Here's chapter number two. I did say give it two weeks, but sometimes I will produce a chapter under that length of time. Anyway, enjoy chapter two.
Enter: Zachary Johnson
September 14, 2024
On most early Saturday mornings, kids and teens alike would prefer to stay in bed for a few extra hours before actually getting up. Admittedly, he did too. But he had a bad habit of getting up at six in the morning. So he decided if this was going to be the case every damn morning, he might as well do something productive. And by productive, he didn't mean cleaning, making breakfast or anything lame like that. In fact, he'd prefer to be shooting at some trees.
Walking towards a rather large sized tree, he backed up and ran up the tree. As he felt gravity begin to take over, he jumped up and grabbed the branch. He struggled somewhat to pull himself up the branch. He might've been athletic sure, but he didn't have the 'visibly muscular' type of body. Finally getting himself up the tree branch, he knelt down, holding out his hand to the side to hold on to the tree bark so that he wouldn't lose his balance. He kept his eyes shut and cleared his mind, clearing his mind and making sure he didn't focus on the one thing that scared him: heights. No instead there was only him, and the targets. Focus...on the targets...
He breathed in deep...before letting himself fall. He kept his eyes shut, determining the speed he was falling at and roughly how long it would take before he met his imminent death. He focused...and suddenly, time seemed much slower. His hazel colored eyes snapped open and darted in several different directions: up, southeast, west, northeast. His left hand quickly grabbed the recurve bow attached to his quiver, and his right hand grabbed an arrow with a long rope and clasp attached to it. Attaching the clasp to his bow, he aimed the first arrow and fired, all in less than three seconds. The arrow hit the first target, which he had carved with a knife a week prior (as he did with all his targets), almost directly in the center. The rope straightened, and he clung onto dear life as the momentum swung him onto a branch of a smaller tree. Not stopping, he aimed two arrows west and fired, one hitting directly in the center while the other barely hit the target. He turned and aimed another arrow northeast, the arrow landing in the middle as well, then aimed another carrier arrow (the ones with rope) at the southeast target. This one was a bit out of sight, so he shut his left eye and focused his right eye on the carving down below. He waited for a few silent moments before his right index and middle fingers released the arrow, the arrow landing but he didn't have the patience whether it made dead center or not. He jumped and swung down, like Tarzan, except he didn't beat his chest like an absolute moron. Once he approached ground level, he let go and prepared to make a badass superhero landing...only to trip and end up bouncing down the ground, leaving human sized tracks of dirt. He groaned as he stood up.
"Okay, that's on me. Superhero landings are impossible, not to mention hard on your knees." Zachary Johnson patted away the dirt on his clothing, wondering why the hell he ever bothered trying to do these stupid stunts. Seriously, any normal kid his age wouldn't think about doing something this stupid.
"I guess that's what I get for trying to be a superhero." the blonde muttered. He looked up, and was a bit disappointed with his results. Only three of his arrows actually hit the target. The other two missed by centimeters. Maybe that's why his landing failed. Regardless, it showed Zachary that he was beginning to hit a wall, his limits. Tiredly, he threw his bow across his quiver, running over to his bike. He mounted it, and cycled back home.
He saw a raven flap by, which he paid no mind to. Except, this particular raven had golden feathers and blue irises, and oversaw the skill known as archery. And it, or rather he, was particularly interested why that boy seemed so off.
XXX
The brown haired boy finally came across his house, and put away his bike in the garage before entering the house. Zachary overheard some noise in the kitchen and living room, and assumed the entire family was awake. Walking towards the kitchen, he saw his mother there, checking the news on her phone on one hand, and drinking a cup of tea with the other. No one in the house was allowed to drink coffee or anything caffeinated, since everyone in the house had either ADHD or ADD. In his case, it was the latter.
"Hey mom." the boy said nonchalantly, scaring the absolute shit out his mother. The raven haired woman spun around, a hand on her chest. "Gods Zack, what have I told you about scaring me like that?" she said, her heart probably beating loudly. Zachary grinned. "And what have I told you about calling me Zack? It sounds like the name of some idiotic jock." he opened up the fridge, pulling out a box that contained a refrigerated breakfast sandwich.
Ashley rolled her grey eyes. "Right, it's my fault that you nearly scared the living daylights out of me?" her son scoffed, putting the sandwich in the microwave for three minutes.
"Your'e too easy to scare. There are few people in this world that are that paranoid, and you are easily in the top ten." Zachary shot back. Ashley's eye twitched, turning away from him. He heard her mutter something in Greek, and strangely enough he could've sworn he heard her say something like "little smartass" but that was probably his imagination. He couldn't speak any other language besides English, with the exception of the bit of Spanish he knew already from his friends. Actually, that reminded him...
