the forever winter- a percy jackson fanfiction

Chapter 1: KEIKO

Slamming the door on my way out of my aunt's house, I felt the overwhelming urge to break something. My hands balled into fists as I fought it, choosing instead to walk to the park. Maybe it could clear my head.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket but I ignored it. It continued and I let out a frustrated huff, turning my phone to aeroplane mode.

As I walked, I thought about what had happened. I couldn't even remember what it was about, only that it had involved yelling and cursing and screaming. Just another stupid argument. I'll apologise and then everything will go back to normal, and Aunt Susannah and I will go back to not talking, not making eye contact and pretending each other don't exist. I sighed, heading over to a park bench.

I was taking my book out of my backpack, ready to get lost in it, when I heard it.

It was a roar, so loud I was scared my ears were going to burst. Whipping around, I got a glimpse of the monster- whatever it was- before it threw itself at me. It had the head of a lion, along with a mane caked with blood, the body of a goat and a long, diamondback snake-tail, the end of which a snake-head grew out of. I had the presence of mind to jump out of its way, and it landed behind me.

I wanted to run so badly at that moment, but something kept me back. The snake guy didn't seem to care about the other people, but who knew how long that was going to last? I didn't want to be the cause of the end of the world. I stared at the monster; it was prowling towards me, slowly, but something told me that that was because it didn't have a reason to hurry, not that it couldn't go faster if it wanted to. I swallowed as the rising panic threatened to bring up my breakfast and forced myself to focus. Not knowing what I was doing in any way at all, I propelled my hand forward in a fast motion, so that my palm was open. A blue, purple and pink glow erupted from it, and I noted it looked like the galaxy. I shoved it forward and it morphed itself into a dagger while on it's path to the monster. Sadly, he wasn't as dumb as to stay still while a dagger was thrown at him, and he bounded out of the way at the last second, as if mocking me. My mind was a stream of panic and anxiety and confusion- about the lion/goat/snake thing, about the magic if that was what it was, and about how any of this could be possible, but as I was thinking about how if this lion guy killed us all it would be all my fault, I heard a voice.

"What the f-" the girl's curse was cut off by a small crash and a grunt, before she said something else. "Oh, god dammit. That was almost healed." She had landed on her elbow, which was now bleeding immensely. My insides writhing, I recoiled. I wasn't normally squeamish, but so much blood made me want to throw up.

Hold on, I thought. This is the only person who's actually noticed this. Looking around, my heart pounding, I watched the small amount of people, milling about the peaceful park. How was it that this girl was the only person, apart from myself, who had seen the monster?

With that thought, I remembered the reason why any of this was happening. I whipped around, just in time to see the beast, right in my face. It was even more scary from this close; it's mouth opening slowly, its black eyes were large and unblinking and-

It let out a cry of pain, thrashing as the girl who had stabbed it deep in its back let out a whoop of victory. It was the same girl whose elbow had been bleeding. She had golden brown hair that cascaded to her elbows in practically perfect waves. Mischief glinted in her hazel eyes, and Keiko saw that the knife she had stabbed the monster with was a kitchen knife.

"Savage," I whispered.

"True," a voice said from behind me and I jumped around, startled. I was relieved to find it wasn't another monster, but rather, another girl. She continued, "Although, undeniably stupid. Look." She pointed behind me, back at the monster. It was grumbling as though the deep cut was only a minor annoyance. Sure enough, it began to close rapidly. The girl with the kitchen knife stared, dumbfounded. At some point she had come back to the ground. Soon, however, she called out to me-

"Do the magic thingy again!"

"That didn't work the first time, I doubt it will work this time." That was the other girl. Ignoring her, the girl with the kitchen knife started to talk again.

"Do you think you could get a dagger again? If you give it to me, I can kill it."

"I... I could try..." I answered, doing the thing with the magic again. This time, I focused on turning it into a weapon that could kill the monster rather than hurling it at it. I was surprised to see that it had worked. In my hand was a dagger made of a strange metal. It glimmered gold, and was decorated with purple and green gemstones and silver designs.

"Yeah, thanks. I'll take that." said the girl from behind me.

"Hey!" the backstabber yelled, but the girl was already vaulting up the park bench, knife in hand. She landed lightly on the monster's back, nimbly bounding across its body to its head. After driving the dagger up its throat, she landed, catlike, near the two of us. Only now did I take in her tough appearance. She had hair that fell to her shoulders in messy waves and dark brown eyes.

She handed the dagger back to me, and with a thought it turned into the same galaxy-looking glow, before vanishing completely.

"Well, that was fun." said the girl with dark brown hair.

"For you." this came from the girl with hazel eyes.

"Hey, if you wanted to kill it you should have just said."

"But I had said!" she threw her hands up into the air.

"At least we're all alive." I found myself saying. Embarrassment clawed its way up my gut, but I pushed it down. I forced myself to look confident as I glared at them.

"Yeah, that's probably more important than your weird urge to kill."

I jolted before looking around.

This time, it was a male voice. The boy was tall and had grey eyes and curly brown hair that was sticking out beneath his grey beanie.

"Is one of you Keiko?"

Well, that's creepy.

My mouth was dry and I licked my lips before answering.

"That... That's me." I manage to get out.

"Nice dagger," he nodded. "Daughter of Hecate, must be." he muttered the last part to himself. I didn't understand what he meant, and it seemed the others didn't either.

"What was that, sorry?" that came from the girl with dark brown hair.

Ignoring her, he continued, "Penelope?"

"That's right, but call me Penny." she was the one with the kitchen knife.

"So you must be Nadya." he turned to the girl with dark brown hair, who didn't say anything, just glared at him with distrust.

"Then let's go."

"Hold on," Nadya lifted a hand. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I don't even know your name! And, somehow, you know mine. That's creepy. And weird."

He stared at her for a few seconds before saying slowly, "You just killed a giant lion. With a magical dagger that appeared out of no-where. That's weird. And, it gets a lot weirder."

Keiko could see Nadya trying to come up with an argument in her head, but finally, she sighed, and said, "Okay, that's true. But, actually; what's your name?"

"Aspen."

"Like the ski resort? In Colorado?" Penny was staring at him, an eyebrow raised.

"If you say one word about that again, next time there's a monster I'll just leave you to die."

Nadya coughed, loudly, before saying, "You do realise it was me who killed it, not you."

"No, no. I'm taking you somewhere safe."

How scary was this guy going to get? I thought, and that was before he had turned into a goat and the flying horses had showed up.

A/N: Aspen and Aunt Susannah are my characters.

Thank you! :)