A/N: I know, I know. This is really late and I am really sorry, but I had some bad news come by way and this got put on the backside. However, finals are here, which means we all need something to get us through. So, here it is. Enjoy. Oh, and if you care, I made a Twitter so you can follow me at incandwriter.
Dreams suck. They are the worst. I mean it. Last night, after Annabeth left, I quickly fell asleep, but it wasn't peaceful. I was suddenly on Olympus. I was in the throne room, which looked a lot better than the last time I was there. Annabeth's designs have been coming along great.
I wasn't the only one in the room though. Zeus was sitting on his throne, while Hestia sat in a comfortable looking chair. Hestia still didn't have a throne. She looked awful. Normally, she appeared as a nine year old, because that is what she preferred, but now she looked as if she could be somebody's grandma. Her skin was drooping off her body and she had a see through look to her. Her hair was gray and fragile looking. She looked sick.
"It's getting worse." I could hear her say to Zeus. He looked troubled.
"I know. There is not much we can do now." There was an unspoken conversation between them, I could tell.
"The hearth…it is so cold." Her voice was bleak but her eyes held a different story. They were old, but still had a glimmer of hope. I would know. The jar I had given her, Pandora's Box, hadn't been opened yet, so hope was still here.
"There has to be another way to fix this." Zeus muttered in Greek.
"The mortals can only believe." Hestia said. "And we have to believe in them."
"Believe in them?" Zeus said, like it was an unheard concept.
"Yes. If we don't believe in them, how can we expect them to believe in us? Don't you see? It is a circle." Hestia said strongly, some color returning to her briefly, before fading again.
"How did this happen?" Zeus asked. I had never seen his this subdued before. Then again, I had only ever seen Zeus right before battle.
"People…they just stopped believing. Home has slowly become less and less important to mortals. They have such busy lives nowadays, and home slowly became just a place to sleep. It became nothing. And then a thread just snapped." Hestia described.
"Is that what it feels like?" Zeus asked. Before Hestia replied, I was suddenly pulled out of the dream by a loud, annoying beeping sound. With my eyes closed, I reached for my pen, before realizing it was just my alarm clock. I got up, trying to shake the dream from my mind.
School was torture today. The hours dragged by when all I wanted was to go home and sleep for a million years. There are times when the Achilles Curse just isn't worth it.
Of course, lunch flew by and then it was time for history. Evan wasn't in this class with Drew and me, so we had to go separate ways. As we walked there Drew asked me if I thought we were going to even be on topic today or if we were only going to talk about the crazy Greeks. I told him that I didn't know.
"Why are you so interested in this anyways?" I asked him. He looked down for a moment, before answering.
"I don't know." He admitted, but he seemed as if he was holding back. We slid into our seats just as the bell rang. We were the last ones in class, with Mr. Baker sitting at his desk. Even though the bell rang, he continued to ignore us, not saying anything. After a moment, the whispers started.
"What is he doing?" I heard Kevin whisper in an over exaggerated way.
"I don't know." Emma, the loud mouth, said. Drew and I exchanged shrugs. I wasn't complaining. At least nothing was trying to kill me. I was sure Mr. Baker had a reason for doing this. My time with Chiron had taught me that a teacher does everything for a reason. It might not seem like it, but they do. We just had to be patient. The problem though, is that patience has never been one of my strong suits.
We must have been sitting for ten minutes with Mr. Baker doing nothing. Conversations had started up, games were being played, but none of us said anything to Mr. Baker. When the loudness had increased, Mr. Baker finally got up out of his chair.
"Good afternoon. How was lunch?" He asked conversationally, as if the last ten minutes had never happened. The talking died out and Kevin was staring wide eyed at our teacher.
"It is school food. What do expect?" He said.
"Good point." Mr. Baker mused. "Anyway. On to what we were talking about yesterday. The Black Death. The Bubonic Plague. Scary stuff, right? Did we get to the repercussions of the death toll and how it affected Europe?" He went on to start class how he normally would. It was weird. Even Chiron had never done this to me before.
"Percy." Mr. Baker said, making me jump. I was halfway to grabbing my pen, when I realized that I was in class. "Do you have anything you wish to say?" I gave him a confused look. Where had he gotten the idea that I had wanted to say anything.
"Uh…no sir." I said.
"Hm." He mused. "Are you sure?" He raised his eyebrow at me, as if trying to communicate with me. I didn't know what he wanted. I shook my head.
"Well, I would have thought somebody wanted to say something to me. Anyone? Anything anybody wants to say to me?" We all stared at him, uncomprehending what he was trying to get at. He gave a sad sigh, like he was disappointed in us.
"And that is my point." He said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"What exactly is your point?" Drew called out.
"People don't like to confront other people about issues." We all stared at him, me especially. I know a few people, *cough*Clarisse*cough*, who like to confront people. They have no fear in that.
"What do you mean?" Kevin asked. "Are you saying that we are cowards?"
"Now you are getting it." Mr. Baker smiled in victory. "Yes. That is exactly what I am saying. Everybody in this room is a coward, me included." I thought about that. Was I a coward? I didn't think I was, but it this wouldn't be the first time I was called one.
