Chapter 7: The memory remains
The bed in the Hypnos cabin was the most comfortable bed I had ever slept in. It's pillow was soft and cool and the mattress eased my every muscle. The covers were warm and soft. It was perfect. I had slept in the Hermes cabin which had hard mattresses and pillows that were so unsteady that it barely made a difference if I had a pillow or not. This was the best bed ever, that was the end of it. I doubted no bed could ever be that comfy. I started to envy Evie because she got to sleep in this every single night. Evie said she had to get me to sleep. The bed I was in made me want to sleep for ever. It wasn't just the bed that gave me that feeling. It was something I felt immediately after entering the cabin. Upon entering my eyelids grew heavy and my current energy went from all right to nothing. The Hypnos cabin did something to me that I could only explain as magic. Some kind of spell by the god of dreams and memories. Maybe by his children although that wasn't something I could be sure of. Evie sat in a chair next to the bed I lay in.
"So how does this work?" I asked Evie. I didn't know if I was just meant to go to sleep or if she was supposed to do something. I had absolutely no clue what I signed up for.
"I mumble some words, you fall asleep and wake up with your memories. Nothing hard about it." She didn't sound snappy but it was far from a kind tone. She obviously still disliked me. For a second I believed her headache had faded but when I looked at her closely I could see her cringe every once in a while.
"So what are you waiting for?" If my memories really were as bad as she said I wanted to get this over with. It seemed better to face my past head on now and then decide who I was. After all I wasn't bound to be the same person I was in my past. Although I figured that Evie ever seeing me in a different light.
"Luke's coming over here. Doing this takes a lot out of me and I want someone to keep an eye on you." Evie said. I could have seen that coming. Of course she wouldn't trust me on my own even if I was knocked out. Maybe she would be proven right. That was probably my worst fear. What if she was right about everything? Could I still live on like I had now? Could I ever feel normal? I doubted that. Truth was that I knew Evie was right I just didn't want to admit it. After all I came to camp with a bloodied sword and was all cut up. That could have been a monster or someone that really didn't like me. And that person had never been found. The only thing that made me feel better was that there hadn't been a body. Now whoever I had fought was just gone which made it possible that he survived. It was a question I wouldn't have to ask once this was over. I would know everything about my past. And no matter how horrible the past was it was what I needed to move on.
Luke entered the cabin casually. He was the neutral party in the conflict between Evie and me. Of course the actual conflict was pretty one sided. I never really did anything to Evie, not that I could remember anyway. For a second I wondered if I had seen Evie before. Was that the real reason she hated me so much? It was a theory but a pretty bad one. It would explain why she was unwilling to give me my memories back butt other than that it was just speculation.
"Hey Evie, hey Angel." He said. "You ready mate?" He asked me. I turned my head to him and nodded. "Then let's do this." Evie and Luke nodded at each other. Evie raised her hand and started speaking, but not in English. It was Ancient Greek, no doubt about it. I had never heard anyone speak the language but I recognized it immediately. I could even understand parts of it. God, Dreams, Memories. Was this a prayer to Hypnos? I didn't know for sure. As Evie spoke my eyelids became heavier than lead. I started losing my grip on consciousness. I didn't know what Evie was doing but it was working. Evie's voice was all I heard for awhile until even that faded away. It was time.
Nine years ago (give or take):
I was only six years old. What a kid I was. I played the guitar, made friends in school, and was as playful as a puppy. I wasn't a bad kid in anyway. The only thing that was weird about me was that I had ADHD, dyslexia and and severe sleeping disorder. The doctors just labelled it insomnia (very rare for a kid my age) but my mum always said it was something else. She never got to explain what it was. But eventually she had to stop telling me that it wasn't insomnia. I knew it wasn't. The night seemed to be the only time I was really awake. I never felt more alive than when the world's light was down and the stars were high in the air. That wasn't insomnia, at least not any kind of insomnia anyone had ever heard of. Other parents would force their kid to go to sleep but my mum didn't care. As if she knew that I belonged in the night. Sometimes I stared into the night sky from the balcony of my mother's LA apartment and wondered about my dad. If he was looking at the same stars I was, somewhere anyway. She told me he walked out on us when she just found out she was pregnant. She had a hard time dealing with the mess he left, she had a shit job, a shit a apartment and an ADHD kid that couldn't sleep a wink at night. It wasn't easy for her I understood that. But what she did that day, I couldn't understand. I came home from school, it had been a pretty normal day. I was happy though, I always was back then. I opened the door and walked straight into the living room. Usually my mum was sitting in the sofa watching TV. Her taste in television shows was horrible. I really didn't like the stuff she watched so I rarely watched TV with my full focus. I was always doing multiple things at the same time. My mom said it was because of my ADHD. I figured she was right. It meant that I was super hyper and all that so doing one thing obviously wasn't enough to keep me busy. I always respected her for her wisdom. She didn't have a good paying job or anything special but she was smart. She worked night jobs which left me alone all night but made sure that she could function instead of me keeping her awake all night and then her having to go to work in the morning. This way she could sleep while I was at school, it was easier for her, so I didn't mind. The thing was though that today she wasn't on the sofa. This had happened before so I wasn't really worried.
"Mum? I'm home! Where are you?" I asked. If she wasn't on the sofa her voice would cry out to me from the kitchen or bathroom but that didn't happen this time. I walked into the kitchen, there wasn't a living soul there. My mom never spend much time in the kitchen, most of our dinners were microwave. She always said she was a horrible cook, I didn't agree with it. Her self made meals were the best ones I had. Sometimes I thought she was too lazy or just didn't want to. Maybe she didn't have the time. I never knew. I walked into her bedroom it was empty of people and furniture. A bed and a closet, that was all my mum said she needed. I had a nice room but her's wasn't all that much. She spend pretty much all her time trying to make my life better. She always said she couldn't give me what I deserved and that I deserved a better mother but I disagreed. There was no way she could have made me happier. Finally there was the bathroom. I usually didn't enter the bathroom without knocking, my mum had taught me manners very well but I didn't knock this time. I can't remember if I did because I knew something was up or if I just forgot. If I had knocked though I would have had to wait for ever. My mum was there in the bathtub. She was pale, her eyes had a lifeless stare, her wrists were bleeding. The white tiles of the bathtub had a red liquid crawling down from them. She didn't move, she didn't breath. "Mum?"
