0.5
There always been something undoubtedly wrong about Lyra Burke.
Even before she has become the girl she is now. At seventeen, we know Lyra is worse than running rivers and worse than whistling winds, shaping the land in her own destructive ways. We know she is worse than the acid that slowly corrodes metal, turning it into nothing more than a shell of rust. People know she's a dangerous concoction that upon consumption will slowly gnaw and tear at your organs, blacken your heart with her venomous words, shrivel your lungs with her cigarette smoke, and taint your stomach with her bottles of liquor. She will take from you everything you have and give you only the satisfaction of knowing that you at least left with your life if you even get to keep that.
Lyra Burke is a poison, but she's also the sweetest kind. Lyra Burke tastes like saccharine, the nectar of a succulent flower or a honey from the sweetest hive. She's pure sugar that hides the bitter regret of ever trusting her. She'll make you feel special. Being friends or in love with her is like being a little drunk and tipsy, where all the edges of the world blur together. You'll have memories of running from the cops in black bikini tops, drinking cherry schnapps with crushed Vicodin pills and chugging tequila shots with college guys, stealing police cars and getting away with it because she fucked their boss. She'll lesbian-kiss you when a pervy guy is hitting on you, she'll share a cigarette with you as you two skip school and aimlessly drive around Hollywood and she'll send you a mischevious wink from across the room as you two share inside jokes. You think when you're with her, everything is wonderful and merry. Until she inevitably steals your boyfriend to prove a point or leak your nudes to embarrass you because she was bored. She will course through your veins and make you crumble faster than you could ever put yourself back together. The worst part is, you don't notice until you're already dust.
And you might wonder, what made her that way?
The thing is she has always been that way.
It's funny how such a wicked little child can be born from the loins of Hecate herself. Hecate was usually such a placating goddess, a warm soul at best. Maybe a little creepy and unnerving but Hecate was gentle as compared to the rest of the Greek and Roman deities, who were vengeful at best and psychotic at worst.
Lyra Burke was an Iranian orphan who was born out of wedlock in the middle of a refugee camp. Born a Muslim, she was named Soraya Shivani by her father before he got blown to bits, which led to her being placed on the UNICEF Sponsor List. And when a gay couple, Everett and Raymond Burke, saw little baby Soraya on their computer, they did all they could do to ensure the adoption. Within a few months, little baby Soraya was renamed Lyra Burke and before she knew it, she found herself nestled in Egyptian cotton and living in the Burkes' West Hollywood apartment, being spoiled rotten and given everything she ever wanted.
But Lyra was twisted, despite her privilege, her luck, and she found this out when she was seven, along with her special abilities. You see, Lyra had a sister as well. Her name was Sage and she was better at everything that Lyra did. Lyra was popular because she bribed others to be her friends and people only hung around her because Lyra gave fancy goodie bags at her birthday parties while Sage was effortless, making people love her and navigate towards her without lifting a finger. Lyra got reasonable grades while Sage breezed through her ABCs with straight As and smiley stickers. Sage was taken to dinners and showered with praises and adoration while Lyra was just given an iPad and was told to go entertain herself. Lyra was of Iranian descent while Sage was white. Lyra was adopted but Sage was from a surrogate.
Lyra despised Sage. She hated her adoptive sister with all possible rage that was beyond a seven year's old emotional capacity. And when she was seven, this hatred was put to its use. It began with the Barbie Playhouse Collection. Lyra wanted it but Sage got it. When Lyra asked if Sage could share, Sage said no. That made something inside Lyra snap. With clenched fists and gritted teeth, Lyra kept quiet. She didn't pull Sage's hair or punch her in the eye like she usually did because by now Lyra had learned her lesson. She knew that would just make her parents yell at her. So slowly, Lyra let her anger burn slowly in her mind.
