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tuttumi · 11 months ago

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Pareidolia

Chapter 3 "Tipped scale"

*****

Trigger warnings: 1. Mentions of child torture 2. Mentions of child being experimented on in a lab 3. Strangling attempt 4. Imprisonment

The cold and musty dampness of the cell had numbed her buttocks. After having tried to stand for hours on end, she’d gotten so dizzy that the only choice had been to lie down and embrace the high possibility that she would fall ill. Now and again, a shudder would roll through her with such violence it almost knocked the breath out of her. She could no longer feel her nose and her toes were next. The only thing she could be certain of was the fact that none of this could be as bad for her as it had to be for her little sister.

Luna had been taken to a different cell, one used to hold prisoners charged with crimes too great for the human world, but not enough to endanger the divine order. The latter granted you a far crueler fate. A trip to the fields of punishment while you were still breathing and not allowed to die. What was the difference at that point? The possibility that you could escape? The knowledge you wouldn’t?

But she wasn’t there. She wouldn’t be sent there. Luna was only a girl of nine. What she had seen had scarred her, rendering her unable to sleep. She didn’t have the power or the training, least of all the intention, to commit those murders. The council had to understand that. With Y/n a witness, they would understand that. Maybe she could get someone else to testify as well, but so far no one came to mind. No one who didn’t have the influence or intention to make things worse.

She dreaded the moment she would have to face the council as Professor Philomena Laqueus would be in it, presiding and whispering in the Head’s ear. Her fate was largely decided by those who held no neighborly feelings toward her or her younger sister. She dreaded it… dreaded it.

But nothing chilled her blood as the thought of all those students being in the hall, a replica of the Colosseum, watching like scavengers for remains to tear off her sister’s corpse, even if they would keep her alive until Y/n died under any circumstance. They needed a blood piggy after all, and they were the last of the Old Bloods on earth. No, they wouldn’t kill her. They would keep her alive, somewhere. Keep her in a state of miserable existence until Luna truly was alone in the world.

While Y/n was deep in thought, someone was making his way down the corridor leading to the cells below Lex Principalis, each step more uncertain than the one before but with the certainty that if he were to go back, he would sorely regret it. After all the bargaining he had done, the only way was forward. Still, when he stopped before the bars of her cell, she thought him to be a mirage. A cruel creation of her fancy.

“Did you have to run into the forest like that?”

Lee Minho wasted no time with formalities or sympathy, even if he wished he could spare the time for them. They were entirely unhelpful at the moment.

Y/n looked to the wall on her right, finding comfort in the stone. Anything but a human being. Especially one standing there, safe, sound, and secure in his strength.

“You’re only here to judge I see.” She muttered.

Minho had no plans of leaving though, not before fulfilling his self-appointed mission. It didn’t matter that she turned the other way. But he could make it easier for her to adjust to his presence, and so he crouched down, careful not to touch the bars buzzing with electricity.

She looked so helpless, sitting in the damp ground of the cell, breathing in the mold, waiting out the days with only rotten food in her system. Not only that, she certainly felt weak as well. If any of the guards felt like beating her, she couldn’t fight back, even in the dark. Minho could tell by her broken nose, the bloodied hands, and the collarbones peeking over her zip-up hoodie that she was close to dying. Maybe she didn’t know it.

“She’s being held in a lab, you know?” He stated matter-of-factly, and instantly, she stiffened. “Everything she fled from is being done to her as we speak. All those tests, mostly blood tests. You understand, don’t you?”

Y/n stirred, looking at him with tired dark eyes.

“I was wrong. You’re not here to judge.” She said, more to herself than him. “You’re here to gloat.”

“Does it look like I’m gloating?”

She dug the heels of her mud-caked palms into her eyes, shaking her head.

“That’s it. I don’t know what anything other than humiliation looks like. That’s what you look like to me. I don’t know you.”

“I thought we agreed that I wouldn’t make a spectacle out of you. I’m your mentor, aren’t I?”

“That doesn’t matter anymore. No one will let me train after this, and if Luna gets taken away, there will be no reason for me to do so.” The whimper died in her throat. “It’s pointless.” Minho groaned. “What’s pointless is moping around.” “Whatever.” You don’t understand anything. You’re not the one in a cell. She brought her knees to her chest, wrapping shiver her arms around them as if to keep his words from affecting her. Again, she whispered, “Whatever.”

For a minute or two, they let the sound of water leak down the stone walls, dripping from the ceiling at even intervals, fill the space between them. Silence would be either too kind or too cruel, and neither was wanted. But Minho did not have all day. He had duties to fulfill, a training regiment to stick by (though he loathed to do so), and his friends were bound to take note of his prolonged absence. Hyunjin worst of all would be able to put two and two together, and Minho, mischievous and cunning son of Hermes though he was, didn’t trust himself to withhold the truth from the beloved son of Aphrodite. It was, in every sense of the word, impossible to do so. He could be persuasive, persistent, and pitiless in his every pursuit. Especially when he believed it to be something he truly desired. It did not help that Yeonjun and Beomgyu were in the simulation chamber with him at the moment, likely discussing his nonattendance.