I cried so much after I found out. One of the neighbours had heard me scream and came upstairs. It was a nice man who I had seen a few times before. He put me down in the living room after calling an ambulance and tried to talk to me but all I could do was weep. When the cops and ambulance arrived the cops took me downstairs and the ambulance crew went into the bathroom to collect my mother's lifeless body. I hardly remember that day. It all seemed so unreal and in my memory it never became real. Whenever I thought back of it all I could see was my mother's dead body. I figured that nothing after that topped over that image. I always figured I was in shock which is why I didn't remember everything. It seemed like the most logical explanation. I was put in the car and driven to the nearest police station. I sat there for days. I didn't know why I had to be there in the first place. I had gotten a blanket and something to drink upon arrival but in the hours I waited very few cops approached me. Maybe this wasn't something rare to the hardened LAPD. Eventually there was one cop who showed some kind of interest. He crouched down to my height and I got a good look at him He was in his late twenties but looked younger. He had short trimmed hair and brown eyes. His face was sharp but kind looking. He smiled, he seemed like a nice guy.
"Hey kid. I'm Officer Graham but you can call me Matt." I just nodded I didn't really feel like talking to anyone. I should have been nicer to the guy, he had been the only one to even turn his head. Of course I couldn't really be blamed, I had just seen the corpse of my mum. I don't think anyone would be in the mood to talk after seeing that. "Let's take a walk." He said. He went back to his own height and signalled me to follow him. I threw away the blanket and followed him. The station wasn't very big and was located on the North-East side of Los Angeles. It was surrounded by a small park with green grass fields, beautiful tree's with green leaves and a small pond. It was spring, the world was coming alive and my mum was dead. It made no sense at all. How could this be happening?
Graham lit a cigarette. Not very child friendly but we all have our bad habits. Chances were that we actually came out here to smoke and decided to take me with him. I had been sitting motionless for hours and some fresh air might do me good, that was logic. Of course nothing would really do me good. There is no cure against grief. At the time I was between believing this was a dream and realizing my mother died. More importantly I realized that she killed herself. She chose to stop living rather than spend her days with me. Knowing that probably hurt the most.
"You never told me your name." Graham said. My mother would tell me to politely introduce my self and shake the nice police man's hand but instead I just stared at the pond for a minute before finally answering.
"Michael." I said. I didn't even look at the man. Just stared at the unmoving water. Graham didn't know what to say and I wasn't in the mood to speak. I didn't blame him for being speechless. What do you say to a kid in a situation like this? Nothing sounds right or good. How could he tell me that I would be fine when I had just been turned into an orphan.
"Look kid." He said before taking another pull from his cigarette. "I know it hurts. And I wish I could tell you that it gets better but it might never go away. But life isn't over. Your life is only just beginning." It wasn't a great speech, it was pretty simple but I guess it inspiring. His words escaped my memories over the years. But at the time it meant a lot. Graham dropped the cigarette on the ground and trampled it. "Come on let's go back inside." Again I followed him this time in the opposite direction.
Back inside I heard Matt Graham talk to one of his superiors. I couldn't see them, just hear. They were in the room across from the chair I was sitting in. The room had it's blinds shut ever since I arrived, I didn't even know that that was someone's office. I heard Matt first, he was reporting the: Colt case.
"I can't call it anything but suicide. Every sign points towards it. Ms. Colt went into the bath, slit her wrist and was found four hours later by her six year old son. Confirmed suicide." Graham said. Confirmed suicide, it sounded so business like. No emotion from the man at all. This was his job, suicide wasn't a rare in a city like Los Angeles.
"Poor kid." The other man said. His voice was heavy and strong. I wondered about the person that owned the voice but I couldn't get any kind of picture in my head. My imagination was completely shut down. "Have you spoken to the boy?"
"Yeah I have. He's in bad shape as to be expected." Graham said. "So what's going to happen to him chief?"
"He's going to have to go to an orphanage. There's no father mentioned on the birth certificate and his mother was the only family he had." The chief said. I knew I didn't have any other family. My grandparents died years ago and my mum was an only child so no uncles or aunts for me.
"But which one? No orphanage would take him. His mom doesn't have anything but debts. Credit cards, rent of her two apartments and some other stuff." Two apartments? I never heard of that. It made me wonder if there were more things I didn't know about my mother. "We might also have to bring in the IRS. Her income and expenses don't check out."
"None of that concerns the boy." The chief said. "Despite all of that there is one orphanage in town that will take him."
"No chief, we can't send him there. That place is filled with delinquents we can't send him there." Graham protested. What were they talking about? Nothing of their conversation made sense to me.
"Have you got any better ideas Graham?" The chief said. His voice sounded angry now. He didn't like Graham going against him. It was quiet for a while before Matt finally spoke.
"No sir."
Two days later I went to the orphanage where I spend most of my childhood at for the first time. Happy days orphanage. It was located in the slums of LA. Outside the walls of the orphanage were thefts, gang violence and drug addicts. Of course as a six year old who believed he lived in a world of flowers and rainbows didn't know what all these things were. My rainbow flower world was soon to be changed into a stew of violence and hatred. I don't think my mum could have expected that when she did herself in. I was sitting in the hallway of the orphanage. The walls were grey and there was a grumpy man sitting behind a desk. He was tall, wide and had a small beard. He was nearly bald and he looked mean and annoyed. I was pretty sure that he wasn't here because he wanted to work with kids. His name tag said Roger Murdock. I got a weird feeling from him for some reason. He seemed...inhuman. I had seem some big guys in my life but this was a freaking bear. I felt scared sitting there alone with this guy. He didn't say anything, he just looked at me with a stare of intense hatred. The thing that scared me most about him were his eyes. They seemed to change, sometimes it looked as if he didn't have two eyes. It was very, very disturbing. Especially for a six year old who just lost his mother. That's about when an older woman came in. She had short grey hair and wore a suit. Her name tag said Mrs. Riley. She was in her sixties and looked like a mean old lady. She had pointy glasses and an evil grin. If I was asked to explain evil, I would use her as my example.
"Ah Mr. Colt I presume?" She said in an arrogant tone. She felt better than anyone. To her the kids in the orphanage were nothing more than animals. She was there to keep them in line.
"Yes." I said in a shaky voice. I was in a room with two people that intensely scared me. "Mr. Murdock. This is Michael Colt, he's a special one." She said. I didn't like the way she said that.
"What? Did his mummy and daddy get whacked?" Murdock said in a grumpy voice.
"No his mum actually did herself in." She giggled. I knew then that these two were not mentally 100%. "Anyway." She coughed in order to seem 'professional'. "You'll be in the East dorm, I'll take you there." She said. She ordered me to follow her and I did, like the dog I was in her eyes. She took me to room E23 It was the third room on the second floor. It was like a motel layout. "Here it is." She said.
