My name is Amelia, and if you dare call me with a nick name other than Amy… when I'm finished with you you'll be afraid of your own shadow.
Okay, that was an odd intro. Let me rephrase that. Ahem-
My name is Amelia, and I-for the lack of a better, less cliched term-am the textbook definition of a wallflower. I am the type of girl who always does her homework, no matter how annoying and tedious it was, and generally tries to sink in the background. I sit at the 'loser's table' during lunch and I never participate in any kind of extracurricular activity. My grades are Bs and Cs with the occasional A thrown in. Based on my life so far, I'm pretty dang sure that I'd probably end up in the Asphodel Fields once Thanatos claims me. Long story short, I'm your average, middle school loner.
Oh, and did I mention that I have albinism and an insanely overprotective bestie/niece/cousin? Thought not. Silly me, I knew I missed something in my prevous intro… Pretty ironic, methinks, since my father is an almighty god and trust me, my complexion is probably the last thing you'd associate with his realm. Yes, that's right, I'm the daughter of a god, a Greek god to be precise, and if you're reading this, then you probably have already known about Percy and his adventures, but that's not my story to tell. I'll give you two hints, he's a primordial god, a my dad's name begins with an E. There. You should be able to guess from that. What? No, it's not Eros! What are you smoking? My dad is Erebus, the god of darkness and shadows. I know, ironic, right?
But enough about dear, old me. I think it's the time to talk about Sarah, my best friend. Hmm, the best adjective to describe her is tall. She's , like, a hundred and sixtysomething centimeters tall (why I'm using the metric system, that's a story for later) while I'm barely a hundred and fifty. That's 5'5 and 5 respectively, for those who are unaccustomed to metric. Yeah, there's a lot of height difference between us. Sarah is the daughter of the god of death. No, it's not Hades. Hades is the god of the dead, as in, the ruler of the underworld and the souls of dead people. While Sarah's dad, Thanatos, is the god of death. He's basically death personified. A bit like the Reaper, but Sarah dislikes that analogy. Thanatos is Erebus's son, so technically Sarah is my niece, even if she's ten weeks older than I am. It's really complicated, though. You see, my maternal grandfather and Sarah's maternal grandfather were identical twins. Our mothers were cousins (or half-siblings depending on how you looked at it). Where I got my albino genes was anyone's guess, since no one in my mom's family had it. Damn freak mutant genes.
What else… oh yeah. I really owe Sarah. A lot, but don't let her know this cause then she'll get big headed. Sarah is the only reason I'm not bullied by the other kids. She has this death-glare that would make you see your own death scene. A perk of being a daughter of Thanatos, I guess. Even monsters would run to Mommy Echidna when Sarah gets pissed. It's a great way to scare off bullies, and unlike most half-blood powers it's not very tiring for her. So she tends to use it a lot. What can I say, she's psychotic?
Ah-nee-ways, time for me to tell the story. It all started a few months ago, on the first week of school. (I don't remember the actual date)…
I was alone in my apartment, fumbling with the pile of homework I received from my teachers. First week of school, and already so much homework. Some teachers just love torturing us.
"Dangit… note to self: never procrastinate homework." I sighed and grabbed a bottle of milk from the fridge. My mom was on a business trip to Chicago. This was a pretty often occurrence for me, as she was a successful lawyer and she never stayed at home for more than a week. I pretty much grew up by myself. I only visit Camp Half Blood every summer, but I didn't go there this summer. It's not that I don't like that place, it's because I really abhor any outdoor activities because of my albinism. I'm incredibly photo-sensitive and my eyes get sore if I stay under the sun for too long.
Then the front door was opened, and my cousin/niece/bestie entered. She carried a black rucksack and wore casual clothes. Her black hair was done in a messy braid that would make a child of Aphrodite cry, but that's Sarah for you.
"You made your uncle angry again?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Sarah grinned sheepishly. Ever since Sarah's mom, Rebecca, died in an accident when she was really young, she was placed under her uncle's care. James was Rebecca's brother, which made him my mom's cousin and the three were nearly unseparable when they were younger. Now James was the nicest person you'd ever met, he wouldn't ever hurt a fly, but the problem was Uncle James and Sarah's clashing personality. James was a clean-freak and overall perfectionist, while Sarah was sloppy, messy, and clumsy. Let me tell you one thing, never, ever, lock James and Sarah in a room, alone, unsupervised. That's a recipe for disaster. I'm speaking from experience here!
"Well… I, err, accidentally put his shirt with the coloured clothing. So, umm, mind if I stay here for a while?"
"Well, mom's gonna be at Chicago for a while, and Uncle probably knows that you're here… so it's fine by me. Besides, it's not like you've never stayed here." I shrugged. "As long as you take care of your own clothes and plates and stuff."
