The blinds were shut as usual and I could feel the cold sweat on my body, like it always was after a nightmare.
"Carter honey…" My mother says as she runs her fingers through my hair, she has a card in her hand, right, it was my birthday. "Did you have another nightmare? You look like you've seen a ghost." She said with a frown.
I take a deep breath and nodded, "Yeah mom, I get them a lot." I say and lay my head back down on my pillow with a sigh.
My mother sits there for a second silent, looking far more worried then she usually does. "Well, shake it off." She said. "It's your 16th birthday, it's a milestone in life. I have a card but you're going to get a lot more presents tonight at dinner with the family." She said with a smile.
"Yeah, you know what else it is? The first day of school." I reply impatiently and take the card, I know I shouldn't be so rude to her but I've been plagued with this same nightmare for years now, about 4, and I don't know who is calling out to me. Could it be my father? I haven't seen him since I was 8, but I don't remember his voice being so raspy.
"Alright… I'll leave you alone." She finally says and kissed my forehead, "Just get ready for school." She stands ups and steps over mountains of dirty clothes strewn across the floor just to exit my room.
A few moments pass as I stare at the ceiling, thinking to myself. Most years my birthday was on the first day of school, August 25th. I stand up and take my t shirt off and boxers and grab a towel and head to the bathroom. I take a shower that seemed to be five minutes, like they always do, till I hear banging on the door.
"Carter! You've been in there for twenty-five minutes hurry up! You're going to make me late for my first day of school!" I hear my little sister, Sarah, banging on the bathroom door. It's my 14 year old sisters first day of high school. "Carter!" She yells again as she bangs on the door. I also have a 7 year old brother, named Travis.
I take another deep breath as a lean my head forward on the shower wall, the incredibly hot water pouring down onto my back and shoulders. "Alright, alright I'll be out in a second." Irritation evident in my tone. About another few moments and I shout the water off and wrap the towel around my waist, walking out of the bathroom dripping wet. "Happy?" I grunt to her and she glares at me and goes into her room.
After about 10 minutes I head downstairs to see my mother feeding Travis. The mornings were always rough for both of them, considering my mother had to get to work which means Travis had to wake up early every morning. "Morning." I say to her again.
Travis looks up tiredly but seems excited to see me. "Carter! Happy Birthday!" He exclaimed with a smile.
I couldn't help but smile at this, first day of Junior year or not, seeing my little brother so excited to see me always made me happy. "Good morning buddy." I say and quickly ruffle his hair. "Did mom make you some pancakes?" I asked him as I looked at my mother, who truthfully never made meals. She always just gave us cereal; it was only because it was my birthday.
Travis nodded, "Yeah, she did." He said simply as he looked down at the plate.
"Are they good?" I ask him simply as I grab some orange juice out of the fridge and sat down at the table and looked at him.
Travis hesitated and looked at me for moment and shook his head, "No, not really." He said.
"Hey!" My mother exclaims as I couldn't keep myself from laughing a little. "I try my best. There's only so much that I can do." My mother laughed a little herself.
I smirk a bit and grab a plate and got some pancakes and even some bacon. "Well… I mean…" I look at them for a second and sigh a little. "They're only a little burnt." I tease my mother a little and sat down across from her and but some syrup on them. "Thank you for making it mom, I'm sure they're good."
Travis made a face as he rested his head on his arm and shook his head a little as he looked right at me. "Hey, enough." My mother says and nudged him. "I tried my best you spoiled little punk."
"I mean, the bacon isn't that bad." I say with a small laugh as I see my sister walk in, her blonde hair long and also soaking wet, similar to mine.
"Look at me." Sarah said grumpily. "I'm a mess and it's because of you. I could of actually looked good today and you took practically a half an hour in the shower." She snapped, glaring hard at me.
I hear even my mother sigh a little, "Sarah, you have fifteen minutes till we have to leave. So you can either go dry and do your hair or you can eat my apparently burnt pancakes." She said, looking at Sarah. "Besides I like your outfit, you do look good. Are you excited? It's You're first day of high school."
