A/N Io non aquisto.

Book of the Update: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

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Chapter 12

I uncurled my legs and got up off the bed, leaning over John's shoulder to get a closer look at the screen. He seemed to – finally – notice that I was there and turned around to look at my expression. I tried to work it into one of simple curiosity instead of the confusion and dread I was feeling.

"W-what is that thing?" I asked him, waving my pointer finger at the blur on the screen.

He began pressing buttons again, and voices could be heard, talking about the picture. "…eruption of Mount St. Helens, but we can predict severe storms within the next few weeks as the atmosphere recovers from the shock of…." And I zoned out there; he was just talking about the weather.

Instead, I picked up a few papers from John's desk and began to inspect them. It was just ordinary lined paper with blue ink scrawled everywhere, like someone had been taking notes for a class or something. The messy handwriting was hard to decipher, but I managed to get the gist of it. Obviously, John had been working on this – whatever this was – for quite some time. I flipped through some more papers until I came to a whole bunch of drawings.

I picked them up, intrigued. The creatures he had drawn looked just like monsters that I had seen with my own eyes, and I saw drawings of people as well, giant people with an aura of power that was obvious to see, even in a drawing. The drawings of the monsters and creatures were impeccable, but the gods seemed a bit off. As if he had drawn them altered in some way.

"John, these are incredible," I told him, hoping to get out some information about how a mortal of all things could possibly have seen the gods. If he even was a mortal….

"Aliens," he replied, without even looking away from his screen, which was flickering rapidly between images. Okay, so not a demigod then. Aliens?

I looked back at Leo, as if for confirmation that this guy was sane, but he just shrugged. Real reassuring. We're staying with a guy who may or may not be sane. And he's not a demigod.

"Aliens?" I asked aloud and he nodded.

"The evidence is all there; you just have to be smart enough to see it." He tapped his fingers on the side of his head and I had to close my eyes to stop myself from rolling them. Oh yeah, this guy was a nutcase.

I went and sat back down next to Leo, taking the drawings with me. I had seen plenty of monsters and my fair share of gods as well. They came to visit the island every once in a while. Sometimes by accident. But I had yet to see a god's drawing that looked exactly as I remembered. Finally getting annoyed, I huffed and dumped the drawings unceremoniously onto a nearby table and then leaned back onto the wall, feet stretched out in front of me and arms crossed.

"You look like a toddler when you do that," Leo commented, smirking.

I'll give you one guess as to whose arm I punched after that.

After what seemed like days of listening to John babble and Leo crack jokes, I finally heard something that caught my interest.

"…..of readings from around the Log Island area in New York. Lots of activity up there, not too sure what it could be, but I've been getting information about these people, look and act just like us, but they're really some sort of alien-human crossbreed. Freaky, isn't it? I've come up with a theory, it's basically-"

"Do you have a picture?" I cut him off, standing up and walking over to the screen again. "Of Long Island, where you said the uh….readings were?"

"Well, you see, that's just the thing. It all seems to be focused around this one specific area," John said, pulling out a map and pointing. "But it's strange, because it's nothing special; just some strawberry fields and an old farmhouse or something. But almost all of the high readings come from right there." He pointed again at the map.

I turned around to ask Leo if he recognized it, I'm sure he'd been to New York sometime, but he was fast asleep, drool dripping onto his shirt from his open mouth. I rolled my eyes and turned away from him.

"And uh, what exactly are these readings?"

He began pressing buttons again until he came up with this picture of some swirly gold stuff. "This," he gestured to it, "is what we've been finding in the air. I don't have a name for it yet, but it seems to appear in the air every once in a while in random locations. This is the diagram I created, in reality it's too small to even see. But it sends off a sort of frequency that I can pick up with this radio thing I've got. Most of it is picked up around this area."

He showed me a map on the screen, but this one was actual pictures, with street signs and those cans and everything. He made it closer and closer until we were looking at a big pine tree on a hill with a farmhouse behind it and strawberry fields to the left. There was a sign that said Delphi Strawberry Service. Delphi, where have I heard that before…?

Something on the picture moved and I blinked at it. It must've been like a live feed of what was happening or something. Anyway, on the picture, there was this girl with brown hair running towards the pine tree, looking back over her shoulder like she was being chased by something. That something soon made itself known as a hellhound. John gasped and began rapidly pressing buttons and writing things down, but I ignored him and kept watching the screen. The girl pulled out a knife from somewhere on the other side of her body and began madly waving it around to fend off the beast. It was obvious she had never fought something like this in her life, and it seemed like she had absolutely no idea what she was doing. She finally managed to stumble her way up the hill and she collapsed onto the ground just past the big pine tree.