He had to do what he’d set out to do by coming here and do it quickly.

“Will you get closer already? I have something to tell you.” He beckoned in as low a voice as possible. She peered distrustfully at him from above her folded knees. He then added, “It’s good news, I promise.”

Minho figured her silence was as much an approval as he would get considering the way the conversation had flown so far.

“I heard, from a friend of mine who is an eavesdropper by trade, that they are considering releasing you tomorrow morning.”

That single sentence sparked hope in her heart. Those dark beads of hers lit up so much so that in the obscurity of the cell they glittered as if with tears.

“Do they believe me now?” Her arms loosened around her legs and Y/n pushed herself to crawl toward him. “About Luna and I being innocent?”

Minho chuckled. “Gods, no. They just need your blood, and being held in captivity like this is bound to kill you.”

Her emaciated face fell, the faint pipe dream in her eyes going out like a light. It was pitiful to watch, but she needed to know. Not that she didn’t already.

“Oh…” Y/n let out, her arms once again wound like vines around herself. “It doesn’t matter. As long as I’m out of here.”

Minho nodded. “Yeah, you will still be under surveillance.”

“Like… guards?” Y/n asked warily.

“Animals. Cameras.” He looked at her pointedly. “Students.”

The last one is loaded, an ill omen of sorts. The very creatures that to this day had ignored her at best and mocked her at worst, were to now become the very eyes that scrutinized her every move, the very mouths that hurled accusation after accusation. But what if it didn’t end there? What if they took it upon themselves to serve justice and beat her senseless? Would anyone care to heal her, if only so they could hurt her again?

Y/n gazed at Minho, wondering whether he would care enough to keep her alive just so she could live out the rest of her days with a tube stuck to her arm, feeding the altars. Randomly, she wondered what his friends thought of all this. Did they find it amusing, hearing about her being locked up while her sister was treated like a guinea pig, reading in the paper about how old bloods were vile creatures after all? Or did they not give a shit in the slightest?

Minho rose to his feet and produced something from the left inner pocket of his leather jacket.

“Brought you something.” He said, tossing her the Rubik's cube for her to catch. It almost slid off her grasp palms, but once it rested securely on her palm she began to study the colors swirling in each little square; aquamarine, vivid orange, onyx black, vermillion red, viridian green, and brilliant gold. Minho pointed at the cube. “Green, green, gold, red, orange, blue, black, green, green.”

Y/n had feared he was expecting her to solve it, so this was a relief. She tapped each color as he’d instructed and when nothing happened, looked up at him questioningly.

“Say “in bloom”.” And so, she did.

Where the Rubik’s cube had just sat now spread out a blanket the color of which reminded her of the forest in full bloom. In the sunlight, she might have been able to appreciate its coloring better. But it was the comforting warmth it provided that mattered. Wanting to revel in its softness, she rubbed the rim against her grimy cheeks.

“Thank you.” She sighed, tucking her shivering frame inside the blanket.

Patting down his jacket, Minho took one last look at her. Before he made for the exit, he made sure to let her know what must be done.

“In the morning,” He said, “Or whenever they come for you, say ‘nature is a whore’ and let it burn, will you?”

She didn’t need to ask what he meant by that. If he were found to have provided a means of comfort to a prisoner without being authorized to do so, his ambitions, his life even, would be put in jeopardy. All traces of his kind gesture had to go up in smoke. And so, they did the moment Y/n uttered the words upon being awoken by the sound of footsteps coming down the murky corridor. She had a good night’s sleep. It had kept her warm throughout the day as well. Minho had done enough. Far more than he was allowed.

Four guards equipped with swords handled everything (securing her hands behind her back with handcuffs of tempered steel and celestial bronze) without a word spoken between them and led her up a spiraling staircase. Once the gates of steel yawned open, the muted sun of the dusk stung her eyes. She could barely see where she was going, and if not for the guards leading her toward a vehicle, she would have hurtled down the stairs.

To her, it didn’t matter where they took her as long as it was back to Luna. But the more time passed, the closer she came to realizing that the road was an unfamiliar one. The buildings were loftier. Engines whirred to life and car honks blared. Roaring laughter echoed in the emptier parts of town. Silence died down as they drove her deeper into the heart of New Rome, where the most opulent of divinity’s offspring spent their days in unfathomable comfort. Slowly, Y/n began to recognize the paths they were driving on. After all, she’d run all the way here from their pathetic dwelling in the wee hours of the morning. They stopped at a red light and once the green flickered to life, the driver took a turn to the left. Just a little further ahead they would have had to drive around the fountain at the center of which stood the overawing statue of Jupiter. Not that it was something she wished to see anytime soon.