Sarah stared at our mother for a moment as she looked at my and sat her hand on Travis's head. "Yeah, I'm excited." She said, seeming to be telling the truth. "I'm going to go dry my hair. I'll just… Take some bacon and a banana." She said and quickly rushed off back upstairs.
I minded my own business during the conversation and finished eating the pancakes, "You know she hasn't said happy birthday to me. I think she forgot." I say, trying not to sound like I'm mad or offended, though honestly I am kind of offended.
"She didn't forget." My mother responds to me simply.
I stared at her for a moment, "And why do you think that?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.
"She's your sister Carter, and all you two do is fight." She laughs a little as she stared at me. "All you two do is fight, she didn't forget, she's just being a little sister. I used to do it with my brothers." She said seriously.
"I mean even if she did, I don't care." I say honestly, which isn't entirely true. "I mean it's the first day of high school, she's happy, nervous and excited, I hope today is special for her." That part was true. Sarah, as much as she gets on my nerves, is far more of a peoples person then I am. I'm good with people, I have a friend group, but she can have multiple friend groups. She's good at bouncing between people and honestly I know she's going to be incredibly happy and probably popular.
About fifteen minutes later Sarah came downstairs and grabbed a banana and some bacon just like she said she would. She stared at me for a few moments, "Oh yeah… And happy birthday Carter." She said.
I couldn't keep myself from smirking a little, "Thank you." I said. "I almost thought you forgot." I say simply.
"Alright, come on you guys, it's time to go." My mother says and Sarah and I grab our backpacks and head outside with our mother and Travis. We got in my mothers car and about twenty minutes later we arrived at the high school.
I stared at it, honestly not to happy about coming back. Delaware's a small state, not much goes on here, and I can't wait to get out of this place. I'm excited that in ten years I'll hopefully have a spouse, kids, and hopefully a phone. I try to picture what 2008 would be like, ten years from now. It was hard to believe it was 1998 and the year 2000 seemed just around the corner. After all I'll be graduating as the high school class of 2000.
"You guys ready?" My mother asks and looks at me as she pulls up to the school. I look back to my sister and see her nod and even look a little nervous.
"We'll be fine. Lets go." I say and get out of the car, my sister stepping out with me from the backseat.
"Have a good day!" My mother calls from the car.
I head into the school with my sister and looked at her, "You'll be fine, ok?" I say seriously. "You've already had a day without the other classes and got to know the school. You'll be fine." I try to reassure her.
"I know…" Sarah says and bite her lip, "But I didn't go with other students." She said, "I only have a few friends who came from middle school with me. What if the other kids don't like me? What if the upperclassmen pick on me?" She laughed a little awkwardly.
I smirked a bit in amusement, "They won't pick on you, or else they'll have me to deal with." I say seriously and nudge her a little. "And so would my friends." He said. "But don't talk to them, they're off limits." I say.
Sarah smiles and rolls her eyes. "Fine, whatever." She says. "I'm going to go meet my friend, I'll see you later today." She says and heads off in another direction.
I start to head towards a hallway that my friends and I have met each other in the morning every year to socialize. We call it the circle just because we stand in a circle and talk before classes start every morning. I see my friends Emily, Katherine, Zack and Joseph standing there already. Katherine and Justin used to date and broke up last year but they still remained friends. Emily and Zack always have had a thing for one another but have never really openly acted on there feelings. I've known all of them since 6th grade, except Zack was a year older then all of us and is a Senior. Though I started school a year early and all my other friends, besides Zack, are already 16 and will be turning 17 this school year.
"Hey guys." I said with a smile.
Once they all see me they turn to me and smile, "Happy birthday!" They exclaimed, almost in perfect unison. They all know that I hate how much my birthday is on the first day of school.
Emily hugs me and looks at me, "How does it feel?" She asked, "Do you feel any different?" She asked curiously.
I shake my head simply, "Honestly not really. I feel tired and I don't want to be here." I say truthfully.
"Oh come on." Katherine said, "You don't feel even a little different?" She asked, "I mean I did."
"So did I." Joseph spoke up.
I look over to see Zack smirking a bit, "I never did." He laughed a little.
