He's not panicked, really he isn't. He's just curious. Adam had had many dreams in the past before, but never like this. his dreams where never this… real or structured. Usually, they made no sense, and you never thought anything was off until you woke up and noticed that the reality of the situation just wasn't like that.
This time everything was average, mundane but most importantly, absolutely tranquil. There wasn't any drama, just a sweet scene with him and two girls by his side. It wasn't sexual or romantic at all, just sweet and platonic. They were sitting at a wharf, overlooking the ocean. The girl to his right, Thalia - his mind tells him, grumbles something about it being pathetic that none of them could dare swim, in case they upset their uncle.
The view is beautiful, looking off of the wharf. He- the dream version of Adam - puts his hand down the back pocket of his jeans. Forty dollars. Just enough for a motel room with two beds. In the dream, the three of them are all around the ages of seven to eleven. The girl to his left, Annabeth, says she's getting cold out.
He nods and signals for them all to walk down to a hostel, situated in a shady part of the lower New York suburbs. Nobody asks why the three of them, children so young, are travelling alone. They mind their own business as long as the due payment is paid.
Something tells him that the money that his dream self had, wasn't honest money, probably stolen from somebody. The hostel provides them with a four bed room - two bunks crammed next to each other so it looked like a queen bunk bed - for the cost of twenty dollars a night.
Thalia and Annabeth sleep comfortably on the bottom, and Luke - the name of his dream self - takes one of the top bunks.
"Luke?" one of the girls on the bottom bunk asks. He rolls over to hang his head over the side of the top bunk to show he's listening. They're both staring directly into his eyes, in a deadpan expression. "Why did you do it?" Their voice's echo, as if multiple other voices are also leaving their mouth, all asking the same question.
At first, he doesn't know what they're talking about, then it hits him. Adam doesn't know, but his counterpart in the dream knows exactly what they're accusing him of. A deep shame hollows a cavity in his stomach.
He wakes up. Adam isn't sweaty or screaming like somebody would when they woke up from a pretty intense nightmare, but he notices a tear leaking out of one eye. His nose is all blocked up, and he quickly wipes all traces of tears off his face. Checking the time, Adam notices that he's slept in an hour, and it would be far too late to even think about going to track practice that morning.
He gathers up his things and gets dressed to go to school. Looking in the mirror, he notices that he looks terrible, dark rings around his eyes and hair matted. Combing through the mess hurts him, but it's necessary if he wants to get rid of that mess quickly.
He still looks tired, but not terrible anymore. Adam stumbles into the kitchen, where his mum is near the stove boiling an egg. She looks up at him.
"Why aren't you out already? You'll miss your bus." Adam nods, half listening, half not. His mother furrows her eyebrows and goes to feel his forehead. It's warm, but not warm enough to warrant staying home.
"Are you feeling well?" Maybe he's got a headache, and they ran out of Paracetamol. It's expensive they can't afford to have unless they absolutely needed it. So usually in the Milligan household, headaches were treated with a glass of cold water and a nap. If that didn't work, then they had to buy Paracetamol.
Adam shakes his head, he isn't feeling too well. Today's his mother's day off, so if he stayed home he wouldn't be lonely. He thinks back on the dream he's had, and the fact that he still remembers the dream. The name they called him, Luke, was extremely familiar.
The name was comfortable on his tongue, and the foreign name felt natural. Now that he had realised that he was alternatively called Luke in a dream, every time somebody called him Adam it took him a moment to realise, that yes, that was him.
He wonders why the name Luke is so familiar to him, after all, he had only heard it in his dreams now.
"Hey, mum?" He asks when she's preparing lunch. She looks up from her pot.
"Yes?"
"Does the name Luke mean anything to you?" She considers the question for a moment, trying to think if she knows anybody by the name of Luke.
"Well, when you were born I was about to name you Luke. You just looked like a Luke, but then I remember my father, Adam, had died a week prior. You were about to be a Luke."
Adam thinks for a while. Either it was a coincidence or he was having some kind of prophetic dreams. Adam shook his head, there were more important things to be worrying about. Adam takes out his pre-calculus homework and tries to make sense of it.
Although he knew English was his first language, he spoke and understood Greek far better than he ever would English. After his discovery of his excellent understanding of the Greek language five months ago, he's dived into the subject, understanding every nook and cranny of the language, even down to nailing the accent.
He spoke it like a native, and honestly, his Greek teacher was shocked. She didn't expect this kid, who she had been told by other teachers was impossible to teach, take to the subject so well. In the exams, there was a section on labelling the Greek Gods family tree.
