by Emery Pugh
SPOILER ALERT: The following content may reveal parts of the plot of the Percy Jackson book series. There may also be spoilers about the Heroes of Olympus book series, which is a five-book sequel to the Percy Jackson series. The Trials of Apollo series, the sequel to Heroes of Olympus, will be mentioned. It is highly recommended that you read at least the Percy Jackson series AND the first book of the Heroes of Olympus series. If you don’t mind the spoilers, then read on. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Chapter 2
Percy
For the first few seconds, the waters were calm.
Then something massive appeared on my radar. As a son of Poseidon, I had perfect sea bearings, and I could sense things underwater without seeing them. That’s exactly what happened just now: I detected a ginormous… ah. I hate snakes.
“Percy?” Annabeth must’ve felt my tension. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”
“We need to get out of here. Now.” I summoned a current to carry us out of the water and conjured another one to push back against the sea serpent, though the serpent was so huge I might as well be trying to move a mountain.
Really, I’ve had too many experiences with snakes.
“I know what the Midgard Serpent is!” Annabeth exclaimed all of a sudden. She looked at me. “It’s not Greek Mythology. That’s why I couldn’t think of it.”
“Great,” I said. “Because I don’t have enough Greek enemies. I need more.”
She sighed. “The Midgard Serpent’s real name is Jormungandr. Now do you know?”
“Please speak English.” I urged Annabeth as far as possible from the sea. I sensed the serpent was less than a quarter mile away. “I don’t know what a ‘Yor-man gardener’ is.”
“I didn’t expect you to know anyways, but –” Annabeth started.
“ROARRRRR!” Poseidon’s underpants, that thing swims fast.
The Midgard Serpent towered over us and shook the water off itself, making the droplets soak us to the skin (actually, I didn’t get wet at all, being a son of the sea god, but Annabeth got the full treatment). It opened its mouth, showing off one thousand shiny, razor-sharp teeth. Two fangs jutted from Jormungandr’s upper jaw, each one as long as two cars put bumper to bumper. Its body was thicker than a school bus – the long side of the school bus, not the short side. The serpent’s skin was mottled blue and green, as well as patches of brown and yellow. Its body extended for such an enormous length that I couldn’t even detect where the end of the tail was.
To describe the Serpent of Midgard in simpler words, it was very scary.
“Let’s run,” I squeaked. Annabeth was already a step ahead of me. Scratch that. She was more than a step ahead of me.
“ROARRRRR!” The huge serpent slithered onto the beach and into the trees in our direction. Fortunately for Annabeth and I, the trees blocked the serpent’s path. In its rage, it ripped up a dozen trees and chucked them into the forest, landing not far from us. I could sense that it reentered the water, seething from missing an opportunity to have roasted demigod for snack.
“That was a close call,” I said as I stopped to catch my breath.
Annabeth nodded. “If that’s what is allowing the monsters into camp, we have no chance. Getting close to that thing would be suicidal.”
I shuddered. The Serpent of Midgard was not something you wanted to go near. I’ve faced plenty of horrible monsters and powerful gods before, but Jormungandr was a whole new level.
SPLASH!
A huge sphere of water landed twenty feet away from us and exploded.
“Don’t touch the water,” I warned. “It’s poisonous.”
Annabeth frowned. “How do you know?”
“I just do,” I said. “Wait a minute. How deadly is Yor-man-gardener’s poison?”
“Don’t say his name,” Annabeth cautioned. “Names have power, even if you don’t pronounce them correctly. You might have just given away our exact position.”
“Alright. But how deadly is his poison?”
“Deadly to the touch.”
“Poison makes everything worse,” I muttered. “Anyways, the serpent can apparently spit venomous balls of water. That’s –”
Another gigantic water sphere sailed through the sky. We took off.
“Run!” Annabeth yelled. Like I needed the reminder.
The sphere of water landed less than fifteen feet behind us. The poison was so deadly that even the trees began to wither and die from touching the green-tinted venom water.
We kept running until we couldn’t, and then ran some more. After we were so tired we couldn’t take another step, we kept running. My brain was going haywire: GET AWAY FROM THAT SERPENT! PUMP MORE ADRENALINE! GO, GO, GO! My body would respond: I’m so tired, I can’t. I really can’t. My brain would reply: I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY! GO! PUMP ADRENALINE! RUN FASTER! Apparently, Annabeth had similar thoughts, since she kept up with my pace.
