Chapter Text
The following morning I woke up late, and rushed to get ready. I dropped my hairbrush out the window, choked on my toothbrush, and lost one of my socks.
A rough morning, overall.
I rushed to school, only to find out they had already left without me. We were going on a school trip to the museum. My mom had to pick me up and drive me to the museum, which was luckily on the way to her work. The only good thing about it was that I didn't have to deal with Marley. And that I got to hang out my mom a bit more.
I sat in the backseat in our white Zastava Skala, looking out the window. It could've been a nice view if it wasn't for the unusual amount of traffic, and the high temperature. It was only early may, but it felt like mid summer.
The museum peeked out from behind a building covered in graffiti. I felt uneasy, but I didn't know why. Maybe the museum was alive and staring me down. Maybe I had caught a glimpse of Marley.
I stepped out the car, said my goodbyes to my mom and ran inside to meet my class, along with grade 6, aka Marley's class. They were being informed about a statue of some ancient greek god by the guide. I slipped into the crowd and hoped nobody noticed I had been missing. Apparently nobody had noticed. I wasn't sure if I was sad or relieved about that. I spotted Marley a few feet away. I slowly backed away from her.
She was trying to shoot rubber bands at the statue, one was already hanging from its nose. I wondered how nobody had noticed it, but judging by their faces, they had noticed it and were holding in their laughter.
I tried to listen in to the guide, but Marley kept shooting her stupid rubber bands everywhere. Seriously, how many rubber bands could she possibly fit in her pockets? After getting bored of targeting the inanimate statue, she started shooting rubber bands at the guide. One hit him in the face, he ended the guide early, and barged off to the break room. Poor guy, he probably didn't anticipate becoming a living target for a rebellious 12 year old.
Everyone settled outside to eat early lunch. Somehow my mom had managed to pack me a sandwich in the short amount of time before I left for school, I was very grateful for her. I sat down and unwrapped my sandwich. The teachers were talking to someone whom I assumed worked at the museum. Then they turned to all the students.
"Listen up, we teachers need to go have a talk with the museum director. While we're gone, Emilio Morello and Chelsea McKenzie from year 7 will be in charge." They announced.
I almost dropped my sandwich. I wasn't very shocked they were all leaving to speak with the manager or whatever, probably Marley related or something. What truly shocked me is Emilio Morello. I had never heard of him in my entire life, I was one hundred percent certain he had not been in my class yesterday. But there he stood, he had black messy hair, dark green eyes, suntanned skin, and newly shaved facial hair. Since when could 7th graders grow beards? And why was everyone acting like everything was completely normal?
I ate my sandwich, suspicious of the new student. I tried to keep an eye on him without looking too suspicious myself. I finished my sandwich and went to throw away the paper, but when I looked back he was nowhere to be found. I panicked a bit, and frantically looked around, and spotted him entering the museum again. I snuck after him. When I reached the door, I peeked inside to attempt to spot him. He was nowhere to be seen. I felt anxious and tense, where did he go?
The strange unease from earlier had grown stronger. I heard a sound coming from up the spiral staircase, something falling and hitting the ground. That must've been Emilio. I scurried inside and cautiously walked up the stairs. That might have been one of the stupidest things I had done. Flushing my math teacher's shoes down the toilet? Tasting soap? Accidentally leaving the stove on overnight? With soup on it? All incredibly stupid. But inspecting a massive museum all by myself while a suspicious student could be lurking anywhere, waiting to ambush me? Certainly one of the stupidest things I had ever done, that year.
I reached the top of the stairs, and found there were even more antique finds against the walls, and blinding light from the windows, unlike downstairs.
I looked around, on high alert. It hit me how stupid I was. I was just about to leave, when I heard something again. I turned around.
"Hello there, aren't you nervous, sweetheart?" A blonde girl stood in the other room. I jumped at the sight of her suddenly appearing. She definitely had not been there the second before.
"Good grief, don't scare me like that!" I waited for my pounding heart to calm down, but it didn't. It felt more as if my heart beat sped up. Something with her voice was... odd. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something in her voice was different from others, which both freaked me out and creeped me out. Who was this random lady?
"Who are you?" I asked her.
"Relax, I don't bite. I'm Melody, it's nice to meet you." She replied. Despite her telling me to relax, I did in fact not relax. I was disturbed by her, for a multitude of reasons. Melody started approaching me, and I slowly backed away.
"No need to be shy, boy. I won't hurt you." Melody said, her voice eerily soft.
"Where did you come from?" I asked.
My heart rate shrunk from risk of heart attack to very anxious. She kept coming towards me, but I backed away from her.