"Yeah, yeah, I got it." Sarah shrugged. "Hey, can I see your work?"
"Absolutely not!" I answered, closing my book as she bent over to see my work. "Do it by yourself."
"Fine…" she said with a sigh. She dropped her rucksack to the floor, the soft thud echoing in the room. "Oww, my back feels a lot better now."
"What the Hades did you bring anyway?" I asked her. "School books?"
"Yep. Damn homework." Sarah sat cross-legged in front of me and opened her textbook. There was a short silence neither of us were willing to break. Sarah scuinted at her textbook. "Uhh, how d'you calculate the circumference of a circle?" she finally asked. Math was never her strong suit. I scratched my head.
"Umm, the square root of the radius times pi?" I answered uncertainly. To be honest, math was never my strong suit either. "No, scratch that, sorry. I messed up. It's the diameter times pi." I corrected. The silence continued. Neither me nor Sarah were the talkative sort. I absent-mindedly finished my Chemistry homework, grumbling under my breath. Why do we have to know this kind of thing anyway? Learning about molecular bonds was useless. I had no intention to be a chemist. And it wasn't like a monster would ask 'what does 'Au' stands for?' while attacking. Heck, most half-bloods would be lucky to graduate from highschool, especially now with the war on our doorstep.
Then there was a loud noise from the outside of our apartment. I froze for a second, then pulled out a ruler from my pencilcase. Now if you're already familiar with Percy's story, you must know that in our world, nothing is as it seems. Dreams are premonitions of the future. Natural disasters are pissed off gods. Evil teachers are monsters out for your blood. Unnaturally gossipy neighbours, as far as I know, are mortals, but you can never too paranoid in our world. But I'm getting off tangent. You see, we demigods have our way of concealing our weapons. Like how Percy's pen is a sword-in-disguise, my weapon is disguised as a white cane. Why do I have to use a white cane, you might ask? Well, one of the less well known effect that comes with albinism is blindness, and though my dad taught me how to sense the position of objects via their shadow (a really useful ability I call 'shadowlocation') it's rather tiring and I don't use it much out of fights. Where was I again? Oh yeah. Weapons. My white cane looks like a normal cane, y'know, the thingy used by blind people to navigate their way around, but when I press a certain part of it it turns into a glaive. Sarah's weapon is a pendant that can turn into a rapier. Our fathers gave them to us a few years ago.
Anyways, so we ran out of the buliding to face the monster that attacked us. I was rather pissed off at that moment, for multiple reasons. So naturally, the first words that came out of my mouth when I saw a flock of stymphalian birds attacking were,
"Oh, shit!"
"Amy!" Sarah reminded. I snorted. Sarah wasn't my mother, and she had plenty of cussing moments as well. "Curse later, fight now."
Fortunately for me, it was night time. I was the daughter of Erebus, the god of shadows and darkness, so night time was basically my hometurf. Well technically it's my stepmom's, Nyx's realm, but you get my point. I closed my eyes, imagining myself being a part of the shadows. I disappeared in a flash of darkness and appeared in my apartment. Now where was my alarm clock? I grabbed the thing from my nightstand and shadow-travelled again, this time appearing next to Sarah. She nearly jumped in fright.
"Amy! Don't do that again, for Zeus's sake!" she snaped at me. "What the hell did you do anyway?"
"Shadow-travel." I answered. "Dad taught me." I've just returned from my dad's palace a few days ago where I spent most of my summer. See, the Protogenoi are ancient gods, and they're not really bound by ancient laws since they have existed even before the Titans. They visit their children once in a while and give them gifts and teach stuff, but they are still gods and have a lot of work to do. But in general, they are better parents than most Olympians who wouldn't even bother to claim their children.
"And you didn't tell me, why?" she asked in a slightly hurt tone. I grimaced.
"It didn't come up." I answered.
"Does it takes a lot of your energy?" she asked again, noticing my slight pants. I shrugged it off.
"Not much. If I were a daughter of a god with a lesser shadow affinity, like Hades or Hecate, it would take more out of me. It's not that tiring." I answered truthfully.
I turned on the alarm clock. The Stymphalian birds instantly went crazy, and I mean really crazy. They started screeching so hard I was worried that my eardrums might burst. They flew around aimlessly, screeching and attacking us with feathers as sharp as a knife. One of them clawed at my face, leaving a bloody gash that barely missed my eye. Oww, oww, oww! That frikkin' hurts! I swung my glaive wildly and vaporized the stupid fiend. I felt some triumph rise inside me, happy that I'd destroyed the thing that dared hurt me, but another part of me reminded me that I didn't have the time to commit hubris.
