Chapter 5: A Father's Honor and a Child's Prophecy
HEY HEY HEY! New Update! HOORAY! Its been like 3 months but look! It's worth the wait, really exciting new chapter here. The main character goes through a flurry of attitudes and a main emotion: PAIN. Read on to know what I mean and please VOTE, COMMENT, and FAVOURITE this story (wouldn't mind if you shred it on social media or to ur friends as well). Ok, read on.
I waited a moment, unsure of what to do next. The hound told me to go to Chiron to ask about the prophecy. What prophecy?! I am so confuse... UGH! I guess I should first get this wound checked, five inches of gash isn't going to heal itself. I sighed and made my way back to the camp and towards the Big House, where the camp infirmary is. Five minutes into walking, all of a sudden, my head starts to spin. I felt light-headed, as if someone smothered me with a dose of chloroform and all I could feel was a dull ache and my consciousness slowly slipping away. What... is happening...? I hovered my foot on the ground, my control over my balance was beginning to become sad as I tripped over a patch of dirt. "Oomph!" What...I...don't.. understand? I... have to– I have to find... Chiron. I tumbled towards the Camp Gate but right before I reached the morning shift guards, my feet gave in under me and I slumped to the ground. My eyes slowly lost its sight of color and finally, all I saw was clear black.
"Mother, where's papa?" asked the kid.
"Papa?! Where did that thought suddenly appear from?" said the mother, chuckling at the kid's sudden question. The kid just looked at her mother, blank faced with thought.
"I just wanted to know. He talks to me sometimes but he never comes to see me. Why isn't papa ever here? Why doesn't he love me? If he loved me, he would be here. He would hug me, and kiss me on the forehead, and read my bedtime stories, and wish me good night. Papa isn't here to do that. Why mother? Why doesn't papa love me?" the little girl asked and asked, but she never got her answer. The girl was just left alone to think about these very questions, over and over again, in a pit of darkness.
I popped my eyes open, breathing slightly heavy. I wiped a hand against my cheek to feel tears staining my face. With a brash swipe, I dried my tears and sat up. Immediately, my head banged with sharp pain, the impact made me seize my scalp and curl my body into a tiny ball. "Oh my gods!" I hissed under my breath. Each movement I made by my body caused a huge wave of pain to erupt in my brain. The pain only got worse each time and my body wasn't handling it too well. OH my DEAR GODS! After that, I strained every muscle in my body to lie still on the bed, not daring to move an inch. The lack of movement eased the pain but the dull throbbing was still immortal. To ignore the headache, I tried to think of where I might be. I'm... in a clinic? Hospital? Infirmary? A minute of still living later, a pair of feet walked into the room. I took a slight glance at the figure and saw Percy. Percy saw me squinting my eyes at him and immediately his face lit up.
"Your awake!?" He announced. He ran towards me and pulled me into a tight squeezed hug.
I bit my lip from screaming and grunted loudly due to the impact. The pain was unbearable to the point that I almost threw Percy off of me. My mind was swirling with a dreadful flurry of combined words that I'd never believed I would EVER use. My body was having fits and uncontrollably shaking as I tried to get a grip on myself. Percy looked at me, terrified.
"What–what happened?!" He asked with shock. I trembled and shook. My brain was going haywire and I had no idea why, what is causing... this? Chiron... Chiron–
"Find... Find Chiron...n–NOW." I struggled to choke my words out before my spine arched backwards, and my body shook ferociously, my limbs crashed against anything nearby in a flurry; I was having a seizure. Pressure struck against my wrists, trying with desperation to hold me down.
"Chiron! CHIRON!" a voice shouted in the distance, thundering hooves became louder; another unfamiliar voice became introduced. What seemed like a century finally halted to a moment, my seizure stopped.
"What happened here?!" roared Chiron. "Percy!"
"I–I don't know. She was here, fine, till I hugged– hugged her and this... this happened."
My mind was suffocated with constant flutters of butterflies; the background noise of the two talking in front of me was doing no good to my current situation. Another shockwave erupted in my brain, which sent all of my last night's meal to soar out of my stomach and onto the infirmary floor. I couldn't stop shaking; I would feel freezing cold at one moment, and then feel steaming hot the next. I heaved through my lungs, fighting against my ribcage. I couldn't hear any mutter coming from the two men in front of me, but I still hoped that whatever they were doing, they would find a reason to what's happening to me. Better yet, they should find a cure to what was happening. Then suddenly, the pain halted. With a moment of merciful clarity, I focused my attention to the men, and did not waste a single moment of sanity; I told them what to do.