"Thank you." I said quietly. I didn't really want to say anything to anyone. I just wanted to sit alone in my little heap of misery. She pointed me to go into the room and then left. Inside there were two beds, a small bathroom with a shower and a toilet and two closets for clothing and whatever else you had. Most orphans didn't have anything to fill the closet with. Just like what happened to me most of their parents assets got sold to pay off the house and debts their parents had. I was left with nothing but some clothing and my guitar. There was one other person in the room. He was at least three years older than me. He was a lot taller and stronger built. He was called Peter. None of us knew each others family names. Our parents were dead and any family we did have didn't want us so why use our family names? Peter immediately became my family though. He was like my older brother. He looked out for me, made sure I knew the right people, most of all he made sure I could defend myself. He had done martial arts before he came to the orphanage and he taught me everything he knew. I was a quick student, and I was a lot faster and more agile than he was. It wasn't long before I surpassed him.
I remember the first time I used the skills taught to me for the first time. First I should explain some things about the orphanage. There were four dorms, North, East, South and West. South and West were girl dorms, North and East boy dorms. East dorm and South dorm didn't really like each other. Easy to say that they were at constant war. Both had a leader. The leader of East dorm was John, he was an all right guy. Peter and I were all right with him anyway. He was a good fighter and was a guy you trusted to have you're back when you needed it. In South dorm it was Quinn. At the time I couldn't really judge him. We all hated him simply because he was the leader of North dorm so only bad things were said about him but he seemed like an all right guy. As an observer I didn't see that big a difference between Quinn and John. Of course when I first met him I completely agreed with everything they said about him. The guy Peter and I had most trouble with, was a friend of Quinn's. His name was William. Apparently his parents died in a car crash a few years ago. He had been in the orphanage as long as Peter could remember and he came to the orphanage when he was younger than I was. William was a year older than Peter (at the time it seemed much older than the ten years he was.) Williams buddies had been bothering us for weeks Peter always took care of them with ease. They were all kids just like us and Peter was a tough one. A few punches to the jaw and his enemies went down. But that day it was William himself that came for me and Peter. He said some things, Peter and I both wanted to knock him out.
"Look at you two idiots." William said. He loved taunting but most people knew that he was all talk. "Pete stop protecting the little guy. I bet he would go down within a minute if you weren't there to protect him." This guy was pissing me off. Pete did protect me from most of the older kids but I could take care of myself.
"Pete, mind me taking him?" I asked. I was about ready to kill this guy. He had no respect for anyone and I was going to show him why he needed to have some respect for those who could kick shit out of him.
"You sure Mike?" I nodded. I had to prove myself in East and North dorm, and well this was one way of doing it. "Go ahead then." He said.
"Oh the new kid is going to fight? Finally the little shit has the balls to step up and be a man. You're going to regret this!" He was arrogant, then again so was I. I had no idea what I was up against yet I was sure that he was no match for me.
"We'll see." I said. Both of us got ready to fight. I stood sort of like a boxer, straight on my opponent, hands beneath my chin and standing light footed for quick movement. He on the other hand stood sideways. That was his first mistake. Everyone thought that it made you look like some kind of martial artist but in truth it left your entire back open for an attack. So that's what I did. I kicked him into his back and already he seemed to be going down. He got back up though, this time standing straight towards me. He tried to punch me but he seemed to be moving slower than a slug. Everything around me was crystal clear. Every little movement, every muscle in Williams body that tensed up, I noticed it all. I dodged his punch easily, after that I attacked relentlessly. I couldn't show any weakness towards any other people. I had to show right there that no one could mess with this new kid. I kept punching William, until he crumbled down on the floor. Peter told me never to hit someone who hit the deck. That was only a sign of weakness. If you can't take a guy one on one and have to hit someone when they're on the ground, no one would respect you. And even if that wasn't the case, there was no need to injure William any more. He was knocked out cold. I stood there with a smile on my face. After that no one messed with me or Peter without thinking twice.
The years went by slowly. I got sucked into the violent life in the orphanage easily. Beat up this guy, knock out that guy. It became the life I lived and I enjoyed it. The people from East dorm thought I was great, the North dorm hated my guts. I was fine with that. Me and Peter hung out just the two of us for two years until another new kid arrived. He was seven years old, I was eight and Peter was ten. Joey was a little hyper kid, no one believed that I was the one with ADHD as I was rather calm. We took Joey in cause no one else would. We all knew what it was like being the new kid but no one wanted to be the first to accept the next new kid. I however thought we should and in the end it wasn't such a bad idea. Joey was a little genius. He knew more than half the East dorm put together. Most of it were random facts but some stuff that he knew was very useful. The tennis ball grenade was definitely one of them. Joey never really got into the fighting, Peter and I usually covered him. One time I got called into Mrs. Riley's office for doing so. The thing was Mrs. Riley wasn't there. Only Murdock. He was looking at me with the same hateful stare as he always did. Only this time he actually spoke to me.
"Mmmm I love demigod meat. I love this place. For some reason demigods just keep getting thrown in here. You're the third I picked up in four years. Now...come here!" Yes...that definitely freaked me out. He grabbed my throat with hands that seemed to be made out of steel. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think. I felt life slipping away. I tried to grab something, some kind of weapon. Until I got my hands on a bronze mail opener on the desk. It wasn't the greatest weapon but it would have to do. I looked Murdock right in the face. I always thought that he only had one eye, now I was sure. One eye in the middle of his forehead. Like a Cyclops. It didn't matter though, if he had one eye or two, I was still going to stab him in the neck. Will all the strength I had left in my body I stuck the mail opener into his neck. His eye opened wide in pain until eventually he disintegrated into dust. I fell to my knees desperately gasping for air. I tried to think back what he had called me. Demigod? What the hell was that I wondered. For a moment I considered waiting for Mrs. Riley to ask for an explanation but what if she was a one-eyed freak like Murdock? I thought it was better to get out of there and never mention this to anyone. No one would like the crazy kid saying that one of the staff was a one eyed monster. So I kept my mouth shut. No one seemed to find it weird Murdock disappeared, it was as if he never existed. No one talked about him, and I wasn't stupid enough to bring him up either. Eventually I guess I kind of forgot about him. Or I repressed the memory of ever meeting him. Either didn't bother me.
I remember meeting her very well. She was the victim of being the new kid, like I was, like Joey was. And with the girls it was much the same. The first lunch she had she was denied a seat everywhere. Peter, Joey and I sat alone, there were three seats left. She sat down without saying anything and started eating her lunch.
"Hey, we're sittin here newbie, go to your little make-up buddies." Peter said. He didn't really like the girls from west nor south dorm. A year before he had asked a girl out and she laughed at him for even asking. Ever since he stayed away from every single girl at the orphanage.
