Chapter 3: Runaway

18th February 2007- 5 years later

Daniel POV

I unwrapped the gift, my eyes widening in joy. It was like a reflection of the gift he gave me ten years prior. Instead of a toy bow however this was an actual bow and a beautiful one at that, a pristine white bow, with golden edges.

"It's handcrafted you know; I carved it myself; I thought it fitting, I couldn't have you keep practicing with my bow, might as well have your own. Every good hunter keeps their own bow, and it was time you had your own." My dad spoke up from behind me, I turned around to meet his eyes. He was smiling, as he always tended to be when he was with me, but there seemed to be a small sadness to his eyes. It was probably because it was the 5th anniversary since I had that first outburst.

He seemed to know where it came from, something about my mother, but he never told me anything about her, and I didn't want to ask, because every time he mentioned her, he became sad, like a sense of nostalgia overcame him. It was probably because I knew that he still loved her. In all my years of life, he'd never brought another woman home, never talked about dating someone else. He was still stuck on my mother, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why.

She left him, left me, and he still loved her? Still pined for her? It was… sad.

In fact, I was probably the only good thing in his life. As far as I knew, I was the only family he had left. He never said anything about his parents other than the fact that they were dead. I didn't even know if he had siblings. If I ever found my mother one day, I would give her a piece of my mind. I'd ask her why she left us, why she left my dad. I didn't know that very soon I'd get my wish.

"Want to go test it out?" my dad's voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I quickly nodded my head, the idea of a hunt to test out my new weapon was pretty good.

"what are we hunting?" he looked at me and smiled

"Deer of course!"

-Line Break-

When I said yes to hunting, I didn't expect a massive Rhino sized dog to be included.

"what the fuck is that!"

"Daniel! Language!" I looked at my dad in shock. Right now? Really?

"And to answer your question, that's a Hellhound, we can't kill it, not with our current weapons." I looked at him in surprise. How… how did he know this?

"We need your Katana, the one above our fireplace."

My katana? He'd never even let me get close to it, let alone it being mine.

Whatever now wasn't the time to think about that, if we wanted to get to the blade we'd have to go home, which meant running through the woods with that thing on our trail.

The odds weren't looking good, if that thing caught us, I didn't even want to imagine what it would do to us. It probably wasn't pretty.

We swiftly turned around and started sprinting as fast as we possibly could. As the trees blurred past us, I realised that I was running pretty fast. Like, really fast, I was easily outpacing my dad. I've always been fast, but never capable to run double the speed of my dad.

This was useful, considering I got to the house fast enough to be able to reach the blade.

I pulled the blade off the fireplace before unsheathing it. It was a beautiful Bronze blade, about a metre long with glowing words in a strange language closer towards the hilt of the blade.

Now that I looked closer at it, I recognised it as ancient Greek.

Ντάνιελ Άσφορντ.

The words seemed to somehow make sense to me, my dyslexia not affecting them like it did English.

Daniel Ashford

My name? This really was mine, but why was it in ancient Greek? Why was the blade bronze? What was happening!? A giant dog the size of a rhino named after a monster from Greek mythology, a strange bronze blade with Ancient Greek writing that I somehow seemed to understand. This was so strange, but I didn't have time to ponder the mysteries of all the weird stuff that had been happening recently.

My dad burst through the door with the hellhound hot on his heels. It slammed itself on him, causing him to hit the wall, a sick snap ringing out throughout the room. It barrelled straight towards me like a freight train, ready to pounce on me and rip me to shreds.

It leapt into the air, aiming to maul my face off, but I rolled underneath it, allowing it to sail right over me. This room was too small for me to comfortably fight in, so I backed my way outside, my eyes boring a hole into the beast as it quickly turned around and ran at me again.

This time I dodged to the side as it pounced, allowing my blade to cleave through a small amount of flesh. A small slice, but enough to allow a spurt of blood to coat the blade. I stepped back once more, only to back up into my dad's car. The hound quickly capitalized on my surprise and recovered with ease from its failed pounce. It swiftly got onto its hind legs and swiped down at me with its front paw. The sight would have been almost comical if it weren't a massive smart car sized dog about to crush me. Luckily my ADHD saved me and allowed me to dodge just in time, the paw instead meeting with the front of my dad's car and crumpling the hood like a tin can!

I was so glad I dodged! I quickly got my wits about me and sliced the dogs limb off, blood spurted from the wound, the beast roared in agony, before then being silenced permanently as I decapitated it. The body soon crumbling to a golden dust.

"yeah, that ain't right." Though what had been right recently? Weird things were going on, and reality seemed to be slipping away from me. Maybe I was nuts? Whatever, what mattered is that it was dead, and I wasn't , everything else came later.

I sighed in relief as I sheathed my blade, my heart beating at a thousand miles an hour, and the feeling of adrenaline still coursing through my veins.

My relief was quickly evaporated when I realised that my dad was hurt, and that he needed my help!

I ran inside, to find my dad crumpled against the wall. Coughing up blood.

"Dad! Are you alright!?" I quickly ran to his side, kneeling down next to him to check on his wounds. He turned his head to look at me before offering me a weak smile.

"I'll live son, don't worry. But, I'm afraid I can't protect you anymore. I can't keep you safe. I was dreading this day for the past 15 years. I've been hoping that it would never come. When you turned 12 and nothing happened I was so happy, I thought that you might just be able to live a normal life, that my training would end up being unnecessary. I was wrong"

He... He knew this would happen?

