The Sister of Nico Di Angelo (ON HOLD)

The Sister of Nico Di Angelo

HALEY

"You're kidding, right?" Jamal asked.

Haley kept walking at a too-fast pace; her light hair fanned out determinedly behind her. Her friend was forced into a jog to keep up, "Of course I'm not. What's wrong with it?"

He jumped in front of her and began to walk backwards, causing the both of them to slow down. His warm eyes were glazed with seriousness as he tried to talk her out of the biggest decision in her life, "Hales, no one's ever even passed the test first test, how do you plan on going through all three."

"I'm not just anyone," she replied coolly, she brushed past him towards her locker.

"Look," he materialised beside her, "I know that, but do you really think you can pull something like this off? It's the End Game, this test is designed for you to fail."

She chose not to answer him as she exchanged her books for the tin box that contained her lunch.

He laid a dark hand on her shoulder, "Hales?"

She shrugged him off, "I don't know, alright? I don't know how I'm going to pass."

"What do you want me to say to something like that?" He scoffed.

"Well," she said sharply, "you could drop the subject. The situation's not going to get better the more we worry about it."

Jamal acted as if he was going to say something else but he shut his mouth dramatically and crossed his arms. He began walking down one of the hallways towards the cafeteria; stopping after a little ways to see if she was following. When he saw her in the same place, he stormed all the way out of sight.

Haley didn't bother going after him; he would be watching her that afternoon for her first test. The whole school would be.

She sighed and hugged her lunch box to her stomach. It was a rare, collector's item Mythomagic lunch box, complete with a matching thermos. Her father had given it to her for her tenth birthday and she had taken good care of it those six years-it wasn't often her father remembered her birthday. She squeezed the box a little then tucked it under her arm.

Lunch was as lonely as it usually was. No one sat by her, they all were too scared. Not of her, but her father-no one wanted to take the chance of crossing him. It was perfectly justified, after all, he was the lord of the dead and she was in a school of ghosts.

"Think of all the kids that die every year," Hades had explained to her one afternoon, "the ones that drowned, crashed their cars or even let the stress crush them. Being teenagers, almost all of them weren't good enough to go to the Fields of Asphodel, but hasn't done anything TOO terrible for any real punishment. So I created this, what's worse than going to high school for eternity?"

She had been enrolled there as long as she could remember. She even had a class with a dead sister once; her name was Bianca. Bianca had explained how she was also Hades's daughter and how she died. Apparently, she didn't even need to go to classes but she wanted to completely graduate-something she never got to do while she was alive. That was ages ago, Bianca had since tried for rebirth in an attempt to get to the Isle of the Blessed. Now all Haley had was Jamal.

With that thought, he appeared silently next to her, "Do you have everything prepared?"

She cracked a nervous smile, "Not in the slightest."

"You have five minutes, then," he replied evenly.

Haley broke eye contact with him and concentrated on his shirt. It had once been a bright shade of orange, but now it was just tattered and worn out. She reached out to touch the red stain near his ribs, but hesitated.

"You never told me how you died; I figured since I'm about to join you, I should ask."

His eyes glazed over, and he absentmindedly stroked a beaded cord around his neck, "It's not a day I like to remember. I was almost eighteen, a few more weeks and I would have been, my friends and I went to a camp for troubled kids. It was different there, though. We weren't considered outcasts, we fit in. I even had a girlfriend. Suddenly, things started going wrong, people started disappearing, my girlfriend included. One day, we got word that someone was trying to take the camp, my home, away from us, and hurt others in the process. We rallied and almost the whole camp went to stop them. That's when the fighting began; my friends and I were caught in the middle of it; I remember fighting and fighting. There was so much blood. I realized some of it was mine. The pain flooded my body; I had been shot," he shook his head, "Things get a little fuzzy after that, I think it was just darkness, then BAM I was in an office of some sort, the man said that I was paid for, commented on how strange that was, and brought me here. Where I found you."

Haley nodded, she had seen some of his fellow campers around school, all wearing the same orange shirt and beaded necklace. They all sported injuries also, some worse than others.

He clapped, making her jump, "It doesn't matter, though, 'cause you're not gonna die."

"I-"

He held up a hand, to silence anything she might have said, "You aren't gonna die and that's final."

Before she could protest, the school bell rung, dismissing them all to the auditorium; all but her, that is.

Jamal didn't say anything as he gave her a hug and ran off into the crowd gathering at the entrance.

Haley slowly picked her way down the hallway behind the auditorium, thinking about how cold her friend's skin had felt. She didn't want to be like that, no more heartbeat, slowly deteriorating memories. She never realized how much she wanted to cling onto her life in that moment. The moment the Fates were trying to wrestle it away the hardest.

Haley came upon a set of doors. They were taller than any others in the school and were decorated with ornate pictures of heroes from mythology through time. There was a tiny Hercules fighting off what looked like a swarm of bees next to an even smaller picture of two kids and a satyr running at a bronze bull.

Before she could study them more, the doors opened to a dark room with a few random props, like backstage at a theater. A woman stood at the other side of the room, completely motionless. A gasp escaped Haley as she realized who that woman was.

"Lady Persephone, what are you doing here?" She asked tentatively.

The woman turned to face Haley, her eyes were pools of light that touched everything within reach, "I am not your stepmother, child. I merely assume her form because it is one you recognize. I am Nike."

"Um-," Haley looked down at her sneakers with the famous swish on them, "Nike? Like the shoe?"

"Gah!" She threw her arms up, "Every since that stupid company came up, that's what I've become! You know there's a statue of me in the Louvre, it's one of the most famous in the world. No one even remembers it!"

"So, not like the shoe?" She chuckled nervously.

Nike robbed her forehead, "The shoe was named after me yes. I am the goddess of victory."

There was loud roar of shouting and applause. A chant started up, urging the test to begin.

Nike smiled at Haley--it was meant to be encouraging but looked more sympathetic than anything, "That's your cue; we'll talk after. Go through that exit there when you're ready," the goddess pointed behind Haley, so she turned to look. Sure enough, there was a red exit sign glowing in the gloom.

Haley went to thank her, but Nike had disappeared.

Before she could stop and thing about how stupid it was, Haley plunged thought the exit.