We arrived at the school pretty quickly and hustled into the school; we were 5 minutes late.

Since we had the same first period, we didn't have to split up. The two of us walked briskly to our first period; biology.

We walked past a couple of guys standing at the locker, but both Rhea and I stopped after we passed the two people.

"What's wrong with them?" I turned to the sound of Rhea's voice and followed her gaze to see the two guys…frozen.

They were frozen in time, not moving, not talking, mouths slightly open as if they were stopped in mid-sentence, and all of a sudden, both of their eyes closed and they fell quickly against the locker and onto the floor.

Rhea jumped when their bodies hit the floor, as I looked around for any type of cause of this. Maybe they had a late night and just…zoned out completely…and just fell asleep in the middle of the hallway….who am I kidding?

It doesn't make any sense.

Rhea saw my calculating face and tugged my arm lightly. "Come on, maybe our first period class is normal and we can tell the teacher or somebody else."

I slipped my hand out of hers and bent down to the two teenagers and checked their pulse. They were both alive, thank God. But…they were knocked out and their pulse was slow as if they were put into a bear's hibernation stage.

"Looking for something to give me away, child?"

The deep gravelly voice came from right in front of me, as I snapped my head up to see a tall, thin figure in a black trench coat with black sunglasses and black combat boots.

His trench coat flowed like a blanket, and his sunglasses had decorations of the night sky with the stars and everything on them. At least I thought they were decorations.

Until I saw the shooting star fly through the 'space' that was in his glasses.

I scrambled back and hopped up in front of Rhea, but stumbled in the process. I should've worn sneakers.

Judging by his posture, he was calm and believed that he wasn't in danger of being caught or getting into a fight or anything else. He had black combat gloves.

His eyebrows creased as if he found something confusing. "You aren't asleep?"

He looked at Rhea, and she collapsed on the spot. I scrambled to catch her before she hit her head. I picked her up and carried her on my back as I faced the figure. "Who are you?"

His mouth twisted into a gleeful grin. "That doesn't matter now. Except…I know who you are! How ironic…I would meet you out of all people. You have a scent on you. I'm surprised that no one else has found you yet. The son of-"

He took a step towards me and I got into my boxing stance…until the most disgusting and scary sound I've ever heard erupted from behind me.

It was a mix between a scream and a battle cry, but magnify it like 1000 times. The force of the sound wave was strong enough to knock both me and the mystery figure several feet; the figure hit his head on the locker and cursed colorfully.

I stood up and regained my balance. I was just annoyed while the mystery figure was still slightly dazed. I looked at the source of the sound and I saw a gangly teenager, maybe 18, 19, with a full goatee and muscular arms.

That was his torso.

His head contained huge, curving horns that curved around to his shoulders, and he could move them as if they were his ears. Below the torso was much stranger. He had full hair on his legs, and he was standing on hooves. He looked like he could hold his own in a fight, and he looked at me with wide eyes and a smile on his face.

I frowned. Not exactly a great first day of 11th grade. Being harassed by a stranger, Rhea getting knocked out, and being scoped out by some black guy with hairy legs and hooves and horns.

He grumbled and picked leaves out his hair as he walked past me to the mystery figure. "Morpheus." He said this in a disgusted voice as he took out some strange instrument. He played some notes that made large branches and vines sprout through the marble floor, surround this guy Morpheus (strange name), and bring him down to wherever the branches and vines came from.

He sighed and looked at us. "What's your name?"

I looked behind me to see if he was talking to me. I turned to him with Rhea still on my back. "Me?"

He rolled his eyes and muttered something about 'like father, like son', but repeated "What's your name?"

"Luke."

He stiffened and shuddered slightly, as if there was some bad connotation to the name that was just said. "Luke? What's your full name?"

"Lucas Chiron Gabriel Dare. Why, what's going on? Why-"

I didn't finish my sentence because the guy was grinning hugely. "Yep, you're the one. Come with me."

"Umm, no?"

He put his instrument away into his small pack on his back, and it seemed to shrink and compact as it was stuffed into the pack. He had a plain black Nike shirt on. He smiled as if I had made a joke. "You're pretty funny. See, the thing is, I did this same exact thing with your father. And you actually have no choice."

I didn't hear anything past father. "You knew my father?"

"Correction. I know your father."

Questions reeled in my head. "Who is he? What's his name? Where's he been? Why didn't he come visit Mom? What does he do? Is it that important that he couldn't stop by at any point?"

His expression softened as he watched me ask all these questions. "And so it starts. Listen, if you want to meet your father, you'll come with me. And…who is she?"

I slid Rhea off my back as she started to come around at the mention of her. "That's my best friend, Rhea. Rhea Warner."

The dude looked at Rhea as she wiped the sleep out of her eyes. "Huh? What's happening?"

The guy stared straight through her, and paled as if he had made some discovery by looking at my best friend. He pointed at her with a shaking finger and looked behind him as if he was showing someone behind him something. "She…she's not supposed to be alive. She's NOT supposed to be alive. Her existence is an insult to the pantheon."

I looked around. "She's not supposed to be around? What are you talking about? What pantheon? Usually, when someone says pantheon, they mean a pantheon of gods…"

Rhea furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean I'm not supposed to be alive? What pantheon?"

I stopped when I saw the solemnity on his face. "Who are you?" I looked at his legs, and for some reason, I wasn't freaking out while looking at them. I was more curious than disgusted or weirded out, if that makes any sense.

"Rachel hasn't told them yet…good gods….anyway, names have power, Lucas."

"You JUST said my name. And my mom's name."

"Did I, now?"

"YES!"

"Oh. Well names do have power. It's all about how you use it." He started to walk away, but Rhea wasn't having it.

"HEY! I know you're not going to just leave after telling me that I'm an insult and that he needs to come with you. What are you, some pedophile? Some actor for some Broadway play?" She had the icy tint to her voice that comes out when she's trying to intimidate somebody.

The dude looked at her and shook his head. "How does this happen? And always to me…who's your father?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Never knew him. Both Luke and I live with our mothers."

Now the dude looked confused. "Then how…?"

A thundering blast erupted outside the school. The dude checked his imaginary watch and whistled. "Well, look at the time. You two need to come with me. NOW!"

I started to go with him, mostly because he was going to lead me to my father, but Rhea pulled me back.

"Not until you tell us who you are!"

He turned around seriously. "My name is Grover. Grover Underwood."