"Hey mom, can you drive me over to Anthony's? I promised him we'd meet up early to hang out." Ashley shook her head no. "Sorry honey, I can't. I'm already going to be late for work, I can't afford to be even more late."
Zachary frowned at this, but then said, "Oh, that's fine then. I'll just ask Robert if he can take me instead." he was about to go upstairs and ask his stepfather, but his mother touched his shoulder.
"Sorry Zack, but Robert got called in for work." Zachary blinked. What?
"Wait, what? But that doesn't make any sense, Robert's shift doesn't start until eleven." Ashley sighed, sounding a little sad when she spoke.
"An old friend of mine got into an accident last night. He suffered a severe spinal cord injury, and they needed your stepfather's expertise on the matter." seeing her downtrodden face, Zachary said, "I'm sure he'll be fine. Rob's one of the best surgeons out there."
That seemed to lift her spirits a little, as she said, "Yeah, you're right. I'm sure he'll be alright." she took another sip of her tea, grabbing her keys and making her way out. Before she left, Ashley turned around and asked, "You'll be fine, right?"
Zachary nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine."
His mother smiled, and shut the door on her way out. Zachary grabbed the sandwich from the microwave, as it was done heating up. While he was eating, he decided to text his friend Anthony.
Yo. You up?
It didn't take long to get a text back.
Yep. So we meetin up or nah?
Yeah, but imma be a little late.
That's cool. Cya.
Zachary threw out the wrapper and went back outside. He mounted his bike and started pedaling. Anthony's house was pretty far, and he'd need to get there as quickly as possible.
XXX
"Must suck for Robert." Anthony said, tossing the football. Zachary threw it back, replying, "Yeah, having to perform that type of work knowing that you might fail must really put a strain. Especially on Rob. The guy's way too good for his own good."
Anthony smirked, backing up a little. "Go long!" He reeled his arm back and threw the ball far. Zachary cursed. "Damn it Anthony, you dick!" He began running the other way to make sure the football didn't touch down. For a few brief second, that thing happened again, where time seemed to slow down, but only for a few seconds. He almost didn't notice it this time. Finally, he caught up and jumped, catching the ball in his arms but was sent tumbling down the grass.
"What?! That's impossible!" his best friend called out from meters away on his spot. Zachary laughed, about to throw it back but then stopped. An unpleasant chill went up his spine, and out of instinct, spun around as if he was expecting someone there...or something. Behind him, were the deep dark woods, where no one went due to the fact there have been sightings of foxes out there. They usually stayed away, unless provoked. But still, something seemed off.
"Yo!" Zachary spun back around, seeing his friend hold out his arms. "You gonna throw it or what?" The hazel eyed boy frowned, turning back to face the forest.
"Yo, um, I think we should move to another spot. I'm getting this really weird feeling." Zachary shouted, but Anthony didn't seem to understand.
"What? Dude, right here's fine! Throw the damn ball already!" he snapped, getting impatient. But he didn't notice Zachary's panic. He wasn't the one who suddenly had his sense dialed to eleven, nor could the only thing he heard was his heart beating inside his chest. Adrenaline filled Zachary's body, and every instinct in his body was telling him one thing: move.
The second the boy took off, did an earthquake happen. The people around him started panicking, and Zachary had lost track of Anthony, but at the moment he didn't really care. All he cared about was getting as far away as possible from this entire mess. And that's when the real horror began. Loud, multiple roars stopped him in his tracks, and his curiousity got the better of him. He really wished it hadn't, because what he was looking at was a giant fucking serpent with 12 heads. The heads alone reached around fifteen feet high, and Zachary didn't even want to know how long the rest of its body was, seeing the tracks it left behind.
'Fuck this, I need to get out of here right now! I gotta call mom and-' Zachary lost his train his thought as the sniffing heads turned to look at his direction. He froze, but logically thought that weren't going to come after him. The thing didn't come after anyone else so maybe-
The monster roared, and slithered his way, all twelve head opening their gaping jaws, there teeth as sharp as diamonds. It was moving so fast that his mind didn't even perceive it...but his body did. He didn't notice it, but time slowed down, if only briefly, and then...he jumped.
Zachary's legs left the ground and he jumped in between the space between two of the heads. He landed several yards away from it, the thing eating nothing but pure grass and dirt as its heads finally struck. The ground shook, snapping him out of his daze. He looked at himself and the monster behind him.
"T-That was over a ten foot jump. H-How did I...?" he looked down at himself, wondering just what the literal fuck had happened. He heard a roar, and he saw all twelve heads about to chew him out, and instinctively he ducked and began rolling out the way of the heads. He avoided most of them, but one had actually nicked him, which was pretty bad considering they had huge teeth. He cried out as he clutched his torn up arm. It was bleeding pretty badly, so he could do nothing else but wait for certain death as the monster's head opened up its large jaw...and that's when it received a barrage of silver arrows to its face. The head cried out, and collapsed on top of Zachary's legs, breaking every bone in his lower body. He screamed in pain, and was wondering why he hadn't died or at least passed out yet.
