Silenced (Demigod Story)

Niobe and her Pitchfork

“Who is that?” I wondered, afraid of the answer.  Dan was silent for a moment, the only sound to be heard was the clacking of the hooves of the dark horse.

“Niobe,” he whispered, barely loud enough for even me to hear.  “She hates my father and all of his children.”

“What did he do?” I squeaked silently.  I do not usually talk so low, especially when I am by something that would want to kill a kid.

“It would be better if I did not say anything about it now.  When people come back from the dead, they have some sort of weird spirit thing that is kind of like a sixth sense.”

We started to walk faster into some random person’s backyard.  “I think that we lost her.”

“I sense the child of Apollo near,” a creepy voice hissed.  Of course, they always need to find us right when we think that we got away.  I froze out of fear.

“We have got to keep moving,” Dan reminded me.  I moved my body, but not feeling like I was completely there.  “Come on!”

We hid in some hedges that were totally there before we were there.  (Actually, I grew them)  The leaves were thick, covering us up.

“Come out child of Apollo.  I just want to talk,” the voice seemed to be getting closer.  We held our breath, afraid that she could hear us.  “Fine, if you want to play that way.”

I could hear leaves and twigs crushing under the weight of something heavy.  From the ringing of metal, pattern of the steps, and the constant sniffing, I just inferred that it was a huge dog.  I tucked my legs in, hugging them to my chest.  Whatever the thing was found us very easily.  “What do we have here?” Niobe cooed.  She pulled back the bush to see Dan and I.  “Ah, a son of Apollo.  And he has a little friend to.”

Niobe was beautifully pale with golden eyes.  She wore a black cloak as if she was in hiding.

“Friend?” I asked.  It hurt to say it, but I had to somehow figure out how to protect myself.  “He has been a complete jerk to me this whole time.  Must be a son of Hermes thing.”

“What?” Niobe was confused.  “He smells and looks just like Apollo!  You must be lieing because that is a son of Apollo!”  She started to claw to me, but I backed further into the bushes.

“Why would I lie to you?  We have a common enemy if you haven’t noticed.  He must have lied to me, again!  Does it ever stop with you?  What did Apollo do anyway?”

“He and his sister killed thy children!  They were shot right in front of thy own eyes!” she exclaimed, tears pouring out of her eyes.

I did my best evil glare at Dan.  “What the heck dude?  Your father is awful!  He does care about anyone other than himself!” I got out of the bushes because Niobe seemed very fond of me.  “You must be just like him!” I yelled at him, guilty tears running down my face.  He stared at me, extremely hurt by my words.  I glanced at Niobe, “How do you plan to kill him?”

“Well, I have a knife in thy hand…”           

“No, no.  That would be too weak looking, too simple.  We need something that will be memorable…”

“I have a pitchfork in my carriage,” she offered.

I perked up, smiling evilly.  “That would be lovely, could you go get it?”

“Gladly,” she turned around to go to the carriage.  I took a deep breath, really not wanting to do the next part.  I took my blade out that Artemis gave me, walked behind Niobe, and stabbed her right in the back, literally.  I cried, hearing her wails of pain and knowing that I caused all of it.  I yanked out the knife, wiping it off on the cloak of Niobe to get the blood off.

I skipped to the bushes, were Dan sat, frozen.  “You should be an actor; you looked like you were really hurt.”

“What?  You were acting?” he stared at me as if I was going to attack him.

“Of course silly!  If I wasn’t, I would have used a baseball bat to kill you, I always wanted to try doing that to someone,” I smiled at him, hoping that he would understand.

He smiled back, but it was not a real kind.  “Okay, for a moment, I thought that you were serious.  It was real anger coming out of your eyes, but it was not directed toward me like I thought it was.  Who was it directed to?”

“At myself, I figured that you either thought I was actually mad at you or was only trying to save myself.  I was mad at myself because I couldn’t think of any other way to save you.”

“It’s okay, you aren’t such a bad actress yourself,” he smirked.

“I know, I know.  My voice was a little too high and my posture was a bit to straight,” I mimicked the way that the directors would just point out the smallest of things that had to be corrected.

“Yeah, other than that, you were brilliant,” he joked.

The crunching of twigs and grass, the pattern of the steps, the sound of the creature breathing, they all came back.  The creature walked from beside the house.