During the summer, they vacationed at the Hamptons and spent a good majority playing along with their summer house by the beach. When their parents had wandered off to the stores and left them alone for a good five minutes at the beach, Lyra decided to push Sage into the water and dunked her head into the sea. She held on for a good three minutes until she heard one of her fathers scream at her to stop. She let go and Sage flopped onto the floor, breath sparse and cough out water. Lyra faced her parents, expecting for the beration to come.
But it didn't. For some strange reason, her parents thought Sage was the one who tried to drown Lyra, which they decided to penalise Sage by shipping her off to some mental asylum. And Sage was never to be seen again for the next ten years of her life.
And that was how Lyra realised she had an ability, an ability to make people believe fiction, an ability to falsify reality and beguile minds.
From then on, Lyra lavished on her cruelty, her beauty, her powers and her money. With Sage away, Lyra was free to reign the social scene of Beverly Hills. As her parents neglect further, Lyra became some sort of a social bonafide in her school. At fourteen, she was a party queen of the 90210, a taped together mass of booze and sex and drugs; she was loud and unafraid and old enough to know why boys two years older than her invite her to parties and asked her to come over to their places. She broke hearts at her own volition- from girls crying about how Lyra has dumped yogurt all over their skirts and boys asking her to take them back to girls who pretended to be her friend for their own popularity and boys who only like her body and paid attention to her when she peeled her shirt off; Lyra bathed in her power to attract anyone to take a sip of her poison.
Her cruelty was even worse when she was fourteen and this was proven in the form of Adam Koo. Adam Koo was a former Straight A student of the debate team and former virgin before he came across Lyra. He adored Lyra from the moon and back and when Lyra inevitably grew bored of the relationship (she only dated him to experiment how she felt about good little boys with good grades and a warm home), she broke up with him. And when she brought up the topic to break it off with him, he threatened to hang himself if she left him. His only response was a laugh.
By next morning, he hung himself in his bedroom. Cori, Lyra's best friend, another collection of collateral damage, told her of the news, wispy eyes and wet cheeks, and just like Lyra's indifference when he threatened to kill himself, Lyra's reaction was an eye roll.
That was when Lyra thought she was actually fucking sick. It wasn't Sage who needed a mental institution, it was her.
But she ignored it. She ignored the fact that was something wasn't entirely right with her- what with her inability to feel any fucking thing. She felt no guilt about Sage, not even a teardrop at Adam Koo's funeral and certainly no heartburn over Cori Weston's rape and eventual suicide. She didn't know what was exactly wrong with her- because the only time when she was able to feel anything was when she was either drunk or high, which was why she dedicated her abilities in owning a collection of designer drugs and a constant supply of booze kept somewhere near her.
But why should she be worried about the fact that she was practically a soulless robot? Her life was awesome. She was Queen of Briarwood Prep in Los Angeles, one of those Instagram bitches who modelled part-time living the high life, addicted to Xanax and coke, smoking whenever she could while blowing money like no tomorrow. However, Lyra just wasn't your typical Regina George. She wasn't your playground bully or someone who spread nasty rumours about you. She wasn't just 'high school'. She was the embodiment of hedonism with no morals and no values and a soul made out of plastic. She laughed in the face of sincerity, faith and sadness and scoffed at the mere idea of love while using the same notion to manipulate others to do what she wanted. She was a narcissistic sociopath, showered in Patron, Gucci, champagne, cocaine and gasoline with no regard to other people's emotions or even her own.
Which is why when the report of Lyra Burke land on Isaiah's lap, he had never found anyone more perfect.
6 MONTHS AGO
"I don't understand the big fucking deal with this guy," was what Jack Landon said as he gazed downward to the clouds beneath him. He was nursing a Scotch, sipping slowly as he moved away from the rear window of the private jet and began his way through the spacious, carpeted aisle of Lyra Burke's jet. His whole skin tingled with being in her jet, near her, as she was cool, lounging on one of the couches, scrolling through Instagram. He hated her. He hated her lack of morals, her lack of indicative loyalty. It's been two months and he still can't decide whether she's for their cause or she's just toying with them, something that piques her interest until she grows bored and sells them out. He hated how Isaiah insisted on how she was vital to their mission- what does a child of Hecate, a minor goddess just like his useless excuse of a mother, had anything to do with ensuring that demigods had a better life within the world?