The uncaring attitude she’d been able to maintain began to dissipate. They were not driving her home, but neither were they taking her to see Luna. Just where were they taking her then? Was there some secret lab around here she didn’t know about? Where they could suction the blood out of her veins while sedated? If so, who would be there to make sure Luna’s innocence was proven? Who would go out of their way to search for the truth when blaming an old blood was so convenient?

“Where are we going?” She asked the guard on her left. He remained silent, so she asked again. “Can you tell me where you’re taking me? Please?”

Her question went unanswered once again, but in the mirror, she caught the driver’s eyes staring at her. Something had to be wrong with the reflection, manipulation of the light, or her eyes deceiving her, because his gaze flicked fretfully between her and the guards before turning to the road ahead. Y/n shifted in her seat, trying to keep the handcuffs from biting into her flesh to no avail. The metal had broken skin and it left her feeling all the weaker. Her barely suppressed whimpers were the only sounds in the vehicle.

The frail silence didn’t last long, however. In no time, the driver had pulled over and they exited the car. She had but a few seconds to take in the sight of the building or the garden at the front before they were practically dragging her inside the building. The five entered the elevator, her in between the four of them, and the one at the front pressed a few buttons. Instantly, it shot up and stopped at the 23rd floor with a ding. After stepping out, the guard who had pressed the buttons rang the doorbell as you couldn’t simply enter the penthouse without knowing the passcode or if you weren’t one of its inhabitants. None of that mattered right now. Why was she here? Shouldn’t she have been rotting in a dungeon? She hoped the anxiety didn’t show in her frown or in the way she shifted her weight from leg to leg as they waited for the resident to open the door.

The metallic lock clicked and a peculiar sound went off as the door swung open. On the threshold stood a tall young man clad in his training gear. He was probably heading out for the obstacle course or the Training Center. His face looked familiar, and for good reason. Y/n had seen him before. She’d heard him snicker at her incompetence along with his companions. Again. Why was she here? Clearly, he lived here. So, why was she here?

He scratched the back of his head where the dark hair had been cropped shorter than the top. The guard to her left stepped forward. Y/n couldn’t help but pity the man as he looked painfully average, in every sense of the word, next to the younger demigod.

“We received orders to escort the prisoner Y/n L/n to this address.” He reported in a clipped tone. “Specifically, to Mr. Lee Minho.”

“Minho isn’t available at the moment.” Minho’s friend informed them, meeting her uncomfortable gaze just before she turned to stare at the nape of the guard who had just spoken to him. “You’re dirtier than I expected.”

No surprise there. Actually, as much as it hurt to be told that it was also kind of pleasant. No other student except for Minho and Seungmin spoke to her, and the absence of social interaction was bound to take its toll on any human being. Still, his comment wasn’t one she had an answer to. Nor did she wish to find one.

Figuring she wasn’t going to say anything back, the young man turned to the guards.

“I’m one of Minho’s flatmates. He told us you’d be delivering her this afternoon so don’t worry.” Out of the corner of her eye, Y/n saw him open the door wider and motion for her to cross the threshold. “You can entrust her to us.”

The guard looked back at her skeptically then, after mulling it over for no longer than three seconds, replied, “We were told to escort her directly to Mr. Minho. This is not regular procedure.” The guy throws his head back.

“So annoying.” He groaned. “Just get inside.”

The guard’s posture went ramrod straight. “We cannot-

“So rigid, too.” Minho’s friend quipped, taking hold of Y/n’s arm and pulling her inside. “I know you’re not popular with the ladies.”

Then he shut the door in their face, the electronic lock making that sound once again. He walked past her but she didn’t follow, something he eventually noticed and expressed his confusion about. “Well, don’t just stand there.” He remarked. “Follow me already.”

Y/n took off her shoes and jogged up to his side. “Where are we going?”

“To the bathroom. You stink.”

She glared at him. He was starting to get on her nerves. It wasn’t like she wanted to smell bad. But it had been like what, a week since her imprisonment? They hadn’t exactly provided a warm shower back in her cell. Not even a cold one. She’d had to piss in a dingy corner and couldn’t even shit because there was nothing to shit out. Her nails were caked with blood and scratches (face, knees, and hands) from when she’d clawed her way out of the bush had become infected, oozing with yellow and greenish puss. There were so many thorns still stuck inside that it ached to rub her hands for warmth or clench them into fists. Three of her nails, two on her right hand and one on her left, had vanished in her mad pursuit of sunlight, while another had only been torn halfway and she’d had to rip it out herself her first night in the cell. So, Minho’s friend would have to forgive her for the filth that she was.

