We drove for no more than five minutes until my mom stopped the driver in the middle of the road. On one side was a ditch that looked like it was made for runoff drainage. On the other was a large hill covered with pine trees, some taller than any I had ever seen. There seemed to be a whole flock of black birds nesting in one of the closer pines. Their feathers caught the light in odd ways that made the tree look like it had multi-colored Christmas lights twinkling in its branches.
"Um, are you sure lady?" our driver asked.
"Yes, positive," she said, "Just wait here while we get unloaded." She said,
We got my suitcase out of the trunk of the taxi and stood awkwardly next to the car.
"Um, Mom, what's going on?" I asked.
"I'm sorry this had to be so rushed," she said, yet again avoiding my question, "I had hoped we would get to talk before but then your…, when I got the call we had to get going. I can't explain everything here, they'll fill you in, but I just wanted to say that I am proud of you and I'll always love you." She looked me in the eyes as she said this and then leaned down and hugged me. I hugged her back, a little less stressed out but still wanting to get a straight answer for once.
"What is this place?" I asked my mom, still hugging her.
"It's a camp of sorts, they'll help you I promise."
"What about our trip, all our plans?" I asked, pulling away.
"It'll be fine," she said, "It's all going to be fine." She looked up at the hill with a sort of peace in her eyes, like a weight she had been carrying all these years had finally been lifted from her shoulders.
"Mom," I said, breaking the silence.
"Right," she said, "time to be off,"
"Wait what?" I said, "you're coming with me, right?"
"Honey, I can't," she responded, "I'm not allowed, but you're going to be fine, just go up there, find the big blue farm house and everything will make sense."
I struggled to understand how a big blue farm house could magically make everything make sense, but I began walking towards the hill as my mom had instructed.
My mom waved at me as I began to climb the hill. Once I was in the shade of the first few trees, she had gotten back into the taxi, still watching from the window. I knew this because I continually glanced back over my shoulder the entire time. It was hard to focus though. The birds in the trees seemed to be getting louder, almost as if they were laughing at me. This analogy didn't help, especially when the sound of actual laughter filled the branches above, it took me a second to realize that it wasn't my imagination any more.
Looking up, I saw that the branches were no longer filled with birds but cackling half human, half bird creatures, all wearing neon feather boas around their shriveled necks.
I screamed and ran for the top of the hill as the creatures began to dive out of the trees towards me. I dropped my suitcase and ran, full speed, to where? I had no idea. I reached the denser forest as the demon chicken ladies reached me. They tore at my shoulders and reached for my backpack, which I still had on. One of their claws would occasionally make contact and a stab of pain would race through my shoulder. I was now out of sight of the taxi, I was sure, but still I cried out for help.
My foot hit a large tree root and I fell on my face in the dirt. This gave the creatures time to reach me and they clawed at my backpack, tearing away the fabric and throwing the few clothes and things I had in there everywhere. If it weren't for that backpack, I would probably be dead now.
I looked up from the dirt and saw a tree, not five feet away from me. Its roots branched out around it, making a sort of web or cage in the dirt. The dirt seemed to drop off, creating a protected bowl around the trunk.
I pushed myself up and half ran, half fell towards the nest of tree roots. I grabbed the first two roots I could and pulled them far enough apart that I could slide my body and what remained of my backpack into the little pocket of space below. The shriveled bird-ladies clawed and pulled at my wooden cage, reaching to grab hold of me but I pushed myself as far back against the trunk as possible
I started kicking at the bird claws, smashing the talons against the roots as they were thrust between the root bars. This caused a shower of dirt and wood chips to rain down on me, forcing me to close my eyes and lose focus of the danger at hand.
One of the scaly claws got a hold of my foot in this split second of hesitation. I was able to pull my foot out of my shoe but not before the creature twisted my foot trying to pull its claw out. My ankle made a cracking sound as pain shot through my leg and I yelled in pain. My shoe was quickly torn away and shredded in the creature's shark-like teeth.
The wooden roots began to tear away under the claws of the monsters. More wood chips flew off and hit me in the face. I wondered how much longer I had until they clawed completely through the roots, until I would meet a similar fate as my sneaker.
Suddenly, a loud cry sounded from somewhere off to my right. It was hard for me to hear over the screech-yelling of the monsters but it got their attention and they immediately stopped and all turned to look at what had made the sound. They screamed and squawked, suddenly trying to flee. Some of their wrinkly claws had gotten stuck between the roots and they frantically tried to yank them out.
I suddenly saw a flash of bronze protrude from one of the demon ladies' middles. She exploded into a cloud of dust and ash, covering me and leaving me shell shocked. The others who were stuck met similar ends soon and then I heard the sound of battle off to my left, like whatever was out there had moved on to finish off the rest of them. I couldn't see over the edge of the pit what was happening but, almost as soon as it had started, the sounds of fighting stopped.
I inched my head slowly over the edge of the dirt, scared to see what I would find. Adrenalin was pounding in my ears.
Standing not ten feet from me was a group of kids, maybe a year or two older than me, dressed completely in black and holding an array of bronze weapons, all covered in ash and dust. They were panting as if they had just run laps and patting each other on the backs. One of them pulled off his ski mask and stuffed it in his back pocket.
He had dark brown hair and an elvish face made it look like he was up to no good. His companions removed their face coverings and revealed similarly elvish facial features that made them look closely related, cousins maybe.
The one with the brown hair turned slowly around, scanning the terrain behind him. His eyes landed on me before I could duck away but I still did anyway. Maybe he hadn't really seen me or maybe he just thought it was the trick of the light. I found that unlikely, especially when the conversation died down immediately and I could hear sounds of them coming closer to my hideout.
