Chapter
I felt really uncomfortable. My clothes were wet and bloody. I was dirty and messed. This moment changed my life radically.
We were on metro heading to Manhattan with Percy Jackson, my half-brother. You're probably asking what happened, why I know everything, when I am just a regular mortal. Well, I'll make it short. We were attacked. Attacked by a bloodthirsty monster. Still asking why? I just found out, that I am a demigod. And if I find out, that I'm a demigod, it's like I was dancing around and yelling: "Hey monsters, free snack here, just and only for you!"
It all happened like this. I was on the subway heading to Upper East Side on Manhattan. Pretty place to live in, huh? Wealthy people and snobbish schools, big apartments and expensive stores. But I didn't live there. Nobody from my acquaintances lived there. I wasn't going there intentionally. I was escaping from my present life. I lived in a big orphanage. Living there was a torture. Nobody cared, how you feel, they didn't care about your feelings or your life. They gave you food, a place to sleep and that was all. You could go out only when you got a permission or if you were going to school. Every single child there was annoying and every teenager there was stupid. I had enough of this life, I was sure, that escaping from that place would be the best thing for me to do. But back then, I didn't know, what's going to happen to me.
I packed my things to the schoolbag, put on me the best clothes I could find. A hoodie, jeans and Converse I stole from one girl here. She didn't even notice. Her dad didn't have time to take care of her, so he left her here. I still remember, how she was crying hot tears and screaming. It was really cruel, but at least, he sent her some presents every month. Including these white converse. So I put it on and then joined the rest of kids. We were all after breakfast. As usual, a school bus was waiting there. Every child from our orphanage needed to attend this school, including me. Well, it was the last day of school, eventually, so it was cool.
In the bus, I sat on the nearest seat. No one has ever spoken to me. And I was happy. Well, not happy, but at least cool with it. Tell, me, who would ever talk to and ADHD child, who is naturally stupid, reckless and doesn't even care? No one, I suppose. Other children were making fun of me.
"Hey, punk, are you Absolutely Dumb Homodumbshit Dumass?" George has been picking up on me since he first entered our orphanage and that was a long time ago. Can you even imagine that torture? So, making fun of my Ok side, fine. But making fun of my ADHD side, not good.
"Hey, kiddo, you want some? Watch my dumb hand!" And I smacked him across his face ugly face. A big red mark appeared on his right cheek. He touched it and gasped heavily. I have always been pretty strong. I looked really small and petite, but in my arms were some interesting power, making me almost invincible, when I got disturbed by stupid child. Immediately, a nanny came to me. Is she new? She looked so beautiful and young. Not like a girl, that would like to work in an orphanage. She grabbed my wrist and dragged me to the front of the bus. That pretty hurts, you know? I heard, how George and some other kids were grinning and making silly faces while pointing at me. Yep, that was them. The biggest embarrassment of the New York City.
"What do you think, you are doing, Andromeda?" Andromeda? Seriously I hated my full name and people calling me my first name. I preferred when people called me Andy or Meddie, or something else then Andromeda! Can you imagine how embarrassing is it, having a name like this? I searched it, It was a Greek princess, who was saved by Perseus. They married and this was probably one of the rarest Greek fables with a happy-end.
"Look, I know about your ADHD, I know how you try to handle it, but I am sure, you aren't trying so much. Andy, you need to think before you act, not do things hastily." And that was, in my case, pretty hard to do. Almost impossible.
"I dunno…" I said like I didn't care, but the truth was, I cared. I cared really much. Being and ADHD and stupid dyslexic child wasn't the easiest thing to live with. There wasn't anyone I knew with so many disabilities. Ok, dyslexia wasn't so rare, people with ADHD were very often in most of the classes in our school. But both of them? Incorrigible!
"Andy, look at me." I gave her a crooked smile.
"Your disabilities are you most powerful weapons, remember this."
"My weapons? Wha… Excuse me?" No more problems, I had them enough. I don't want to go to the bed earlier for hitting my mate and being rude.
Well, the nanny was weird. When I sat on my seat, ignoring all the pointing and laughter, the nanny has disappeared. Huh? Ok, something is definetly going on here. But I put that thing out of my head.
When we got to the school, I hid my things on the toilet and after we got our report (almost everything was for a D, except of PE, which I had A for), I left the school with the backpack on my shoulders, without anyone even noticing. I was really satisfied. No more little goofy children, no more foolish and uncaring nannies, no more ignorance. I was a free teenager without a place to go to. Without a place to go… I realized that my plan wasn't that cool. I mean, I got no place to go! No, I can't back down. My plan worked out, which I was really surprised of. One little detail like no place to stay in couldn't stop me. I will think about this later. Now, I needed to get to the nearest subway and get on the train heading to Manhattan.