"I need you to be quiet and listen to me!" I growled, enhancing the authority in my voice, Percy and Chiron froze and looked at me. "I am going to talk quick because I don't know how much time I have till it starts again. Chiron, figure out what's wrong with me and do it quick. Then find out about Delphii, she prophesized something recently and I need to know what, by the time I get normal again, I had better hear some rhymes coming from your mouth and Percy!" I paused, Percy looked at me like a deer in headlights. "If something happens, I need you to stay away. No one can know about this, understood? No one!" They were my last words, till I ended up puking again at the side of the bed; the pain came rushing back. That was all I was able to keep track of until I was consumed by darkness, again.
I found myself suddenly at my home, the home was beautiful and splendid, fit for royalty; but the walls of grand home were pitiful. They were chipped with dread, they reeked of solitude and isolation, the home was everything a home could be but it was never a home. A girl came running around a corner of a hallway, chanting "Mother! Mother!" I glanced sideways to see a woman in her late thirties reply back to the girl "What is it dear?" The little girl asked, "Mother, Where's Papa?" The scene reminded me of my previous dream, the same girl, same mother, and the same question. But what happened next, surprised me. The mother's reply was, "Dear, your Papa is somewhere. He's somewhere where he thinks about you, somewhere where he talks to you but can't meet you, somewhere where he loves and wishes to hug you, kiss you, read to you, and wish you good night. Sweety, I don't know where your Papa is, but I know that he is at some place where he loves you." And that's all the girl needed, that's all she needed to hear to stop asking, to stop being alone, that's all she needed to be reassured: that someone loves her.
Your mother is obviously lying. Don't believe her. Then the girl turns to me and looks me at the eyes.
"You're the one who's lying." Then I was returned back to darkness, back to solitude.
I woke up a few minutes ago, but refrained from opening my eyes, attempting to avoid the potential pain. Instead, I ignore the dull drumbeat in my head and concentrated at the voices in the room.
"I still think your pulling my horns, I can't believe anything happened to her" Said Grover. Percy! Apparently he doesn't take orders seriously.
"I don't get it. She was perfectly fine like, three hours ago." Said Annabeth.
"She was fighting like a professional, she was flipping and doing stunts, the whole shebang!" Continued Grover.
"Has Chiron found out anything yet?" Asked Thalia. Has Percy invited the whole camp to the infirmary?!
"Not yet. He had a suspicion about the large wound on her arm, that somehow, maybe it caused her... situation." Said Percy. "But he can't find anything medically wrong with her. She's not sick physically." Not sick physically? Another pang of dull pain crossed my head. Ugh! It feels pretty physical. "She told me not to tell anyone, she told me to stay away if something happens. But what happened to her... terrified me; I didn't know what to do. That's why I told you guys, we have to find out what's wrong with her." A silence ensued. "Did you know? She mentioned something about a prophecy to Chiron, before she blacked out. Apparently, the Oracle prophesied something recently, she wanted to know what?"
"I haven't heard anything from Chiron; did she really say something about a new prophecy?" Asked Annabeth.
"I know what she said. Delphii said a new prophecy." Replied Percy.
"Delphii is in the attic, you know. Has Chiron asked her yet?" Asked Grover. Delphii, the oracle, is in the attic? The attic?!
"Probably. Maybe he didn't get anything useful, that's why we don't know anything about it yet." Replied Annabeth. Try again. Go ask Delphii about the prophecy!
"Then what else can we do?" Said Percy. Ask Delphii again! Go to the attic and ask Delphii!
"What if we just wait it out?" Suggested Grover. A parade of comments followed, arguing. Another pang of pain erupted in my head. Don't waste time! Go ask Delphii about the prophecy! Oh Gods! My inner voice is getting raspy from the yelling I'm doing at these stupid people. Might as well swallow the pain and tell them what they should do.
"Go...to –Delphii..." the four people didn't ear what I mumbled and instead kept on bickering amongst themselves. Gulp. "Delphii... The...prophecy." This time, they didn't here me because someone so rudely distracted them from my voice.
"Tyson!" Hissed Annabeth. "Why are you here? We told you to stay away from here." Annabeth had a disapproving tone towards Tyson but I could tell she was trying hard not to get mad.
"I wanted to tell Percy about a new trick I learned using water... Is that the camper that got sick?" He asked so curiously. "Oh... Is she the girl?!" he asked with exasperation. "Percy! This is the girl that I told you about. The one who called me cute!"