Some of her annoyance abated when she took in the size of their apartment. Spacious and luxuriously furnished, it allowed room for so many emotions to flood inside her; green with envy, a petrifying sense of awe, a nostalgia for what she’d never experienced, and more. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, its numerous tiny crystals resembling the tears of nymphs in Chiron’s bedtime stories before he started bringing picture books for her to flip through. The couches, arranged in a squarish sort of formation before the TV that occupied half of the wall, were much bigger than Luna’s bed and far more comfortable looking. Lying there must feel like floating, Y/n thought to herself as she followed Minho’s friend up the stairs. She wished she had more time to imbibe each lavish detail, from the drawn navy-blue drapes from which the sunset overflew onto the bone-white carpet, from the sculptures in the corner to the paintings on the wall, but she was even more desperate to feel clean. Perhaps then the other demigod would stop giving her those repulsed looks.

“I’ll go get you some towels and clothes.” He let her know once they reached the bathroom on the second floor and opened the door to let her in. “None of them will fit but you were never supposed to be here anyway so you’ll forgive us if we’re unprepared.”

Then he left her there to stare at all the commodities. Shampoo bottles on several stands and other containers of different sizes. A porcelain sink the shade of ivory that was so clean it sparkled and an elliptical mirror above it. Below the sink, there were lower cabinets for storing whatever (she couldn’t imagine what more they could possibly need). But the things that stood out the most to her were the shower cubicle with its glassy enclosures and the large bathtub parallel to it. Her bathroom only had a rusty mirror, a chipped sink, a toilet, and a shower head they never used because boiling water cost less.

Minho’s friend returned, placed the folded clothes on the rim of the bathtub, and started explaining everything to her like she was five.

“That’s for your hair.” He pointed to a white bottle. “That one’s for your hair too.” A cylindrical container this time. “That one for your body. That’s for scrubbing” Another shampoo bottle, this time crimson red, and a brush. Lastly, fixing her with a serious look, he pointed at a rose gold container about the size of the previous one. “That one is off-limits.”

Y/n got closer and looked up at him. “Which one should I use first? For the hair?”

His jaw all but dropped.

“You’re joking.” He tried to say as evenly as possible. When she shook her head, he pointed to the cylindrical container almost robotically. “This one, for the ends of your hair after you’ve shampooed it.”

After that, he left and closed the door behind him. Worried that one of his friends might enter the bathroom while she was showering, Y/n locked it and began to undress. There was not an inch of her body that didn’t ache. Scrubbing was difficult but she managed to clean her festering wounds somewhat. There was nothing she could do about her nails.

When she was finished, the bathroom smelled of pine needles, honey, and lavender. It was the first time she could wholeheartedly say she enjoyed taking a shower. A warm, long shower.

Then, Minho’s friend, who came upstairs just as she exited the bathroom, escorted her to one of their spare rooms, gave her a bottle of water, and told her to wait there until her mentor got back. No complaints there, even if it was so that he and his friends didn’t have to look at her. She didn’t want to see any of them either. Pompous pricks.

Sitting still wouldn’t bode well with her nerves so she spent the next two hours pacing around the room. At one point she crouched down to inspect a curious-looking object. Its translucent exterior made it appear as though nothing stood between her and the wall. But a closer look revealed the sheer glitter within the glass, scattering and converging depending on the angle the sunset impaled it. Anyone else would have moved on. But it was so pretty. Did galaxies feel like this?

Two hours later, the door opened. Voices poured in from the kitchen on the first floor.

“Hey.” Minho greeted.

He looked not much different than the day before. Same leather jacket. Same dark pants. The same black boots with mud splatters all over. The difference wasn’t in how he looked but in the look in his eyes as he watched her rise from her spot on the floor. His eyes flicked to the object that had put her in a trance then back at her. She must look a tad easier on the eye now that the filth had gone down the drain. Literally.

“Did you know?” She asked him. “That they were sending me to you?”

Minho stepped closer, unzipping one of his pockets in the process, and sat at the foot of the bed. Y/n didn’t know whether it was right to sit next to him.

“I didn’t think you’d like the thought of living here even if it’s just until the final verdict. So, I kept it from you.”

True. Y/n wouldn’t have been ecstatic to live with him and his friends, no matter how long. She hadn’t forgotten how they’d mocked her amongst themselves. The friend who had let her in was a jerk. Beomgyu had smoked weed right after Ruth’s farewell ceremony. Hwang Hyunjin gave her the creeps. None of them liked her and the feeling was duly reciprocated.

Despite all this, Y/n would have preferred to know. At the very least, she would have been prepared for his friend’s unsolicited criticism.

“Did Professor Hajjar put you up to this?” She tried to speak clearly, but it came out as inaudible muttering.