He aced it from the Titans to the most minor of Demi-gods. It was the first Academic class that he achieved an A in, and the first academic class that he beat all the other students in the grade.
—
He doesn't get another dream like that for a few months, and he doesn't mind the peace from the torment inside his mind. He doesn't know why the dreams make him squirm guiltily and uncomfortably, because as far as he was aware, he had never done anything to feel immensely guilty about.
His father has been making his sparse appearances more regular than they ever were. Adam's fifteenth birthday was rapidly approaching, and he was starting to develop reckless-like characteristics. He knew it would break his mother's heart if she ever found out, but he'd developed a habit of thieving things. Just random pickpocketing was incredibly easy for him, it was like second nature.
Walking along the street, it was almost laughable how easy he picks business cards and other random things that would give the owner minor inconveniences. He never stole money. He knew how much money could mean to some people and that there were a lot of people who needed every dollar they earned. Perfecting his skills where simple, and within a few weeks, he was decided to get bolder.
Instead of stealing from a person, he's still from an office, random papers that wouldn't mean anything in the long run except to make somebody's day harder. Sneaking around was like second nature. He was a natural.
One day at school, there was an Ancient Greek incursion team that arrived at the school to help in their course on Greece and its history. There was a segment where they asked for volunteers to come up on to the stage to help in their reenactment of a roman fight. Luke, obviously, was among one of the first to go up, with his ADHD just begging him to do anything at all.
Backstage, he and another kid were told that this fight would be completely improvised on their part and that they should just try to replicate any moves they had seen in various pop culture movies about ancient Greek fights.
Adam finally noticed the other child there, George, who had bragged about being taught in the art of fencing ever since he could walk. They suited up in selected Spartan and Athenian armour pieces, with Adam being Spartan and George being Athenian.
One of the instructors had told him that the amour were just replicas, but they'd still be uncomfortable. There was clear discomfort on George's facial expression and an awkward stance. Adam wore the Armour like a second skin, comfortably fitting in, and the scratchiness of the shoulder pieces didn't bother him at all.
The sword they're both given is an authentic looking one, except the sharp edges of the blade have been covered with a rubber guard. It still looks like it could hurt though if they swung hard enough at each other. Well, anything swung hard enough could hurt you, so it wasn't the best comparison.
They're told that whoever wins the first duel gets to fight the on-hand swordsman they have. Adam nods, not really convinced that he could win against George. George isn't as well built as Adam, but he does have a few lean muscles that look like he would be nimble and quick.
He gives a quick verbal rundown of the rules, with Adam not really paying attention. He's too excited. He'd never been able to fight with a sword before, and now that he had gotten the chance, he wasn't going to blow it.
The instructor beams at their nod and encourages them to go out to the stage to show the other students who are watching, their demonstration/reenactment of how a fight might have gone back then in the days of the Peloponnesian war. The lights brighten and a spotlight is shone towards the centre of the stage. A small bell rings, which signals both himself and George to begin.
When George unsheathes his sword, an instinct takes control of Adam, and before he knows what he's doing, he takes a stance, tightening his grip around the sword, and loosening his hand on his shield. George arrogantly drops his shield to the side, probably thinking that he wouldn't need one against Adam.
Adam doesn't have such arrogance, but he takes a confident pace to the left, almost about to circle George. George takes first move, trying to strike down at an open position by Adam's neck, to which Adam instinctively brings up his sword to parry, twist his hold on the sword so it forces George's hold to stumble.
Adam brings up the shield to protect his vital organs. When it's obvious that George is waiting for Adam's next move to retaliate. Adam does a move that catches George off guard, doing a classic Spartan kick, like one in the movie 300. The move is executed perfectly, and George is thrown across the stage floor.
The audience is taken aback. George scrambles across the stage floor to grab the shield he had so carelessly let go before, as Adam begins to up his attacks, intensely. Each blow harder than the last and Adam didn't even seem to tire, even after George had been on laying on his back, not being able to retaliate, too busy warding off the fast attacks to even attempt to find an opening within the rapid attacks.
Adam finally stops when the instructor yells that he is the victor of the sparring match. Adam feels accomplished. The instructor barely manages a sentence when gushing on about how skilled Adam was with every blow. He had told them he was a rookie and never picked up a sword in his life, but there was some kind of instinct in him that knew exactly how swordsmanship worked. The instructor told him that he fought as if he had been fighting his whole life.
Almost as if he really was a Spartan hero from the Peloponnesian war itself, or maybe one of the heroes from the myths. Like Perseus, the son of Zeus.