"Yeah I was going to say, I didn't feel anything either." Emily said with a small laugh.
Katherine scoffed and rolled her eyes a little, "See, that's the difference between you two and us two, we actually have a little… I guess you could call it hope." She said.
Emily raised an eyebrow, "Katherine, what does hope have to do with anything?" She said an crossed her arms. "It might make you delusional, but not hopeful." She joked a little and nudged her. However we all know Emily, we know she meant that, even if it was just a little.
Katherine rolled her eyes, "Whatever." She said.
I hesitate for a second and finally speak up, "Either way that categorizes me with them." I say simply and Kathrine opens her mouth to say something but the 5 minute bell rings.
"I guess we should get to class." Katherine said. "I guess I'll see you guys later at Carter's." She said.
I nodded simply, my mother was planning a party for friends and family tonight for my birthday. Honestly I was kind of excited, a secret part of me hoped my father would show up… considering according to some people 16 is a "milestone." He had sent gifts almost every year but I haven't seen him in forever, I hate to say that I barley remember what he looked like.
I turn around and head to my first class, Honors Pre-Calculus. The teacher seemed nice enough, though the class itself, I was never really all that into. My dyslexia really screwed up my ability to do any type of math. That class goes by incredibly slowly until my next class, Honors Chemistry, luckily, with one of my favorite teachers. Her name is Mrs. Pritchett and she's been my homeroom teacher for the past two years. However she only teaches Juniors and seniors. Chemistry and Physics. Her and I have gotten extremely close, she would help me a lot with my math for the past two years, she always seemed like she was there for me.
"Carter Williams." I hear my name as Mrs. Pritchett takes roll and I look up.
"Hear." I call and she looks at me, smiles and nods to me and looks back down and continues to take roll. Mrs. Pritchett, after she takes roll, starts to hand out textbooks and right away, begins teaching. Somehow I'm not surprised that on the first day that she's the teacher who decides to begin right away. The class passes surprisingly quickly, I always enjoyed science as well.
The class ends and I make my way down to lunch, I have first lunch, and luckily I have lunch with Katherine and Emily.
"So how has your guys first day been?" Katherine asked, looking between myself and Emily.
"Honestly, pretty well I guess." I reply simply. "Until now." I say as I pick up one of the dried gross chicken nuggets and set it down. I have absolutely no interest in eating the school lunch.
"I second that." Emily said, "Lunch always makes me want to gag." She sighed as she stared at the food.
Katherine hesitated for a second as she thought for a second and pulled her lunch box out, "Well… I would say try to look on the bright side however I couldn't agree more, the school lunch is horrific." She said.
Emily laughed a little bit, "So, what fun activities do you think your mom is planning tonight?" She asked a little teasingly. All my friends know how my mom can go a little overboard with things, especially Emily. Her and I are incredibly close, we've known on another since 2nd grade, and multiple points in my life I thought I had feelings for her, even recently. However I've always known that her and Zack have had a thing, and dating your best friend is obviously incredibly complicated.
I laugh as well, "Probably a bunch of board games and then other games like pin the tail on the donkey, I wouldn't put that past her." I said honestly, "I'm not even sure who of my family will actually be there."
"I hope your Great-Aunt Carol is there." Katherine spoke up, "Because she's so nice and she always makes the best kind of chocolate cake." She said with a laugh.
I nod a little, "I think she will be, I'm not entirely sure." I say simply.
"Oh I have to stop by the office." Katherine spoke up, "Do you guys mind coming with me?" She asked as lunch came to an end and we headed back up to the office. After Katherine picked up her paper so that she could drive to school this year.
"What classes do you guys have right now?" I asked, looking between Emily and Katherine, the halls had pretty much cleared up.
"Emily and I have sociology together." Kathrine said, looking over at me as we walked.
"Oh cool, I have psychology." I say as we make it to the upper level. We continue to talk as we walked to the social studies hallway and I look at Emily and crack a joke which makes her smile. She pauses and her smile falls. "Whats wrong?" I ask and looked forward to see two people standing about twenty feet away. "Emily?" I ask.
