Authors note: I am very sorry for releasing this so late! I wasn't ready to release it on Sunday or yesterday. This is the last chapter of Act One, so I had to make sure it was perfect! (Spelling errors not included in definition of perfect.)
So yeah this is the last chapter of Act One: Destruam. (That is latin for destroy.) I have thoroughly enjoyed writing this and I am very happy with how the first act has worked out. Now I need to think about Act 2 and 3. Im afraid it will be a long while before either of those are remotely ready for release.
This is Angry Olympian signing out for now. See you all soon!
Walls of Bricks
Act One: Destruam
Chapter 12
Chapter Theme: Sprawl I (Flatlands) -Arcade Fire
Prom had turned into the night that was promised. The food was great, the venue was better, and the DJ was fantastic. He had the entire room jumping up and down to blasting music, each one brilliantly mixed and listed. From above, the room look like ice was on fire as glitters of cool blue splashed in with the fury reds and oranges of the dancefloor.
Jay had never felt so worry free in years. He was surrounded by friends, and one amazing dancer. Sabrina knew how to dance. She told Jay she had taken lessons when she was younger, and he could see the results. She moved like a shark in water. Fearless, free, and a little dirty. Jay wasn't much of a dancer, but Sabrina led him in movements he didn't even know he could do. They were both glistening in sweat, as was everyone around them.
Jay was falling in love with Sabrina with every move. Her long, blonde hair waved in his face, and he could feel her pressing her body against his as the music went on.
Eventually, the two of them began to get dehydrated, and needed some water. A nod was all that was needed for the two of them to temporarily exit the crowd for a glass of water. It took close to two minutes to wriggle their way out of the messy mass of people. As they gulped on their water glasses, the music slowed down to a romantic type groove. Jay had been to enough school dances to know the drill. He gently grabbed Sabrinas hand and lead her into the crowd of people, now clumping together in pairs. He grabbed her waist with his hands, and Sabrina wrapped her arms around his neck and went in for a kiss. Jay loved the taste of her mouth, and how she bit his lip when they kissed.
He wanted the song to last forever. Sabrina began to rest her head on his chest, and they danced slowly in circles. Jay looked around him. He could see everyone. He saw Herry and Katrina, Neil and Elena, Atlanta, who had never looked so relaxed in a dress in her life, with her partner Lucas, Odie and Isabelle, they were all there save two. Archie ended up not coming due to Atlanta, no doubt, and Theresa-.
Where was Theresa? Word had been that her date had been kicked out of prom before even entering. Either she found someone to dance with, or she was on the sideline.
Jay found her. She was sitting at her table by herself, occasionally sipping from her glass of punch. A few dateless guys went up and asked her for a dance but she seemed to turn them all away. Why would you do that? A dance would beat sitting there hopelessly.
Theresa did a lot of things that made no sense especially recently. She had backed Eric, which seemed very unusual as the rest of the team didn't trust him. Also, her powers had been acting strange. In the caves, which seemed forever ago, she had stalled gravity, which she had never been able to do before. Also, whenever she was angry, there was ringing noise in the air. She refused to talk to him since the argument, so there was no way he would get any answers from her. Her gaze looked over to him and for a moment, they were staring at each other. He didn't know what she saw, but he saw a pair of green emeralds, that looked like they had gone through a thunderstorm. He could see a tear roll down her left cheek, and then her gaze left his as she looked away and buried her face in her hands. Nobody else seemed to notice, except for Jay as he danced slowly with Sabrina from miles away.
It hit Jay like a stone. Memories began to traverse before his very eyes. Memories of him, and her, and somehow, everything made sense. It was like the truth had been under his nose the whole time. The truth had been under his nose the whole time, but he never took the time to see it. Theresa, she-.
By the gods. What have I done? How could I be so blind?
Jay had stopped moving, and was frozen still, eyes locked on Theresa. The unusual pattern in the dance forced Sabrina to look up.
