CALYPSO – THE RAFT IS STUCK IN TRAFFIC

He hurried after me as I stalked to the edge of the beach. Spinning around to face him, I gestured disgustedly at the remains of my ex-dining table, littered around the white sand. "This was a pristine beach! Look at it now."

He muttered something under his breath and then spoke louder. "I should've crashed on one of the other islands. Oh, wait – there aren't any!"

I snarled and continued walking along the edge of the water, stopping at a clear spot of sand with easy access to the lapping waves. I stared out at the water, remembering the other times the raft had appeared on the horizon. This was different though – I wanted the raft to come.

I felt something hit me from behind and fell forward. I turned, grabbing the surprised demigod's arms and using them to pull me out of the way of the water. I glared at him in annoyance – first he crashes into my furniture, ruining the beach, and then he runs into me and nearly pushes me into the sea. I couldn't wait to –

I was distracted as I realised how close we were. His chocolate eyes were less than four inches away from mine. I stared at them for a moment, and saw them unfocus slightly, as if he was reminiscing about something that had happened long ago.

Shaking myself out of the daze, I pushed him away abruptly. "All right. This spot is good. Now tell me you want to leave."

"What?" he asked, gormlessly. I cursed under my breath. Apparently, this was going to be harder than I'd thought.

"Do you want to leave? Surely you've got somewhere to go?"

"Uh…yeah," he said, his eyes brightening as the penny finally dropped. "My friends are in trouble. I need to get back to my ship and-" I cut him off. I didn't need to hear about the life in the outside world he had to return to. At least he could return to it. I was banished to Ogygia forever.

"Fine," I snapped. "Just say, I want to leave Ogygia."

"Uh, okay," the demigod responded. I saw hurt flash in his eyes for a second, but it was quickly replaced by determination. "I want to leave – whatever you said."

"Oh-gee-gee-ah," I said slowly, enunciating. The quicker he could pick it up, the quicker he could leave.

"I want to leave Oh-gee-gee-ah," he said, replicating exactly how I had sounded it out to him. I sighed, relieved. "Good. In a moment, the magical raft will appear. IT will take you wherever you want to go."

"Who are you?" he demanded. Curiosity sparked in those chocolate eyes. I opened my mouth to reply and instead internally cursed myself and wrote a mental note; stop looking in his eyes. It was making me…feel sorry for him or something.

"It doesn't matter. You'll be gone soon. You're obviously a mistake," I spat, harshly. I stopped myself from looking in his eyes, but I could remember the hurt that would no doubt appear there again. I scanned the water again instead, noticing a suspicious lack of magic raft. "Any moment now…"

The demigod looked at the water again. No magical raft appeared.

"Maybe it got stuck in traffic," he suggested.

"This is wrong." I glared at the sky. "This is completely wrong!" Why did the gods hate me? I had obediently followed the terms of my punishment for far too long, staying on Ogygia, allowing the heroes I fell in love with to leave and only cussing the gods out occasionally. And now they had sent me a short, elvish, insufferable demigod to add to my torment.

A demigod with eyes full of regret and buried pain.

I shook myself again. "So…plan B?" the demigod asked. "You got a phone, or-"

"Argh!" I growled, and stormed off angrily. When I reached the footpath, I broke into a sprint, running through the trees.

"Okay," I heard the demigod say, his voice fading as I increased the distance between us. "Or you could just run away."

Sorry this chapter was so short! I'm on holiday in India, and I'm really jet-lagged. In fact, it's 3am here. Hope you enjoyed it anyway!