Before I start my story, I should probably tell you a little about myself. My name is Tanner Durst, and I am in the sixth grade at twelve years old. I have green eyes and dark brown hair. I'm around five feet and six inches and weigh around one hundred and ten pounds. I have ADHD and dyslexia. This is the story of how I learned that I am not normal, however anyone could tell you that. I am very intelligent but somehow always manage to get into trouble. I've been kicked out of five foster homes in my life. That's right I'm an orphan (or so I thought). My brother and I had been living on the streets together for most of my life until I turned six and he was ten. My brother, Chris, disappeared without any trace. The burden that we had once shared together was now upon my shoulders. I was left to live on my own until I found St. Christina's. That was when my life was flipped upside down the first time. Now, here comes the second.

It all started earlier this morning at around two A.M. I had woken up. I don't know what had woken me up, but I had a strange feeling of looming danger. Slowly, I rose up and looked around. I didn't see anything, so I thought it was nothing. I couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen though. I sat back up in my wooden bed and looked around the room. The foster home I was in at the time was called St. Christina's Foster Home and Church. It was a boy's only foster home, and as you can imagine made it kind of hard to get by. With all the bullying and things I was tempted to strangle some of them.

Anyways, as I looked around the room I shared with nine other boys and one of the staff, Mr. Gleeson. I was in the right hand bed closest to the door, the farthest away from Mr. Gleeson. Gleeson was a short, pudgy man with curly black hair and always wore some kind of footwear. At the time that was the only thing I had found weird about him, aside from the fact that he sometimes stared at me as if trying to figure me out. I usually just ignored him and went on my way.

Since I was closest to the door, I figured it was safe for me to get out of bed and walk around. When I woke up in the middle of the night I was never able to go back to sleep. I would sometimes wander the halls or sit in the church and make sure I was back in the room before anyone woke up to find me missing. I don't know how but I had never been caught before. I hated to walk around at this hour because at school later in the day I had a math test. That was soon however going to become the least of my worries.

I crept out of my bed and walked on the balls of my feet out into the empty halls. I had perfected the art of silent walking early on in my childhood. The stone floors made my bare feet cold but I just ignored it. The feeling of danger still clouded around me and I couldn't find any explanation. Did I mention that that's one of my pet peeves? I can't stand not knowing something. Especially when it could be something important like this. Whatever was causing the feeling wasn't going anywhere, so I decided to do a little investigating. I know it was stupid to go looking for the source but I was a twelve year old searching for answers. What were you going to do?

I decided that it was probably not a murderer so I walked toward the great hall. The great hall was the entrance to the foster home and also had a stair case leading upwards to the church. Inside the hall was an enormous open space. It usually was a little crowded in the day, but you have to remember that it was in the wee hours of the morning. I took a turn towards the stairs and started up them. I was glad to get off the stone floor and onto the carpeted steps. The staircase winded through a passage with exactly one hundred steps from start to beginning (I had a lot of free time). I stumbled a few times in the darkness of the passageway but always managed to catch myself before I hit the ground. Sometimes I loved my ADHD.

As I came into the church I saw the object that had caused my discomfort. In one of the church windows was a face. It looked like a twenty year old women's face. It had red, waist length hair and a fair skin tone. At the height the church windows were though, no normal human could make it up to them. As I got a better look at the creature I saw wings behind it with red feathers. That's how it was up here! But how did it get wings. Again I had no answers. I turned to run down the stairs and go wake someone up, but it seemed that the red angel had already thought of that. It rammed its feet into the window completely shattering it. Then I saw how: on its feet were wicked looking talons that were starting to make me uncomfortable. The shattering of the glass had made a loud noise, but I didn't know if it would be enough to wake anyone up. I hoped it would be because I didn't think that I could outrun that thing if it could fly, which it could. I was also unarmed so staying wasn't a favorable option either. Thankfully I heard a clopping downstairs that sounded like hooves on the stone floor. Hooves? I thought confused. Whatever, if it was help then I don't care what it was.