"He's important," Lyra said when in reality, Jack had directed that question to Isaiah, who is humming to himself with his earphones plugged in. Jack throw Lyra an annoyed glance, who is fully decked in designer gear, tucked into a heavy white fur coat that seemed to weigh down her body. She moves a tangle of dead straight dark hair from the right side of her head to the left, and back again. She quirks an eyebrow, then bats a weighty set of fake eyelashes and twirl with the silver and a possibly diamond-encrusted crucifix hanging from her neck.
Jack sneer, which is even more sinister than your usual sneers due to his feral mouth consisting of sharp canines that poke out. "I didn't ask you, bitch."
Jack is never one of those people who hid his anger under a smokescreen of passive aggressive antagonization with underlying snarky comments and fake smiles. In fact, Jack is always upfront with hs emotions; he's sharp edges with acid words but they're honest and true and he pairs his words with a serial killer smile. You know when he's pissed- because his mannerisms become predictable; his words are laced with poison, like roses with thorns, and his smiles are full of knives before he cut you down.
Lyra, however, is all for it. Like a mothering nurse, she pushes down her Gucci 1962 Lolita-inspired heart-shaped sunglasses (seriously? Jack wants to roll his eyes, you're wearing sunglasses inside a fucking aeroplane?) and pouts out her matte nude coloured lips. "What's wrong?"
"You're a fucking psycho, that's what's wrong."
Lyra returns her attention to her iPhone, barely looking up as she continues to scroll down. "Babe, you're sitting in my private jet so if you ever want to parachute down all the way to the Atlantic Ocean, you're more than-"
"Enough," Isaiah's quiet voice pilfer the entrance. Amusement plays in his tone as a secondary customer to the annoyance. Their attention swivel to Isaiah, sprawled across his lounge like a predatory cat. Jack watch Isaiah's blond hair flash in the sunlight like it's catching fire. There's darkness on the horizon, a smudge where the storm is growing outside the aeroplane. "Both of you are squabbling like children. According to Lyra, someone key to our mission is in London. Lyra insists he's powerful. Besides, didn't you want to come?"
Because I'm worried she might go stark-raving mad, double-cross us and kill us all in this plane, Jack wants to mutter but he holds his tongue.
"What a shame," tsks Jason Drake, stretching his body against the comfortable plush armchair. The show he had been watching had been put on pause. His loose jeans, white tank top and black hoodie is not enough for warmth in London's chilly winter and then later, Amsterdam, because Lyra said she needed some witchcraft supplies, which sounds as ridiculous as it did when it first came out of her mouth. Whenever Jason speaks, he always sounds like he's angry- even more so than Jack- and he's the pure epitome of a resting bitch face, which is further emphasized with those stormy greyish green eyes and coal black messy hair that hid most of his face; so they aren't taking it personally as his scowl accompany his speech: "I was actually hoping for some entertainment on board."
"There's forty-nine channels on this private jet, Jase," Finnic Macduff or 'Finn'-as he prefers to be referred to- deadpans, surprising everybody with his level of speech. He never really says anything, which Jack know Isaiah likes- because quiet and obedient with unwavering loyalty is Isaiah's version of the perfect soldier. Frankly, Jack disagrees. The perfect soldier must be able to think for themselves- because, in moments of emergency, improvisation was the clue. "There's even porn. And if you are going to entertain yourself, please turn the other way. I don't want looking at your dick to ruin my appetite."