I had a bad feeling about her. She backed me into a different room, full of ancient greek weapons and armor. She was now blocking the stairs.
"I'm just a 7th grader who's on a school trip to this museum, and I got temporarily lost, I'm going to return to my class now." I tried explaining to her.
"I don't see why you need to, how about we stay and chat? I'd love to get to know you." Melody purred.
"No, I have to go." I insisted. She frowned and furrowed her brows, as if my response was in a foreign language.
"No, we're going to stay and chat, won't we?" She tried again, with more force in her voice.
"No." I simply told her. She hissed at me in a way that definitely didn't sound human. My eyes went wide.
"Fine then, if that's how you're going to have it, that's fine! You're to blame for this!" Melody growled, and she began to transform. My breath got stuck in my throat. Her hair lifted and turned a mix of red orange and yellow, until it was pure fire. That was strange enough on its own, but at the same time, her legs transformed as well. One of them grew brown fur and bent in a non-human position, and the other covered itself with bronze armor.
Now she had fire hair, one donkey leg and one bronze leg. I felt like I was going to pass out, I couldn't comprehend what was happening.
Maybe this was all a dream. Melody's teeth grew vampire like, and her nails elongated to claws.
"I'll make you pay, in the name of the overlord!" She hissed and bared her teeth. I was about to ask what I had ever done to her, and who she was talking about, but she lunged towards me.
I stepped out of the way just in time, but her claws still slashed my arm. I yelled in pain. It was definitely not a dream.
I looked down in horror at my bleeding arm, but Melody attacked me again before I had gotten a chance to do anything. This time she caught me off guard, and pinned me to the ground. She would've probably torn me to shreds if I hadn't instinctively kicked her in the gut. She groaned and fell to the side.
I jumped up on my feet and looked around for anything that could help me. Incredibly luckily, there were multiple old weapons ready to be used. I sprinted towards a bronze shield hanging on the wall. I would've grabbed a sword, but the shield was closer, and I didn't think I could purposefully hurt someone, even if that someone was trying to kill me. Okay, I take it back, I definitely could.
I grabbed the shield and turned around just in time for another of Melody's attacks. She crashed right into the shield, and I hit her in the head with it as she fell.
I hoped the director wouldn't mind that I used their precious ancient artifacts to save my life.
When she looked up, I realized her head was bleeding. I couldn't quite tell what color, but it definitely wasn't red. I was too busy keeping myself alive to note the color.
I tried to ram her, but she dodged and clawed at my side. I laid down on my stomach to dodge her attack and rolled away. It was a pretty cool move, but when I stood up again I felt a bit dizzy after the rolling.
"Give up!" She snarled and attacked my legs. I jumped out of the way.
"Keep dreaming!" I yelled at her and backed away from her attacks, right into the wall.
"Why aren't you affected?!" She growled in frustration.
"What do you mean?" I asked, stepped aside to let her face plant into the wall. I thought I was pretty affected, whatever that meant.
Melody bared her teeth and did a backflip over me, landing behind me, a moment away from attacking my unprotected back. I kicked backwards hoping to stop her, and by the groan of pain, I got her.
I wondered how she could be so fast and agile with her donkey and metal legs. They must have been uncomfortably out of sync.
I turned around and tried to kick her in the gut, but she wasn't as hurt as I had thought. She slid to the side, grabbing my own shield and slamming me hard against the wall with it. She hissed victoriously as to struggled to escape, and she leaned in.
I assumed she was going to suck my blood out, because of her vampire sharp teeth. But before she got close enough, I headbutted her and she fell backwards.
I broke free, and looked for a way to escape. There was a massive window right next to me. I rushed to open it, my head still hurting from headbutting Melody.
As she lunged towards me for the hundredth time, I opened the window and stumbled out onto the edge of the roof. The fresh air made me feel stronger, and refilled my energy. I looked down in search for any quick ways to get down to the ground, but didn't spot any.
Melody climbed out of the window, and I hurriedly made my way to a spacious, flat part of the roof. Melody ran after me.
I felt panic creeping up my chest, what was I supposed to do in a situation like this? School never taught me how to fight aggressive half donkey half robot vampire women. I was very disoriented and freaked out.
"What are you?" I asked with a shaky voice, holding up my shield. She snarled at me.
"I am Melody, the mighty empousa! Fear me!" She hissed and lunged at me again. I blocked her, my brain searching for anything about whatever an empousa was. No results found. I began to grow tired, opposite to her.
How much energy could one empousa have?
