Dylan King and His New Roommate Called Goddess Athena [1st Book]

CHAPTER 1

POINT OF VIEW: DYLAN

Thursday, October 5, 2028, around 09.30 P.M

Arriving at the fourth floor where his rented room was, Dylan exhaled in relief. The day was exhausting, as it was the day where he had to mop the first to the third floor of the library. Prior to this task, he had to first wipe nine reading tables located on the first floor. While the sign 'Please Keep The Room Clean' hung in plain sight, it still did not guarantee that the readers would do as the sign told them to. Sometimes the table had sticky circle marks, sometimes someone stuck a chewing gum under the table. Once he intended to see the culprits through the CCTV. Nevertheless, soon realizing that staring at a CCTV monitor was a boring and mentally exhausting job to do, he decided that cleaning was much faster to be done.

Unlocking his apartment door, Dylan already had planned his next move. First, he would go to the fridge, grab a bottle of chocolate milk, and gulp down the contents until his stomach beckoned him to stop. Secondly, he would grab a clean and loose shirt from his cupboard and go for a hot shower. Thirdly or the last thing he would do before he ended the day, was jump and sink his face to the bed, waiting patiently until he finally drifted off to sleep.

Pushing open the door, Dylan reached the lamp switch at the left by reflex. However, he was instantly stunned. At the corner of the hallway, a yellow lightning spark was floating in the air.

Dylan turned on the lamp switch. With curiosity and fear mixed with each other, he slowly approached the spark. When he was three to four steps away from it, red and orange smoke suddenly came out from its center, immediately making him jump one step backward. Moving towards the floor, the smoke kept coming out and formed the physical shape of a human. Before long, the smoke transformed into an unconscious lady with a strange outfit.

Dylan's mouth fell open as he was staring at the lady. He then looked back at the spark, and out of curiosity started approaching it again. Standing right before the lady, he hesitantly extended his arm towards the spark. He knew it was extremely foolish to try touching a visible electric spark. He might even instantly die before anyone had the chance to save him. However, while he was fully aware of the danger, he could not stop reaching for the spark, and he did not know why. Eventually when his fingers touched it, he received an electric shock. He could no longer feel anything but pain, when suddenly his fingers curled up tightly. Instantly, the spark vanished.

Still trembling, Dylan walked backward. He put his hand on the wall, attempting to steady himself. For a moment he remained still, until he no longer trembled. While still touching the wall, he turned around and leaned against it, slowly he slumped to the floor. He lowered his head and attempted to readjust his breathing rhythm. After the rhythm had returned normal, he shifted his attention back to the unconscious lady.

The first thing that came to Dylan's mind was that the lady was some sort of a theatrical performer. Covering her head was a brown helmet he often saw in Ancient Greece-themed movies, and covering the upper part of her white long dress was a brown breastplate. On her wrists were golden bracelets, and on her feet was the footwear he generally saw in any movies with biblical references. If only the lady had been lying there when he had just entered his room, then he might assume that the lady was indeed a theatrical performer, who for unknown reason and unknown method decided to break into his apartment. He would simply take out his phone and call the police to inform them about this mysterious lady.

However, the fact made Dylan unable to do that. Reporting that a lady had just come out from a strange lightning spark floating in the air would possibly end in the phone line immediately disconnected, or the operator suggesting him to seek professional help for fixing his mental state. Being clueless on what he had to do, he decided to just crouch closer to the lady with no specific intention.

The lady's breathing rhythm was not that stable. It was as if she was suffering from a mild fever. Nevertheless, as soon as he touched her forehead, Dylan was made aware that the temperature was normal. His attention was then shifted to her warsuit parts. Seeing them closer, he noticed that the color of the helmet and the breastplate were not exactly brown, but metallic-brown instead. Feeling inappropriate to touch the breastplate, he chose to study the helmet. He never knew how a real ancient war helmet or breastplate should look or feel like. But a feeling saying that the prop was real and not made through a 3D printer emerged inside him. It made him scratch his head, wondering who this lady was actually.

The lady suddenly moaned. It was similar to the reaction of someone having a nightmare. Dylan hovered above her face, waiting until she opened her eyes. But after waiting for a little while, her lids remained closed. She did not moan again and the breathing rhythm got more stable than before. If she indeed were having a nightmare, then probably it had gone away. He then decided to let her use the spare bedroom in his apartment.

The spare room was never used, ever since Dylan started renting the apartment. Mr and Mrs. Gafner, the owner of the library, said that once the apartment was rented to a family of four, making the primary and spare bedroom was used. Now that he lived by himself, the spare room never had an owner again. Good thing was he occasionally cleaned the room, hence it was still proper to be used at any time, just like this time. After placing the lady on the bed, he removed the helmet and covered her with the sheet. Before he exited the room, he turned on the heater and set the temperature he deemed comfortable enough to sleep. Slowly closing the door, he took a deep breath. He then drank the chocolate milk, took a shower and went to sleep.

*****

Waking up, the first thing Dylan did was flailing his arm to the right, trying to locate where his phone was. After he managed to find it, he tapped on the surface and squeezed his eyes even more to adjust to the screen light. The time was 05.08 A.M. It was still three hours earlier than the alarm he had set specifically for Friday. He haphazardly placed the phone on the bed and shut his eyes again, trying to get more sleep. Nevertheless, he was reminded of the strange occurrence the day before. Rolling onto his back, he mumbled, "Has the lady woken up?"

For the next few minutes Dylan remained still, staring at the darkness. He was feeling light-headed, as for years his body clock for waking up in the morning had been set to 8 A.M on every Friday. He attempted to sleep back. However, two questions took over his mind.

Who was this lady?

Was she even a human?

After having those questions linger in his head for quite some time, Dylan decided to check the lady's condition. Mustering his strength and groaning, he grabbed his phone and left the bed.

Slowly Dylan pulled his door handle and peeked at the hallway. Sensing no one's presence, he was convinced that the lady had not yet woken up. He went out of the room and shuffled to the spare room. Pressing his ear against the door, he ensured that there were no voices or sounds that indicated the lady had regained her consciousness. Once he believed the lady's condition still had no improvement, he slowly pushed open the door and entered the room.

Counting on the light source coming from the dining and kitchen spot, Dylan could see the lady was still laying with her face to the ceiling. He reached for the lamp switch and turned the lamp on, before he approached the sleeping lady. Kneeling down, he placed his hand on the lady's forehead. Convinced that there was nothing wrong with her health condition, he stood up again. He walked to the door, intending to wait outside until the lady woke up on her own. Nevertheless, the lady suddenly moaned.

Dylan scurried back to her. Unexpectedly, she sleep-talked in foreign language. Judging from her dress and helmet, he assumed she was speaking in Greek. However, to ensure it, he took out his phone and opened the language identifier apps. In no time, the app managed to capture the words in the form of alphabets. But before the app could confirm the language, the lady's eyes suddenly fluttered open. When her eyes had finally wide opened, he expressed relief.

As expected, the lady turned astonished. Nonetheless, what Dylan did not expect was that she immediately rolled to the opposite side and jumped out of the bed. Glaring up at him, she extended her right arm towards him and folded her fingers. From the hole in her fist, something began to materialize. Quickly the materialization was completed. The lady was now aiming a sword at him.