Somehow, Minho understood her.

“The way you say that… yes, he pulled strings to make this happen. Would you rather be cold and starving in that damp cell underground that reeks of dead rats?”

Somehow, Y/n had managed to incense the one person in this house who wasn’t disgusted by her. They settled in a fog-like silence⸺ him sitting, her standing⸺ with no idea of what else to say. A voice called from downstairs and Minho rose, the bed squeaking in response.

“Dinner’s ready. Supposedly. Can’t be sure with Beomgyu on kitchen duty.” He cracked his neck and, noticing her unwillingness to follow, asked. “What is it?”

This time, her voice came out much clearer. “I want to be alone.”

Minho studied her for a few prolonged moments then walked towards the door.

“Alright, I’ll bring you some food.”

That night she dreamed of fog and stars. Shadows followed her. Other shadows beckoned her. She heard them call her name, whisper vows of secrecy, screeching. At one point, it didn’t matter where she ran. The hunch of being followed persisted. Yet the entity glued to her side never showed itself. It was only when she ended up at the edge of a gaping pit⸺ no stars, no galaxies, things neither dead nor alive in sight⸺ when she felt the pull of something draconian, from time immemorial, when the ground shook beneath her feet and she almost plummeted into the yawning abyss, that Y/n felt it yank her back with unparalleled conviction. It wanted her alive.

******************************************************************************************

She told Minho she didn’t want to have breakfast not because she wasn’t hungry but because she didn’t want to be around his friends and so he wouldn’t have to play waiter for her. Despite his insistence and her desperate hunger, she refused. Everything felt too much. Too much silence. Too much noise. Too many and too few people around. Too much of everything yet not enough. She was going to throw up if she put anything in her mouth.

A royal purple hoodie and a pair of wide-bottom jeans sat at the foot of her bed. They looked brand new, like the outfits the mannequins at the store wore. She’d always wanted to try them on but one look at the rich materials and she knew it was a pipe dream. But now she could try them on. Clothes had never felt so good on her skin. Minho asked if the clothes fit and she answered honestly. Nothing ever really fit her.

Downstairs, his friends were lounging around (it was quite early after all). Upon their appearance, Minho’s nameless friend stopped scrolling through his phone, Beomgyu began tying his shoelaces, and Hwang Hyunjin put on his denim jacket. The looks they gave her were various degrees of scrutiny. Yeonjun muttered something about how she didn’t look much better than the day before, making her flush in embarrassment. His friend, the more chipper of the four, Beomgyu, looked at her the way one would at a creature at the aviary; wide-eyed, humorously, as if she had just performed a particularly clever trick. At least, he walked away. Hwang didn’t bother to do even that, glancing at her every five seconds as they walked out of the penthouse with Minho in between.

The walk to the university was tense. There she was, the sister of a suspect, confined on all fronts with no means of escape. Maybe she should have taken Minho up on that offer and had breakfast. But where would it end up? On the pavement after she hurled her guts out? Surely, Minho’s nameless twerp of a pal wouldn’t take kindly to that.

Things took a turn for the worse once they reached campus. Y/n became the sole recipient of the student body’s hatred as well as the personnel. If the hearing wasn’t in a few days, she would surely be used for target practice. Some of the students ignored her completely. But it wasn’t the kind of effortless disregard she’d been experiencing for years, but a conscious refusal to acknowledge her existence. If anything, that made her feel more visible than ever before.

It being Tuesday meant she had no classes to attend that were taught by Orlova. Still, she wasn’t allowed to sit where she usually did. Given that Minho was two years older she couldn’t be supervised by him while simultaneously attending her classes, not that anyone gave a shit whether or not she did. However, to accommodate everyone’s needs, Principal Jiang decided that she had to be seated next to Hwang Hyunjin for reasons unbeknownst to her. Maybe it was his good looks. Maybe he simply was just that good of a fighter and could knock her out. Doubtful. Even the rats in her apartment could do that with a little effort.

They didn’t exchange one word throughout each morning class. From the corner of her eye, she spied him spinning his blue pen with his fingers as if it were second nature. His eyes were glued to the board as Professor. Magnus Voelker explained the mechanics of the advanced cameras used in surveys conducted by NASA, and normally hers would be too. This was robotics after all. Thankfully, he never caught her fleeting glances. Even as he escorted her to the dining hall, his behavior was the embodiment of nonchalance. He must be quite confident that, should she try to escape, he would put an end to that fiasco.

Once they reached the dining hall, Minho took over and Hwang Hyunjin left her side to join his friends at their usual spot. After that, it was Minho’s turn to stand guard whether that be on the line to pick up her tray or at her table. She didn’t make it to the latter.

“What’s she doing here?” A voice frothing with venom cut through the hall. The only sound remaining was that of someone’s heavy breathing. “What the fuck is she doing here?”

