Escape (Book 1 of the Gods' series)

Chapter 14

We stayed sat on the floor for a while, looking at Nyx’s dead body. Suddenly, Nyx’s body started to disintegrate in gold shimmers, when her body had gone; the floor was dusted with gold. I looked around us as all of the furniture did the same. The next thing that went was the room itself, it dropped like a cheap fabric setting for a play. We were surrounded in a circle of gold dust, and outside the circle was the red orange rock that was everywhere else in the cave. “So, how are we going to get out now?” Jess asked, “I, I don’t really know.” I replied quietly. We just sat again, not saying anything but thinking, thoughts whizzing through our minds like a person on a faulty treadmill.

Everything changed pretty quickly then, I had closed my eyes for just a second and when I opened them again, the red rocks had gone and had been replaced with white, fluffy cloud like things, my first thought was, am I dead? I wasn’t though, I figured because Dylan, Jess, Aaron and Gabriella were still with me, I turned and looked around. In a huge circle around us were several different people, they all wore white robes with a golden emblem on each, some wore water on theirs, some lightning and some faces they all smiled at us and I stood up, small compared to them. They were all sat on golden thrones; they reminded me of the throne Nyx had sat on before she attempted to kill us. “Welcome, young ones.” One of the men said, he was muscled and had blonde wavy hair that went down to his shoulders, his emblem was larger than the others and had lightning on it. “Uh, hi, where are we?” I asked, the man replied with, “You are in Greece, Charlotte, on top of mount Olympus. I am sure you know who we are.” I didn’t know who all of them were, I knew the man that was talking to me, he was Zeus, God of all Greek Gods, I knew I was with the Gods, and that was it, I had no clue why we were here. One of the women Gods stood up and smiled at us softly and walked up to Zeus, she put a hand on his shoulder, her emblem had a face on, “Ah, Zeus, you treat these children like they have been here and met us before, go slower, please.” Zeus gave a simple nod and the woman smiled again, she was tall and slim, but not too slim, she was curvy as well, her brunette hair fell over one shoulder, it was long and wavy, she continued to speak and I saw Dylan, Aaron, Gabriella and Jess get up from their sitting positions on the floor, “I am Aphrodite, goddess of beauty. This is Poseidon, God of the sea.” Aphrodite carried on naming different Gods and Goddesses like that for a while until she had named nearly every single one of the Gods that were there except a few, then she turned to us again, “The last of the Gods and Goddesses that are here will be your mentors.” She gently took Jess’ hand and led her over to a woman who was casually lounging on a white chaise lounge, popping fat juicy grapes into her mouth now and again, the woman was quite small and thin, she had bright blonde curly hair and water on her emblem, she smiled at Jess and took her hand, “I am Alcyone, your mentor.” Jess then beamed at the Alcyone as though she was her mother and sat down at the other end of the chaise lounge. Next to meet his mentor was Dylan, he was taken over to an old looking man with long grey hair, on his emblem was a clock, just before Dylan reached the old man, he changed, into a young, strong man, he looked as if he was only in his twenties, the two shook hands and the elder man said, “Ah, young Dylan, I am Cronos, keeper of time, I will be your mentor," Dylan smiled and started to have a long conversation with Cronos about something or another. Aphrodite then took Aaron’s hand and guided him to a man that looked as though he was made of muscle, his emblem was an arm, or a mountain, “Hi, I’m Atlas, and obviously I’m going to be your mentor.” Aaron smiled slightly and then they just started comparing muscle with each other. Aphrodite walked to me and took my hand and led me over to a tall woman with bright red hair, her emblem was just plain gold, “Philyra is one of the more, gifted, of us Gods, that is why she doesn’t have any pattern on her emblem.” Aphrodite whispered in my ear as we approached my mentor, she locked eyes with me and a smile grew on her face, she held a hand out to me, I gingerly took it and when I did, instead of just introducing herself to me, she pulled me into a huge hug, “Charlotte, I have waited for a long time, you made me proud when you fought against Nyx. Let me look at you.” She pushed me away gently and gave me a once over, then she just looked at me, “I can not wait to get you to the school, you will do so well!” I looked up at her and saw pride glowing in her eyes, “Um, what school?” She just looked at me and smiled again, “You will see, little flower, you will see.” Gabriella got shown to her mentor, a chocolate skinned warrior lady who showed much pride in her appearance, her emblem showed a spear.

I noticed each one of the mentors take their apprentices hands and disappear in a flash of gold light, my mentor didn’t do that, she said simply to me, “The other mentors don’t have our gifts so they use their power to transport themselves to the school, we don’t have to, lets take flight to your new home.” With that she turned into a golden eagle and soared through the cloud floor and down to the world below, I merely turned into a crow and followed behind. We landed at a big place that looked quite run down, it looked as though it had a coliseum, but all the stone was broken, Philyra smiled at my confused look and said, “Charlotte, welcome to Asklepion, the wreckage is just a mask so the public don’t know what happens on the inside.” She traced a circle in the air with her finger and pushed it, through the circle I could see the same building but fully restored, with red, amber and blue flags fluttering happily in the wind. I gasped and Philyra drew a bigger circle and walked through, she beckoned me to follow her, so I did, when I got through I smelt herbs and sun, I looked behind me, expecting to see the hole with the run down Asklepion in, but I didn’t. All I saw was steps going down to a dirt track that led to the beach; it was a long way away. Someone pushed past me and I nearly fell over but my mentor caught me and shouted, “Samuel! Watch where you are going next time!” He shouted his apologies and kept on going. I noticed lots of students flocking into the building, all wearing white robes over their clothes. I thanked Philyra and she led me up some stairs to enter the building, the main reception bit was lit by chandeliers, people worked at wooden desks with feather pens, a spectacled woman looked up and smiled at me. Philyra led me down a corridor to the left that was lit with torches. “This is the route to the girls dormitories, you will have a room mate who is in most of your lessons, ah here she is now. Becky! I have your room mate here!” I had so many swirling questions in my head that I almost didn’t notice the small girl running down the hall to meet us; she was rather slim and petite with hair that was white as snow, her skin was very pale and her eyes were electrifying blue, she too wore a white robe over her clothes like Sam had. She nearly ran into Philyra but stopped just before us, “Hi! You must be Charlotte! I’m Becky, Becky Saunders. I’m sure you’re wondering how to contact your parents, don’t worry, everything is dealt with, you can ring them if you want. All your belongings are here and your timetable is on your bed in the dorm. That’s about it, right miss?” Philyra smiled at Beth and nodded, “Yes Becky, that’s it, and please, just call me Philyra. I will see you soon, Charlotte.” Philyra waved as Beth dragged me to the dorm.

The dorms living room was big, very big, it was filled with posh furniture and easels and TV’s. Lots of girls wearing the white robes that were deemed necessary were in the kitchen area, preparing snacks, but I didn’t have time to say hi because Becky pulled me into a room, it was cream on one half and red and black on the other, my bed was there on the cream side and several of my stuffed toys, Becky opened a wardrobe and I saw all of my clothes were hung up. My laptop was on the bed along with my MP3 player and my phone, I noticed a white robe was neatly folded up on my pillow, school uniform, I presumed. I sat down on my bed and Becky sat on her gothic black one. I plugged my headphones into my ears and started listening to music when Becky started to read, I was finally at rest.