“We’re lost.” Annabeth gripped my shoulder. “I – I’m out of breath. Stop.”
I was so winded I couldn’t talk. For a while, we stood in silence, catching our breath.
In the distance, I heard the ripping up of trees. That couldn’t be good.
“We’ve got to find the sewer entrance,” I gasped. “We can’t run like this forever. That serpent is too fast.”
Annabeth shook her head. “I… I have no idea. I don’t even know which direction to go.”
“We gotta try our luck, then,” I said. “Let’s go roam around.”
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We dashed from tree to tree, but nothing of the sewer entrance came into view. We might’ve passed it, but we couldn’t see more than five feet in front of us because of the extremely thick growth of plants.
The sounds of thrashing became more distant. We took another break.
“Annabeth,” I said. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. That’s not good. Annabeth always had a plan, or
“We’ve gotta keep looking.” I pulled on Annabeth’s arm. “Or we’re snake chow.”
I was exhausted, but I knew we had to keep searching. I’ve done so many things tougher than this, I thought. That did nothing to motivate me.
Think positive, I told myself. Okay. What is one thing that’s positive about this serpent-filled excursion? Annabeth was with me.
RIIIIPPPP! The sounds of Jormungandr approaching were closer than ever.
“There!” Annabeth shrieked. “Come on!”
“Is it the sewer grate?” I yelled back over the roaring of the serpent.
“Yes! I see it!”
She was right. Through the trees, I caught a glimpse of some sort of a grate. I promise you, this is the only time I was and ever will be glad to plunge into a sewer.
The last thing I saw before entering the tunnel was Jormungandr with his mouth open, roaring in fury.
Chapter 3
Hector
The first thing I would like to say to you is this: do not emulate my life. All the adventures and stuff might seem like fun, but it’s not. In fact, I envy you for being able to live a normal life. Anyways, enough said. If you still want to live a life like mine, it’s not my fault. The best I could do is warn you.
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I’m going to my ninth school in thirteen years of schooling. I’ve never been to a school more than three times. That’s because I have these incidents every year. Sometimes, I keep them secret. And other times, they get found out, and in that case, I get kicked out.
Today, I’m turning 16. I’m not hyped about it, especially when I had a dream a couple days ago informing me that my life would change forever on my birthday.
“Time to get up, honey.” my mom’s soothing voice washed over me. Mom is really the only good thing in my life. “It’s your birthday today! You’re sixteen! Aren’t you excited?” She smothered me with a hug and kissed me on the cheek.
I feigned a smile. “Yeah, I’m excited.”
“Come on, then, Hector.” Mom started to walk out my bedroom. “Breakfast is ready.”
With a tired sigh, I changed out of my pajamas and took a seat at the dinner table. We were generally poor, but still managed to get along. Unfortunately, that meant no special birthday meals. It was the same fried eggs every day. I’m not complaining or anything, but compared to the spread of some of my rich classmates…
Despite the plain meal, I wolfed it all down faster than you can say, Wow, Hector ate that plate of eggs really fast! Well, maybe not that fast, but you get the point.
I grabbed my backpack and ran to the car, where my mom was waiting for me. Our car was a twenty year old rusty, broken-down Honda. It might’ve been nice when it was new, but now, it was far from luxurious.
Mom hit the gas before I could even buckle up. We were running late. School started in just a few minutes.
We didn’t talk the whole way there. She obviously knew something was bothering me, but she never pushed me to talk about it.
After what seemed like hours, we arrived at the school. I glanced at the car clock and realized I only had a minute or so.
“Love you, honey.” Mom pulled me into a tight embrace.
“Love you, too, mom,” I replied. I opened the car door and stepped outside. Looking back, I saw her wipe tears out of her eyes. I wondered whether she knew of my vision about my life changing forever.
I bolted for the school as fast as I could, afraid that I would never see my mother again.
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My first class was math. I hated it. Actually, I’m fine with math, but doing it first thing in the morning was not my preference. Plus, my classmates were always stealing my pencils, tying my shoelaces together, and being annoying in five thousand other ways.