Minho cursed under his breath, and Y/n turned to meet the source. A girl with almond brown hair whom she’d seen in some of her classes, whose name she couldn’t recall, stormed her way only to be held back by a young man with a stocky build. She struggled against his hold. He whispered something in her ear, which only added fuel to the fire.

“No, what?” She snarled, pushing him off after he muttered something only the girl could hear. “What, we’re just supposed to be cool about it? Let her stay here and stink the whole place up?! What about Juliana, huh? Ruth?” Her hazel eyes flashed as they landed on Y/n, and she stormed over. “Why are you just standing there? Get out!”

Before she could get her hands on Y/n, whose hands were shaking to the point where the bowl of tomato soup had spilled halfway and the utensils clattered against the tray, Minho stepped in between them.

“She can’t. I’m supposed to guard her and right now I want lunch.” He glanced back at Y/n. “She stays.”

The girl didn’t take kindly to that. Her face betrayed her innermost feelings; betrayal, incredulity, and, lastly, loathing.

“Fucking traitor.” She spat, slightly lowering her voice. “Ruth was your sister too.”

“Yeah, she was.”

The girl tried to push him but he caught her hands.

“So why are you protecting her?”

“Protecting?” Minho let go of her wrists. “That’s not what I was assigned to do.”

She dug two fingers into his chest and bit out. “Lapdog. That’s just what you are.”

Y/n couldn’t handle the way everyone was staring, watching the fight unfold as if it were a freak show. It wasn’t fair for Minho to be insulted in front of everyone just for trying to fulfill his duty.

Trembling, she stepped up from behind him, and said, “I don’t want to be here any more than you do.”

Minho placed a hand on her arm. “Don’t interfere.”

The girl redirected her wrathful gaze to her and knocked the tray out of her hands. The utensils clattered to the ground. The porcelain bowl shattered and the soup spilled, splatters of it landing on Y/n’s new jeans and shoes. Never before had she been so mortified to be seen. She’d wanted it for so long and now she was receiving it in the foulest way possible. Through all this, she missed the way one of the students left his seat.

“You and your sister,” The girl growled, hand wrapping around her neck and pushing her down to the floor. Minho intervened but was having a hard time overpowering her. Y/n found it difficult to swallow her fear, her energy spent on trying to claw the girl’s hands off of her. “Are the worst thing to have happened to this world. Filthy fucking creatures.”

“Cleo, that’s enough!” Minho yelled, still trying to get her to let Y/n go.

One of the male students sprinted over, grabbed Cleo by the arm, and dragged her away. The latter screeched and thrashed but the muscular male warned her not to try anything else. Minho helped her to her feet, and she finally felt like she could breathe, wheezing more like it.

“Let me go! Am I wrong?!” Cleo pointed at Y/n once the demigod he’d let her go. “Everyone thinks so! They’re just too chicken to fucking say it. She and her disgusting worm of a sister should be cut up and thrown into Tartarus. Their kind brings nothing but misfortune. You know I’m right! It’s the truth!”

Y/n suddenly became aware of someone else’s touch on her shoulder. Someone who wasn’t Minho.

“You’re the reason we can eat.” Cleo’s lips tilted up at the corners. “And soon, the worms are going to eat your sister.”

“Hey, now that’s wrong.” Said the person who stood next to her. His bleached hair and soothing, deep voice should have given him away. But maybe he hadn’t spoken until now. “She’s just a little-

“You stay out of this.” Cleo cut him off sharply. “This is none of your business.”

“But you-

“Shut the fuck up!”

“That’s enough!”

A voice boomed that shook Y/n to her core. It was as if one moment she’d been sailing on a rocky boat in the middle of nowhere, the storm raging all around her, and then a grounding silence. She looked to the right, where a male demigod⸺ firmly built, with curly dark brown hair, and eyes that might be sweet but right then expressed stern disapproval⸺ crackled with power as he took in the scene before him. Even Cleo stopped her kicking and screaming at the sight of him, as did everyone else.

“The hearing is four days away.” He stated, fixing all of them with a look that warned them not to act stupid. “If any of you have any complaints about her being here, take it up with Professor. Laqueus.” He shepherded the crowd back to normalcy, quelling the heated blood between them and Y/n (if only momentarily), and tasked the other demigod who had previously stopped Cleo from choking her to death with accompanying the girl back to her seat. Knowing better than to disobey, she marched back to her seat with him in tow.

Minho leaned in and whispered, “Let’s go, Y/n. I doubt you want to eat here after this.”

Before they began to walk out, he looked back to see Lee Felix walking back to his friends.

“You should hurry up.” Felix seemed surprised, his eyes widening, to hear Minho talk to him. “Lunch is almost over.”