"Jay?" she asked. He barely even noticed. He was lost in thought All this time and he had failed to see it. He had allowed himself to get distracted with Sabrina's long hair and blue eyes that he forgot everything. The team, Theresa…
Cronus. A part of him had even forgot why they were here in the first place. They had come together to war against a god, not get caught up in high school drama, which was exactly what he had done.
"Jay!" She said again. This time he heard her. His eyes went back to hers, but he did not see the same Sabrina he was falling in love with on the dance floor. She looked like a stinger in Theresa's place. Her blue eyes seemed harsher, her smile seemed sly and hands felt cold too. As cold as Erics eyes.
"What was that?" She asked.
Just realizing the shit storm I'm in right now. "Nothing." He replied. Sabrina didn't trust that answer.
"What Theresa? Why would you being paying attention to that loser?" She asked.
Jay grew angry, and he pried her hands off of his neck. "Thats my friend you're talking about."
"Friend? Oh, don't be ridiculous, you two haven't talked for weeks. Besides," Sabrina grasped her hands around him again, "You've got me."
Jay realized what this all was. She's just been using me to get at Theresa.
"No." Jay said firmly, he preyed free her grasp on him again before she could poison him any more, "This is over. I've made a terrible mistake."
Suddenly, the whole room went black, and the music died into silence. It caused an uproar of people shouting. Jay couldn't even see his own hands, never mind Sabrina, who he expected had departed from his side.
Good riddance. Looks like the bloody power's gone out. He thought to himself. Despite the noise of people talking, the whole room echoed with the unmistakable sound of a building creaking under pressure. The room went silent but for a moment, until a massive crash was heard from the roof, and screams followed. The crash sent the whole room into a cloud of broken plaster. Jay coughed and spluttered. The room suddenly seemed brighter, but the clouds were so thick you still could hardly see five feet in front of you. He staggered towards the direction of light. He heard coughing, screams, and shrieking. He tried to get to the light as fast as he could, but he tripped over something soft. He fell, and his head was an inch short of a massive concrete block with broken iron bars sticking out. Had he fallen a foot further, it would have surely split his head open. He rolled over on the dusty floor to investigate what he has tripped over, and when he saw he almost gagged.
It had been a girl. Whoever it was, their head had been crushed by a boulder twice the size of the one Jay nearly fell on. Parts of skull fragments littered the ground along with some strange pink material. Jay realised that it was brain tissue. The dress, covered in plastery dust, could still be recognisable as white silk.
Jay recognised the dress. Oh no. He had tripped over Isabelle, or what was left of her. The sight of it was unlike anything he had ever seen. He had seen gods, monsters, and teammates bleed, but Isabelle was an innocent french immigrant, not an enemy of Cronus.
There's nothing you can do here. Find help!
Jay didn't know if this actually was Cronus, but he had a hunch. There was something strange about this, and freak accidents like this, with the team around, were rarely accidents.
Jay scrambled to his feet. In the plastery mist, he thought he saw a few suits and a few dresses run past him towards the light. Jay quickly followed. As the clouds began to disappear, Jay realized that he had escaped trout a massive hole in the wall. The building beside the banquet hall had collapsed on top of their venue. Firemen had to be here or on their way by now. Jay thought he heard a siren approach, and he felt hopeful, but the siren faded away, like it had gone right past the banquet hall. Before he got clear, of the mist, he felt an intense heat and a loud bang in front of him.
That was an explosion. What in the hell is going on? Jay finally got free of the plaster clouds, and walked into a road decorated with fire and burned bodies. He couldn't recognise the faces they were so charred. When he looked beyond the road, however, he realised why the sirens disappeared.
The sky, which should have been black as a night sky, was a hot , blazing orange. People were running about the streets, shrieking and scattering as vehicles struggled their way through the masses. One truck full of people was desperate enough to speed right through a clump of ten other people. Skyscrapers were on fire and smoking up the sky, and there were strange, things falling from the sky. There were hundreds of things that seemed like boulders, streaming onto the ground. One landed in the road, opposite of the prom hall, leaving a trail of fire and debris around its landing site. Jay saw that it wasn't a rock, it was some kind of pod, holding something inside. The door to the pod flew open like a cork out of a champagne bottle and out came a humungous creature.