"When class started and I ignored you, what did you do? You ignored me back. That is the way it is supposed to be. You go around life, ignoring the things you aren't supposed to know. But then you could see me and then you realized it was abnormal behavior. And so you gossiped. But you never confronted me. Not once. Even when I got up and started class, none of you asked why I was quiet for so long." I stared at him. It was something that a child of Athena would do. And then I began to wonder about my teacher. Who was he? Obviously he wasn't a monster, but there were other mythical creatures out there.
"Yes. But what does this have to do with the Black Death?" Drew called out.
"Ah yes. Well, we have finished the notes for that. Now, we are talking about current events." Mr. Baker said. "So what does this have to do with current events? Yesterday we were told that the Greek gods and goddesses still exist. And I told you to go home and look up information about them. Now, be honest. Who did that?" Unsurprisingly, only a few hands went up, but one of them was Drew's hand. "See this is what I mean. You get some shocking news and what do you do? You ignore it. Is that what you are going to do? Are you going to ignore these so called Greek gods? Because even if they turn out to be fakes, their story on why they even attempted this is fascinating. So, tell me. What do you know about the Greek Myths? Yesterday I believe we left of on demigods?" He raised an eyebrow at us.
"Well, demigods are said to be half mortal and half god." Drew called out nervously. Now, normally Drew only made sarcastic comments or when he felt as if he had to share his opinion, so I knew to be looking for the apocalypse when he answered a real question in a non-sarcastic way.
"Right. And what made them special?" Mr. Baker called out. Drew just shrugged. When no one said anything, Mr. Baker sighed. "See. You are ignoring. Demigods supposedly had some of gifts given to them by their godly parents, such as control over the domain their parent has. What else is there? Can you guys think of anything?"
"Weren't they, like, hunted?" Amber said.
"Yes. They were. By monsters and gods alike, all who wanted to kill them. They were trained in the art of combat so they had some way of protecting themselves. They were better than the average swordsman, just a step below the actual gods. So my question for you is, Do you want these people to be real or to be crazy?" Drew's hand was first in the air.
"They should be real. It would make things a lot easier to explain, because even scientists don't have all the explanations these days. Like that weird storm this past summer. Where did that come from? The weathermen have no idea. It could have been the gods. Or...or...something like that. It would make things a lot easier to blame." My stomach turned nervously as Drew talked. He was spot on. It was the gods, but it was also so much worse than them.
"I don't want them to be real." Wyatt said. "Think about it. If the gods are real, then we are living with monsters. And if we are living with monsters, then we have a potential to die everyday. And I don't like those odds." There was a small noise in the back of the class. I turned to look for the person who made it. There was girl in the back, who looked annoyed.
"Yeah, but you get in a car everyday and that is a possible cause for injury or death. You go skateboarding. You could kill yourself that way. You already have a death sentence just by being alive." The whole class was staring at her with mouths wide open. Her name is Megan, who never speaks. She hasn't said one thing in class all year.
"Oh, really. Does that mean you wish to die today?" Wyatt spat. Megan's eyes looked down, as if she was hiding something.
"No. I don't have a death wish. I am merely stating a fact. If we are going to die one day, what does it matter if monsters live among us? Is it because they are different from the monsters we are used to? We will eventually get used to them. So why does it matter?" I felt smiled. Wyatt wasn't the nicest person in school. He was mean in a subtle way, thinking he ruled the place. It felt good to for him to be put in his place, even if I wasn't the one doing so.
"There isn't only monsters to be worried about. I bet that these gods are stuck up, thinking they are better than everyone else. They will want to rule the world. And I don't think we should let that happen!" There was thunder in the distance. Zeus was upset. From what I saw in my dream, he wasn't wanting to be lenient with anything today.
"See, maybe they are real." Drew said, in reply to the thunder. I saw Wyatt swallow nervously.
"No. That doesn't mean anything. It is just a dream." But he didn't look convinced. I glanced up at the clock. We only had three minutes left in class.
"Okay. Well, I think this has been interesting." Mr. Baker said. "I hope you think about this tonight. Remember to look around you. Don't be ignorant." The bell rang and as I stood up, I saw Mr. Baker motion for Megan to stay. I hurried outside, not wanting to eavesdrop.
"Hey. Wait up." Drew called to me. "What do you think Mr. Baker is talking to Megan about?"
"I don't know. Does it matter?" I was in an agitated mood. I haven't come across a monster in a while, and talking about them in class today was making me paranoid.
"No. I guess not." Drew said. We walked in awkward silence. "Where are you going?" I didn't realize it, but I wasn't going to my next class. I was heading towards the door.
"I don't know. Hell?" I said. It was the truth. I didn't know where I was going and for I know, I could be heading toward the Underworld. "Cover for me?"
"Sure. You going to tell me what is going on?" I looked out at the street. I didn't know what to tell him. Just like Megan said, everyone had a possibility of dying today. Unfortunately for me, I just had a higher probability. Everywhere I went, no matter what I did, I could get killed. At least my camp friends understand that. As much as I liked being around my mortal friends, there was that thought of 'Guess what day it is? Guess what day it is? It's your death dayyyy. Yeah!' And I didn't want my friends to be hurt if that happened.
"Maybe. We'll see." I turned back and said to Drew. He nodded. And I walked into the day.
A/N: And there it is. And I think my writing was influenced by the fact that today is Wednesday. It wasn't my most favorite chapter, but expect a monster and a Percy Jackson character next chapter. Good luck on finals!