Down there was one black-haired with grey streaks in it guy, probably waiting for a train. He was peaking on me. I blushed and stopped for a while. Actually, no boy has even looked at me since I was in orphanage and that was seriously a long time. Yep, I never kissed a boy. I have never had a crush on anyone, is that fine with you? Because it was ok with me. I have to admit, that I liked boys, but they didn't like me. Well, I am not really surprised. I am just a regular girl, nothing special, just black-haired weirdo with suspicious green eyes and a dumb look on her face. Then I shook my head. Does it really matter? Boys are just a waste of time!
I was about to start walking again, but suddenly I heard a weird voice. A big ROAR trembled the station. I hesitated. And then, the most scariest thing started to appear at the end of the hallway. It looked so like a dragon. This rhino-size dragon had multiple necks, seven, if I wanted to be clear, all spitting a poisonous looking liquid. Its skin was green and leathery. I screamed. I was really shocked. I turned and started to run away from that thing. Then I noticed that the guy sitting on the bench stood up and pulled a blue pen from his pocket. The expressions on his face changed quickly. From surprised and angry to dude-I-should-know-that look.
He uncapped the pen and it immediately turned into a golden sword.
"Wow!" I gasped. Ok, I have never seen that before. A monster? A pen changing in the sword? Is this a dream? Well, I got a feeling, that this was nothing, but a cruel reality, which made my heart make a double flip.
"C'mon! What's that? And what's up with your pen?" I yelled at him. The monster was right behind me.
"It's a Hydra! Hide, quickly!" he ordered me. I got nothing else to do, but listen and hide by the nearest bench. Why I hid? No, seriously had the guts to fight this, even if I was freaked out to death, but for a, I had no weapon and for b, how in hell was I supposed to know that I need a weapon to go and fight?
The guy was trying to slash the Hydra into its jaws, which was really interesting. I would probably start to slash those nasty looking, poisonous liquid spitting necks, if had a sword or a knife.
My ADHD part of me was yelling Come on, Andy, let's kick some butts!
"Hey! Have you got a second weapon in your magic brass?" I teased him.
"Too dangerous!" he yelled at me and immediately ducked, because another batch of the green and sticky guck.
"I don't think you can handle this by yourself. Better me, than being alone fighting Hydra!" He looked like thinking of it.
"Ok!"While smashing the Hydra thing into its leg, he pulled a knife from his purse and threw it on the floor. So I picked it up. It was made from something really strange, because I felt its power running through my arms.
"Great!" I shouted and ran closer. Ok, this is bad. The Hydra spat an arc of green liquid. I ducked and it splashed against the marble pier. The pier toppled straight toward the Hydra. It stumbled backward, all seven heads shot acid and the marble floor melted into a steaming pool of muck. The pier fall right in front of the Hydra and the guy, splitting them. I ran towards the guy, holding a knife. One of the heads snapped at me. If it was a person or at least had a face, it would probably look amused. But stupid me, I have done the most terrible thing, that was possible in that situation. I knew from our History teacher, Mrs. Collins, about few mythological monsters like Gorgons and the Hydra for example. Mrs. Collins also told us some fables about Heracles fighting with Hydra and how the Hydra's heads will stop multiplying after we burned the stumps before they regrew again. But I my brain was shut down at the moment, thinking just of the Hydra and not about anything else. I swung my knife towards the head twice.
"No!" The guy yelled. But it was too late. I sliced the Hydra's head off. With a crackling noise, the head fell into its own green acid and rolled away. In few seconds, the neck split into two of them. I was looking at eight-headed Hydra, no doubt, it looked really mad and probably on me.
"Ok, girl! Fighting with monsters 101. Never slash a Hydra's head without a fire immediately put in the wound, or it could happen, that you will be fighting longer, than needed. Trust me, I know that firsthand."
"Where, the hell, can we get that fire?" Ok, this wasn't fair! I didn't know about that! Well, yeah, but it doesn't count. The guy moved on and stood next. He was frozen in a fighting position looking at the Hydra. We both moved from side to side, shirking from the spits.
"Ok, got an idea." Well, I didn't know, what I was thinking about while doing this, but back at the orphanage, I borrowed from a nanny some safety matches. Well, a word borrowed wasn't the exact verb I should use, but that doesn't matter. I ran to the bench, where I was hiding before. There was still my backpack, unharmed and ok. I unzipped it. It was one big mess, because I was really hurry, so I just jumbled it up.
"C'mon, matches, I won't hurt you… Got them!" I murmured to myself.
I ran towards the guy, which I realized, I still didn't know the name of, and the Hydra.
"I have them!" I yelled. He was pretty busy with trying to slash the Hydra with his amazing sword and shirking away from the spits. I ran to him and showed him these.
