It was a lazy day, June 20th, the sun was up and I was lying on a towel in my backyard. The thing is I totally am a sun person, I can't stand rainy days and whenever the sun is out I feel the need to be outside under that big ball of fire. I have chocolate brown wavy hair and hazelnut eyes. My face is full of freckles, people said it is because of all the time I spend under the sun but I think I was born with them.
I remember I was wearing sunglasses, a yellow tank top and simple shorts.My iPod was playing some violin music and I had a bowl full of fruit next to me. A perfect day... If it weren't for the fact that my mother and stepdad were arguing again. You could hear their voices over the violin music, and it wasn't pretty. I was tempted to stand up and tell them to shut up many times but the thing that made me run inside the house was the sound of glass breaking. Now I was scared. What if my mother had hurt my dad? I wouldn't be able to bear him leaving us, he was one of the good things in my life. Everyone thinks that stepdads are jerks, and I don't doubt some of them are, but mine was awesome. I loved him like a father and he loved me like a daughter. The problem was my mother, she tended to have panic attacks very often, she was a bit crazy, most of the time she was locked in her room. And she didn't love me. She always told me I was the reason my real dad had left her. So when I walked inside the house I was surprised to see both my mom and dad sprawled on the floor unconscious but even more surprising, a huge one eyed creature standing over them. My first reaction was to run to the backyard. Once I was outside I hid behind the wall hoping the creature hadn't seen me. When I didn't see the monster bolting out the door, I relaxed and tried to catch my breath. Okay, it hadn't seen me, I had that advantage but my parents were inside the house probably dead. What could a seventeen year old do in a situation like this? I decided I was going to go inside and get my parents out of there, and about the monster, I had no idea what to do about it. I took a deep breath and was about to enter the house when,
"Wait! Don't go in!"- someone whispered.
I turned my head and all I could see we're the bushes but then a face appeared. It was boy, he had golden hair and dark blue eyes, when he came out of the bushes, I could see the full picture. He was wearing jeans, an orange T-shirt with some words I could understand ( thanks dyslexia) and the weird thing was he was carrying a bow and a quiver full of arrows. He didn't look that intimidating, I mean because of the arrows and all, instead he looked kind. He was probably 16. He had a necklace with 3 beads around his neck each was a different color but she couldn't make out the symbols that were drawn in the beads.
-"My name is Charlie and I'm here to help you- he said- this might be a bit weird, okay a lot weird but you need to listen, that thing inside your house is dangerous and you would certainly not like to handle it on your own. That monster is looking for you, it wants to kill you. We don't have time to chat but I'll explain later. I promise.". He gave me a reassuring smile.
This boy had just come out of nowhere and told me some serious nonsense. But the fact that I had just seen the monster made me believe him. I wanted to ask him a lot of question but it seemed that right now wasn't the time. We needed to act quick if I wanted my parents out of there.
- "Okay, but what do we do about it."- I said. I wasn't scared of the boy, I felt some connection to him and he made me feel safe.
"Listen... Umm what's your name?"
"Jane" I said.
"Listen Jane , I need you to be brave if you want your parents to survive. Here's what we're going to do".
Charlie told me the plan, which involved a girl who was apparently already hidden in the house named Martha.
When Charlie finished, the action started.
I entered the house but the cyclops , as Charlie had called him, wasn't there anymore, so I walked to my parents room. The cyclops wasn't there either. But when I opened my room's door, there it was, looking under my bed. At that moment my courage wavered but I thought about my parents and started yelling:
"Hey cyclops! I'm here"
The cyclops stood up and grinned. He was very big and was wearing rags. It had a tuft of brown hair and it smelled really bad.
"Little demigod, I've been looking everywhere for you" said the cyclops. His voice reminded me of the sound of thunderbolts.
"Well here I am. Why don't you catch me?" Where was all this courage coming from? I didn't know but I decided it was better not to question it and just go with it.
I started running towards the door and the cyclops started to chase me.
When I was out in the hallway I ducked and just as the cyclops was coming out the girl named Martha hit him in the face with her giant hammer, which looked a lot like Thor's, and knocked him out. After that, she stabbed him with a dagger and the monster turned to ashes.
Martha was a tall muscular girl who had long and straight black hair she was wearing a red bandana that looked really bad ass and her eyes were green. She looked like a warrior in an ancient breastplate with a big hammer in one hand and a dagger in the other. She looked about the same age as me, maybe a year or two older. She also had the same necklace as Charlie, but hers had 6 beads.
"That was impressive." I said.
"Oh, it was nothing." Martha said but she was clearly satisfied-" by the way, nice to meet you, I'm Martha daughter of Ares." She extended her hand.
"Ares as in Greek mythology?" I said while shaking her hand. She must be a mythology fan or something.
"We'll talk about that later, but now let's focus on your parents" Charlie said.
Charlie was some sort of healer, or that's what he called himself anyway, he bandaged both my parents heads which had a huge lumps and fixed my dad's nose which had been broken.
"They'll be fine"Charlie assured when he was done.
"But we won't if we don't get going now" Martha said. She looked like she was expecting another monster to attack again which only made me even more scared.
"No, guys, don't go. What if another one returns?!" I asked
"Oh, WE are not going" Charlie signaled to Martha and himself- "WE are going" he repeated signaling to the three of us.
He expected me to go with them? How could I leave my parents here? And where were we supposed to go to?
"What? Where? And why am I going with you?"I asked a bit panicked.
"Look girl-"started Martha.
"Jane, her name is Jane" said Charlie.
"Look Jane, you are in danger. Right now there's no time to explain but I swear we'll explain when we get to camp. We're only endangering your parents if we stay here any longer." Martha explained which a very serious look in her face.
" The only thing you need to know right now Jane is that we're taking you to this kind of safe haven, you can contact your parents when we get there okay?"
There didn't seem to be another option so after a pause I answered.
"Okay" I said. These kids seemed to know what they were doing besides they had just save me from a so called cyclops and healed my parents. How could I not trust them?
I followed them to the front door where we headed towards the camp Martha had mentioned.
