Rebuilding the World

2 Sacrifice

As we rammed the zombies out of the way, I tried hard not to be emotional. We used to say “See you in the Underworld” as a goodbye. And now, I just left the closest demigod friend I have, my own cousin to die.

“What in the world is happening?” Nero asked

“Zombie apocalypse?” Allan asked.

"Wait, how about the others? We can't just leave them!!" Alyssa asked remembering that we haven't seen Monica, JC, Janina and Addie yet.

"Wait! Can we stop over my house?" Joanna asked.

“Dominic, get us to the airport.” I said.

My friends looked at me, obviously scared. I smiled to tell them everything’s going to be okay.

I've always acted like the leader of the group, maybe I got that from my father, Zeus. But now? I'm not just going to lead them in a school project. This is so much different from that.

As the only one who knows what is really happening, I’ll be taking responsibility over my friends. I’m going to take them to safety even if it’s the last thing I do. After all, I can’t just stop what the Olympians are planning to do.

As I look out of the window, zombies are running around chasing mortals. There were even few whom I saw was feasting on human remains.

“Why?” I whispered.

Last night, I talked to Chiron and he said that Zeus sent Hermes and Athena to the underworld to talk to Hades. We thought that it will be the end of the war. But whatever happened down there just made it all worst.

I relaxed a little and ate some of my emergency ambrosia.

“Majella, I think you should take a nap. You’re pale.” Alyssa said.

"Yeah, we'll look out from here. You look exhausted." Pamela said.

“Okay, wake me up when we get there.” I said.

After a few minutes, unable to fall asleep, I opened my eyes to check out where we were.

We were still a few kilometres away from the airport. But the problem was that there’s a large pile up ahead of us.

“Get off the road!” I said to Dominic who did so immediately.

We bounded to a golf course. And as Dominic avoided trees, sand and water, I tried to look for a road that we can take to the airport.

Out of nowhere a hellhound appeared to our left and almost knocked our van over.

“HOLY ZEUS!” I cursed out of surprise.

I stuck my blade outside the left window as the hellhound tried to knock us over again, it immediately turned into dust when my sword stabbed it.

“What was that?” Dominic asked, blinking of confusion.

“Was that a hummer trying to hit us?” Mark asked slightly hysterical.

“Where did it go?!” Nero asked.

“Will you guys calm down and just drive!” I ordered.

Geez, the mist is still strong on these guys. It still amazes me how the mist bends what the mortals have seen even if it's clear.

We found a road and we got to the airport after a few turns.

We ran to the tarmac where hundreds of people are lining up to get into the space shuttles that we saw earlier.

I saw a familiar face among the authorities looking over the situation and approached him.

“BARK!” I shouted at the satyr wearing an airport uniform.

“M-majella!”  he bleated and limped towards me.

“I need help, I have my mortal friends –“

“Get 5 of them in!”

“What? Only 5? But we’re 10!!” I complained.

“I’m sorry, but these mortals need help too! I can’t accommodate all of you just because you’re special.” He said emphasizing the word special.

“Fine.”

I faced my friends.

“Only 5 can get to the space shuttle.” I said “The other 5 will be left here.”

“I’m going to stay.” They said all at once.

I smiled at my friends’ bravery for trying to sacrifice their lives to save the others.

“Look guys, I know you don’t want to leave the others behind. But some of us needs to go!”

They just looked at me like I was saying something impossible. With a sigh I made my decision.

“Joanna, Alyssa, Katrina” I pointed them. “Dominic and Allan, you take care of the girls. The rest of us will stay.”

“Why me?!” Katrina protested

“Take Pamela instead!” Joanna complained

“I am not leaving you guys here!” Alyssa said.

“Look, you guys are the best friends I could ever ask for. I don’t want to decide who’s going to live and who’s not but I can’t deny the fact that you guys are the most special, if you survive, humanity’s going to be a lot more better than it was. Dominic and Allan will take care of you.” I said with finality.

I looked back to those that I didn’t picked; Pamela, Mark, Merlin and Nero and saw them nodding and smiling sadly in agreement with my decision.

The three girls kept on protesting but we pushed them to the shuttle’s stairs along with the other mortals.

“Write a book about how awesome I was, okay?!” Mark shouted to the Alyssa.

“NEVER!” Alyssa shouted over in tears.

“And make me a comic book superhero!” Nero shouted to Joanna.

“I’m going to make you better than Ironman!” Joanna shouted back in tears

“Make sure that when you get back to earth, Alyssa’s slimmer and Joanna’s fatter!” Merlin joked to Katrina

“I’m gonna feed them properly!” Katrina promised.

“You two take good care of the girls!” Pamela said to Dominic and Allan.

“When did we not take good care of them?!” Allan asked sarcastically

“You can count on us!” Dominic promised.

“BYE! WE’RE GOING TO MISS YOU!” I shouted to them

“WE LOVE YOU!!!” They said in unison.

They got into the shuttle.

“You sure you’re not coming?” Bark said to me.

“I still have 4 friends to look after. Why don’t you look after the other 5 for me?”

“You can still change your mind, just a snap of a finger and you’ll be captain of this shuttle.” Bark said. "You're a child of Zeus, you can fly this big baby!"

“I’ll look too young to be captain.” I declined “Keep them safe for me, okay?”

“Okay, good luck then. May the gods favour you.” Bark said, blessing me with his nature magic.

Bark climbed the stairs with difficulty and closed the Space Shuttle’s doors.

As we backed away from the shuttle, I saw them waving at us, tears on their faces.

“MAY THE GODS OF OLYMPUS BE ALWAYS WITH YOU!” I shouted at them.

I knew for sure that they didn’t heard what I said, but then I just hope the Olympians did.

“C’mon.” I said to the others. “We need to find a place to stay.”