Two Worlds

Adrien Austyn

I woke up, in the middle of the night, a cold sweat dripping from my brow.

I breathed heavily, the nightmare coming back.

It was about her. It had always been about her.

Maybe I should explain.

Hey, I'm Adrien Austyn quarterback of my university's team, the San Francisco Titans. I'm majoring in marine biology, considering I have no interest in my football career going pro, and I'm in my second year of college.

I may only be 20, but I've still gone through more shit than most adults. Now yes, I was successful, to say the least.

From my sports scholarship to my exceeding academic career, even my ruggedly handsome good looks and charming personality (if I do say so myself).

But that wasn't enough to stop my life from going to hell.

You see, five years ago I lost my mom and twin sister. My dad had never been around, and they were all I had. Some drunk had crashed into them. Of course, though, as fate would have it... he was perfectly fine and even managed to evade arrest. All while my best friend slowly and painfully slid into an endless sleep from a punctured lung (the result of a piece of the windshield lodging into her), and my mother bleeding out, just as slowly and just as horrifically.

Or, that's at least what the medical examiner said. She went to no lengths spare me of the pain brought to them by their agonizing deaths.

And that left me. A 15 year old kid with no one left.

I managed to evade social services, thank the Lord for that, and had managed to get a job and survive on my own for a while. I still went to school, I still played football, and I still worked towards my dream to explore underwater life.

Like she had.

Everything I did, I did for my mom and Eady. I carried a photo of the, everywhere I went, I worked my ass off to get a scholarship, and I studied to enter the profession my mom had loved so much.

But that wasn't the end of it. No, far from it.

4 years later, the moment I made it to my dream school, when I thought my pain was over, it all went back to hell... or should I say Tartarus.

The Olympians revealed themselves to the world.

Apparently there had been a huge war a couple of years ago, and since then the pantheon had decided they wanted their presence to be known to mortals, and more importantly... feared.

Kids claiming to be demigods became the new trend, although many were outed quickly for lying, and we lived in a world where these myths had complete and utter control.

That in itself wasn't so bad, but the chaos it ensued was. Militaries declaring war, only to have their armies disintegrated by Zeus, monsters being destroyed left and right by half bloods, and people suddenly even more scared and confused about the world around them.

Things had slowly calmed down over the past year, but that brought to light my newest challenge... Annabeth.

My best friend as kids, the one who had simply disappeared when I was 9. I always had a bit of a crush on her, but it wasn't until she suddenly reappeared at my university this year that I knew I was screwed.

She was more beautiful than I remembered, and long lost memories slowly came flooding back. In fact, I didn't even recognize her until she found me.

She explained everything. How she had run away as a child, how she was taken in by a caring family on New York, and how she had finally decided to come home and study architecture here. She heard my name being thrown around on the occasion, and managed to track me down.