"It harrows me with fear and wonder."
- Hamlet, William Shakespeare
I
Days were passing by far too fast and yet too slow; walls were closing in on me yet I am stranded in vast spaces of endlessness. It's as if the whole world was on a standstill yet I am still moving forward, completely alone. I'm always either overwhelmed or empty. It wasn't a strange or random epiphany either, I feel as if I am living in a constant state of too much and not enough since the beginning of my so-called mediocre, seventeen years of existence.
With a heavy sigh, I slam my locker hard; it's hinges creaking in protest. A couple across the hall jump apart from the sound, to which I rolled my eyes and stalked down the hallway. Few peering eyes burned into the back of my head, yet they all disappeared soon enough, too busy with their own lives surrounded by their friends and new love interests.
It sickens me.
Slim arm wrap around mine, as a flash of ebony obscures my view. Calypso Demetriou's grinning face jumped in front of me, her green eyes dancing as she gazed at me.
Calypso Demetriou, the Grecian Goddess bestowed upon the Aetheria House inhabitants. Her hair fell into waves over her shoulders in chestnut ringlets. Coffee coloured skin ran across the length of her body, and her shocking emerald eyes were the brightest of colour I have seen in the dreary existence of Aetheria House. A transfer student from Greece, Calypso was what you could say, my only closest friend.
"Annabeth Chase," Her thick accent engulfed my hearing, as she pulled me further down the corridor and into the courtyard. "Where have you been?"
At that, I rolled my eyes. "Experiencing an existential crisis and wondering what the hell I am doing with my life in this hellhole,"
Calypso chuckled, her emerald eyes dancing as she sat across from me on one of the school benches. "So the usual," She winked, pulling her lunch bag out.
Sighing heavily, I pulled my golden locks from its position at the top of my head, running my fingers through the unruly curls. "What do you expect when I'm stuck in here for six hours, five days a week?"
"Did you hear about the new kids that are coming next week?" Calypso questioned, her eyes turning into crescents as excitement consumed her.
"No," I collected my half-eaten sandwich in pile, before carefully dumping it in the trash can behind us. "And I don't care."
"Oh come on Annabeth!" She whined, "New students don't come here. It's unheard of,"
I rolled my eyes once again. She wasn't wrong either – Aetheria House was a school cast away in the east side of Long Island, New York, hidden behind an almost constant gloom of mundaneness. It was a fairly new building, however the school had built its own prestigious record of being unequivocally and utterly stereotypical. It also did not help the reasoning for the school, a dumping ground of the rich and unwanted. I was one of the only students who came from a poorer background, but just as unwanted as the entire of the 100 students across the whole school populace. To say it was surprising for new students would be an understatement – it was front-page news.
Thankfully, the bell signalling the end of lunch interrupted Calypso's rant. Sending her a quick wink, I made my way to my classroom, Calypso rushing to her locker to grab her assignment.
Formulating the best route towards my last class without encountering any stereotypes, I stumbled into History class, making my way to the back of the classroom. People evaded me as they came into my warpath; with a large sneer I dropped my book bag to the ground and collapsed onto my desk. Cleo, my only acquaintance in this class was busy talking to one of the classmates at the front of the class, effectively leaving me to my own devices.
Time really did feel as if it was escaping, an hour turned into minutes, minutes turned into seconds. Resting my head against my desk, I closed my eyes briefly.
All that could be seen were fires, the smell of smoke thick in the air. A burning sensation filled my lungs; it was becoming harder and harder to breath. I had to keep reminding myself, breath in and out, in and out. Keep breathing. Don't give up. It was becoming harder to breath, harder to think, harder to live.
"Annabeth," A gentle voice shook my dreams away. Mr Brunner raised an eyebrow tapping his watch. "I know that History can be boring, but for you to sleep through my entire class, I think you'll be having to increase your daily intake of coffee, dear,"
Mortified, I looked around the classroom and noticed that indeed the class was empty, as was the corridors. "I'm so sorry Mr Brunner,"
His eyes crinkled as it turned into crescents, "It's alright. I suspect you didn't hear my announcement at the end of lesson- we will be studying Greek Mythology as the next syllabus so you'll be needing to get a new textbook," He scrawled the name of the book onto a neon green post-it, before handing it to me.