Erika lets out a bark of laughter from the other side with Jack following her. "For fuck's sake, Finn," Erika remarks, running a hand through her matted hair. In torn jeans, worn Stan Smith Adidas sneakers and a tank top underneath a flannel top, Erika looks extremely out of place in the luxurious private jet with cream-coloured sofas and armchairs, decorated along with embroidered throw pillows, glass terrariums of pink orchids on the coffee table, the collection of pricey liquors by the corner and plush beige carpet with air freshener and lavender perfume dense in the air.
Lyra sighs and shoves her sunglasses from her face, revealing her face carefully done in makeup. "I'm going to the bathroom," she promptly announces. Nobody cared, of course.
Jack lands himself on a vacant seat, which is next to Isaiah, who resumes to reading his Bible and listening to music. "Are you sure London is not a waste of time?" Jack voices his underlying suspicions in his question, which is are you sure Lyra Burke is trustworthy?
"I trust her decisions," Isaiah simply says, one earphone dangling, lifting his cool blue eyes of the Bible. His rosary beads are placed as a bookmark. "Don't you?"
"Erika and I were the ones who drafted her report. You only read a bit of it. She's actually insane. She threw her own sister into an asylum, she led a kid to suicide- no, wait that's two because she orchestrated for her best friend to be raped. What the actual fuck, Isaiah?"
Isaiah is silent. Probably because he knows Jack is right. Isaiah is sombre and pensive as he dictates his thoughts silently; Jack has known Isaiah since...since before everyone had joined them. Before Finn and Jason became part of their Inner Circle. When Isaiah and Erika were free-wheeling thirteen-year-olds who practised time travelling whenever they could. He remembers admiring them, even though they were the same age because he thought they were so cool. Isaiah could go anywhere he wanted- in any century, any place, the ultimate manipulator of space and time. Erika was just pure awesomeness with her wit and sarcasm but yet her reliable personality accounts for her worth. She's the mother hen, who tended to their wounds and gave them kick-ass pep talks. They're practically his family.
"I know she's unstable," Isaiah mumbles quietly, "I know we can't exactly decide her intentions but she's immensely powerful. She's just not a normal daughter of-"
The bathroom door flung open. Lyra's anorexic figure stumbles out in those unpractical high heels and stalks her way down to the aisle. Jack notice a slight dusting of white powder on her nose. She slumps down in her seat and clicks her fingers for the air stewardess, who has been beautifully deceived under the Mist to hide their weapons and conceal their armour. When the air stewardess nods at Lyra's order and walks away, Lyra's recently lipstick-applied lips twist into another one of her smirks and look back at them: "So what were you guys just talking about?"
CURRENTLY IN LONDON
Will Adler- or William Adler, if you want to get a little fancy with it- always live by the motto: Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. A very methodical approach towards his morning routines- Will like to start his day at seven because his shift starts at 8:30 and it's all the way in London. He lives in Essex and not in the city centre because property prices in London are ridiculous and unless he fancies living in a cardboard box, he decides on a small, generous apartment- or flat, if you wanted to get British on the other fringes. He starts his day early because he doesn't like to rush through his daily goings and it takes a thirty-minute commute on the Tube towards the city.
After changing into a fresh set of clothes, brushing his teeth (right side three times, left side three times, front three times) and splashing his face with three handfuls of cold water, Will promptly head out towards his kitchenette. He props three toasts in the toaster and heats up three oz of milk on the boiler while with a flick of his finger, the coffee moved telepathically from the cupboard towards him- telekinesis perks- Will hum excitedly. He prefers his tea at night and his coffee in the morning because it offers a perfect way to jolt him up into alertness. Along with cold water to the face, it helps drag him out of the heavy pillows of sleep. In his opinion, tea is the perfect way to wind down after a long day at work but coffee is the best thing to wake up to.