I focused on trying to defeat her. She clawed at me again, I jumped back, and my shield deflected her attack with an awful scraping noise.
"I will kill you slowly and painfully, I will suck your blood until there is only loose skin left!" She growled at me, and lunged once again.
"Nice offer, but I think I'll decline." I said, and rammed the shield sideways into her stomach. It felt like the wind helped me, I would never have had that strength normally. She let out an ear-piercing scream, and then turned into golden dust. I stood there, panting, my brain attempting to comprehend everything that had just happened. My bleeding arm hurt. My head hurt. I was in shock, and my head was buzzing.
I wasn't sure what to do next.
"Kusuo?" A voice suddenly called out. I was snapped back to reality. On the roof, a couple of feet away, stood Emilio. But now he had brown, furry, bent legs, kind of like Melody's donkey leg. I was certain he did not look like that before.
"Are you o-" Emilio began.
"No! What is going on? Who was she, and who are you? Are you like her? If so, I wont hesitate to knock you off this building. And where did you go?" I angrily exclaimed. The shock didn't settle, but I felt angry. I didn't know exactly why, but I took it out on Emilio. He was the reason I had went upstairs, and met Melody. But on the other hand, it was my fault for following him. My hands were shaking, I didn't know if it was the shock or the anger.
"No no, I promise I'm not like her." Emilio replied, and looked down.
"Then what are you? And why do you have donkey legs?" I asked, trying to calm myself down. He made a noise that sounded like the bleat of a goat.
"Not donkey, goat! I'm a satyr." He responded, seemingly offended.
"And I went to use the bathroom, for your concern." He added. I felt silly knowing I hadn't considered perhaps he had gone to use the restroom.
"But that's beside the point, you need to come with me right now. And you really need those wounds patches up." He said.
I was still a bit suspicious of him, but I did need my arm bandaged.
I remembered a satyr being a greek faun. I didn't know much about them, but if I had remembered correctly, they were nice.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because they will start looking for you." He replied.
"Who are they?" I asked.
As if on cue, a distant roar of an unknown creature could be heard. It felt like my blood froze. Suddenly I felt like going with Emilio.
"We have to go. Now." Emilio said. I nodded plainly. I thought it was better to run away with a probably friendly satyr than to wait for other... creatures to come maul me to death.
We entered the museum again and snuck out through the back door.
"Where are we going?" I asked, while Emilio bandaged my arm. He looked up at me.
"The only safe place for people like you. Well, it used to be. Now there's two. But you're clearly more greek than roman, therefore we're going to the greek camp." He said. I felt very confused. I wasn't greek, I was japanese. And didn't the romans die out like a thousand years ago? I had never even been to Greece. What was he talking about people like you?
"And what are people like me exactly?" I asked. He finished bandaging me and mumbled about something he should've brought.
"Halfbloods." He replied.
"That doesn't explain anything." I said. I assumed halfblood was having, for example, a Japanese mother and an American father. I didn't understand how it would relate to bloodthirsty creatures hunting me down.
"More commonly known as demigods, half olympian god, half mortal." Emilio explained to me. My brain desperately tried to grasp all the new information that was shoved in its face.
"One of your parents is a normal human, and the other is a god or a goddess." He further explained. My brain felt like it was going to explode. Or melt. Or both.
I felt upset.
"My dad... is a god?" I asked. Emilio nodded.
"A greek god, from greek mythology."
"That... can't be possible. You're lying." I stood up. My whole life I had believed my father was a scumbag, a slob who ditched his family and never looked back. But then I was suddenly told he was a greek god, who has lived for thousands of years, and had countless stories told about him.
"No, no, no no no..." I tried to comprehend that thought, but it was completely surreal.
"That Melody was an empousa, basically a vampire woman. They're very difficult to handle, I'm surprised you survived that. The greatest modern demigods struggled to fight empousae more than you did." He told me, as if I needed further information for my existential crisis. I was going to reply with something denying it, but we heard a screech, probably only about a block away.
"How do we get to this camp?" I asked, eager to avoid getting attacked again.
"By car, obviously." Emilio answered.
"Where's the car?" I asked, as he got up.
"I don't have one. We have to borrow one." He said and ran over to a random car, and somehow opened it. I don't know how, I wasn't even looking at him. I was looking in the direction another terrifying screech came from. I wondered why people weren't panicking at the sound of whatever that was.
"Get in." Emilio hopped in the car and started it, somehow. Did satyrs have the power to control cars? Car benders?
I was hesitant to enter the car, because it was very much immoral, and illegal to borrow others cars, but hearing the screech again, I had no other choice but to follow him.