Y/n didn’t get the chance to thank him or even see his response to what Minho had just said. He was eager to get out of there, possibly even more than her.

One thing about Lee Minho? He didn’t bother changing her mind when she headed straight to bed right after they went back to his apartment. There wouldn’t have been any use in it. She was but a corpse standing; her neck black and blue, no food in her system, and wounds that wouldn’t heal. Whatever he had to say could wait.

Hours later, sometime past10 PM, Y/n was awoken by a series of knocks at the door and Minho stepped into the darkness of the bedroom. She didn’t remember pulling the curtains shut, having passed out on the bed almost instantly after her body had hit the mattress. Maybe he’d thought they would help her sleep better. Now, he drew them to reveal the view of New Rome stark against the night. Y/n could swear this was when the city came alive.

Minho turned on the bedside lamp to her right and set down the tray of food. It took some time for her to finish the bowl of tomato soup as it hurt to swallow. When she was done, he put it aside. “We should talk about what happened.” He said with a serious look in his eyes. “The whole truth.”

Just as it hurt to swallow, it hurt to speak. When she did, it sounded airy and raspy, like a small rock chafing against a boulder. It came out broken the first few times until she resolved to speak slowly. “How can I trust you won’t twist anything just ruin Luna’s life?”

“You can’t. I just think that since you’re going to be living here for a few weeks we should at least come up with a plan. For that,” He paused as if considering his next words carefully, “You have to tell me the truth.”

Y/n looked down at her hands. The soft flesh where her nails had been had begun to itch.

“Those don’t sound like your words.” She muttered.

Minho sighed audibly and got up. “Professor Hajjar is doing his best to come up with a solid defense strategy. I’m just helping him.”

He sounded sensible enough but giving away information just like that wasn’t something he or any of his friends would do if they were in her shoes. In fact, Y/n was willing to bet they would withhold it just because they could. They would do it for fun. It pissed her off that he would demand it of her.

Y/n tried to tear her eyes away from her fingers but they ached and itched miserably. She wished there was a tool to scratch them and relieve her of the discomfort.

“I’ll tell you,” she said, looking up at him. “Under one condition.”

“You’re in no position to place conditions.”

“Then I won’t tell you.”

They held each other’s gaze, which was no small task for Y/n. She tried her hardest not to let trepidation show in her face, even if the golden glow of the bedside lamp was the only source of light in the room. Downstairs, a cry of frustration was heard, sounding a lot like the Beomgyu guy, but not even that succeeded in destroying her efforts. On the other hand, Minho didn’t seem all that affected. He took a few steps backward to lean against the side of the closet.

“Shoot.” He said.

“I want to see Luna.” She shot him a pleading look when he looked away. “Professor Hajjar got you in, didn’t he? When you came to visit? Then he assigned you to-

“It isn’t up to him.” He revealed. “It was Professor. Laqueus who assigned me to you. Professor. Hajjar used to be one of her students and her protégé, which is why he managed to put in a good word for me. It was easy for her to believe I wouldn’t allow you to do as you please.”

Recalling recent events, it was easy to see why. “Because Ruth was your sister.”

Minho nodded.

“Convincing her to let you see your sister won’t be easy.” He remarked. “She doesn’t stand to gain anything from your reunion.”

Y/n swung the covers off of her and sat at the edge.

“But she does.” She appealed. “If she allowed me to see my sister, she could learn the truth. I would tell her.”

Minho stared off into space, a thoughtful expression taking over, as she anxiously waited for his response; fingers clenched around the baby blue sheets.

“I’ll tell Prof-

Minho had barely gotten out those few words before she threw her arms around him.

“Thank you!” Y/n squealed into his neck.

Anyone else would have pushed her off and called the cops on her. She was a stranger known by all, including Lee Minho. He didn’t owe her anything, but if he was willing to negotiate on her behalf, she would be in his debt. Yet he let her wrap her skinny arms around his fit frame and pat her head.

“Don’t get your hopes up, though.” He told her in an attempt to set realistic expectations. “She could refuse to bargain just to spite you.”

She could. But maybe she wouldn’t. There were only two people who might be able to provide a smidge of concrete proof. A testimony of sorts. Luna must be refusing to talk or they wouldn’t be hounding Y/n about it, and the latter would keep her mouth shut unless they agreed to her terms. Putting them on the spot was a risky gamble. If only she weren’t in a tight spot herself.

In cold sweat. That’s how Y/n awoke. The fog from her dream seeped into reality, making it hard for her to even tell the time when she looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand. It was 2:19 in the morning. She felt her cheeks with the back of her hand, sweeping the damp strands of hair away from her face. Cold, clammy flesh. Everything, from the shirt that stuck to her skin to her parched throat, would have been worth it if she could remember what the dream had been about. Only a nightmare would have her panting so.