As he pours his milk into his coffee, add three sugars and stir three times, he moves towards the corner of his apartment at the makeshift table, which is really his white windowsill, but Will like to use that area to drink his coffee as he watch the daily goings of human influx through the streets. Even though it's been a year, he always finds London extremely fascinating, constantly absorbing into its atmosphere. It reminded her of New York in the States, completed a course of cycles: people rippling through the streets, cruising about their lives, every corner exploding with vibrancy and a veritable variety of entertainment to be on the lookout for. Even at the mere peak hour of seven, when everything is supposed to be soft—the colours, the surfaces, the way people looked in that heavenly, almost godly morning yellow glow and every movement appear sluggish and slow, London is going about at breakneck speed. But strangely, not this morning. Expecting rush hour, Will finds it strange how it's actually pretty empty. Only a few individuals are out; obsessed workaholics discussing the stock exchange or something just as uninteresting on their phones as they sip their morning espresso. A few others are running in and out of buildings, fetching forgotten errands. The shops and bakeries aren't even open yet, with the exception of the convenience store down the block and the 24/7 pharmacy a few stores down.
But Will doesn't make much of it. Instead, he opens the notebook hidden under a series of heavy books and begin jotting down yesterday's dreams. Ever since the murder of his twin brother, Gale, his clairvoyant dreams are getting more vivid, clearer. Before Gale's death, it was just obscure shapes and uneasy feelings. Now there are clear faces and travels towards people's life as if he's watching movie reels of random people's lives. But they are never random. Being a clairvoyant, every dream, every vision, every mirage counts as something meaningful, something important. But what is their importance and what is their meaning?
The most frustrating about it is that you never know until you look at it in retrospect. That's one of the lessons he learned from Gale's death.
Nonetheless, his dreams had been a series of repetitions of the same people- a small blonde boy with piercing blue eyes teleporting through different places and seemingly different time zones with another girl, whose face was dark and dirty with mud splotches but he had a good feeling about her; something about her screamed home and maternal kindness. Usually, he catches snippets of that little boy's life through his dreams. Just the other week, he had witnessed the little boy being thrown into a cupboard and an insane woman banging on the door while flinging Bible verses and proclamations of the end of the world and the Antichrist at the poor, scared creature. A few days ago, he had a dream about that same boy being bullied on the playground, labelled as a Jesus Freak and Christian Terrorist- and those were the nice, moderate insults. Will have no doubt those dreams are relevant in their own respect and they are most certainly real- it's either something that has happened or will happen. Figuring out which is the tricky part.
Another series of dreams he's been having features a girl. He has a vision of a baby girl, being wrapped in a dirty cloth, sleeping peacefully in a tent as a woman in a hijab hummed her songs in an unknown language. The woman was dark haired, beautiful but deathly pale for an Arab and her face was like a Greek Statue- ageless, gorgeous and cold. Instantly, Will knew he was looking at his mother, the goddess Hecate. But Hecate didn't seem to notice him. She carries on rocking the child in her hands and then outside of the tent, William heard a loud boom! Outside the tent, through the flaps of the fragile film, clouds of shrapnel and dust explode in the air. It sounds like God's chainmail is being smashed on the Earth and Will can tell that uranium bombs are being rained upon the world outside.
"Poor baby," Hecate coo, stroking its cheek, "To be born in such conditions."
William frown at that image before being taken away to a beach, where two seven-year-old girls seem to be squabbling by the waves and then one of them- one with dark hair and dark eyes push the blonde girl into the water and held her down until someone from the distance screams at her to stop. Another dream features the same dark haired girl, just a little older. She's in the car with a boy, who's built like trucks and tree trunks but he's fresh-faced with big blue eyes. She's smoking and she's wearing fewer clothes than a prostitute; she looks no less than thirteen and yet her eyes are rimmed with thick eyeliner and her makeup is red and ripe. "You want to get back to my place, babe?"
She's silence and darkness as she coolly sucks on her cigarette. William is transfixed as he examines her and for some strange reason when he stares straight into her, he feels as if she knows he's there- even though it's just a dream. "Babe?" the boy asks again.
The girl rolls her eyes, "My name isn't babe. It's Lyra."