The bell rang right as I rushed through the doorway and took my seat. I should mention that there is one non-annoying classmate. His name is Garret, and he’s what you might think of as the weird kid at school; he chews on pencils, furniture, aluminum cans (don’t ask me why), among other items. All the other kids either stayed away from him or bullied him. Since I was the only one who befriended him, I was also a target.
Our teacher, Mrs. Blake, hadn’t arrived yet, which is typical. A few kids were sitting quietly at their seats, including myself and Garret, who was gnawing on a particularly yummy Ziploc bag, he told me.
The rest of the class was split into boys and girls. The girls were gossiping in one corner and the boys were engaged in an all-out free-for-all wedgie contest.
Looking back, I wish I never came to school. I should have hid in the bathroom like I did when class gets monotonous.
One of the big kids, named Kane, came over to me. I knew trouble was coming. “Come on, Garret,” he sneered and grabbed his arm. “Join the wedgie contest!” A few bystanders laughed.
“B-but,” Garret sputtered. “I-I don’t want to!”
Kane dragged Garret across the room. This wasn’t the first time this happened. I wanted to do something, but I was frozen in my seat.
“No!” Garret wailed. “I’m eating a Ziploc bag!”
Kane grinned and snatched the half-eaten Ziploc bag out of Garret’s hand and ripped it to shreds. He clamped a hand over Garret’s mouth to stop his wailing.
I rose from my seat. “Stop, Kane. That’s enough.”
“Sit down.” Kane gave me a dirty look. “Unless you want to get pummeled.”
I strode over to Kane and looked him in the eyes. Through gritted teeth, I said, “Let him go.”
“Why should I listen to you?” Kane tossed Garret aside. “Get out of my way!”
“Until you get out of Garret’s way!”
“Why do you stand up for that freak?” Kane hissed. “You could be cool. Instead, you defend him.”
I lunged for his neck and threw him to the ground. We were both surprised, since Kane was much stronger than me. He tried to throw me off, but I held on firmly. I let go of his neck and grabbed his arms.
Dark tendrils of energy swirled around my hands. The ground cracked. A bony hand arose from the fissure, and then another. In a few moments, a full grown skeleton stood.
“Hector!” a voice screamed. “What are you doing!”
My surge of strength evaporated. The whole class was frozen in shock. The tendrils of dark energy dissipated. The skeleton collapsed into a heap of bones and sunk into the ground. Even Garret stopped gathering the Ziploc bag shreds.
“Hector,” Mrs. Blake said firmly. “Go to the office. Now.” She turned to Garret. “Garret, escort him.”
I slowly rose, leaving Kane still stunned on the floor. Garret scooped up a few more shreds of plastic and followed me out of the classroom.
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I didn’t go to the office.
Leaving my possessions in the classroom, I ran to the front gate and jumped the fence. Garret trotted after me, gasping, wheezing, and munching Ziploc bag shreds along the way.
“Hector!” Garret cried. “Wait up!”
I looked at him through the bars and sighed. “Fine. I’ll help you up.” In a flash, Garret was over the fence at my side. I didn’t know he could climb so well.
“Whoa. Never mind, then,” I said.
“Where are you going?” Garret asked. “You’re supposed to go to the office.”
“I’m done with school,” I said bitterly. “At least this one. I’m going away.”
“You need to follow me.”
I stared at him. Garret never offered to take the lead. He had a timid character and only answered questions in the classroom if he was forced to. And now… he’s trying to direct me?
“You must,” Garret stood up straight. Again, he never did that either. He always slouched. “If you want to survive, you have to follow me.” He glanced back through the school gate. I followed his line of sight and saw Kane and his gang strutting towards us.
“Get away from us, you loser!” I shouted.
“Work on your trash talk!” Kane snarled. “The teacher gave me permission to check on you. As I expected, you didn’t go to the office.” He smiled evilly and looked at Garret. “How’s it going, little satyr?”
“What’s that?” I blurted.
“A half-man, half-goat,” Kane said casually. “Satyrs are quite good for eating.”
An instant later, Kane sprouted to seven feet tall. He grew razor sharp teeth and impossibly muscular arms. He grinned and ripped through the iron bars separating us like they were paper. His friends did similar transformations and laughed like maniacs.
“Let the fun begin!” Kane cried gleefully.
The Lighthouse 