The whole car ride I looked out the window to ensure no monsters were following the car. Sometimes I could swear I saw something in the corner of my eye. Emilio was driving to the Long Island Sound, because apparently that's where the camp was. Why would you build a camp for Greek demigods in America, let alone in New York?
I hoped we wouldn't be attacked by anything on our way to camp. We were not that lucky.
We didn't get any warning, a screech was heard right outside the car, then something broke the window to the driver's seat and grabbed on to Emilio, who immediately started screaming at the top of his lungs.
I didn't blame him, I may or may not have also started screaming. It looked like the feet of a gigantic bird had grabbed him.
Just as suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared. Along with Emilio.
The creature dragged him out of the window and disappeared out of sight.
I was shocked at what just happened. But I didn't have any time to process it, because the car was drifting, it had no driver. I quickly climbed over and sat in the driver seat in an attempt to get the car under control. I just about reached the pedals.
I was 13, I had never driven a car and legally couldn't, but I had no choice.
I was driving on a country road, I didn't know how to drive, and I didn't know where to go. I heard another screech, and looked out the broken window.
In hindsight, it was stupid. As always.
As I saw the creatures chasing the car, my jaw dropped to the floor, or I guess the car floor.
Griffins were circling the car. But not the griffins you'd see in fiction, beautiful golden creatures with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle.
I saw a smilodon exhibit in a museum when I was 9, and the animal was huge, but the griffins were twice as big. They had the black sleek body of a panther, but the head, wings, and front legs of an eagle. Their eyes were gleaming red, and they were all locked onto me. There was 5 of them, I didn't know why they weren't attacking the car, as big and many as they were.
I quickly stuck my head inside the car again and tried to focus on driving. It had started raining, and it was getting foggy. Worst timing ever.
I tried to drive in zigzag as an attempt to avoid the griffins attacking the car.
I wondered where Emilio had gone, I hadn't seen him among the griffins. I felt a bit guilty for not helping him against the griffin.
One of the griffins screeched and scratched the car roof. It was only a matter of time before they realized "Hey, we're 5 giant griffins against a boy in a car!" and probably kill me. Emilio was supposed to take me to the camp he was talking about, but after he disappeared, I didn't know what to do. I was stuck in a car I barely knew how to drive, in the middle of nowhere, having nowhere to go, being chased by 10 foot tall beasts.
I felt hopeless, I was sure this was it. I would die confused and terrified. I felt guilty knowing my mom would lose her only child, and never know where he went.
One of the griffins rammed the car and sent it tumbling straight into a turned off light pole. I felt like I was in a washing machine, and then shot into a wall by a canon.
I realized I was still alive and sat up, hitting my head. The car was flipped upside down. I heard a distant car alarm and the griffins screeching. I carefully
peeked out to figure out my situation. The car was upside down in a ditch. Griffins were flying around it, screeching but not attacking. Apparently the light pole I crashed into was now flickering, and it scared the griffins. I took it as my chance to escape, and grabbed the shield, crawling out of the broken window. I tried to ignore the sharp glass scraping against my chest, as well as my numerous new injuries from the car crash. I spotted an old rusty side view mirror from a car, probably multiple years old. I wondered how many other teenagers had crashed a car in this ditch, trying to escape horrifying monsters. Suddenly something clicked in my brain. Emilio was driving me to a camp for demigods, that apparently got hunted by a ton of monsters. That probably meant a different demigod also crashed here, and hopefully made their way to the camp.
I looked for possible paths possibly leading to a camp safe from bloodthirsty griffins. As I hoped, a very walked and run on path led out of the small road, and into a giant sloping field of green grass, a pine tree on top. As far as I could see, there was about a mile to the tree. I saw something laying around it, but I wasn't sure what. I saw no other choice. Either I stay and wait for the griffins to conquer their fear of a light pole and maul me to death, or run across the mile long field and likely get mauled to death by the griffins. I grimaced at my amazing options.
I chose the stupid option, running across the field. I grabbed my shield tight, climbed out of the ditch, and ran into the field.
The griffins immediately screeched and flew after me. I held up my shield, aimed at them while running in zigzag. It was much easier to run in zigzag than to drive in zigzag, definitely.
The first griffin flew at me, eagle claws out. I forced myself to not freeze in fear, and I leapt to the side just in time, and continued running. A mix of blood sweat and rainwater ran down my cheek. Exhaustion was starting to get to me, after fighting a vampire woman, being chased by griffins, and having to run across a field while dodging aerial attacks, was very tiring. I kept dodging the attack from the griffins, but about 50 feet from the tree, I suddenly stopped. Next to the tree was a beautiful golden dragon. It growled at me, but didn't seem to want to leave the tree. I saw something shiny hanging in the tree, and I guessed the dragon was guarding whatever it was. Hopefully it wouldn't attack me, I had enough monsters chasing me already.
