Chapter 2: Sprout (II)

About half an hour later the bus came to a stop on Witherspoon Road, about two blocks away from my house. I got off the bus as quickly as I could, my hands sweating and clenched at my side.

I saw the sign: JIM'S AUTHENTIC CHICKEN and breathed a sigh of relief. I lived in a small two room apartment right above a restaurant that sold almost exclusively chicken. Witherspoon Road was a busy street that saw plenty of foot traffic; you could hear people in the restaurant late into the night. Big Jim, the owner of the place was a cool guy around Jack's age. He was always offering us deals on free chicken which we gladly took. The food wasn't spectacular, but Jack always liked to say, "Free food is good food."

I walked through the parking lot to the back of the building and climbed up a flight of stairs that led to my apartment door. I raised my hand and knocked.

"Just a minute!"

The sound of Jack's voice immediately calmed me down. I felt my muscles relax slightly, finally realizing that I had been tense since the moment I stepped into the bus. I started hearing the jingling and sliding of locks, after a few moments the door swung open and there he was. I have to admit he wasn't looking the best, he was wearing a white tank top with a small ketchup stain in the center and blue pajama pants, but I hugged him all the same.

"Icarus, are you okay?" He started, putting one arm around me, "I just got a call from the school, you got detention again? And you didn't go? Are you okay?"

I let go of him, "I'm alright dad but…" I looked down, not sure how to explain to him everything I had seen. I struggled to choose my words carefully so I gave up and did the only logical thing, telling him absolutely everything, "I don't think I want to go back to Johnson Academy! Today Mrs. Fielder gave me detention for no reason, no reason at all, and then I go to detention but detention isn't at the cafeteria, detention is in her room, and then I go in her room and in her room she starts with, 'death, death, death,' and then there was scratching and I thought I was gonna die, I mean I was dead, dead dead, and then Sam comes and Sam kicks down the door like a fucking super hero and says, 'don't touch my friend!' and then I got up, Mrs. Fielder started break dancing, and now I'm here." I was practically hyperventilating by the time I finished.

Jack stared intently at me, listening to each and every word, showing quick flashes of confusion, shock, and understanding. He walked past the kitchen that was next to the door and continued into the small living room, sitting down on his big leather recliner. He reached over to his plate, took a big bite of his hot dog, and began muttering slightly to himself, seemingly mulling an idea over in his head.

I watched him, confused by his lack of verbal reaction to everything I had just said, I told him I saw a monster for christ sake!

"Hmm, well, Icarus, if you're going to come with a lie that terrible as an excuse for dropping out of your freshman year, I assume that there's something genuinely awful going on that we're going to have to resolve. However, it's a Friday night and we'll have to wait until the school is open again on Monday before I can go over there and figure out what's going on." I stared at him in disbelief that he didn't believe me.

"How about this," Jack continued, "tomorrow morning we'll go to our camping site up in Long Island. There you can relax a little and we can talk about what's really happening at school. Do you want to watch this episode of Jeopardy with me? A woman's about to win some big money."

I sat down on the couch next to Jack, more confused about the situation now than before. What had I seen? Did I really see a monster? What if I had just fallen asleep in Mrs. Fielder's detention and it had all been a dream? I spent the next couple of hours in a daze, trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't. I took my phone out and texted Sam to see if I had hallucinated the whole thing. I waited about twenty minutes before texting him again. Then ten minutes before texting again, then five, then one, and then I called him. No response.

I was desperately starting to worry but figured that Jack was probably right in one way or another, what I'd seen couldn't possibly be true. I went to bed that night convinced and assured that everything would be okay, especially after camping over the weekend.

I wish I hadn't been so stupid.

That night I had an awful nightmare.

Sam was running through the woods, his clothes torn and tattered, half of his chest exposed and his pants completely gone. Before noticing anything else, I couldn't take my eyes off of his weird shaped legs. To start, they were completely covered in thick brown hair and where his feet were supposed to be were hooves. At first I wrote this off as being typical dream shenanigans but then I saw what he was running from.

"Run satyr run, run for as long as those little legs can carry you." It was Mrs. Fielder's nasty voice, complete with cackling and all.

Beads of sweat ran down Sam's face, his breathing was labored and it didn't seem like he would be able to run much longer.

Suddenly he looked directly at me, as though I were floating in front of him, and said, "Icarus, get to camp safely, I'll meet you there, don't worry about me, I've done this before."