"I'd rather sit here thank you. They talk too much." She said self confident looking at Peter with strong and determined eyes. She was a tough one, or so it seemed.
"Get off our fucking table!" Peter yelled at her. For a second her confidence seemed to break. She was probably considering getting up but I didn't feel like she had to. She had the guts to come sit with three guys who were sitting alone on a six person table and go against us when we told her to go. I liked her.
"Pete, calm down. Let her sit. I'm Michael, the little guy is Joey and the big guy's Peter." I said to her with a confident smile on my face. I was smarter than Peter and stronger than Joey. I had pretty much became the leader of our little group. And this girl had caught my interest. I didn't want to seem like a bastard because Peter was acting like one.
"Mike, she's not even in east!" Peter tried.
"Just cause you got your ass rejected doesn't mean Joey and I hate all the girls Pete." I said. Joey cracked up. He was laughing so hard he nearly ended up putting his head straight into his own lunch.
"Nice to meet you Michael, Joey. And you Peter." She said with the same confidence. After that she turned towards me smiled and mouthed the words thank you. It seemed that she wasn't as tough as she seemed and was happy I helped her out. "I'm Eve" She said.
Nice to meet you Eve." I said. That day made our little group of four complete.
It wasn't long before me and Eve weren't just friends any more. We were ten years old, it was nothing more than puppy love but it made both of us feel like we could still belong out there in the normal world. All four of us had become used to the savage ways of the orphanage and I for one barely remembered what it was like being a normal kid. I guess this was a way of imagining that we were. The rest went pretty much the same. Peter and I still got into fights and John and Quinn still hated each others guts. A thing I remember well was the first person that actually got to me and Peter. He was small, weak and not particularly smart. Everyone called him little Ed. He was from north obviously. And he was sure that he could take us down a notch. He came up to us really casual. When he was near he grabbed something out of his jumper pocket and stabbed it into Peter's shoulder. Now this wasn't the first time stuff like this happened, but no one had ever gotten to us. I wanted to go after Ed, I would've killed him right there and then but Peter needed my help. He was bleeding badly and he seemed like he was unconscious. One of the staff had called an ambulance. Our medical adviser Lou Seyja made sure Peter would survive that long. He kept pressure on the wound to make sure it didn't bleed too badly. The screw driver that was used was laying next to Lou. I picked it up and knew what I was going to do with it. Little Ed was going to get the exact same treatment back.
That night while everyone was asleep I sneaked into north dorm unseen. I had the screw driver in my pocket. I didn't exactly know what I was going to do, I figured I'd improvise like I always did. I knew what room Ed was in. N19, I found it with ease. The door was locked but the lock was easily broken. If Joey was here he could pick the lock but I needed to do this alone. I kicked in the door, the lock broke without trouble. Ed was asleep, there was no one else in the room. I pulled him out of bed and started beating him. This guy had stabbed my brother, he was going to pay. He wasn't ready for the attack, he was asleep after all but after two or three punches he came to his senses. He punched me right back and I stepped back. For a small guy he had quite a punch. After that he threw me on the ground and pulled out a Swedish army knife.
"Come on tough guy. I'll skin you like a fucking pig." He said. I didn't know what to do. This guy was crazy enough to kill me I knew that for sure. I took the screw driver out of my pocket and stabbed it in his direction. I didn't aim for anything, I just needed him away from me. I closed my eyes, afraid that I had missed and that Ed was going to kill me. But Ed was silent, I heard nothing. I opened my eyes, the screw driver was in Ed's neck. The exact same spot where I had stabbed Murdock, only Ed didn't disintegrate. He wasn't some one eyed freak, he was totally human. I could hear him choke on his own blood. He was dying, even an ambulance couldn't save him. I had killed him. I panicked, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't tell this to anyone, I would get send to prison and never see Peter, Joey or Eve again. So I did what I had to. I erased my traces. I put Ed's hand on the screwdriver and made it look like I was never there. I hoped people would think he stabbed himself. It wasn't unlikely and the staff wouldn't investigate anyway. We were orphans, who cared if one of us killed himself? After that I left. I hadn't been seen, not until I was outside. Lou Seyja was out on patrol. He saw me coming out of the north dorm.
"Michael? What are you doing in north dorm this late at night?" He said.
"Uhm...the toilet in East is broken. I really needed to go." I said. It was lucky that it was dark. He didn't see the blood on my clothes.
"Oh, I'll tell Mrs. Riley to send someone to look into it. Now go to bed." He said. I did what he said. I looked back once and it seemed as if Lou was smiling. A scary sadistic smile covered his lips. As if he knew what I had done, and he was proud of it.
Like I hoped, Ed's death was seen as a suicide. For a while I was sickened by the fact that I killed someone and more so that I used the same way my mum died to cover it up. Eve had asked me if I knew anything, I had lied straight to her face. When Peter came back he openly admitted that he was happy that Ed did himself in. I never told him that I killed Ed. If Lou did know, we would be the only ones. Well Ed of course be he was dead. The weeks went on again, until my eleventh birthday nothing major happened in my life. It was the same old song and dance really. I remember my eleventh birthday well though. The morning I got twenty dollars like everyone did on his or her birthday. Peter and Joey had asked Lou if he could buy me a knife for them, he had done it willingly. Lou seemed to be the only one that liked any of us, mostly he enjoyed watching us kill each other it seemed. None of us four minded Lou though. And Peter liked him ever since Lou had made sure Peter lived long enough to reach the hospital. The thing that I really remember however, was the pendant I got from Eve. Just before dinner we were sitting alone in my room. I was playing the guitar for her until she interrupted me.
"Hey do you remember when we went to town two weeks ago and I disappeared into that jewellery store?" She asked me.
"Yeah you were looking for a bracelet or something. But they didn't have any right?" I said while playing some random chords on the guitar.
"Right. But I didn't go in for a bracelet. I uhm...got you this. She took out a silver pendant from her pocket. It was in the shape of an angel. "I know that your middle name is Angelus which means angel. I saw this and I thought why not. You don't have to wear it if you don't like it." She said. I smiled at her. I didn't really expect her to get me something like that. I knew I was going to have to come up with something really special for her when she turned eleven.
"I love it." I said. I took it and put it on. I didn't get why in the movies girls always needed help with that and then there was that awkward moment, it was so easy to do yourself. Girls...weird creatures indeed.