It looked human at first, but it was twice the size of any person Jay had ever seen, and it had scales. Brown, boney scales. It had a gigantic machine gun and started spraying bullets into the crowd. It looked like nothing Jay had ever seen. No beast had ever looked likethat.
No, impossible. Jay realized there were hundreds of these things falling from the sky. Enough for an army.
Jay could scarcely breath. This was the ancient army. Cronus had reached it before they reached him, and now the city was on fire. Jya looked desperately around for the team, but none were to be seen. He was on his own.
I have to get to the gods! Jay thought to himself. He couldn't wait for the team to emerge. They could be dead already.
Jay sprinted like he had never sprinted before. What had Cronus done? This could only have been his work. Jay continued to find bodies strewn across the streets. He planned on continuing straight, as it was the most direct route to the school, but something was in his path. The sound of gunshots littered in front of him and people were collapsing in front of what looked like a blockade of advancing giants. They seemed to be calmost naked, except for these strange brown scales which covered much of their bald bodies, but Jay didn't have time to look any further. He ran left, around the blockade as it began to advance on the cross roads. Jay had to duck to the side out of the way of a large, camo covered truck. He could see it was full of people in camoflauge as well as holding guns.
The army? Well thank god, maybe we're safe!
Jay quickly ate his words as one of the falling pods landed right on top of the front engine. The engine in the front exploded, sending the truck, and all of it's passengers, tumbling over and into a pile of flames. The giant in the pod would certainly be dead as well. It had done a suicide charge right into the truck on purpose.
Jay ran into an alley parallel to the killing ground that was the road. He didn't look behind him, I must reach the gods. But, as he ran towards a to intersection on the alley, he was ambushed by one of those bone scaled things. In it's hand, it held a long, brown blade. The thing swung at Jay, but Jay dodged, and the thing got the blade stuck in the corner of the concrete wall. Trying to get it free, Jay took the opportunity to elbow it from behind. The thing staggered, and came at him with a pair of three fingered boney fists. Jay was forced to dodge again, but this time he circled around the thing, and grabbed the boney blade. He wriggled it free from an angle where the other thing didn't try. In one fierce pull, Jay got it free, and drove it into the chest of the creature as it stumbled to get up. The thing collapsed onto the ground, and Jay wasted no time. He left the heat bone blade in its chest and kept on running. He could see the school now. He was forced to run over two hundred meters of open ground. The road, and then the football pitch. Someone could have mistaken him for Atlanta the way he ran. The place was as chaotic as the rest of the city. Jay was forced to jump around pods and bodies constantly.
He managed to crash into the glass panes of the entry into the school, breaking it, and made a run for the janitor's closet. As he skidded around the corner. He could see the door in the middle right of the hall, but as he ran, he felt the heat, and then the force of a large explosion to his left. A pod had laned right outside the school, creating force that was enough to cause an explosion that sent Jay flying. He hit the ground with a loud *thump*. It knocked the air out of him, but Jay also noticed that his clothes were wet. Looking down, he saw a large piece of glass, from the window beside him, buried in his left thigh. He was bleeding, and bleeding heavily. He had hit his main artery in the thigh. Cuts in that artery were often fatal and he started to lose consciousness. He realized was dying.
The prophecy... It was going to go un fulfilled. He desperately tried to hold on, hoping that someone would come and save him, but nobody was coming. The team was dispersed. They had no idea where he was and he had no idea where they were. Jay felt drowsy and light headed.
"I'm sorry Theresa," Was all he could say as tears rolled down his cheeks. Despite losing so much blood, he still found the strength to cry. I'm so, sorry.
The last thing he would remember, was a pair of brown leather boots appearing before his face. Old worn boots with weird white things on the side.
Are those wings?
End of Act One: Destruam
(Additional Ending Theme: Everybody wants to rule the world -Tears for Fears)