"Scatter!" He yelled from all of the sudden. I flinged down. I was okay, the guy was ok.
The Hydra started to attack again, now even more fiercely, than before. "Ok, girl, when I will say spark it off, burn that stamp, ok?" He didn't wait for my agreement. He just ran to the Hydra. Every single head from the eight of them was spitting the acid on the guy. It hit him to his back, but nothing happened to him. Was the acid really poisonous or was something else behind this?
"Spark it off!" He yelled. I stroke the match and threw it into the wound. This went for seven times, until all of the heads were laying in the destroyed marble floor.
Just now, I noticed few people coming down the stairs. They stood there terrified and then a chaos began. They started to yell. In the background I heard a police siren. I was exhausted of the fight. Everything, what has just happened here was odd. I have no idea, why I was just fighting the Hydra. I could easily run away and don't care for the rest of my life. Why did I stay?
"Come on, we need to get out of here." I didn't need more offers. I caught the guy I didn't know his name and we ran out of the metro station. No one noticed, that we were the kids killing the monster.
We ran through the streets to another metro station. The guy had some money, I had too, so we bought tickets and waited for the next metro, that was supposed to take to Manhattan.
"Why are we going to Manhattan?" I asked.
"My mom lives there. We can stay there for a while, until this thing will be over." He looked really normal. Just like nothing happened. He was thinking about something.
"May I ask you something? What's your name and was that thing that just happened real?" I asked. I was afraid another thing like this will come. And what was that thing? I mean, monsters, ghosts and stuff don't really exist. Only in movies and neither they are real!
"My name is Percy. Percy Jackson. And what you have just seen was completely real. It was a monster."
"Yeah, I pretty much get, that thing was a monster, but why? They don't exist, dude! By the way, I am Andy."
"Oh yeah, they exist and there are plenty of them, much more than just this one that you have seen. Scarier and creepier that this one actually was. By the way, nice name."
"It isn't Halloween, stop teasing me, like I was a little child. There is a sixteen year old here!" Percy looked at me in disbelief.
"Sixteen? Well, I would take thirteen, but sixteen?" He asked, mostly for himself.
"Yep, don't I look like sixteen years old?" I asked smugly.
"No, I mean, yeah you look, but you are so old and wasn't killed yet. I would believe you, that you are sixteen years old, if you attend the camp, but sixteen without a training?" Again, he was talking to himself. He couldn't believe, that I was sixteen and wasn't killed yet. What a heck?
"What do you mean by wasn't killed yet?" I asked. It was ridiculous. Getting killed? I mean, yeah, I have just seen the Hydra and from what he has just said, there were more of them, so that was probably the killing part, but what camp to I need to attend? What training?
"You probably don't know, and I shouldn't tell this to you, because of your scent, but…"
"What? Are you crazy? What scent, Percy? I don't really get this!" Suddenly, we heard something coming.
No more monsters, please anything, but no more monsters, I prayed. But it was just a metro. Out metro. We walked in, sat on the nearest seats far away from all the people and Percy continued his explanation.
"You've just seen the monster. That means, that you are most likely a half-blood, or, which is more unlikely, that you can see clearly through the Mist."
"The Mist? What are you talking about? And how can you be so sure, that I am a demigod or whatever? What is this? Something like a TV show where you make fun of people?" I almost yelled. People where looking at us.
"Shut up and listen, please. Ok, I see you don't get this, so this is how it works. One of your parents is a Greek god, ok? You look like me, so… Ok, never mind, I'll tell you later. So, when you get twelve, you start to attract more monsters. That was why I was so much in disbelief of your age. Well, when you are lucky, a seeker, who is attending your school, will find you and immediately tell Camp Half-Blood. It is a special camp, only for us, demigods. Only there, we are totally safe. It has magic borders, which monsters and mortals can't cross. And our camp can't be seen by a regular mortal's eye. Only those who can see through Mist, which is a special thing, that hides all these weird things like monsters, can see our camp." He stopped for a while. He saw, that I need a little rest to get these things and get comfortable with them. Nice guy. But it was really hard to believe something like that, even if a nice guy had said that. Greek gods? Camp Half-blood?
"Ok, if I understand this right, my dad or mom is a Greek god or goddess, so I am not a mortal and I live in a different world. Because my parent is a god, I have stronger scent which attracts monsters and when I don't want to get killed, I need to go to this camp to learn how to fight monsters and defend?" I said at one breath.
"Yep, you got the point."He grinned.
"And you look like me because I can have a same god parent as you, is that possible?"
"Pretty smart for a girl, who has just come." We both laughed.