I watched her, watched the hellhound advance toward its prey as if I didn't care. And I didn't; she was weak. Weakness is not to be tolerated. To my confusion, however, the hellhound stopped just in front of the tree and growled menacingly before turning and running the other way.

"Impossible!" I thought out loud.

"Incredible," John muttered.

"Tacos," Leo slurred before rolling over in his sleep.

"It wouldn't just up and leave her! Not in a million years!" I said, once again, thinking aloud. Bad habit. Probably need to stop doing that.

"I've finally found proof of alien life forms!" John spun around in his chair, laughing like a madman, and trust me, I lived with Circe; I know what a madman's laugh sounds like.

"That girl…" I caught myself that time and began to think inside my head. That girl must've been a demigod for the hellhound to have chased her, but why did it leave? I stared at the motionless girl on the screen as if she would wake up and give me answers, but no luck there. Someone did come, though. Two boys and a girl came and grabbed the girl, towing her up the hill and down to the farmhouse. One of the boys stayed behind and sat by the tree, pulling out some sort of pipes. The tree – it seemed to be sick, now that I looked at it – slowly regained its color, but faded again when the boy stopped playing his magic pipes.

Were those kids….other demigods? Could this be like some sort of safe house? The monster couldn't cross the tree-line; did that make it safe for people like me? They could live a normal life? I stepped back a little as I thought about it. The longer I did, the more appealing the prospect sounded: a whole group of Roman demigods, living together in safety. Maybe they had even recreated Rome, with a praetor and statues of the gods and everything. It sounded very appealing indeed…I could have a life; maybe even be a high ranking officer or something. Hylla and I could go there, maybe meet siblings – I'm sure we had some, our mother being an immortal goddess with plenty of time on her hands – and be like normal people. But better, of course.

And Leo….Leo could keep running. He could keep being Leo and keep doing whatever it is Leos do. Without me.

And of course, as I made that decision, he chose that moment to say my name in his sleep. Twice. And then proceeded to fall off the bed.

"Wha…? Wha jus happid?"

0o0o0o0o0o

After several more hours of looking for more information on Delphi Strawberry Service, I finally got sick of yawning every three minutes and climbed up the ladder to the top part of the bunk-bed, leaving John alone at the desk, muttering things to himself and rubbing his eyes to stay awake.

I had told John about Hylla – not everything, just that she was missing and I needed to find her – and he promised to help me look tomorrow. He said that most of his technology and stuff was built by none other than Leo Valdez, who was currently a bunk below me, drooling and mumbling something about dirt.

I must've fallen asleep at some point, making my thoughts turn into dreams, because next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and I was sitting on a cloud. I sat up on my knees and leaned over the edge to take a look. I seemed to be over some sort of city, but everything was moving slowly, like it was all in slow motion or something. I looked back to inspect the cloud I was on and gasped when I did. This shining city in the clouds could be none other than Mount Olympus, home of the gods themselves. It was beautiful.

"Yeah, gorgeous," grumbled a harsh voice from behind me and I whirled around.

A large, filthy man with a beard and a reddish scared face was staring over my shoulder at the city. He wore a leather apron and a tool belt, and there were little sparks in his beard. I gasped and bowed my head immediately as I realized who it was.

"Lord Vulcan."

"Yeah, yeah, enough with the bowing and scraping. Now listen up. I've been shielding you lot from the monsters for a while, but as soon as that sister of yours gets back in the picture, the shields will crack. Don't ask me why; too hard to explain. Geez, I hate you organic life forms…" he added as I opened my mouth to ask why my sister would break the shields, and I shut it quickly. "Anyway, you need to remember this for a few years, so listen closely. One: beware the earth. Two: it wasn't his fault, so forgive him. He deserves it."

"Bu-but what are you talking about, My Lord?" I asked in totally confusion, trying to be as respectful as I could.

"You'll know when the time come, just don't blame him; he – oh, something's interrupted the connection. You'll be leaving now, but don't forget what I said," he said warningly, pointing his finger at me with a frightening glint of anger in his eyes.

I nodded and opened my mouth to answer, but it faded away too quickly. I was in quiet darkness once again.

Until I heard the loud sound of glass shattering and a body slamming onto the floor. I jumped awake, hitting my head on the ceiling. Cursing silently, I leaned over to see what it was, but couldn't see anything in the darkness.

Someone turned the lights on and I gripped the edge of the bed, preparing to jump whatever it was, but when I saw, I froze in confusion.

"Hylla?"

A/N So…..? Come on; come on, how was it? I'm not updating until I get at least 10 more reviews!