We were together for another year and a few months. She didn't get to turn twelve before she died. There was a fire in South dorm, she was still inside. I tried finding her outside but she wasn't there. Out of desperation to find her, I ran right into the burning building. Flames were everywhere and I could barely name my way to room S37. I stepped over burning rumble trying not to set myself on fire. Everything was collapsing around me, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it out alive. But I had to try and get Eve, I prayed to god that she was still alive. When I reached the room pretty much the entire way back had collapsed, there was no way back. I kept my shirt over my mouth trying not to breathe in the smoke. Part of the ceiling in room S37 had collapsed. I didn't see Eve anywhere. I knew where she was, the ceiling had collapsed on top of her. I tried to move the rumble, I grabbed burning pieces of woods with my bare hands just to find her. It hurt more than anything I had ever felt but I had to try. Eventually I could see her. There were still shouldering beams and ash on top of her but I could see her. She was burned and had a lifeless stare.
"Eve?" I tried. No answer. She was long gone. The rumble coming down on her probably killed her instantly, I hoped so anyway. I couldn't believe she was gone. I had to get her out of there or die trying. As I was trying to get the rumble of the building was cracking. What was left of the ceiling was collapsing now. A burning wooden beam hit me and landed on my back. I could feel my skin burning. The burning went over my right shoulder to my arm. I could barely breathe, I felt myself slipping away. Eventually I lost consciousness.
I woke up in the hospital, my back and right arm were covered in bandages. Apparently I had been burned really badly. They had found me in the rumble after the fire was put out. They told me how lucky I was to be alive, of course they didn't care about the person that didn't make it out. I was fine, just a few burns. She was dead. When Joey and Peter came to visit I turned my back to them. I didn't want to talk to anyone.
"They say the fire was accidentally set by a lit cigarette. Even if you wanted to find out who it was pretty much everyone above twelve smokes. And it was an accident." Peter said. They both knew what was going on in my mind. I wanted vengeance. Someone had caused Eve's death, I was going to find him and kill him.
"It wasn't an accident Pete, I'm sure of it." I said.
"Don't be stupid man. Eve wouldn't want you to go out for revenge. It was an accident, things like that happen." Peter tried.
"Besides we all know fire protection sucks at the orphanage. One tiny spark could have set it a light." Joey said. They tried to make me listen to reason. But I wouldn't, I was going to get revenge.
"A cigarette? From outside? The building isn't that bad Joey we all know that. Someone set this fire, and whoever did is going pay." They tried to convince me not to but my mind wouldn't change. Once I set my mind on something nothing in the world could stop me. Joey and Peter knew that better than anyone. They weren't going to help me on this one though, I knew that. I didn't mind it, this was something I had to do alone.
When I came back to the orphanage I had to go see Lou everyday to change my bandages and to give me painkillers and such. In those times I guess I started talking to him a little bit too much, a big mistake. It turned out Lou was one sadistic puppy. He knew everything about poisons, acids and other ways to cause people some serious pain. He knew some horrible ways of torturing someone. Of course as pissed as I was, I wanted to hear everyone of them. I knew that someone from north dorm had set the fire. If it was anyone from east I would know. Luckily there were people in north dorm that knew pretty much everything that went on. And everything Lou told me became quite useful when I needed them to talk.
"You know about water torture?" Lou asked me while changing my bandages.
"What putting their head in a tub of water?" I asked. I saw that in a James Bond movie once, it seemed horrible enough.
"That's an easy one. There's one which was never proved to be used but what they did was let a drop of water fall on someone's forehead for a long amount of time. Apparently the subject goes nuts, loses his mind completely. Another one is holding a wet towel in front of someone's mouth. This makes them feel as if they are drowning even though in the end its not lethal at all. It just drives them nuts you see, and that's what you need in torture."
"Why do you tell me these things Lou?" I asked him as I got up. My arm felt a lot better. It would leave a permanent mark on my back and arm but I didn't care. I had loads of scars, this one was definitely the biggest though.
"Because I need someone to tell this useless information that I hold. And I know you're not stupid enough to use these things." He said. How wrong he was.
The kid I needed was a guy named Seth. He was older than me and one of Quinn's best friends. If anyone knew who started the fire other than Quinn it would be Seth. I followed him around for a while, trying to figure out the best way to get him where I wanted him. Where did I want him? South dorms basement. There was a trapdoor in the rumble that led to a small storage basement. How did I find this place? Lou showed me, one time he asked me to help to move some old furniture in there. I did, now it came in very handy. There was all kinds of stuff down there. All could be used to cause some proper damage if Seth didn't want to talk. I hoped he would just talk, even though he probably suspected that I wouldn't do anything to him. But I would, at the time I had the mind set to kill him, causing him extreme pain was no problem.
Two days later he was there, strapped to a chair. I knocked him out with one clean punch, dragged him in the basement and tied him up. When he woke up I immediately asked him the only thing I wanted to know.
"Hey Seth, who started the fire in south dorm?" I was holding a hammer in my right hand. I was going to be straight to the point and if he didn't tell me what I wanted to know, I was going to cause him serious and permanent injury.
"Michael? What the fuck! Do you know who the fuck you're messing with?" Seth said. I didn't care who I was messing with. For all I cared I was messing with God himself if he could tell me who started the fire he would one way or another.
"Again Seth. Who started the fire?" I asked, this was his last chance.
"I don't fucking know!" He said. I brought down the hammer as fast and with as much force as I could down on his little finger on his right hand. He couldn't move his arm anywhere, he was completely tied up. His finger gave a loud crack, it was completely crushed. He screamed, he didn't think I would do anything like this.
"Who set the fire Seth?" I asked again. "You're finger is crushed, you'll never use it again, now tell me!"
"I don't fucking know!" Another finger got crushed, and another, until every finger on his right hand was crushed. He didn't talk. After the first day of torture he hadn't told me a thing. I used more gruesome methods each time. I held an iron rod over fire and put it on his skin burning him badly. I left him there alone for hours, I let him starve. I used acids to burn his arm and feet and he wouldn't talk. The third day I used the towel thing Lou had told me. He looked like he was suffocating though he could still breathe. He kicked and tried to scream. Tears were running over his cheeks until finally he broke. I got the towel of his mouth and asked once again.
"Who started the fire Seth?" I asked. He looked exhausted, hungry and ready to die but I wouldn't let him.
"Quinn and William. They wanted to send a message to you Michael. They locked her door from the outside to make sure she couldn't get out. It was on the third floor, if she jumped out the window she would die too. There was no one they wouldn't be able to get her." He said.
"Why didn't you tell me before?" I asked.
"Quinn will kill me!" He said desperately.