I woke up panting and soaked in sweat, an imprint of my body in the center of my bed. I looked at my bedside clock: 10 am. I collapsed back into bed and caught my breath. That dream couldn't have been real, right?

I figured that Jack would want to get going real soon and decided to shower and quickly pack the usual tools and spare clothes, Jack would probably already have everything else packed in the car.

I met him half an hour later in the kitchen where he was making pancakes, eggs, and bacon. We ate and had some small talk before packing everything into the car and driving towards Greenwood Campgrounds. Since we were traveling from New Jersey to Long Island, I had some time to think about yesterday and my dream. The entire time I wondered about Sam, who still hadn't responded to any of my messages. I reached into my pocket and rubbed my thumb against the card he had given me, taking it out I saw that it read:

Sam Longbranch

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

It took me a couple of minutes to decipher what was written on the card, whoever's idea it was to make cursive writing didn't care about dyslexic people. Eventually I took my phone out and went to Google, typing "Half-Blood Hill" into the search bar. No search results. I almost typed in the phone number but it seemed obviously fake.

I tried searching a couple of more times before deciding to just listen to some pop songs on the radio and see if I could find the place later.

Jack and I got to Greenwood a couple of hours later, unpacked everything, and set up our camp site in a small wooded area that provided some privacy from all the other campers. When we finished, we decided to go out to Lake Greenwood and see if we could catch any fish to pair with our hot dogs and s'mores that night.

Despite not catching anything, I had tons of fun listening to some of Jack's stories of when he was younger. If there was anything Jack was good at, it was telling the best stories.

Night came fast.

Before we knew it, we had to get the rented canoe back to the small docking house. When we got back to our campsite, Jack started a small fire in front of our tent. "Guess what I got!"

I turned to him and saw him holding up a bag of peanut butter marshmallows, a pack of Hershey milk bars, and graham crackers. I couldn't help but let out a loud whoop and raise my hands out to him. You can make fun of me all you want, but if chocolate doesn't immediately solve all your problems, it's you that needs help, not me.

I watched expectantly as the chocolate and marshmallow melted slowly onto the graham cracker, preparing a juicy, sugar filled bite that I couldn't wait for.

I heard some slight shuffling next to me as Jack sat down on the log, "Icarus, I've been putting off asking you all day but I think that it's time we talked about what's really going on at school."

I didn't respond, I didn't know how to. What was I going to say? Just tell him the same story as yesterday? Maybe throw in the part where I had a dream, 'oh yea, by the way, I saw Sam with hooves running away from my teacher in case you were curious.' I'm sure he would believe all of that. Especially considering how much I believed it myself.

Jack noticed that I was still quiet and decided to push the conversation along, "you know, Icarus, you can tell me anything. If you're having problems with other kids at school, that's okay, we can figure out how to fix that. If it's grades you're worried about, we can work on that too. I just need you to tell me what's going on buddy."

I sat there, watching my s'more drip away bit by bit into the fire. I wanted to tell him that it was everything, everything was wrong. But when I opened my mouth, my voice was gone, I sat there gaping like a fish.

I heard Jack sigh. "Alright, how about we try again tomorrow? I can tell there's a lot on your mind. It's getting late, we should check in for the night and go hiking early tomorrow."

I nodded my head.

Jack patted my shoulder, put down his s'more stick, and crawled into the green tent. "Love you kid!" he shouted.

I don't know how long I sat there but eventually the fire went out and it was just me, the trees, the moon, and the cold. A cold that made my hairs stand up. I shuddered.

Snap.

My head shot up and I froze.

It was her.

It's just a dream, I thought to myself. This isn't real, you're hallucinating Icarus, hallucinating.

"Icarus Friedman…" Her raspy voice cut through the silence of the night like a knife, "you run from me, hide from me, but you cannot escape your fate. That is why I am here and you are there."

Her wings flapped softly as she walked towards my trembling body. Again, all I could do was stop and stare, I begged my body to move but it wouldn't respond.

"Icarus, are you coming to bed?"

Mrs. Fielder stopped, her head snapping towards the direction of Jack's voice.

"Icarus?"

I wanted to shout but my mouth felt so dry, my throat so cracked, that all I could do was croak out a weak, "no."

The front tent flap opened, Jack's semi-bald head poked out followed by the rest of his body. He stood up and came face to face with Mrs. Fielder.

"Icarus?"

The sound of talons slicing through the air was all that I could hear. Thump.