"Hunters! Formation Omega!" fortunately, both the young man's sight and and hearing were perfectly fine, so he heard the punk girl with the silver jacket order the other silver jacket wearing girls to surround the beast. They drew back their bow strings and began firing an unbelievable amount of arrows at the monster, taking down head by head easily. Zachary flinched every time he thought one of the collapsing heads would fall onto him, but was relieved every time he survived. Finally, Zachary saw the punk girl, who he now assumed was the leader of the group, raise her bronze spear up into the air as the area began to smell like ozone. That's when he saw a storm begin to quickly form in the sky, the center of it all seemingly the punk girl. Zachary thought that to be impossible until an actual bolt of lightning struck down and hit her, the bronze acting as a perfect conductor. Even more surprising however, was the fact that she wasn't dead. No, if anything, she looked energized, as if she'd just taken a Red Bull. She reeled back her spear and thrust it forward, a bolt of lightning shooting out from that weapon and heading straight for the monster. That would've been nice if he hadn't been trapped under the damn thing's head!
Adrenaline began to fill his body once more, and only one thing went through his mind: survival.
Zachary wasn't actually sure what happened next, but next thing he knew everything went dark. Not the unconscious kind of dark, more like the dark room kind of dark. He became startled by what sounded like an explosion, and then there was silence. He heard some talking from outside of wherever he was, and called out from wherever he was.
"Hello? Hey, if anyone can hear me, get me out of this thing!" he smacked his hand against the bark (how the hell did he get inside a damn tree?), calling out for help. After a few more seconds of silence, he heard someone knock from the other side?
"Um, hello?" said the muffled voice. The wounded boy's eyes lit up. "Yes? Hey, I'm trapped in this thing! Can you please get help?" there was some arguing from the other side, and that's when she said, "Alright, hold on."
Zachary waited for a couple of seconds, and that's when he heard a thump against the wood. The stranger kept banging against the wood, and then eventually, the wood splintered, showing the outside world. He hesitantly opened his eyes, and recognized the punk girl from earlier standing over him. She grabbed his arm and got him out of the confined space, which he now saw was a cocoon tree roots. He didn't even have the time to wonder how that was possible, as the pain in his lower body and in his right arm was too much to bear.
The punk girl lightly slapped his cheek, keeping him awake. "Hey, hey stay with me. What's your name kid?"
Zachary frowned at the word 'kid', but nonetheless replied, "Z-Zachary. W-Who are you people?" he asked, gesturing to her and the rest of her archer friends.
"My name's Thalia, and I lead the Hunters whenever my lady is busy with her duties." she said but it didn't make much sense to him.
"W-What was that thing? And y-you, the l-lightning and-" he ended mumbling nonsense as the pain started to take over. A larger, chubbier girl stepped forward, giving him a mean look for some reason.
"Lieutenant, what are you doing? We killed the Hydra, now we must go before people begin to take notice. You know the Mist isn't as-" she was cut when Thalia raised her fist, demanding silence.
"I know that Phoebe, but we can't leave this boy to die. He doesn't even know who he is!" They continued to argue amongst themselves, while Zachary continued to slowly near his inevitable death. Thalia noticed he was getting worse and told Phoebe, "Look, we can argue later but I am the lieutenant of the Hunt, and I'm ordering you to get me a flask of nectar. Now!" she nearly barked. Phoebe still looked like she wanted to argue more, but she nodded and grabbed an old fashioned flask from her hip and gave it to Thalia. The punk girl popped it open and knelt beside him.
"Just relax." she told him, before pouring a strange yellow liquid over his arm. Zachary expected it to hurt, but surprisingly, his arm felt much better. No stinging pain or anything. She then put it in his mouth, and forced me to drink the rest. Zachary obliged, and he felt my broken bones being set back in place. His legs still hurt like hell, but they no longer felt as if he'd been lit on fire.
Slowly, he sat upright, and even tried to stand, but his legs gave out. Thalia frowned at this, saying, "I guess there wasn't enough nectar to totally heal your body. But you'll get further treatment back at camp."
The boy looked at her quizzically. "Um, what camp?"
"Camp Half-Blood. A safe haven for people like us." she said, ordering her hunters to start moving out.
"Wait, what? People like us? Look, thanks for helping me but I don't even know you." she looked at Zachary like he was stupid.
"I told you my name, didn't I?" He rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant."