He continued talking about everything else. For example activities they normally do at camp from arts and crafts, fencing, archery and pegasi stables, learning Greek to growing strawberries and hanging out with friends after your chores. Then I told him everything from my present life.
"People at that camp really smelt me?" I asked shocked.
"We smelt a powerful demigod from time to time. That was probably the time, when you got to school. Otherwise, you were closed in orphanage. The kids hid your scent. When you left the orphanage, they sent me here. The searchers are busy now, with a new generation of campers so I was a handy guy, as always. Poseidon was talking to me about you and he told me, you will be here." He smiled. Poseidon was my dad. Well, we weren't sure, but I've got a feeling it was true.
"You might be a Poseidon's daughter. People with the same god parent are mostly looking the same. My friend from the camp, for example Annabeth. She is from Athena's cabin and her half-brothers and sisters are looking absolutely the same. But we aren't just similar in the looking of our hair and eyes. We look totally the same." He touched his hair and then touched mine too.
"Yeah, I noticed that, too. It's really funny to watch my male copy. I have to admit, that my male copy is... handsome." After I said that, I blushed so hardly, that I must have looked like a tomato. Percy was embarrassed, too.
"Um, Percy… Bro." We looked at each other at the same time.
"Yeah, well, my female copy looks cute, too." He winked at me and I laughed. Then we went joking about our looks, like we we're some old friends, who met after a long time.
"May I ask a question?"
"Sure. We have like ten minutes, then we will be at my Mom's apartment." Percy answered.
"Why are you training fencing and archery at the camp? You told me, there are these magic borders that defend it there. So why so much training?" Percy hesitated. His emotions changed from kind a sad one to… well, there is no explanation for this look. But he shook his head. His dark hair were falling into his face. It was cute. Oh, come on, Andy! He is your brother!
"Yeah, I know. We train, because of quests. It's a rare thing for a regular demigod. Only those, who train really hard can go. I attended some quests…" I smiled.
"So that means you train really hard too, am I right?" We both grinned. Then Percy took out that special pen, which he used, when he fought that monster.
"Well, I think that yes. But I am not the best one." Yeah, of course you're not. Why are people always so self-effacing?
"I saw, how you fight. I have never seen someone with such a great skills. Well, it's true I haven't seen anybody fencing, but still, you were great!" We laughed. I clapped Percy on his back.
"Last summer, there was a war," he continued. "You probably know the Titans. Kronos and so one." I nodded and I felt quite good, I wasn't that stupid in Greek mythology. I recognized Hydra, though. Even that was something.
"So, in our camp, there is an Oracle. Oracle of Delphi." I nodded. Again, I knew what it was. We learnt about it in that freaky school.
"Well, that Oracle told prophecies, ok? And there was one Big Prophecy, about a child of the Big Three. You know, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades. Then, there was a guy, Luke, who betrayed us and joined the Titan Kronos…" He told me everything. Everything from about his friends at the camp ( Including the satyr Grover and the mysterious girl Annabeth, which, and that's only my opinion, Percy had a little tiny crush on. Seriously, you probably haven't heard him talking about her, when you don't think the same as I do.) to Chiron, Mr. D, the Golden Fleece, holding the sky on the mount Othrys, which he had those grey streaks in his hair from, the Mount Olympus on Empire State Building. He also mentioned bathing in the Underworld's river Styx, when I asked him, why the acid didn't hurt him. He talked also about the explosion of Mt. Saint Helene, which he caused, the destroyed Labyrinth, Daedalus's workshop, the Battle for New York and the main thing. Luke Castellan. Poor guy. He betrayed everyone and then he died to save something, what he wanted to see destroyed. Battle for New York was sort of his fault. I remembered that chaos. That was really scary, when everything in that part of New York collapsed. Everyone thought it was another attack of terrorists, now on the Empire State Building. Well, now I know, it wasn't as we thought. It was just a minor god called Morpheus playing with his powers.
"Heh, you know what is weird? Your name is Perseus!"I laughed. He shook his head in dullness.
"Well, you know my name, right?"
"Yeah, Andy, right?"
"You know what it stands for?"
"Um, Andrea?"
"No, you seaweed!" I said playfully. Percy hesitated.
"Seaweed? Where did you got that?" he asked.
"It just fits you, because you are the son of Poseidon, right? But back to the topic. Andy stand for Andromeda!"
"Kidding me? So we are siblings with names from Greek mythology? I always thought, I am the only one with a weird name." I frowned at him, but started to grin immediately.
"Hey, you!" I hit him with my fist. So I wasn't so alone in this world, not alone with a weird name, and just practically not alone. If Percy says the truth, I have dad and a half-brother. Two hours ago, I was just a regular kiddo from orphanage, just a mortal. Now, I am a powerful half-blood with a residence in Camp Half-blood. My family.
1