Nodding my head quickly, I gathered my things. "Sorry for inconveniencing you, sir," I mumbled, making my way out of the door hastily.
"Annabeth," He called out just as I stepped out of the door.
"Yes sir?"
"Do be careful when walking home, I wouldn't advise staying out past sunset." The crestfallen gaze in his eyes did not escape my notice either, as a chill settled into my bones.
"Will do, sir,"
I knew that today would be a bad day. Firstly, it was a Monday. Secondly, I slept through my alarm leaving me with exactly thirteen minutes to get to school, a task that usually took half an hour at best without the New York traffic. And lastly, my Aunt Sophia had left to pick up my grandmother from the airport, leaving me to drive to Aetheria House in an embarrassingly old pick-up truck that was my grandfather's in the 80s. I was surprised it was still running.
Living so close to the boarding school meant that I was one of the few who were able to stay at home, well at my Aunt's house, instead of the dorm rooms that Aetheria boasted, Calypso wasn't as lucky.
A gaggle of students surrounded the left of the car park, leaving the right side open. Without much thought, I pulled my battered truck-like beast into the first parking space available, grabbing the new textbook Mr Brunner explicitly asked for. History was first, and being one of my favourite subjects, I was hoping it would put me into a good mood.
"Annabeth!" Calypso called excitedly, linking her arm through mine. Her beaming face was waiting impatiently as I escaped the clutches of my olden monster. "You won't believe it. Those new students, they are to die for,"
"Whoa, calm down Cal. Breath." I reminded her, a grin escaping my lips, as Calypso's cheeriness seemed to contaminate me. Calypso obeyed my commandments, taking a deep breath before spiralling into chatter that was both too loud and too quick for me to take in.
"Slow down, Demetriou. Let's try that again, and a bit slower this time." Calypso rolled her eyes, dragging me towards the privacy of my locker. The student body seemed to be questionably missing, the corridors practically deserted.
"Where is everyone? Oh no, we're not late are we?" I exclaimed, turning on my heel to run up the stairs to History. Calypso grabbed the strands of my backpack, pulling me to a halt.
"Whoa, calm down Annie." She grinned, using my words against me. "The bell hasn't rung yet, and if you listened to first two times I explained, you would already know the answer."
"Everyone is gathering around the transfers and like I said, they are to die for." Calypso gripped my forearm in an almost unbearably tight grip, a tell-tale sign of her excitement. "They're from Greece, like me. People from Elláda."
"Not only that, they're from the coast of Oia, I've always wanted to go there, beautiful town from what I've heard. And filled with beautiful people if the new transfers are anything to go by. They're all gorgeous."
I glanced at Calypso and found it hard not to believe, there definitely must be something in the waters in Greece. From what it seems like, they were all inhumanly beautiful.
"How many of them are there?" I glanced around the empty corridor, as Calypso slowed to a more manageable stop next to me. As she walked me to History class Calypso launched into the tale of the new transfer students.
"There're three of them, cousins and a family friend apparently. Two boys and a girl."
"How do you even come across all this information?" I let out a laugh, as the bell above rang, signalling the beginning of the day.
"I have my sources." She winked at me, turning hurriedly to make it to the third floor where she undoubtedly had a horrible Chemistry test. "I'll meet you at lunch. Make sure you save me a seat!"
I nodded my head, grinning as I saw people's gaze towards her as if she were mad.
"Hello Annabeth."
I turned my head towards Cleo, a girl whose history knowledge rivalled my own. Sending a small smile to her, we walked into the classroom as people slowly filed in. "Hi Cleo. What did I miss yesterday?"
