Silenced (Demigod Story)

I cure madness of my stalker.

The vine snake had kept on going while I had mourned for the stranger, leaving me without a guide.  I figured that I didn’t need one; it was simple to tell which way to go because the plants kept getting stranger and deadlier the closer I had gotten to the tree.  I had went through the mazes of unusual flowers, some had patterns of leopard on them while others had fluffy tails that wiggled around, possibly to attract a foolish monster that thought that it was a helpless animal and attacked it.

There were some plants that were just…unexpected.  The one that caught my attention was a plant that grew like a pumpkin; small stems came out of the ground to grow a huge fruit.  The fruit was the shape of a jug.  Any type of jug would make a great example because even pumpkins come in the oddest shapes.  The jug-like fruit was a crème purple, I’ve never seen that color but it if exists then that is exactly the color of the fruit.  Out from where the stem attached to the plant, there was also this other vine that came out and had a large bag that looked like an air bag at the end.  The plant as a whole looked like one of those old fashioned perfume bottles.

Destiny Maker, my blade, stayed in my left boot peacefully, I doubted that I’d ever need to use it.  I followed the path of toxic plants, relying on nothing other than my natural immunity to plant poison to live.

Finally, I found the tree.  You might just be asking, “How does she know that it’s the tree?  She never seen it before and it has never been described!”

Well, observant reader, I have the ability to know if something looks legendary and a tree that looks like even the world’s biggest belt couldn’t wrap around it, I think that it just might be special.  The greenish glowing also hinted towards the fact that it might be the right tree.  On the top, I saw the vine that I had followed half-way there.  The fat old snake vine had attached itself to the top of the monstrous tree.

I stared at the top, wondering why the vine would be there.  Then, of course, something had to go wrong.

A pulsing pain went through my head along with a loud thunk right before my vision blacked out and I fell forward.

~~~~~@~~~~~~@~~~~~~@~~~~~~~

My vision returned to allow me to see that I was in the cave again.  “Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!” I whined.

Out of the shadows came one of the last people that I wanted to see, Dan.  His skin that had once been perfect was now too thin and slightly pale; his golden hair that had once shimmered even in the darkness now was dull, on its way to becoming brown.  Dan’s sudden change reminded me of Peeta during the Mockingjay.

He wore a lime green Hollister shirt, but it was caked in dirt and was completely worn on every inch.  His jeans were torn up, white strings stuck out of the sides and holes that were a part of the poor pants.  Dan took out his golden bow and thumbed the string of it.

“Why can’t you just kill me so I can get back to the quest?” I asked, getting annoyed by the constant interruptions.

“Why would I kill you?” he wondered, furring his eyebrows.  “Then you’d die for good.”

“This is a dream-“

“No, it isn’t.  Right when you were about to get to the tree, I had used a frying pan to knock you out.  Then I dragged you all the way to here so we could…talk.”

“Fine.  We will ‘talk’ after you tell me where I am,” I demanded.

“You’re inside the tree of Gaea,” he explained.  “Well, at least one of her trees.”

“So, this is where I’ve been when I was dreaming?  I was mentally transported to the heart of Gaea’s tree?” I realized.  I knew why I would need to be kept in somewhere like Gaea’s tree; it was the only known place of where my powers wouldn’t work.  It would be like Percy Jackson going against his father, Poseidon.  Poseidon OWNS water, Percy just inherited a fraction of his powers.  If I use magic in here, Gaea would just whisper to the plants to ignore me and they would obey her.

“Great, now for my dreams to come true,” I sighed, opening my arms to await one of Dan’s arrows to pierce my heart.

Dan looked confused, “I thought that you hated me.”

“Hate?” I asked lowering my arms.  “I don’t hate you, I never could.”

A smile crossed the weary face of Dan, “Really?  You love me?”

“Woah, I did not say that,” I blurted, stopping his building hope.  “I just…don’t hate you.”

“But, I don’t want you to just ‘not hate’ me, I want you to love me,” he explained, looking disappointed.  “I just can’t take it knowing that I had left you to die just because of your parentage.”

I closed my eyes, a mixture of anger and depression waved over my heart, I started to think that an arrow would hurt less.  I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, aware that the fate of the world rested on my shoulders.  (I know that it is cliché, I promise that I won’t say “I saved the day” at the end to make up for the corniness).

“The human brain could possibly be the most complicated thing in the universe for one reason; the brain confuses itself.  In a way, we all have two senses in our brain; subconscious and conscious.  Subconscious is the part of the brain that tricks you into doing things, like telling you that you can’t do your homework until you walk the dog, make the bed, paint your toe nails, and then of course paint the dog’s nails the same color,” I breathed, feeling like the character from my favorite show that would just come up with this long and complicated explanation so you have no choice but to believe them.

“The conscious part of the brain is the part that knows what you are doing, and it is probably the more annoying part that reminds you of your flaws and of what you should be doing, like a mother.  Sometimes the messages between the two senses get translated wrong, that’s when you start thinking that you are good at something that you are awful at based on old memories when you read reactions wrong,” I continued.

“You never saw my reaction when you left, you over estimate how much it had affected me.  You think that I was devastated when in reality I just got off the ground, sang and danced to my heart’s content,” I informed him.  “Your subconscious and your conscious senses are confusing one another, translated wrongly as if they use google translate.  Your conscious told the subconscious part that you feel bad about leaving me when I could have died while the subconscious translated it to ‘you feel bad about leaving your soul mate behind and they will hate you for it if you don’t fix it soon’.”

“You’re right, you probably hate me,” he sighed, dropping his bow and arrow.  Tears fell from his eyes as he looked down.

I took a deep breath, feeling as though I was dealing with a bomb that would explode if the wires were wrongly touched.  I walked over to the moping teen, kicked his bow away, and then put a hand on each shoulder.  You think that I was about to kiss him to save my behind?  Um, no.  I shook him quickly, not stopping until my arms started to become sore.  Then I lightly slapped the top of his head and yelled, “WAKE UP!  IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD!”

His eyes were wide and alert as he looked into mine.  “What if it isn’t?”

“Then I would be beating you up right now.  Do you want that?”

Dan sighed and a smile crossed his beaten face, giving me hope that he would soon become himself with time.  He touched the wall with the palm of his hand and it opened like a door.  “Come on, let’s roll."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Once we stepped out of the prison, I turned to see that it was indeed Gaea’s tree.  The grape vine that had led me to the destination had settled at the top of the tree, reminding me of the tale that Dionysus had told me about his friend climbing a tree to get a vine and falling to his death in the process.

Although I knew that the place was full of pure evil, it was a beautiful green that seemed to sparkle.  Gaea’s Tree was the size of Twilight Sparkle’s house would be.  (To the rest of the people that are missing out on My Little Pony, it was as big as the Empire State Building, just half the height.)  Yeah, this thing is grande!

The glory of course had to fade away and was faded to darkness as the one and only jerk of Hades was summoned.  The dark figure walked dramatically from the shadows, I swear I could hear my own heartbeat.  James flashed a smile as he pulled his dark sword out of its case and asked, “Who let the dogs out?”