Emily doesn't hesitate and quickly pulls out what seems to be a pocket knife, flips it open and all of a sudden it turns into a sword. Like a literal sword, right before my eyes. The sword seemed to be some type of bronze and almost seemed to admit some sword of golden glow. "Emily what the h-" I get cut off as Katherine pulls off a necklace she's wearing and all of a sudden it turns into a bow and the next thing I know she has arrows as well that seemed to be made out of the same bronze that Emily's sword was.
"Guys what the heck are you doing?" I asked in confusion as I look around, confused and scared out of my mine. I turn to see two more teenagers behind us as well.
"Carter." Emily spoke up, irritation in her tone, "Take a closer look." She said as she seemed to turn around and get in a fighting stance.
I look at her in confusion and stare forward towards the two people. Something strange seems to happen, it's almost like I can see a little clearer, like a fog had lifted. The teenagers suddenly seemed to turn into two skeleton's, yes, Skelton's. These skeleton's both have swords and even shields with them. "What is going on?" I ask in confusion as I turn around and the two teenagers behind us also seemed to turn into skeleton's. "What are these things? And why do you have weapons?" I ask in confusion as Katherine 'loads' her bow and aims it for one of them and Emily still stands in a fighting position.
"They're called Spartus or in some cases, Spartoi. They're skeleton warriors." Katherine informs me, which obviously makes no sense.
"Okay I can see that but why-"
"Carter." Emily snaps at me, seeming impatient as the two skeleton warriors start to draw closer to her.
"Yeah?" I say, I can feel my hear pumping practically a mile a minute as I look from left to right, watching both the girls stand there ground as the warriors come closer.
"Shut up and stay behind us." Emily says and quickly rushes for the skeleton warriors. There swords meet quickly and the other lunges for Emily. Emily quickly dodges its attack and kicks It right in the rib cage, sending it stumbling backward. The skeleton warriors pulls away and starts repeatedly slashing at Emily who blocks every move. Finally Emily manages to counter the skeleton, doing a move that disarms the skeleton, sending it's sword flying. However the skeleton quickly slams his shield at Emily, hitting her straight in the chest, now causing her stumble backwards.
"Carter watch out?" Katherine yelled and as I turn I see a sword coming straight for my head. I practically yelp and quickly roll out of the way, looking towards Katherine was had to dodge every attack another skeleton warrior is throwing at her. Katherine obviously had a long ranged weapon and the skeleton had multiple arrows lodged into its bones. "Emily!" She shouted as she did the same as I did and rolled out of the way. "Why aren't they turning into dust?" She asked.
"I don't know." Emily shouted back and quickly moved forward to on the skeleton again and slashed at it repeatedly, this time she had the advantaged.
I see the skeleton warrior coming for me again and I quickly stumble backward as the warrior slashed at me twice. "Whoa!" I exclaim as I stumble backwards into the locker. My mind is racing to fast to really comprehend anything that's really going on, I don't understand anything. I freeze as the skeleton warrior brings his swords down towards my head and I can feel some type of crackling. I close my eyes and put my hands up in defense and the next thing I know I hear almost a small boom. I open my eyes slowly and I see the skeleton warrior that was about to kill me was thrown against the other side of the halls, and almost seemed like the skeleton's bones were actually smoking.
"Carter…" I hear Emily say my name and I look over at her in confusion, not knowing that just happened, much less what was going on.
I look down at my hands where I could feel some type of energy, almost electric like. I look back up and to see Katherine had managed to physically sweep the skeleton warrior attacking her off its feet and onto the ground. I start to hear some type of, almost chanting and as I look to my left down the hallway I see Mrs. Pritchett flanked by Zack and Joseph chanting some type of almost… Ancient Greek? Yet somehow I can almost understand it perfectly and then all of a sudden the four skeleton warriors are literally frozen solid. Mrs. Pritchett takes a deep breath and looks at Katherine and Emily. "You guys did a good job." She said, "Now you guys need to get him out of here. I'll deal with the skeleton's." She said as she took a deep breath, almost seeming widened.
Emily looked at Mrs. Pritchett, "They're here, aren't they?" She asked. "They know about Carter and Sarah, don't they?" She asked. "Are they coming for them?"