The clopping continued but was a little quieter due to the carpeted stairs. Eventually, I saw a shadowed figure in the doorway of the staircase. As it came forward, I could see that it was Mr. Gleeson. What really shocked me though was that he had no pants on. That wasn't what surprised me though. He had white fur all the way down his legs and where his feet should have been were hooves.

"Mr. Gleeson, are you part donkey or something?" I asked out of pure surprise.

"Donkey! No, I'm part goat. A satyr if you know your mythology!" He replied. All his reply did was raise more questions. I had heard of satyrs, but what did they have to do with anything? Why was Gleeson bringing up mythology? Confusion overtook my brain.

"Listen, the main reason I came is to help you. So stand back and watch!" He yelled. Then, he pulled out a club from God knows where and rushed the giant bird. I was sure that he was going to get cut to ribbons with the talons but he somehow managed to beat the beast with his wooden club. Feathers flew everywhere as he pounded the poor gigantic bird.

"Ow, ow ow ow! That hurts!" the bird said in voice that sounded oddly like a squawk. I couldn't remember when they made the discovery that birds could talk, but I guess that since this one has a human head that it possessed the ability.

"Too bad! Get out of here if you don't like it!" Gleeson yelled. The creature seemed to take his advice as it soon turned around and flew right back out the window. I don't know how the satyr or whatever did it but he managed to basically destroy the giant bird. "Now that that's out of the way, we should get out of here before they start coming," Gleeson said.

"Hang on. I want answers. What was that thing? What are you? What does mythology have to do with anything?" I asked him.

"Well, that thing was a harpy, I am a satyr, and mythology has to do with everything. Now, if that's all, hop on my back so we can go. I'll explain better when we are safe. It's not far."

"Where are we going?"

"Long Island," he replied, short and sweet.

"We're all the way in Manhattan! How are we supposed to get to Long Island from here?"

"I have ways. Now I told you, hop on! We need to get out of here fast. When we reach a hotel that we can stay the night at I'll explain better." Reluctantly I hopped onto his back piggy-back style. I didn't know if I should trust him but he did save me from a harpy or whatever.

"Hold on," he ordered. I tightened my grip just in time because he launched himself from the window that was broken. I started to scream as we started our descent, but quickly stopped as Gleeson landed on the ledge of a window that had been below us. He started hopping from window ledge to ledge until we safely landed at the bottom of the building on the sidewalk. Gleeson leaned down for me to get off and I did quickly, not wanting to go on another jumping spree.

"Are you a mountain goat?" I asked him seriously.

He chuckled, "Only partly." I guess that explained a lot. "Now, let's find a hotel that serves breakfast. Beating up monsters sure takes it out of you." I had to agree with him. Even though I had barely done anything the fright was enough to make me ravenous. Not to mention that the home had served that disgusting dinner of fish yesterday. They really need better cooks in that place.

Something caught in the corner of my eye. A light flickered on up in the church section of St. Christina's. I pointed at it and Mr. Gleeson nodded and motioned for me to follow him. He put pants and shoes on that he had been storing somewhere. I guess it was best not to draw attention to ourselves. I walked about two feet behind him as we trudged along the sidewalk looking for a suitable hotel.

And that brings me to my situation now. The two of us are checking into a hotel about three miles from St. Christina's. It took us two hours to find it, but I'm glad that it opened early or we would be left out on the streets. The man at the desk gave us our room key and sent us up to our room. Breakfast wasn't served until six o'clock so we had around an hour for an explanation. I fully intended to get one, too.

As Gleeson unlocked the door to room 202, I thought of the first question I was going to ask him when I could. As soon as we were both in the room and I had shut the door behind me, I stared at him expectantly.

"What?" he demanded.

"I think you owe me an explanation better than the one you first gave me," I replied. He sighed and sat on one of the two beds in the room. He patted the one across from him. I walked up and sat on it then turned my full attention towards Gleeson.