She shrugged. "You'll get the detailed version once we arrive. For now though," she knelt beside him, "sorry about this."
Zachary opened his mouth to ask what she was sorry about when she threw her fist, and then the next thing he knew the lights had gone out.
XXX
A week later...
When Zachary awoke, the first thing he felt was a bone crushing hug. He assumed it was his mother.
"Oh my gods, Zachary! I was so worried, I thought after the Hydra attacked you wouldn't have made it out alive. Thank the Hunters you're okay!" Ashley hugged her son fiercely, sounding relieved.
"I'm fine mom. Really, I am." he reassured, but that's when another voice popped in.
"Really? Because you didn't look so good when they brought you in kid." Robert Wilson stepped out from the shadows, making the mother and son jump. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry, it was just that corner of the room had a bad bulb, so I couldn't help myself, you know?" Zachary snorted, because that was such a Rob thing to do.
Rob got slightly more serious. "How you doing kid? Heard you got attacked by Hydra. Lemme just say, worst first monster ever." he joked, but Zachary caught that 'Hydra' part from his mom and that girl Thalia too. He rubbed his temples. "Hydra..."
His parents looked at him oddly. This time he looked back up, meeting their eyes. "Hydra. That's what Thalia called that monster. Are you guys in on this too?"
His parents shared a not so secretive glance between them. Still, Rob tried to lie. Thing was, Rob was not a very good liar. "What are you talking about kid? In on wh-"
"Rob, I was just attacked by some type of overgrown snake-lizard thing. Don't. Lie to me!" he snapped. His mother caressed his hand, sharing a look with his stepfather. She opened her mouth to speak. "Honey..."
"I think, I am more suited for this." interrupted a wise sounding man. We all turned to look at him. First thing Zachary noticed was the fact that the middle aged man was in a wheelchair. He wore a khaki suit over a blue sweater vest, which he wore over a white dress up shirt, and a red tie. The man had chocolate brown hair and a full beard, and wrinkles on his forehead that signified that he was always under a lot of stress, but at the same time had crow feet and smile lines as if saying 'I've lived a full life, and I'm still going!' But the thing that intrigued the boy the most was the man's eyes. They seemed old, as if he'd seen so many horrors in this world, so dark that they were kept prisoners within his mind.
Still, he smiled at him. "Hello Mr. Johnson. My name is Chiron, and I am the activities director here at Camp Half-Blood. I've heard much about you." he held out his hand in a friendly manner, and Zachary actually shook it. Oddly enough, he felt almost compelled to do so, as if this man's aura truly meant no harm.
But that last statement confused him though. "Wait, you've heard about me? From my parents, you mean?" he turned to his mother. "How long have you been trying to send me here?" he asked.
Ashley sighed. "Actually, I've been doing everything I can to keep you away from this place. But I guess that wasn't meant to be." Again, Zachary was greatly confused by this.
"What? Why? Are you guys apart of some sort of cult?" it was Rob who spoke this time.
"No Zachary, we're not apart-actually...hey Chiron, can this be considered as a cult?" he asked, and Chiron gave him an exasperated look.
"Mr. Wilson, I am going to pretend you did not ask that." Chiron turned his attention back to the boy in bed. "Unfortunately, the orientation film will not quite do this time around, as you are a bit of an odd case. Can you walk?" he asked. Zachary nodded, standing up as if he hadn't gotten both his legs broken mere days before.
"Wait, Chiron, don't you think it's a little too soon to-" Chiron raised a hand and silenced her. He smiled up at her. "Don't worry Ashley, I've done this plenty of times before. Follow me my boy." he told Zachary, wheeling his chair outside. Zachary followed him, still unsure as to what was going on. When they both exited the infirmary, Zachary was surprised at what he saw.
Camp Half-Blood given its most basic, underrated, over-simplistic summary was a summer camp combined with a strawberry farm. He assumed the strawberries covered their expenses. However, a more detailed view, was that Camp Half-Blood was also a magical boot-camp with monsters (yeah, he saw that big ass fucking dragon), mystical creatures (unless goat legs are the new PINK yoga pants) and soldiers with archaic weaponry (not a single gun wielder in sight). Yeah...Zachary just wanted to go home.
"This is Camp Half-Blood. Now to start off, first let me stretch my legs." Zachary snorted, and was about to ask if that was a joke, but that's when Chiron actually made to move. And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, Zachary thought he was wearing white pants under his dress pants, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, he realized that those weren't an extra pair of pants; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.
"Suddenly, nothing in life makes sense anymore." he muttered, but Chiron heard him, and chuckled.
"Come along, Zachary. I have much to show you."
Yes, I did steal that last bit from The Lightning Thief, please don't copyright me, because that's just a dick thing to do. Until chapter three,
~~Peace~~