Mrs. Pritchett nodded, "They are. I can try my best to keep your all hidden, but all knew this day would come, you're all too old and there's too many of you. Especially if Carter and Sarah are who we think they are." She said.
"Will someone please explain to me what's going on?" I speak up, none of this is making sense, especially now that some how Mrs. Pritchett is involved.
"I will, in the car." Emily said and looked to Katherine, "You and Joseph go get Sarah and take her back to Carter's. Zack and I will take Carter, come on." She says and grabs my hand and she quickly starts pulling me to the stairs, and suddenly we're ditching school. I would of objected and said we would get into to much trouble for skipping school, but right now I couldn't care less.
Once we got to Zack's car I sat in the back seat with Emily and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself down. Once we started to drive towards my house I look at Emily, expecting an explanation. "Emily, please, what the heck is going on?" I asked.
Emily took a deep breath and turned kind of towards me, "When I tell you, you have to promise not to freak out, ok?" She asked. "We've known each other for a while, and what I'm going to tell you is going to be hard to believe, but it's the truth." She said.
I thought for a second, "Of course I'm going to believe you." I say honestly. There's nothing that Emily could say that would make me not believe her. I trust her with my life, and obviously she pulled through with that trust today.
Emily watched me for a second, probably trying to tell if I was going to freak out or not. "We learned a lot in 8th grade about greek mythology, as well as Egyptian and so on. But it turns out that the Greek Gods, and all of those myths, are real." She said. "And you are something called a demigod. A half god, half human." She said. "Your father was a god and the Greek Gods don't do to well with keeping in touch with there children. We have powers and abilities that a lot don't have. This includes a lot of character traits. However while the gods and demigods exist so do the monsters and creatures that try to kill us." She said.
I stay silent for a few moments, trying to process everything that she was saying. "How have you kept this from me for so long?" I asked. "And how do you know?"
Emily watches for a moment, "Most demigods don't make it past the 6th grade. However there's a camp for them called Camp Half-Blood where they go to train and can be protected. Carter…. We think you're someone pretty important. You and your other siblings that is." She explains. "Mrs. Pritchett is a daughter of Hecate, the goddess of magic. She and her husband are demigods who have been able to make to adult hood and have actual lives. She's extremely powerful and has been practicing for a long time and children of Hecate can control something call the Mist. The Mist hides monsters and things they don't understand from mortals. She can bend the mist. So for practically your whole life Mrs. Pritchett has been hiding not just you and Sarah but myself, Zack, Katherine and Joseph." She explained. "We have had some encounters with monsters but us five together have been able to kill them." She said.
I stare at her and try to process everything's she's saying. None of it makes any sense, but the way she's explaining it makes almost perfect sense. "So… why is this time any different then? Why can't we just kill the skeleton's and continue on with our lives?" I asked. Which seemed to almost upset Emily, she froze and stared at me, looking like she was having a mental argument.
"I think your mother should explain some of this when you get home. But like I told you, you're someone important Carter. Luckily we kept you hidden this long, which has been near impossible. But… There are people who want to kill you Carter, and your sister. Which is why this isn't like the other times. These people won't stop until they succeed." She explained. "Zack, Joseph, Katherine and I were assigned to protect you, we've all known the truth about our parents for a while. Including Mrs. Pritchett."
"Who are they?" I ask quickly, confused on why someone would want to kill me, I've never done anything to anyone, neither has my sister. "And you were all assigned to protect me? By who? The people at this… Camp Half-Blood?" I ask in confusion.
Emily nods, "Look I'm sorry that all of this is happening so quickly." She said. "But everything I'm saying you need to take in and you need to accept it. Your mother will explain more when we get back to your house, ok?" She said.
I nod simply, to stunned from all of this. None of it made sense. None of it. But my head was whirling, and I don't think I could take any more, at least not at the moment. All I knew was that my life was in danger, and the people I care about lives were in danger. Even if I didn't know what was going on, who was after me, or how I was going to stop it, I know that I am willing to do everything I can to protect my loved ones.