Dear Secrets, Please Fly Quietly

20) And the Cure is...

"YOU WANT ME TO WHAT?!" I exclaimed, gripping my short blonde locks tightly. I paced back and forth, trying and failing to comprehend what Apollo and Athena had said.

Athena looked at me seriously. "I know this is difficult, Hermes, but I'm afraid it's the only option. We don't want you to do it. We need you to."

"Die." I said, finishing her sentence. "You need me to die, for the second time, I might add, so Olympus doesn't fall and the world isn't overrun by T-I-T-A-N-S's?" Even millennia after the battle, we were still careful with the term.

"Well," Apollo said apologetically. "It's not that you have to die, per se. We just need two cups of your blood. Per Olympian."

I titled my head. "What does that mean?"

With a smile nothing short of cynical, the god of medicine put some gloves on in the creepiest way possible. Staring at me with unblinking blue eyes and a Cheshire cat smile, he spoke in a chilling tone. I swear the room darkened. "It means you're 'special'. By now, everyone knows you're really just a demigod. A half-blood, really." Apollo tied his hair back in a ponytail. "You have the blood of a mortal, and the ichor of an immortal. When the two mix, we get supercharged blood called hyperdynahemia."

Despite Apollo's creepiness, I arched an eyebrow. "Hyper- what now?"

The room lightened as the god frowned deeply. "Hyper. Dyna. Hemia. Literally, it means over (or excessive), power, blood. Blood with excessive power. Got it? Okay, then." He said without waiting for a response.

I sat in silence, briefly glancing at Athena. She whispered, "He made that term up." When Apollo glared at her, she shrugged innocently, and the god huffed in annoyance.

"Where was I? Right! So you have supercharged blood because you're a demigod. Basically. And the cure for this-" He waved a dismissive hand. "sickness or whatever is-"

"The god flu!" I exclaimed, my wings fluttering slightly in excitement.

It was Apollo's and Athena's turn for eyebrow-arching. "What?" they asked in unison.

"The god flu!" I repeated. "That's what we'll call it. It has the basic symptoms of a flu..." Athena's cough verified my theory. "But it's only affecting the Olympians!"

"Keep it down!" Zeus barked, picking his head up. "We're trying to sleep here!"

"So sleep!" Apollo snapped back. Clearly there had been quite a few fights between the two.

"I was until your yelling woke me up!"

The god of medicine heaved a dramatic sigh and turned to his twin sister. "Arty! Make him stop!" He whined like a four-year-old.

A bundle of moved in the corner. "Don't call me Arty and I will." The goddess mumbled. A pale hand came into view and snapped. Zeus instantly collapsed. "Now leave me alone."

Apollo turned back to me tiredly. "If I agree to call it the god flu, will you let me cure it?"

"Sure!" I said, folding my hands.

"Promise?"

"On the River Styx. Wait, hold on-"

Thunder and lightning boomed in the distance, sealing the deal before I could retract it. I muttered some Greek obscenity under my breath.

Creepy Apollo returned as the lights dimmed once again. I yelped as sunflowers twisted around my wrists and ankles, anchoring me to the bed I was sitting on. I struggled as the god of medicine opened his hand and painfully large syringe appeared.

"Hermes," Athena said quietly. Behind her back, the goddess waved at Apollo to continue. He came closer to my left arm. Athena turned my head to face her again. "Hermes, I've done the math. You have 1.4 gallons of blood in your entire body."

I grimaced. "Don't talk about blood. Please!"

Athena continued. "When this all over, you'll have three ounces of blood left. In your entire body."

Despite the circumstances, I gaped at the goddess with my head tilted a full ninety degrees. "Why in Hades did you think that was necessary to tell me? And right now of all- AH!" A prolonged cry escaped my lips as Apollo forced the needle into my arm.

Apollo transferred the supercharged hyper-whatever combo into his arm, went back for more and emptied it again. As he moved on the next patient, who was Athena, I became numb to the pain. Apollo switched to my right arm and drew more 'hyperdynahemia', as he called it. I should have made him call it ichor-blood. So much easier to say.

My eyelids drooped to half-closed as I arched my back and groaned in pain. Sweat rolled down my nose and I urgently tried to get him to notice it. "Apollo," I said, gasping. "Apollo!" Tears or sweat ran from my eyes. I struggled against the restraints and they did nothing. "APOLLO!! Stop it! Stop, stop, stop!"

My pale skin was drenched with sweat and now hyperdynahemia as Apollo missed the vein. "Oops." He said, leaving me to bleed out as he switched arms. That wasn't even an apology!

Some more time passed and I turned away from everyone, staring at the wall. I can't feel my arms. Or my legs. Or my wings. Or anything. My heart hurts. Literally and figuratively. I opened my mouth to get someone's attention, to get help, but no words came out. I spent the rest of my life trying to get those words out, and I don't even remember what they were.