"He would, but you believed I wouldn't? Well you were right. I'm not going to kill you. But I'm going to let you rot down here. As you know no one will hear you scream. You've tried that. You'll starve down here Seth. If your wounds won't kill you. Later Seth." I walked out, at the end of the stairs I flipped off the light switch leaving him in total darkness like I had done all this time. I heard him scream but I didn't care. I opened the trap door and closed it behind me. I figured it would be a while before they found him. He would live for another two maybe three days in extreme pain before he would die. If he had died I probably would have felt remorse but at the time I felt none what so ever. He was found the day after by a maintenance guy who needed a hammer. Seth came out mumbling random things and not looking anyone in the eye. He was send to a mental asylum. When I came to camp he was still there, he would probably never come out.
I knew who killed Eve. Now it was their turn to pay for what they did. I realized that what I had done to Seth was wrong, and what I was going to do to them would be even worse but I had to do it. I couldn't let them go. Especially after I found out that they killed Eve on purpose. They made sure she died. They wanted her dead because of me. I saw Williams plan. He wanted to weaken me with her death and then take me out to get back in good graces with Quinn. For that, they were both going to die. I stalked them like I stalked Seth. I followed them through alley's and past abandoned building until they reached their destination. I followed them in there making sure they wouldn't notice me. I seemed to have a talent for sticking to the shadows and remaining unseen. I felt pretty good doing it too. I saw them sitting there. Drinking beer, smoking cigarettes while cracking some jokes. I figured they were laughing about their great victory. How William had bested me by lighting Eve on fire. It wasn't true, they were actually laughing about this old guy in a wheelchair they pushed over. They were real sadistic bastards. But my imagination told me they were disrespecting Eve even in death, and that made me even more willing to send them straight to hell.
"Quinn, William." I said as I came out of the shadows. I sounded cold, I was cold. I was ready to kill these guys and for an eleven year old that was quite horrible.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" Quinn asked. "Did you follow us? What are you some kind of stalker?" Quinn said. William had a smirk on his face. It would be gone soon enough. Quinn walked up to me and pushed me. Big mistake. I hit him in the face. He went straight down to the
ground. They were so weak. They acted like they ruled the world but they couldn't do anything. This time I forgot about the rule of not hitting a man on the deck. Quinn was on the ground but I kept on hitting. I beat him up until he stopped begging me to stop. Until he stopped moving his arms trying to get me off. I didn't stop beating him until his heart stopped beating. William was just standing there. Afraid of what I was going to do to him. Quinn was dead, he was next. I ran towards him, he tried to get away but I was much faster. I knocked him down. Hit him until he lost consciousness and then tied him down with some rope that was laying around. After that I found a can of benzine in the warehouse. Very convenient in my opinion. I covered William in benzine and waited for him to wake up. I got bored waiting very soon. I picked up one of the pack of cigarettes laying around took one out and put it in my mouth. I lit it was a black and gold lighter which I figured belonged to Quinn. I had smoked before, a few pulls anyway. As Peter had said pretty much everyone at the orphanage smoked. I got pulled into that quickly too. As my cigarette burned William woke up.
"Michael, please don't kill me." He cried. Only now he noticed the liquid that covered his body. "Michael, what is this?" He asked desperately.
"Benzine." I took one final pull of the cigarette and as I blew out I flicked the cigarette against William. It caught the benzine and William went up in flames. I walked away listening to him scream. I didn't feel remorse for that until much much later. For years I made myself believe that justice had been done.
No one talked about Quinn and William disappearing. Most people suspected it was me but no one ever said anything about it. Maybe they were scared. I didn't care either way. Peter and Joey knew it was me but among the three of us not much had changed. All of us missed Eve. It always felt as if there was something missing and we all knew that it was her. I had always been the one closest to her but we all cared about her. We all had our parts in the group. Joey was the brain, Pete the muscle, I was the leader and she was the one that kept us all going. She was very caring and sweet. The world seemed a colder place without her. To me she was also a sort of break. She reminded me how I didn't have to be violent, how there was a life after this war zone but now I had forgotten all about that. Everyone who looked at us wrong got a week at the infirmary. I was ruthless towards anyone that took a stand. Back in the old days I let people off with a black eye but now no one got into a fight with me without breaking a limb. Lou and I still spend time together even after my wounds fully healed. He continued teaching me about horrible ways to cause pain and I remembered all of them. Unlike before I wasn't sure if I was ever going to use them but I knew that I would if the opportunity presented itself. Over time I grew cold, even towards my friends. I had always been tougher around Peter and Joey than I had been around Eve but my soft side seemed completely gone now. All people saw now was the violent side of me. About a year I lived like that. Pete, Joey and I still hung out but our relationship had changed a lot. I had changed after her death and they never accepted the new me like they accepted the old one. It would take the death of another friend for me to understand that.
When the cops surrounded the Happy Days orphanage I was as surprised as anyone. Of course there were a lot of things going on in the orphanage that weren't legal but a raid was something we couldn't have foreseen. The cops entered, got us all in front of the ruins of the South dorm building (Mrs. Riley never got anyone to take care of the ruins) and we had to wait. The entire staff got arrested and we were left for dead.
"Where are we supposed to go man?" John asked one of the cops. He had grown a lot in the last 6 years. Taller, stronger and much more of a leader. He was seventeen now, nearly out of this place but he would never get to leave with dignity. Instead he was kicked out of the place that had been his home for ten years.
"I don't care." He said. John didn't really like the answer. He hit the cop right in the face. When John did something, East dorm followed. We all started attacking the cops. Pete, Joey and I among them. They weren't prepared for a bunch of (very violent) kids attacking them and didn't have any riot equipment on them. Not many ever had an actually fist fight riot with the cops. Especially not many twelve year old kids. Pete, Joey and I took down one cop with the three of us but these guys were better than we thought. I saw John knocking out quite a few but he was a lot stronger than us. We all fought, none of us cared if we got arrested. We had all been through so much shit, how bad could prison be? What we didn't expect was that one cornered cop would draw a gun, and shoot. Everyone got down as quick as they could and when the echo of the shot faded we all started running like madmen. Some got arrested, John was one of them. He wasn't the kind of guy to run but he couldn't stand against the cops on his own. Peter and I ran into an alley. We were both looking around hoping to see Joey but we caught no sight of him.
"Have you seen Joey?" I asked Peter. He shook his head. I hoped he had just ran into another alleyway, he was fine. But we both saw the body on the pavement near the gate of the orphanage. There had been one casualty because of the shot, and we both knew it was Joey. I wanted to go their and kill these cops. No one hurt my friends cop or no! But I was stopped. Peter pulled me away from the buildings we had grown up in.
"Michael think about this. They'll arrest you and no one is paying bail for us." I wondered when Peter got smart, but this was a wise thing of him. If I got arrested I didn't know what would happen to me. I didn't want to know. So we walked away, we left our friend dead on the pavement.
