Merana Swan recalled last night's memory, remembering how all this trouble had started. Funny how so much can change in just twenty-four hours. But if you think about it, it's isn't that surprising at all. For example, one day you could like blueberries, and the next you could hate them. Her life was a mystery, and Merana hadn't the first clue to solve it. But she was determined to at least calm her mind down. One of her methods of doing this was recalling the events of the past day. Thinking about yesterday's abnormal events and making sense of them might put her at peace. It was like re-watching an old T.V. show episode, remembering what had happened in there. The fictional world seemed to stay frozen in time and she wanted to get the same feeling back. The feeling that her life was to stay still and stable.
Merana hated her life and the way things were. She was supposed to be enjoying her life, partying and having fun like a normal twenty-something person should've been doing. But no. She was staying out late, working and stressing out over the final exam she was to take the next day.
Merana looked up at the clock and saw that it read 2:09. It had been exactly ten hours since she had started studying. It was just so like her to start studying last minute, trying to fit all this information and knowledge into that tiny head of hers. Architecture was not an easy subject to study, and neither was finance. The two very things she was majoring in.
Merana, not for the first time, wondered why she decided to double-major. It was clearly such a bad idea, all this unnecessary stress and anxiety clawing at her chest, making it harder and harder to breathe.
Deep breath, Merana thought to herself, closing her eyes. Deep breath, and exhale slowly. All she had to do was pass her final exams tomorrow and she could go back to binge-watching Netflix and relaxing, getting lost into other people's problems, people that didn't even exist in real life.
Maybe it would've been easy for Merana to study and stuff all these boring facts into her mind. Had she had any interest in the subjects. But she was only in it for the money. Most people would call it "shallow" and maybe some other not-so-pleasant names, but it was just the way of life. They say that money can't buy happiness, and maybe that's true, but it certainly does play a big role in it. If she didn't have any money, she would be homeless, and no one could possibly be happy about that. If she didn't have any money, she wouldn't be able to buy the simplest things in life, like a bar of chocolate, or even a bar of soap, to keep clean, and she, personally, wouldn't be happy being rid of the joys of chocolate and the joys of feeling clean and hygienic.
What Merana really wanted to study was literature and music. She was more of an artsy person, enjoying different shades of colors, different musical variations, and different styles and formalities of writing. She was lucky enough to be able to minor in these two categories, but it wasn't enough. Not at first at least.
Merana's expectations of the world decreased as her age increased. She learnt that you couldn't get everything that you ever wanted, and that you just had to suck it up and deal with it. She learnt that even being able to be allowed to do these things and finding the time to do them was a privilege and gift she shouldn't take for granted.
And so she lived. And so she studied. She had friends, she was on good terms with her family, and she managed to keep her grades. She was an average person of this generation. She enjoyed memes, weird food combinations, and had crazy obsessions and fandoms she was part of. There was absolutely nothing interesting about her; she couldn't touch her nose with the tip of her tongue, she wasn't colorblind, nor double-jointed, and she couldn't speak any foreign languages, save Spanish and maybe a little Italian.
So it made no sense that a boy who claimed to be named Jack, and who claimed to be a son of a freakin' Greek god sneaked into her dorm room, freaking her out, scaring her out of her wits, and making her heart race with fear and anticipation of death. He had explained to her that the gods, whoever the hell they were, were wanting to talk to her. To see if she was a legacy, demigod, or just a mortal with the sight. Either way, he had said. You are pretty important and the gods do not like to be kept waiting, believe me on that. He shook his head, closing his eyes, looking as if he had personally experienced their wrath before.
She had read the myths, the stories, knowing how bad the gods' wrath could be at time. She once had an obsession over Greek mythology, wishing that those stories full of magic and wonderful events were true, but they were nothing but a childish fantasy, just another distraction. But they couldn't possibly be true, could they? she asked him, not knowing what the answer to that question would be. That would be catastrophic and someone would've have surely noticed by now. Oh, how wrong she was. Jack explained what the Mist was and how it worked. How it was powerful enough to blind most mortals from seeing magic and other "abnormal" things. He explained what a clear-sighted mortal could do and how she might be one. They ran from her dorm in UCLA, through a portal, till they reached the Empire State Building. He described his foreign world to Merana, fascinating her, on their way up to Olympus. Up they went, going through security, threatening an elevator guard to give them access to the home of the gods. Up they went, listening to crappy elevator music, and up they ran to the Throne Room where twelve pairs of eyes were staring at them, power electrifying the air, sending shivers down both of their spines.
None of the gods said anything. Instead they sent her down to sit in the corridor, close to the Throne Room, yet far enough away to be out of earshot. There she sat, trying to calm her mind, make sense of things, revisiting the past.