I was drenched in sweat and rainwater, bleeding from random spots, and running almost merely on adrenaline, but even that was starting to run out.
But as I inspected the dragon, I had let my guard down. A griffin swooped down and scratched across my back. I screamed and fell forward. The griffin landed in front of me and screeched challengingly at me, I had no time to think about the backscratcher no one warns you about. I raised my shield, my body suddenly full of adrenaline from the attack. As the griffin lunged forward, I screamed. Not out of fear, but out of rage. I was angry that they had snatched an innocent satyr without any warning. I was angry at how unfair five beasts versus me was. I was angry at how ridiculously big they were. I was angry at whoever my dad was, who I figured was the reason all these monsters were attacking me.
I rushed forward. I put all my strength into ramming my shield into its head. The griffin didn't stand a chance. With a final, surprised, screech, it turned into golden dust.
The other griffins screeched, angry seeing that I had killed their fellow griffin. Two dove towards me. Griffin #1 pushed griffin #2 to the side midair, sending griffin #2 diving out of control. With a terrified screech, griffin #2 crashed beak first into my shield. The griffin was immediately pulverized, but the impact knocked me off my feet.
Griffin #1 took it as an opportunity, and landed right on top of me, picking at me with its giant beak. I held up the shield just in time, but its beak made giant dents in the shield. I shoved the shield up its beak, breaking through the shield and forcing the griffin's beak shut. It tried to screech, but only made a muffled chitter. It glared at me with its piercing red eyes. Before it clawed me for giving it a bronze muzzle, I grabbed its chest feathers and quickly climbed up on its neck. The griffin tried to shake me off, but I clung to it by its feathers for dear life, probably whiplashing me.
It tried to claw at me, but I made sure to stay out of reach. The two other griffins screeched at me, contemplating whether to attack me for the seven-hundredth time.
Next, I did something very risky and very stupid. Big surprise. I climbed further up the griffin's head, it started to shake its head violently, I almost flew off, and struggled to avoid its claws and the shield over its beak. Whiplash round 2.
I gathered all my strength, and kicked the upper part of the griffin's beak. In hindsight it was an insane idea, but I saw the beak was already weak from an old injury, and decided to kick it for some reason.
I heard a crack, a muffled screech, and suddenly I was holding a the sharp upper beak of a griffin. I had dropped my glasses at some point in the griffin whiplash rodeo, and the rain didn't make it any better. The beak was almost as long as my head, but surprisingly light in weight compared to what I expected.
It was dark and gleaming from the rain.
The griffin gurgled at me furiously, and threw itself on its back.
Luckily I had time to jump off its neck, and rolled around in the grass a second before getting up again. The injured griffin flew off into the distance.
I snatched my shield back. It had a massive hole in the middle of it, but it would do.
I had hoped to return it to the museum, but apparently I could scratch that.
Now I had two amazing tools weapons, a head-sized newly amputated griffin beak, and a shield that looked like someone had shot a canon ball through it.
I should've been exhausted, but I had a great amount of adrenaline, and the wind was refreshing.
One of the griffins decided this was the perfect moment to attack me. I raised my beak and prepared for more battle.
Suddenly, the golden dragon beside the tree lunged out at the griffin, caught it midair, and sat down to eat it alive.
The last griffin suddenly appeared from my left and leapt on me, its claws burying into my chest.
It had apparently snuck up on me while I was distracted by the dragon food griffin.
I stabbed my beak into its foot, trying to free myself. The griffin screeched in pain and let go of me, stumbling back. I breathed heavily. That could've easily killed me. I jumped at the griffin. Afterwards I didn't remember many details, but I sure did fight that griffin.
It pinned me down again. I was getting dizzy from all the blood loss, and had dropped my griffin beak at some point. I had barely any energy left, but I gathered up as much as possible. The griffin screeched of triumph as it bent down to finish me off. Right before its head reached me, with all my might, I stabbed it in the throat with the sideways shield. It squawked in surprise, and turned into golden dust.
I heard something in the grass nearby as I stood up. The dragon let out a low growl. I looked around. Had I really defeated 5 griffins? All the size of a T-rex? Okay, the golden dragon had taken down one of them, but I was still in shock. Everything was blurry from losing my glasses. My vision started to fade to darkness.
I heard voices in the distance. But before anything happened, I passed out.