"Hold your questions until the end, okay. The easiest way to say this would be to tell you that the Greek Gods are real. You know, like Athena and Zeus? Well, they are still alive and you are the son of one of them and a mortal. However, since you were in the orphanage we don't know the gender of your godly parent. So, you'll just have to wait until the claim you. It shouldn't take long, considering that your twelve. As well as the Gods being alive, sadly, the monsters are too. That's what the harpy was. You demigods, so to speak, put out a scent that monsters can smell. They think you smell like a delicious meal. Don't ask me how but they do. As for the place I'm taking you, it's called Camp Half-Blood. It's a camp for people like you. You'll learn how to fight and control any powers you might have. It also has a magic border that will protect you. That's why the camp is the only safe place for demigods on Earth. Later on today, after we eat I'll have someone from the camp pick us up. For now, I think it should be time for breakfast," he hypothesized, finishing his explanation. I nodded, taking in all the new information.

"Okay, I think I understand. It's just a lot to take in at once," I said. He nodded in sympathy.

"You're taking it a lot better than some of the other demigods I've brought to camp. One daughter of Aphrodite started screaming and ran away from me. You'd think that if she was a demigod it would take me longer to catch her, but I had her in five seconds. Pathetic if you ask me. I'm pretty sure her name was Drew something," Gleeson said. I smiled at his story. "Come on kid let's get breakfast." I got up and followed Mr. Gleeson out the door. As soon as I was in the hallway I could smell our next meal. There were bacon and blueberry muffins. I'm sure Gleeson wouldn't be too happy about the bacon. You could already sense the negative energy coming off of him. He lightened up though after he made it to the dining room and saw the tray of muffins. He practically jumped with glee before running and grabbing a plateful. I chuckled at his antics.

Myself however, decided to grab a plate of bacon and a muffin with a cup of orange juice. I ate a little more mannerly than Gleeson, but not by much. I was absolutely starved and I felt that whatever happened next I was going to have to have my energy up for the rest of the day. Not long after we arrived, we were both full and ready to leave. I stood up and Gleeson followed. We went up to the room to find out how to contact the camp.

"Hey, Mr. Gleeson, how are you going to talk to them to get the camp to come get us?" I asked.

"Just watch, Tanner. This is really cool!" he replied excitedly. He took off one shoe, raised a hooved foot, and slammed it into the faucet in the bathroom. Mist shot out and sprayed in all directions. "Grab a lamp and bring it here," Gleeson ordered. I did, not knowing what he was going to do. I brought the lamp to him and he removed the cover. He plugged it in and the light bulb flared to life. The light formed a rainbow in the mist. Gleeson pulled a golden coin from his pocket and threw it into the mist where it sunk into midair, never to be seen again.

"Oh Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, please except my offering. Show me Chiron, Camp Half-Blood." The mist shimmered and was replaced by an image of an old man with wiry brown hair and a shaggy beard. That wasn't the weird part though. The man was a white horse from the waist down.

"A centaur?" I asked Gleeson. He nodded.

"His name is Chiron. He's the activities director at camp. Chiron, I have the demigod from St. Christina's. Unknown heritage, don't even know the gender. As you know he was in foster care."

"Yes, I am aware of that. What is your location now? We'll send someone to pick you up," the man in the mist said.

"We are at the Henderson Hotel in lower Manhattan," Gleeson replied.

"Okay, Argus will be along to pick you up. He should be there in fifteen minutes. You know how fast he drives," the man said again. Gleeson nodded and swiped his hand through the mist, destroying the image.

"Okay, what was that?" I asked.

"We call that an Iris message. Iris, the Goddess of the Rainbow runs a service that way. The coin I threw in was a golden drachma. It's currency in Greece." I nodded, excepting his explanation. "Anyway, we have fifteen minutes to get checked out and meet Argus outside."

"Well come on so we can get checked out," I said. He followed me out the door and to the desk in the lobby. We checked out and headed outside, where the sun was just starting to come up. It was after all October, and it was only six thirty in the morning. It wasn't long until a black van that read "Delphi Strawberries" pulled up in front of us.

"That's our ride," Gleeson said before we climbed into the car. Then, we were off and on our way to Camp Half-Blood.