I didn't know what their reactions were but I felt a tinge of giddiness. I feel like smiling at how youthful he is; like a young boy. Now if only I can move my face without regretting it... Remembering my urgent task at hand, I tried to communicate to them again, but this time, with a little flare; literally. I mustered all of my energy and snapped my fingers, feeling a faint weight on the tip of my thumb. I let the flame burn till I slumped my hand in exhaustion, hoping that one of the people in the room noticed fire on my thumb. "Go...ask Delphii... about... the gods-damn...prophecy..." No one seemed to notice for all I knew, until finally, someone noticed.
"Uh... I think the girl just talked." Said Tyson. "First, there was fire on her hand and then her lips moved... I think she talked." I could feel their eyes stare at me and then I knew I should do the one thing that I didn't want to do; move. I opened my eyes, squinting at the harmful flash of the light from the ceiling (which just so happened to be right on top of me). The first to react was Percy.
"Your awake!" He stated, he was going to pull me into a hug again when he remembered what happened the last time.
As much as I felt bad for the guilt he seemed to show, I also felt pretty grateful he didn't squeeze my aching body in a hug again. I tried to lift my arm to motion the group closer to me; they somehow understood and got closer. I kept on motioning them to do so till all of their faces were pretty much an inch away from my face. Then, I said with the loudest, most strength in my body, the one thing I've been trying to tell them for like 15 minutes: "PICK ME UP AND TAKE ME TO THE DAMNED ORACLE IN THE GODS-FORESAKEN ATTIC SO I CAN HEAR THE GODS-DAMNED PROPHECY!...Please." I huffed through my lungs; the lack of oxygen in my airway terrified me. Apparently my voice was loud enough because they were stunned in shock for a moment. Then they finally pulled themselves together and arranged a plan. Percy and Grover were going to carry me up to the attic; I was going to be on flat board to avoid my body from moving too much (it'll hurt a lot if I do move). Annabeth, Thalia, and Tyson were going to make sure that the two boys didn't drop me (I'll burn them if they do) and they were also going to be on the lookout so no one notices anything. We started to go up to the Attic and thankfully, nothing happened. Once we got to the Attic though, I didn't expect what I saw. The whole room was littered with junk, or to be more precise, it was crowded with ancient artifacts that were only ever known to be through myths. There was a stash of pickled heads in jars of various monsters, there was a stuffed Hydra head, and one a sword was a famous deity's scarf, Aphrodite's scarf. (see what I did there). I felt highly uncomfortable on the plank but all my thoughts stalled when I saw mummified body on a chair/throne. It was the body of the long-dead Oracle, Delphii. I breathed a sigh of astonishment, after years of listening to only stories, I can see her, the Oracle was right across the room. I let out a shaky berth and in a hoarse attempt of a voice, I asked aloud, "Delphii... the prophecy... what am I meant to do? Why–why is this happening... to me?" Percy and Grover crept closer to the body, the lines on candles on each of our sides started to flame up one by one, towards the body that lay at the end. Then suddenly, as soon as the last two candles lit up next to the body, the body came to life. A blue glow resonated from the mummy as its head lift up, the old woman's head had two blue glows coming from where I assumed used to be her eyes; then in a deep, echoing voice, the woman said:
"A father's honour for his ways, A child's prophecy for her days. The child receives a choice, To be a legend or the razed. A hero for a hero, A foe for a foe, A dream or a nightmare. She sets out to know."
I waited there for more, maybe a definition or an elaborate description of the poem, better yet, a Google translation to English would've helped. "Is that...it?" I whispered. I heard Percy sigh and then without warning, my body turned the other direction back at the door we came from, the group was going back to the infirmary. "No wait! There's got–got to be more!... That can't... be just it! NO!" My voice rasped from the stress but I didn't care, I had bet too much on the prophecy to quit now; there had to be more the oracle didn't say, there had to be more to hear! I won't give in, not yet, not till I know what is wrong with me and why. I won't go through any more pain than I have to. As soon as I get some of my strength back, I'm going to pay a visit to someone who I have yet to meet and surely, he'll give me my answers.
...Back in the Attic...
A voice echoed her whispers over and over again:
A father's honor for his ways,
A child's prophecy for her days.
The child receives a choice,
To be a legend or the razed.
A hero for a hero,
A foe for a foe,
A dream or a nightmare.
She sets out to know.
She is destruction or a champion,
It is unknown.
AHHHHH! THE SUSPENSE! So, how'd you like it? Tell me all about your feelings and hope to talk to you guys soon again on the next chapter. Make sure to check out my other story Missariene Marol as well if you already haven't. You can also check out my new Facebook page, Uniquefays, for some pretty cool stuff on my stories such as sneak-peaks, fun-facts, and some random things too. All my social media usernames are on my profile page, check it out, follow me or whatever. K? BYE! –UniqueFAYS