And the dreams end from there. He encircles some of his notes on the paper and thinks. That's all he has so far. He sighs. He finishes the remainder of his coffee and head outside.
ACCEPTED CHARACTERS:
MAIN CHARACTERS, OFFICIALLY DECIDED:
Evelyn Clearwater, 16, Greek, Daughter of Morpheus, Female, Incarcerated for: Dangerous, Mental Instability.
Nadia Marie Williams, 19, Roman, Daughter of Fortuna, Female, Incarcerated for: Treason.
Marisol Clarice Hunt, 19, Greek, Daughter of Mania, Female, Incarcerated for: Murder.
James Silas Moretti, 18, Greek, Son of Aphrodite, Male, Incarcerated for: Treason.
Jaekwan Lee, 19, Roman, Son of Neptune, Male, Incarcerated for: Treason and Attempted Murder.
Roman Daniel Sokolov, 17, Roman, Son of Victoria, Male, Incarcerated for Drugs and Murder.
SUPERVISORS:
Christopher Michael Johnson, 18, Greek, Male, Son of Hermes.
Santiago Rafael Nieves-Linde, 20, Roman, Son of Sylvanus, Male.
Juliana Greer, 18, Greek, Daughter of Ares, Female.
Leilani Shay Kahala, 14, Roman, Daughter of Vulcan, Female.
SUPPORTING CASTS:
Emmet Grayson Blake, 15, Greek, Son of Hephaestus, Male, Incarcerated for: Attempted Murder.
Adrian Ulysses Dusk, 17 (going on 18), Roman, Son of Apollo, Male, Incarcerated for: The Dusk Plagues, Murder.
Carmen Santanico Alverez, 16, Greek, Son of Dionysus, Male, Incarcerated for: Treason [Gaea's Side]
Kaisu Suzuki Takakuro, 15, Greek, Son of Apate, Male, Incarcerated for: Treason.
Ries Edward Duncan, 18, Greek, Son of Ares, Male, Incarcerated for: Abuse of Power
Malina Maruska, 18, Greek, Daughter of Aphrodite, Female, Incarcerated for: Treason.
Matthew James Cardinal, 20, Greek, Son of Thantos, Male, Incarcerated for: Murder.
Chelsia Elizabeth Noxley, 17, Greek, Daughter of Aphrodite, Female, Incarcerated for: Murder.
Dean Alex Johnson, 17, Greek, Son of Lycan, Male, Incarcerated for: Treason.
Ajax Uriel Walker, 21, Greek, Son of Thantos, Male, Incarcerated for: Treason and Murder.
SUPPORTING CASTS [FOR CAMPS]:
Kira Lu, 15, Greek, Daughter of Ares (Adopted by Artemis), Female.
Kathryn Huang, 16, Greek, Daughter of Hecate, Female.
Samantha Tamaguchi, 17, Greek, Daughter of Ares, Female.
Abigale Rebecca Saunders, 16, Greek, Daughter of Khione, Female.
Daewon Kim, 20, Roman, Son of Mars, Male.
Larissa Samnang Ros, 19, Roman, Daughter of Vulcan, Female.
INNER CIRCLE:
Finnic Theodore Macduff, 19, Greek, Son of Poseidon, Male
Erika Freeman, 17, Greek, Daughter of Tychon, Female.
Jack Landon, 18, Greek, Son of Eris, Male.
Jason Drake, 18, Greek, Son of Nemesis, Male.
COVEN OF HECATE:
Will Adler, 19, Greek, Son of Hecate, Male.
Lyra Burke, 17, Greek, Daughter of Hecate, Female.
Asta Vik, 18, Roman, Daughter of Somnus, Female.
Winslow 'Winnie' March, 18, Roman, Legacy of Trivia, Female.
Thanks to everybody for submitting a character! Hope you review and love! Next chapter will focus on the Roman camp and what have happened in the third chapter!