AJ Hale & The Olympians: Son of Lightning

Chapter Two: I Fall From Heaven

I walked—I don't even know how long I walked—in pain, nearly every inch of me. At one point, I lost all feeling and thought and just walked... I slept in gutters, ditches, public bathrooms, and dumpsters. Then, in the morning, I kept walking.

My shoes had gotten holes in them so bad I had to stuff them with old clothes I would find in the dumpsters. Eating... I don't want to talk about it.

I kept walking. Sometimes, monsters would come near me. My coin vibrated every time, allowing me to walk around the monster or hide from it.

This one time, I thought I was a goner. This creepy monster looked like a woman. But this woman was 10 feet tall and had a single brown eye right on her forehead. She had gotten close to me, way too close.

I was caught in a dumpster and overslept. The lid flew open, and I was met with the horrifying sight of the giant monster. She sniffed and inhaled so hard I was nearly sucked out of the trash by her giant pig nose. She looked right at me, with her large brown eye. I was sure she did. She stared at me and studied me, but she closed the lid. Leaving me in the trash.

I had no clue if she saw me or not; it was practically impossible not to see me. Plus, I was rank and smelled like two-week-old trash and grime. I jumped out of the garbage and ran away after that.

I had almost been caught at least a dozen times in the span of the week I had been walking. But nothing ever saw me; it was like I was invisible to them. That giant one-eyed lady came face to face with me; I had no clue why I wasn't dead.

I had spent a week walking in over 100-degree heat after the cow killed those people in Vegas. People from that camp would have figured out by now what happened and would most likely assume I was dead right along with them. No one was coming for me; I was on my own.

My body was in extreme pain. My feet and socks had nearly fused. The sore on my feet was so large that it was easier to tell what part of my foot didn't have a sore—my socks were practically disintegrating off of me, gross enough to say. I had felt like I had lost forty pounds. I already wasn't the biggest of people; now, I was practically skin and bone.

My legs would cramp up so bad they would stop working for hours at a time. I could count how many times I collapsed from exhaustion on both hands. Each time I woke up, I wished I hadn't.

Those damn lightning bugs, they kept leading me. In a single direction, not caring enough to let me sleep, eat, or drink. Each time, I fell or took a break. I would get swarmed by thousands of them. I hated them.

After a full day of walking, my mouth was dryer than the ground. I was walking on chapped lips, cracked feet, sore limbs, and possible broken bones. The bugs led me to a sign.

Made from brick and stone. "Grand...Canyon...National...P-park..." I managed to read. "What's...this...place?" I asked the bugs.

They ignored me again and formed another line, forcing me to follow. I shuffled my feet slowly. My big toenail had fallen off last night, and my socks were more bloodier and sweatier than actual fabric at this point. My shoes are long dead, and I need more tape and a T-shirt than shoes.

The bugs led me into a building packed with tourists. I walked past them without a single glance at the shuffling, dried-out zombie walking by.

They led me out another door and onto a U-shaped walkway. I was led right to the middle of the walkway, and I peered out.

A massive canyon stretched as far as I could see. Everything was blurry to me right now, so that wasn't far. A lightning bug landed on my nose, my arms so numb I couldn't bring myself to swat at it.