"Amy, duck!" I called out. My cousin ducked, but the bird's talons had already sunk into her shoulder. Ouch. That gotta hurt. Amy shrieked in pain and flailed around for a second before gathering enough sanity to vaporize the unfortunate bird who attacked her.
We were guarding each other's backs now. We've gotten into enough battles to know each other's fighting style intimately and use it to our advantage. I trusted her to protect my blind spot (so to speak) and me hers. We made quick work of the rest of the birds, but not without sustaining some injuries ourselves.
"Ouch, Amy, can't you be, I dunno, a bit gentle?" Sarah hissed as I gently cleaned the gash over her left shoulder with antiseptic. What? You can't always rely on ambrosia and nectar, can you? Too much of that stuff can be dangerous, and it's not like I have an endless supply of it.
And no, it has nothing to do with my hidden sadistic streak. Nuh-uh. Absolutely not.
…Well maybe a little.
"Oh shut up, you big crybaby," I rolled my eyes. "I'm smaller than you, I've been hurt too, and you don't see me complaining."
"Ah, Amy, your words hurt me. Why, you don't want me to be your friend anymore?" Sarah mock-sobbed. Little Miss Drama, that's what she is. She'd be a great actress when she grows up. Got an amazing poker face too. I never quite mastered the art of keeping a straight face while bluffing. 'Tis an arcane skill, indeed.
"You've been hurt by things far worse that that, Sarah. The minotaur, the chimera, the hydra… do you really need me to list all the monsters we've met so far?" I asked. "Besides I did tell you to duck."
"Quack-quack," Sarah said in a nasal voice.
"Yes, ducks say quack-quack. The cow says moooo…" I deadpanned. Then I winced as blood from a gash over my eye started to trickle down my cheek. I could feel the sticky-icky wetness all over my face. Sarah picked up a small bottle of nectar.
"Lie down and hold still, Amy," she said. "Let me clean the wound first." She wiped away the blood on my face with what felt like a piece of wet cloth, cleaned the wound, and poured some nectar over it. "There. Though you might want to shave your other eyebrow so it would match. There's a scar over your eye, it might take a while before your eyebrow regrows. Hey, that rhymed!" Yeah, I know, she's random. It's a part of our demigod heritage, we all have ADHD. It's really annoying, but I guess it's a small price to pay for life-saving reflexes in the battlefield.
I glanced at the clock. It was nearly ten o'clock, and tomorrow was Monday. And I still haven't finished my homework. I bit back a groan and decided to finish my homework before going to sleep. My math teacher's a killer.
If only I knew how much I was going to regret this decision tomorrow.
The next day, we woke up late. It was a combination of exhaustion, staying up late, and the fact that the alarm clock ran out of batteries last night when we were fighting the stymphalian birds. Hey, don't look at me like that! It's a legit excuse!
Sarah, being the worrywart that she is, absolutely freaked out.
"Amy, how can you be so calm? We've only got fifteen minutes 'til the bell rings!" she fretted and all but dragged me towards the doorway. I shot her an exasperated look.
"Take a chill pill, Sarah. Does the phrase 'shadow travel' rings any bells?" I asked. She stopped dead in her tracks and gave an uneasy laugh. "Stop being so panicky why don't you. Being late isn't the end of the world."
"Yeah, yeah. I just overeacted," Sarah muttered. Then she picked up her school bag that was lying on the floor. Sarah bunking with me was such a regular occurrence. that people wouldn't be suspicious or anything. She lived only a few blocks away, we practically have a sleepover every other week. When I was younger my mom usually left me at James' place when she was off on a business trip (admittedly less often than she does now).
"Okay, now hold on tight. I'm going to shadow-travel us to the abandoned alley near school." I said. Sarah nodded and we vanished from my apartment in a swirl of darkness.
Shadow travel is a pleasant sensation, for me at least. It feels like taking a cold shower after a nice long marathon run. My skin, which is really sensitive and gets burned easily, cools down when touched by shadows. The shadows is my hometurf, it's a really nice place to be, and when I'm there I'm practically invincible. The adrenalin-rushing sensation of supersonic movement is just a small bonus.
"Oww, Sarah, that hurts," I complained as we reappeared in the empty alley near our school. Sarah's fingernails were digging into my skin.
"Sorry. Hey, can we do it again tomorrow?" she asked eagerly. Dear me, the adrenalin junkie is back. I shook my head.
"Maybe next time. It's not as easy as it looks like, you know." Taking a person along with me while shadow-traveling took more energy than I thought it would. It was like riding a tandem bicycle with only one person pedalling. The difference wasn't much but it was there, and the accumulated strain caught up with me at the end of the shadow-travel.
Then we heard a loud, panic-stricken scream for help not far away and a low angry hiss we both knew all too well. Sarah and I exchanged glances. The hydra.
We really couldn't get any rest, could we?