Everyone went their separate ways. Some went to the cops to ask where they were to go. Others ended up in other orphanages or in foster care. No one had it easy adapting. Those that went back into that system found that the orphanage we lived in was the worst there was. Our violent ways of thinking didn't fit in any other orphanage. No one's surprised to hear that about 80% of the kids from the orphanage ended up joining the army. Only 4% finished school. We weren't the pride of society that was obvious. Peter and I ended up living with six others from East dorm. I was the youngest and there was only one other that wasn't older than Peter who was fourteen now. The guy who was in charge was named Tim. He was sixteen and was a real criminal. We lived of , (me being able to play the guitar helped a great deal with that) stealing and some other nasty activities. We lived in the abandoned warehouse where I killed William and Quinn. I led them there. We had a place to live, it was good enough. It wasn't just a roof over our head though. It had guess, electricity and hot water. We never got bills which meant we were using these facilities for free. That meant someone could come and have a check one day. It was a risk but it seemed like our best option. And as it turned out we got by for quite a while. I lived there with the exact same people for two years. Until Tim came up with a brilliant idea, it seemed brilliant anyway.
"It's a four man job." He said. "We need two people taking care of the cashier, one to get the money the other to keep the guy under control. Then we need someone on the door and someone taking care of any costumers around. The shop closes at 1 AM so we'll hit it at 12." Tim said. He had a real criminal mind. That guy knew how to open locks, how to boost a car and planned this sort of jobs like a professional. Of course our earnings were smaller then one of an actual professional but we took what we could get. "We've got to guns thanks to Pete and Michael." Pete and I ran into some idiots carrying arms and got into a little brawl with them. Once they were down and out we figured that two pieces would do us some good. "So the guy taking care of the cashier and the guy taking care of the costumers will be carrying. We go in, get the money and get the fuck out. Who's in?" Tim was in obviously. Then there was a guy named Mark. A good friend of Tim's. Peter volunteered which meant I did. So we were the four. I was the guy that was taking care of any costumers which meant I was getting a gun. It was a simple 9mm which held nine bullets. Nothing to get excited about. Peter was the one getting the money. Tim would watch the door and Mark would hold the cashier at gun point. It was a simple plan but it was stable. There were no camera's so we didn't really have to worry about anyone but the witnesses. All of us had our faces covered and everything. It seemed like a water proof plan.
We came out of an alleyway, went round the conner and entered the small convenience store we were hitting. Mark immediately raised the gun at the cashier who put his hands in the air in response. Tim and I rounded up the four costumers in the store and put them in the corner. There was a man in his mid twenties with a little girl (the only one I felt bad for) and two teenage guys who didn't seem like much. I held them at gun point and Tim took his position at the door. "Be calm and you'll be all right." I said to the hostages. I looked calm and hardened but my heart was pounding. If we got caught we would go to prison for armed robbery, there was some serious time for armed robbery. I'd be in juvy but I wondered if Tim would be charged as an adult. It wasn't going to be easy if we got caught but if we got this we would be set for a while. A place like this would probably earn us a few thousand dollars. That was worth the risk.
"Hurry the fuck up dude!" Mark said to Pete. He was grabbing the money from the cash register and put it in a backpack we had. It was a lot of money he was grabbing. Finally he zipped up the bag, turned around and threw it towards Tim. He caught it and put it on his back.
"Let's get out of here." Tim said and Pete started moving. It was specifically said that Mark and I were not to turn away from the people we were keeping at gun point. We would walk back towards the door and turn once we were safe. I took a few steps back, Mark turned around. Tim was still at the door, Pete was half way to the door and I was still in the corner with the customers. The cashier got something from underneath the counter and when I saw it I was shocked. The cashier had pulled out a shotgun. He pumped it, and fired. Mark was shot in the back at point blank range. The bullets came out of him and blood flew everywhere. Mark flew forward with incredible speed. The power of the shot gun was monstrous. I lost focus now. The hostages ran towards the door and the cashier let them. A fifth person ran with them. Tim ran out of the store with the bag of money, he had left us for dead. The cashier pumped again, and this time he aimed for Peter. He tried to get away but he wasn't faster than the bullets. Peter was hit and fell on the ground, he was dead, just like Mark. Now it was just me and the cashier. The cashier dropped the gun, walked to where Mark stood before getting blown away and picked up his 9mm.
"I'm going to kill you!" He screamed at me with a middle eastern accent. I hadn't really taken a good look at him but he was definitely middle eastern. He started to walk towards me, I was hiding behind one of the stacks. I was still staring at Peter's body. He was the last of my friends, and this guy killed him. I wasn't going to let him come to me. I turned away from the stack, aimed and fired. I kept pulling the trigger. By me second shot the cashier replied with a shot from his gun and I felt a horrible pain in my left shoulder. I remained on my feet, the cashier didn't after my third shot. He was on the floor screaming. I walked over, my shoulder was bleeding horribly.
"Fuck you!" I screamed as I aimed the gun at his head. He was on the ground and I was standing over him. I grabbed his head and with the bottom part of the gun I hit him. I did it again, and again, and again. I can't remember how many times I did it. When I stopped he was still breathing. His head was covered in blood and there was fear in his eyes. I aimed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger. A bullet went right between his eyes. The entire store was a bloody mess. I dropped the gun on the cashier's lifeless body and walked to Peter's corpse. I felt the pain in my arm now. The adrenaline had kept me going but now I felt the pain of being shot. The wound was double sided, the bullet had gone straight through which was quite lucky. When I arrived at his corpse I fell to my knees. There was little left of him. The shot gun at this range had messed his body up. "Pete...I'm so sorry." He was gone, the last of my true friends just died. Tears ran over my cheeks. My mind told me I had to go. This would have attracted many eyes and ears so the cops would probably be on their way. But my heart couldn't go on. I had lost everyone, but I couldn't stop. My mind beat my heart. I got up, got a few bandages from one of the stacks, grabbed the gun and walked out. There would be time to mourn later. I ran for a while before I found a few racks of clothing. I got jeans and a jumper and ran for it. It wasn't smart to steal even more but I had to change clothes. In an alley I changed my bloodied clothes and threw them in a trash can. I bandaged up my wound and started moving again. I could hear the sirens. The cops probably arrived at the scene by now. I had to get away from them, as far away as I could. I ran until I couldn't any more. I collapsed to my knees and cried. The image of Peter's body wouldn't leave my mind. How could this be? It had to be a horrible nightmare, it had to! I cried for hours hoping I would wake up. Until eventually the tears stopped coming. I stopped crying, and when the sadness faded, the anger took it's place. Tim abandoned us. If he had stayed maybe Pete could have survived. Tim betrayed us, he would pay!