She sat next to me, flicking her auburn ponytail over her shoulder. Sending a grin my way, "Oh you mean before or after you decided to have a nap? I talk to someone who isn't you for once and you then go and sleep the entire lesson. Mr Brunner's an angel though, if you were in Mrs Scion's class…" Cleo shivered, trailing off her sentence as we both imagined the wrath of our English teacher.
My cheeks burned a deep red, almost as bright as Cleo's hair. "Let's not talk about that."
"You didn't miss much." Cleo rolled her eyes. "I'm much more willing however to talk about the new transfer students."
I felt an unjustified anger settle in my stomach. "Gods, I swear that's all I've been hearing about. What's so great about them?"
"Wait, have you not seen them?" I shook my head; recounting the horrid morning I had experience. Cleo was an animated audience, gasping and crying in outrage at the right moments.
"Well, when you do finally see them, you will almost cry at their beauty."
"So I've been told." I rolled my eyes, remembering Calypso's remarks from earlier.
Mr Brunner had decided to roll through the doorway at exactly this very moment, his hands resting on the breaks of his wheelchair tightly. I turned away from Cleo and I's idle chatter, and opened my notebook to a fresh clean page.
"Children!" Mr Brunner's tenor voice boomed. Regardless of his disabilities, Mr Brunner commanded respect as soon as he entered a classroom. Our history class was a relatively small classroom. There were ten students who had elected for History, although I did notice there seemed to be more lately.
Mr Brunner had hated school desks being side to side, he was after all anything but mundane. Instead, he encouraged the idea of co-operative learning. As such, the desks were placed in almost a horseshoe fashion, with Mr Brunner usually in the middle, dictating our futures with his historical content.
He grinned at us, before motioning a hand from the door, as if beckoning someone. In fact, it seemed as if he was. "We have a new student."
As he said this, there was a titter within the class. Cleo clamped her hand around my wrist, excitement clear in her eyes. I could just make out the figure of the new student from his silhouette; he seemed to loom over everyone, a height to be contended with.
"This is our new transfer student from Greece, Perseus Jackson."
I glanced up from the pages of my textbook and clashed with the eyes of a devil. The twists of his face were sharp edges that would cause me harm if I looked to long. Dark ebony tumbled from the top of his head, escaping in sea-like waves, framing his face in small, curled ringlets. And his lips. His lips were contorted into the smile of Lucifer before he fell from Heaven.
His eyes. His eyes were blue. Not the ordinary, watered-down blue of the sky, or the colour of a worn-out sweater that would engulf you in familiarity and warmth. No, his eyes were the darkest hour of night- a deep, rich indigo with specks of unexplored stars and galaxies. They were the early morning chills, the dew of light as you awake from your slumber. They were the sea, with all it's waves and tides and storms. His eyes were that kind of blue, the promise of danger- a threat that would destroy you. His were the type of blue that would drown you.
I hated him.
It all happened very suddenly, a simple second between the two of us. It took me a while to comprehend the severity of the feelings that coursed through my body, in which time shock and confusion to flood over as I recognised the feeling, only to be again overwhelmed by the intensity of hatred I felt for this boy. His eyes flashed to mine; as if I had called him to my attention, as if I was the one he was looking for since he walked into the classroom.
My life always was dreary, a mundane tone of brown and greys, no colour, no feeling. I always assumed anger would be red, a vibrant scarlet that would destroy all in its path, like fire. No, this anger was different. This anger was scorching white, a blinding, crude, coarse light that bathed over me. I clenched my fists beneath the table, relinquishing Cleo's grip on my wrist as I gripped the hem of my blouse. My body stiffened, rigid as ice as I harshly turned my gaze away. The immense abhorrence that surged inside of me could not be extinguished. Like the fire that was burning through my veins, the mere sight of this man, no this boy, would destroy me if I did not destroy him first.
I knew I should have stayed in bed.
End of I
Next time:
"I'm feeling better now that you're here."
"Stop with the flattering. Just because your sick doesn't mean I won't still kick your ass at Just Dance."