Cam Valdez and the Lost Origins: The Unkown Twin

Another Dream

Right, so here's the next chapter, yay! Hope you guys like it, remember to give it a star and share with friends! Suportive and suggestive comments are welcome-- i just wanna know you guys are out there. Credits to the photographers and artists. Anyway, here is chapter eight!
     From the amazing creativegrace!
                       
 
     That night, I dreamed I was in a giant machine. It was full of grinding gears and pistons all working in mysterious ways. The source of the power that ran it was hidden among the moving parts, though I felt I could almost reach it--find it--if I looked hard enough. The machine was perfectly made, never stopping and never messing up. It worked around me, moving pieces with a quiet hum. This huge machine was the workings of a powerful source, every part cooperating to maintain one goal--to keep something trapped inside.
  
     But my goal was to find the heart, the source of power. Something told me that if I found the heart I'd solve the problem. Though I didn't know what the problem was, considering how perfectly everything was put together.
  
     Now don't think of me as crazy (though you probably already do), but I could feel the source of the power, radiating from somewhere ahead of me. 

     I moved, ducking and twisting to avoid being chopped in to little pieces by the moving parts. I moved forward, led by the pulling in my gut, sometimes getting lost and almost being be-headed. Yet, I felt safe because I could feel the movement of the pieces before they came anywhere near me. The machine seemed to be a large replica of a human body, and the tug of my gut was coming from somewhere near the heart. 

     When I reached where the heart would be, there was an odd sort of hut. It was made of metal and it was glowing white as if it'd just come out of a furnace. It was smooth and had curves in odd places. Maybe it was supposed to look like a real heart from the back. Though the side that was facing me was open, just as if the real thing had been sliced in half, leaving the hollowed out half where it was. And with this side missing, I had a clear view of the man within.

   He was a hunched figure, with his hands tied to white-hot chains connected to the wall of his prison. His beard and hair were matted and tangled and the brown was tinged with white. He was wearing a toga that might've once been white and godly looking, though now it was ripped and had burn holes in it and was an odd shade of grey-ish brown. His head was bent so I couldn't see his face, and there he sat looking at his knees.

     For a minute I feared he might be dead, though when I looked closely I saw him breathing very slowly. It wouldn't have surprised me if he had been dead. His coppery skin was covered in burns and I felt like I was overheating standing ten yards away, I could barely imagine how scolding hot it had to be in a heart made if white-hot metal.  

     I felt like I had to help the man. I headed forward only to be stopped by a voice.

     "Soon, is when the real fun will come," the voice of a woman said from the side of the heart I couldn't see. "Wouldn't you agree, Hephaestus?"

     The voice came closer as a woman in her mid twenties came into sight from around the heart. She had short black hair that was held out of her face by a crown of leaves. She had small, dark eyes and high cheekbones. Her skin was fair and her soft pink lips fell into a bored sigh.

     "I told the young Charities that putting me to this job so soon would only hinder their plans," she said as she checked her reflection on a dagger she pulled from amongst her flowing white dress. "They have no idea how to do any of this, since their plan would involve war if it does not succeed. Yet here I am, the only one among them with any clue of how war works, stuck guarding their father who is trapped in his own creation. The irony, am I right?"

     She leaned against the heart, the heat not even bothering her. Even though the prisoner had not answered her even once, she kept talking. "I mean, they've got my brothers to look to if they're in desperate need of war advice. But if they're in that much trouble, then I'd say they're done for, and I'm going back to Olympus to enjoy chocolate ambrosia before we're all punished for their idiocy."

     The woman paused, briefly looking up from the dagger she'd been studying her reflection in. "Hm… why did I come down here again? Oh yes! I just got word that your daughter has arrived at Camp Half-Blood."

     "My… daughter?" It had been the first time the man had spoken. He had a dry, deep, and gruff voice that I recognized but I couldn't place where I had heard his voice before…

     "Oh yes, your daughter," the woman said with a devilish smile. "You know, the orphaned one that lives with that mortal family? The one who can just be plain entertaining at times? Hm, yes I believe you know the one. You did bless her and her brother, thinking you could protect them!"

     "But, she is at the camp now," the man said. "Chiron will protect her!"

     The woman laughed a gleeful laugh, then bent down to pick up the man's head. "You'd think so, now wouldn't you?"

     The last thing I saw was the man's scarred face, staring at me with the same brown eyes I saw glancing back at me in every mirror.