𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐄! percy jackson¹

000. too close to the sun

prologue
000. too close to the sun

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    THE NIGHT wasn't cold, but the humid warmth held its terrifying bite. With miserable skies of grey and the wind howling through the alleyways between towering high rises that loomed with their shadows over the midnight streets, the humidity brought a different horror. It was not a bright, summery day in Miami. It was far from it. The growl of thunder rolling across storm clouds and vicious wind was an ominous omen for the weather that was predicted to arrive in just a few days. The gods were restless and angry. Yet again, the sky and the sea were at odds with one another. Hurricanes were rarer in Miami than in the northwest, yet one was making its path towards the shoreline expected to cause devastating damage and grief. With the ocean raging a battle against the lightning that struck its ruthless waves, most of the area was abandoned from mandatory evacuations. Some were preparing to brave the storm, barricading their homes and stocking houses full of provisions. But there was little more than a peep of traffic within a city usually so vibrant▬and no one to see nor hear the cries of a young girl stuck alone amongst it all.

    She sat between two dumpsters, curled up in the shadows with Ariel, her teddy bear clutched in one hand and her blanket in the other. The alleyway was dark and wet▬it stank worse than month-old, out-of-date milk and sweaty old feet. The little six-year-old girl cried out into the night; her sobs echoed against the narrow walls and garbage bins▬but against the howling of the wind, she was drowning. 

    "Mommy," she stifled in between her sobs, crying out the same word over and over; she had been doing so for two hours, but no one came to answer her call. 

    The dark streets of Miami surrounded the young girl with threatening shadows that looked ready to engulf her in their darkness. Her light blonde hair glowed a ghostly grey, falling over red-rimmed eyes and flushed, tear-blotched cheeks. The battle cries of the ocean and the sky continued to rage▬not caring about the lonesome, innocent child stuck in the No Man's Land of their battlefield. 

    Her hands curled tighter around her blanket and teddy bear when a rather vicious gust of wind hit her with enough strength that it could have sent her stumbling across like the wayward trash can if she had not huddled herself in the corner between the brick wall and dumpster. 

    Her Mom had told her she'd be back▬that she needed to wait for her to grab last-minute things for her little brother and then they'd leave for a shelter where they'd be safe. She just had to wait for her Mom to come back.

    But her Mom and her little brother weren't back yet, and she was now getting very scared. The shadows were starting to look like the monsters under her bed and inside her closet▬and the howls of the wind were the horrible creatures in her nightmares, finally coming to steal her away.

    "Mommy?" she called again, hugging herself tightly in her thin jacket and blanket. No one answered.

    She was alone with no one around to rescue her▬her cries left forgotten in the pitch-black night.

    Until a slither of light crept into the alleyway▬and there it revealed but one who had come to her rescue. 

    A man who stepped out of the light as if he had been crafted into existence from it. The light followed him▬it surrounded him; breaking through the shadows and warding off all of the monsters that had been baring their teeth and leering beady eyes over the young girl trapped in their lair. He was handsome. A young man with tanned skin dotted with freckles and sun-kissed blonde curls▬every part of him was kissed by sunlight and shaped with the skilful hand of a sculptor who pictured a perfect Ancient Greek Adonis.