"What? How do you know? What's going on!?"

He merely sighed

"You remember all that greek mythology we read together? Well, I taught it to you for a reason. Not just because I enjoyed it and I knew you would too. But because... Because it's true!"

True? Was he off his rocker or something? Greek mythology wasn't real! It couldn't be!

But... I had seen some weird things. Giant dogs, glowing words in ancient greek that I could somehow understand. And that lizard lady as a child. Ok, maybe it was at least slightly real.

"Let's say I believe you, what does that have to do with me?"

His face turned to one of sadness, grief evident in his eyes.

"your mother, was an Olympian goddess, and you... Are a demigod."

What? How?

"I'll show you. Give me your blade." I was hesitant, but I acquiesced.

He took the blade, unsheathed it, and proceeded to stab himself with it!

"Dad are you nuts!"

Only for it to pass right through him with absolutely no damage being caused.

"What?" I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Did my dad just shrug off impalement!?

"this blade is Celestial bronze. It's a divine metal, capable of only harming the mystical, such as deities, monsters and half-bloods, in fact, only Celestial bronze can harm monsters."

I took the blade back, and allowed it to slide against the tip of my finger, drawing blood.

Ok, so, he probably wasn't lying or completely balls to the walls insane. Jury was still out on my sanity though.

"So, what does being a half blood mean for me exactly?"

He sighed

"It means, that after a certain point, monsters will start becoming attracted to a smell that you emit, they will hunt you down, and try to devour you. Nowhere is safe. Except for one place. Camp Half-blood."

Camp half blood? What was it? Some kind of summer camp for Special children ?

"It's a summer camp for half-bloods like you, children who need to be protected and taught how to survive" well damn, I didn't expect to be right.

"Then why did you never send me there?"

"because I didn't want you to become some errand boy for childish deities." Thunder cracked somewhere in the distance, guess the gods didn't appreciate being called childish. Not that the term was incorrect.

"They send young children on dangerous errands to go do things the gods can't be arsed to do themselves, and usually the children die!" yeah, that sounds like the Greek gods.

"Do you know what the average life expectancy is for a demigod? Less than 17!"

"Jesus Christ!" more thunder cracked in the distance, guess Zeus didn't like his relatives talking about other deities. Time to start involving Greek gods in my curse words I guess.

"Alright, I get it, but. How do you know all this, you're a normal mortal and assuming I'm correct there has to be something stopping mortals interacting with the mythological?" his expression turned into a sullen one, as if reminiscing on times long past.

"You're right, the Mist exists. It makes mortals see things that they believe are true when they see stuff like hellhounds and minotaurs. As to how I know? I'd rather not talk about it. Maybe... Maybe another day." That... Was strange. My dad had never not told me something unless it was about family, if I asked him something, chances were he would tell me. So him avoiding this topic was. Troubling to say the least.

"Besides, we've idled for too long, you must go! Pack some food, clothes and medicine, take your blade and go! Camp half blood is on the north east coast of Long island, I , obviously can't take you there I'm in no condition to go anywhere other than a hospital bed and if I heard correctly the car is likely to go nowhere!" I was about to protest but he quickly cut me off.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine, I'll phone an ambulance and tell them a bear attacked me or something, just move!" so I did.

I packed what I needed and quickly returned to downstairs to find him struggling to stand up by the door, my blade in one hand and money in the other.

He placed the cash in my hands, before speaking.

"This is for the bus, naturally Maine to long island is a long trip, and it would take too long if you were to walk. However, if the bus is not an option, try to stay in the woods and forests as much as possible, do you understand? Your inheritance will help you." He definitely knew more about my abilities than I did, I assumed it was probably because he knew who my Olympian parent was, even if he refused to tell me.

He quickly placed his hands on my shoulders before looking me Square in the eyes, tears starting to form around the edges, as mine moistened as well.

"Remember, I'll always love you, and I'm proud of you, no matter what. If you ever find yourself, scared and alone, remember. You, are your own hero." His words were then emphasized as he smothered me in a tight embrace.

For a while after that, those terrible feelings of self Loathing and inadequacy that had been pervading me since I first turned 10 disappeared, or at least were suppressed greatly.

We remained in that embrace for a long time, it was likely to be the last time I would see my father for a long time. So I wanted to savour every moment of the embrace.

Eventually we separated and he spoke up. A small smile turning his lips upward as he spoke.

"Remember, it's dangerous to go alone, take this." He handed me my blade. I looked at him with a deadpan expression as if to ask him 'really? Now of all times?' but the genuinely happy expression on his face, and my own amusement at the joke eventually broke through and I let out a small chuckle.

"goodbye dad, I'll see you... When I see you." With a sense of finality, I stepped out the door and let out small wave with my left hand as I walked away. This would be a long walk, I'd need to get moving as quickly as possible. What a wonderful birthday this had been. Hopefully the rest of the year would be better. Spoiler alert, it wasn't .

AN: Hey there, hope you enjoyed the chapter! I sure did write this one pretty fast! It was originally supposed to be two chapters in one but I felt like it might be a bit too long otherwise, so I kept it to just one chapter, I've already got like, a quarter of the next one written so that should be finished soon. Remember to review and tell me how shitty of a writer I am!

Released:8/10/24