I went back to the warehouse I had lived in for the last two years. Pete was dead, Mark was dead. And they probably believed I was dead. There was only a traitor and people I didn't really car about inhabiting that warehouse. And the traitor had to die, so the others were unfortunate collateral damage. I saw the building from a far and knew what I was going to do. I'd have to take the back door to make it work. That's where the gas and electricity lines were. All I had to do was make a cut in the gas pipe and let it fill for a while. The problem was that there was a place the gas could go a small vent leading to the outside of the building. I closed that off with a brick which would keep it under control for a while. The gas would fill the building within ten minutes and then one spark would set it off. Once the pipe was cut and the vent closed off I walked towards the main entrance. I walked inside as if nothing happened. Inside there were five people sitting in silence. When they saw me a spark of hope was on the faces of four of them. Obviously Tim wasn't very happy with me being alive.
"Michael you're alive!" One guy yelled out. I just smiled and nodded keeping my eyes towards Tim. I always believed that he knew I blamed him for the death of Mark and given I was alone he probably figured Pete was dead.
"Yeah I am, not for long if I stay though. Cops are after me. They got Mark and Pete, they're dead." I said normally. I sounded cold and uncaring, I had finished crying, this was revenge. And revenge always turned me cold.
"We thought so, we thought you were dead too." Tim said, faking sympathy.
"I figured. I have to go though. If the cops track me here we're all going down. Mind if I take my share?" I asked, it was a demand more than a question.
"Yeah sure. The loot was 2000, split it through five, 400 each." Tim said. The money was already on the table, it had been counted already. Tim got the stack of 20's and got off 20 of them. Twenty time twenty, four hundred. I put the money in my pocket and spotted a pack of cigarettes on the table. Given Tim had betrayed me and I was seemingly letting him go, I figured I could get any request through.
"Mind if I take those?" I asked casually. Tim nodded and I picked up the pack and put it in my pocket. I still had my lighter in my pocket, all I wanted now was my guitar. "I'm getting my guitar and I'll be gone." The goodbye was no more than a wave of my hand. I didn't even face them. I figured Tim sighed in relief once I left. Everyone knew what I could be like when you hurt my friends. Of course the fact that I was blowing them all up was proof of that. The warehouse was probably filled with gas by now, all it needed was a spark. I walked far from the warehouse, about half a mile before I stopped and leaned against a wall. I got the pack of cigarettes out of my pocket, got one out and lit it. It was Pall Mall, my favourites so to speak. The smoke filled my lungs and I felt relaxed. Of course I didn't have as much stress as Tim just had. I couldn't believe he hadn't lit a cigarette yet. Maybe the pack I took was their last one. I finished my cigarette and dropped it. As the cigarette hit the pavement I heard a huge explosion. Someone had lit a cigarette in the warehouse. I smiled, my task was complete, I had my revenge. It was the second time that I used that warehouse to get it. Ironic.
I left my home town as soon as I could. There was way too much going on that I had my hands in over there. I started heading towards San Francisco, maybe it would be better there. I lived on the streets there. I slept in a trash can. Taught myself how to pick pocket. I turned fifteen on the streets of San Fran. I was alone all the time. The money I had ran out quickly. In the end I had nothing any more. The worst about it were the monster attacks. They kept coming and coming and I had no way of defending myself. Usually I just legged it. I had no way to explain what these things were but they were hunting me constantly. I slept in an alleyway which seemed peaceful when I got attacked by this huge guy with one eye in the middle of his forehead. A Cyclops, like Murdock. After seeing all those monsters I stopped denying that Murdock was really a monster. The thing threw me around like a rag doll and I had no bronze letter openers to protect me this time. I thought I was done for until the thing disintegrated into dust. Someone had stabbed it from behind. It was a tall guy, blond hair and a smile on his face.
"Hey there kid." He said. He seemed a few years older than me. In his late teens I guessed. "I'm Martin. What's your name?" Martin explained to me about demigods. And how he suspected I was one of them. He told me the Greek gods were the real deal and that there was a camp for their kids in New York. I didn't really want to believe it but I had seen some weird things in San Francisco. And when he told me they had food and shelter at camp, I was pretty much sold. I didn't care about the entire demigod thing but I was sick of the streets. So we started heading east. Along the way we stopped at these so called demigod shelters. Martin was a son of Hermes that travelled around trying to find demigods. So he had these shelters along the route to spend the night and stock up on supplies. He started teaching me some things about swordplay which I turned out to have quite a talent for. I didn't talk to Martin much. I can't say I was a very nice person at the time. Especially not after we ran into Samael...
We met Samael near Detroit. The shelter near there was occupied by him. He said he found it while running from a group of monsters. He said he was from Detroit and only recently got troubled by monsters. He got a sword from his mortal dad and was sent to camp half-blood in New York. The sword he had was about 4 feet long. It was celestial bronze and on the side of the blade it said: Shadow-edge. He had a scar across his face and had short trimmed blond hair. He had a sort of darkness lurking over him. Martin didn't like him from the start that was certain. But he didn't really have a choice but to take him. After that Martin and I talked even less. I was always with Samael. He taught me how to wield my sword even better. He was a much better fighter than Martin, he was much more aggressive and ruthless. In many ways we were alike. One night while we were nearly in New York. Me and him started talking about our past victories around a camp fire. He told me about the people he had murdered, I told him about those I killed.
"You burned someone alive?" He asked me. "Bullshit. I can't see you doing it kid, you don't have the guts." He said. I was a fool, I was proud of the horrible things I had done and I wanted to prove myself towards him. He was me but older, stronger, better. I never had a role model in my life. Now I had found one.
"I swear I did." I tried.
"Prove it then. Grab your sword, and stab our little guide over there." He said.
"But then we won't know how to get to camp." I didn't really care about Martin at all, I did want to get to camp though.
"Screw camp. You and I have more important things to do. There's a plan Michael and your a part of it." He said with an evil grin on his lips. I wanted to be a part of it, whatever this plan was. I wanted to be somebody, belong somewhere again. And I felt like I belonged with that plan. I got up picked up my sword and went to Martin. He was standing with his back turned to me. He heard me and turned around facing me.
"Hey Michael, what's up?" He asked. I answered by putting the sword straight through his gut.
"Rest in peace Martin." I twisted the blade and kicked Martin of it. He fell down to the ground. He was still alive. He grabbed my leg trying to pull himself up. I kicked him away and started kicking him again and again until he stopped moving. I heard Samael clapping behind me.
"Well done kid. There might actually be some hope for you." He said. "Come on let's go. We've got someone to go see in the city that never sleeps. Kind of like you for some reason."