I stared at Jack's lifeless head and body, blood gushing out of him. He lacked all of the warmth and love that poured out of him when I was around. I followed the blood that was dripping from Mrs. Fielder's talons to her hideous, wrinkled face.

The last thing Mrs. Fielder did was smile.

A feeling I had never felt before began to swell, a feeling of insatiable, unquenchable, anger. It built and built as Mrs. Fielder walked towards me, her mouth moving but I couldn't hear a word as the blood rushed to my ears and my body grew hot. The trees seemed to sway, their branches and leaves swinging, beginning to whip back and forth. The grass around me seemed to come to life and grow, vines sprouting from nowhere.

Mrs. Fielder stopped, noticing that something wasn't right.

"You… you dare, you dare to come here and to take everything away from me, to sprout that bullshit from your mouth."

Mrs. Fielder stared at me in shock.

I saw red as I charged her, closing the gap with speed I didn't know I had, seemingly propelled by the grass beneath me. I dove into her thick body, tackling her into the ground. I felt her talons scratch and claw against me, cutting my arms. She was desperately attempting to get up but I held her down with all my might. The anger continued to flow through me and I couldn't help but look directly at her and want to crush her so badly, to make her pay for what she had done. I let a scream out that would have reached the heavens, my voice cracking from how guttural it was. Vines began sprouting from the ground around her, wrapping around my hands that held her neck, giving me extra strength.

I watched as I squeezed, the vines squeezed, and Mrs. Fielder let out the scream of pain that I so desperately wanted to hear. I closed my eyes, letting the anger, pain, and nature consume me.

When I opened them again, all that laid under me was a pile of yellow dust and blood, my blood. I noticed that I could barely see out of my left eye, everything was tinted red. I touched my face and felt three deep gashes, blood pouring out due to my touch.

Despite the immense pain I was in, I crawled to Jack, whose lifeless body was next to me. I stared at the immense pool of blood surrounding him. When I saw the cold stare on his face, I began to cry and wail. The tears mixed into my cuts and caused an intense burning pain.

I had failed, this was all my fault. My inaction, my passivity, I was a fucking pussy and it got Jack killed, it probably got Sam killed. All those fights I avoided, all those beatings I took, for what? To tell myself that I was better and smarter than that? No, all I was, all I am is a scared, weak, fool.

"There, there Icarus," said the voice of a little girl.

I turned back to the campfire and saw that it was lit. A small girl with brown hair sat on the log, poking at the flames with a small stick. She smiled so warmly at me, giving me a look of such understanding, as though she had known pains like mine a million times.

She patted a spot on the log next to her, where Jack had sat.

I felt compelled to move, slowly picking myself up and hobbling over to her. When I sat down she put her arm around me. Instantly I felt better, my vision slowly began to clear and some of the pain from my cuts eased up.

"I know it is hard my child, the life of a half-blood always is," she said, shaking her head softly, "but, it is said that all great heroes are born from the toughest of trials and the harshest of punishments." She paused, poking at the fire slightly before turning to me, pulling my head towards her with her small hand. She stared into my eyes, I swore I could see small flames dancing inside of hers, "you will find a home Icarus, you must find a home, you must fight through the pain and suffering and grow stronger, the world will only get harder and brushes with death will only become more frequent. As we speak, a plethora of monsters approach us, some near, some far, but all aware of your existence now that you have displayed your power and let yourself be known."

I couldn't imagine the idea of fighting more monsters, not now, not when I had come so close to death with just one.

"What… what do I do? I can't leave Jack, I can't leave him alone here."

"Jack would have wanted you to survive Icarus. For him, you must go to Camp Half-Blood, there you will be safer. Safer than out here alone. I will make sure that he gets a proper burial, I will take care of him, but you, you must go my child."

The little girl gestured with her hand, pointing towards a small patch of green grass littered with vines, seemingly all pointing forward. I stood up, almost falling as my right knee buckled, and slowly began to limp towards the path. Before taking the first step, I looked back at Jack on the floor and then at the girl next to the fire, who stared at me reassuringly.

I had no choice but to move forward.

Authors Note

Demigods always have a rough start, it'll be interesting to see what path this sets Icarus on! The next chapter will include action with our introduction to Camp Half-Blood. I've tried to flesh out a lot of the stuff that the original PJO never really explored about camp life, I hope you guys will enjoy my take on it.

Please favorite, follow, review, and even shoot me a PM if you're enjoying the story. I enjoy interacting with readers!

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