"Do you think she's dead?" someone said in something that might have passed for a whisper.
"No, she's not dead, you idiot. I don't think so." came another voice in reply.
"Oh that's a shock, Madds isn't thinking." said someone else.
"Oh shut up, you were the one who got stuck at the top of the rock wall without a harness genius." said the second voice.
"Shut it you guys. She's not dead but if you keep running your mouths, I'll fill your bunks with monster dust." said a fourth voice.
That apparently shut them up and they all fell silent to the point where I couldn't tell where they were anymore. I looked frantically around my feet for something, anything that could pass as a weapon. These people had just killed the entire flock of whatever those things were and now they were sneaking up on me, who currently had a twisted ankle and nothing to defend myself. I had no idea what to do so I did the first thing that popped into my head.
"Stay back!" I yelled, "Stay back all of you or I'll attack!" I picked up a wickedly long wood shard and held it like a knife.
"I have a weapon and am not afraid to use it." I could hear the panic in my voice as I held my makeshift weapon. I tried to tamp down my nerves and adrenaline but my heart rate still pounded in my ears.
"We don't want to hurt you." the fourth voice said.
"Oh ya, then why the weapons?" I shot back.
"To kill the harpies," The second voice said, "do you expect them to iust keel over dead at the sight of us?"
"Maybe they would if Sam threw his socks at them." said the first voice, laughing.
"The, the what?!" I said, more to myself.
"Harpies," another voice said, a girl by the sound of it, "you know, like from Greek mythology."
"What!" I said, "what are y'all talking about?"
"Why don't you come out and we can talk," the third voice said, "we promise, we won't hurt you."
Despite my best judgment, I peeked out of the hole and began crawling out of the web of roots, trying to avoid putting any weight on my ankle. I hit it a few times coming out of the hole but once I was out I stood there, favoring my left, uninjured foot.
Standing in front of me were five kids all dressed in black like they were ready to rob a bank. The look would have fit in perfectly with any cop movie except for the array of bronze weapons they held in their hands and I don't mean your run of the mill, modern day weapons. No. These kids were decked out with swords, spears, and knives. Each of them had a ski mask or face covering and were all wearing black hoodies and jeans.
One kid stepped forward, a dude with black hair and shockingly gray eyes. I realized he didn't have the same elfish look like the other kids but his stormy gray eyes still had the, 'I'm about to do something I'm not supposed to' look in them.
A girl behind him waved cherrily at me, like we were meeting at a party, not on a hilltop surrounded by dust and ash. She had straight red hair pulled back into a short ponytail and bangs, furthering her elfish look. She had a golden nose ring and a black AC DC shirt on.
"Hi, I'm Madds, Maddy actually, but everybody calls me Madds." She said. I realized she was the second voice I'ld heard, "I know this is weird and all but welcome to camp."
"Thanks, I think." I said.
"Not now Mads," said the black haired kid, "So, what's your name, how'd you get here?" He asked, "I'm Jordan by the way."
"Emmy," I said, "that's my name and, um, I drove I guess. I'm sorry, what do you mean by harpies?"
"Those nasty raisins with wings were harpies," Mads said, "you know, like the ones from Greek mythology."
I looked at her like she was missing a few bolts up top. Had she just said that harpies from ancient Mythology were real? Yes, that was exactly what she had said.
"Wha…, excuse me?" I asked.
"Mads," Jordan said warningly, shooting her a warning glance, "not yet"
"What!?" she said, "she's obviously a demigod, they chased her all the way to the hill."
"I know, but do you really need to be so blunt about it?" Jordan said, rubbing his forehead.
"I'm sorry then, carry on Mr. Subtle." Mads said back, crossing her arms, "I'm sure that swords and knives didn't raise any red flags whatsoever."
Two boys behind them seemed to be exchanging bets, snickering and looking from Mads to Jordan and back again. Jordan regarded his sword and then looked at Mads as if to say, 'Do you really have to do this now?'. Mads raised her hands in surrender and stepped back, leaning over to whisper something in the second girl's ear.
"Um," I intelligently said, "so, what just happened?"
"Oh, that was nothing. Sorry about that." Jordan said, gesturing around him like he meant Mads' and his little quip.
"No," I said, "I didn't mean that. I mean what the heck just happened? Who the heck are you guys? And where the heck am I?"
They all silently stared at me but not as if they were shocked to hear my outburst. It was more as if they were thinking how to proceed. Finally, Jordan stepped up and said in a measured tone, "Ya, so you're probably not going to believe this at first but trust me, it's all true. Those things we just fought off were harpies from Greek mythology, you know, like Hercules and the olympian gods and-"
"Ya, I know all those," I said, "But how?"
"Oh, well they're all real. The pantheon, the monsters, all of it is true."
I stared at him in shock. My shoulders and foot started to really hurt as my mind kicked into hyperdrive and my adrenalin rush began to slow down.
'All of it? Real? How is that possible? It can't be possible.'
My mind began racing, running so fast I started getting dizzy. The world started to spin around me, or maybe that was me? Regardless, I felt my knees drop to the pine covered floor but felt the shock of impact as if I were hitting the surface of dark waters. I listed sideways and faintly remembered Jordan and Mads running to catch me as the others gathered around. I thought they were speaking but I couldn't quite hear them, again as if it were all happening through a wall of water.
My overactive brain mixed with the pain I was just then really registering from my shoulders, back, and foot. All of it mixed together was enough to knock me out cold. The next thing I knew, I was laying on my side in a medical bed.