Too afraid to go back to sleep, Y/n sat up, back against the dark blue headboard, and listened to the life of New Rome. It had dulled a little, settling into a hum with only irregular intermissions of car engines revving in the distance. The city lights grounded her but it wasn’t what she wished for. She wanted calm. Silence like never before. She wanted to hear Luna’s voice. She needed a towel and a glass of water.

The shadows in the room swam before her, performing for her and only her. In them, she saw leaves, rain, a child’s smile, hands clasped around another pair, buildings rising from the floor until back to it they returned, crumbling. She waited for an encore but nothing danced across the walls. Not a peep. Just as she was about to give sleep another chance, a bout of unintelligible whispers flooded into her ear. Y/n squinted in the dark. The shadows seemed to rain horizontally, droplets splashing on the wall with each sound. Could that be a hallucination?

“…dated her.”

Curious. Why would the shadows try to gossip with her about people’s dating lives? Why did the voice sound so familiar? There came a sigh, and after that, the sound became clearer. It was as if she were a participant in the conversation. It left her mouth feeling drier than before.

“What does that have to do with what happened?”

That voice she could never forget. Silvery with peril swimming in each note, the presentiment of being shadowed in the woods. Hwang Hyunjin. The haze of sleep had dissipated and now Y/n was left frozen in her bed, clutching the sheets tighter. The sudden awareness that he existed in the same house, at night, chilled her to the bone.

“Did you, or did you not receive her text message the night she was killed?”

She recognized the other voice as belonging to Minho. A frustrated Minho.

“I did,” Hyunjin answered. “I ignored it.”

A tense pause, and then, “Why?”

Hyunjin sighed once again.

“Because there was nothing between us and I didn’t think anything serious was going on.”

“Her message read ‘I’m being followed please help’.” Minho whispered in disbelief. “How the fuck is that not serious?”

“She used to do that the first few weeks after we stopped seeing each other.”

“After you broke things off out of nowhere.”

Hyunjin scoffed and when he next spoke, it was as if the temperature in Y/n’s bedroom had dropped at the very least 20 Celsius degrees.

“I’m not going to be lectured by you, Minho.”

The pitter-patter of the shadows played the rhythm of their breathing. Minho’s breath caught in his throat and he gulped down whatever he had meant to add. Hyunjin’s breathing was deceptively calm as if the conversation had meant next to nothing to him. Y/n wondered whether he looked the same or if there were, by any chance, a hint of a frown or a sneer. Some trace of malice to cement her opinion of him.

But what if he wasn’t even there? What if this was but a figment of her imagination, tricks that her mind was playing on her to make up for Luna’s absence, trying to make her feel in control of something as primordial as the dark? It was a fact that nothing was under her control, try as she might. Maybe her mind was desperate for the illusion of it. Any other demigod would not have questioned the veracity of their visions and jumped straight into theorizing or action. Why couldn’t she do the same? Why did she feel stranded?

Y/n sat at the edge of the bed, stopping just to listen to the sound of footsteps disappearing down the corridor. One of them had already left, but if she managed to catch sight of the other then that meant her vision had been true and not a hallucination. She forced her legs to walk and all but held her breath as she opened the door, fearing it would squeak. Leaving the door slightly ajar seemed like the safest option if she wished to be silent. Descending the stairs to the floor below had her heart pumping outrageous amounts of blood. She could hear it rushing throughout her veins. Her ears buzzed with it.

“You look scared.”

She almost jumped out of her skin in the living room. He sounded so close, almost as if he was breathing down on her neck, but when she looked to the left, she saw him leaning against one of the glass walls. He was still in his training attire, his hair still matted from practice. Had he truly been practicing late into the night? How had Y/n not spotted him when she could literally see in the dark? He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to respond.

“I was- I was thirsty.” She stuttered out.

What was she supposed to say? That she woke up out of breath and that the shadows hijacked their conversation so she could eavesdrop? Whatever they had spoken about was clearly supposed to remain between them and them alone. Hwang Hyunjin might actually kill her if she told him the truth.

He walked up to her slowly. They were almost face to face when she noticed his hair was no longer in a half-up-half-down hairstyle. Damp strands clung to his beautiful face. His dark eyes rove over her face, gleaning information from each micro expression of hers.

“Is that so?” He said, and Y/n couldn’t tell if he was genuinely asking or mocking her.

Hwang Hyunjin studied her for a few seconds longer before walking up the stairs. Shaken, Y/n went to the kitchen and drained two bottles of water, taking a third up to her room. At least she wasn’t becoming a victim of her own mind.

******************************************************************************************

Minho had promised to speak with Professor Hajjar before classes started and, though he didn’t divulge much in the way of details, he had kept his promise. It was a great start to the day. Luna and her would soon be reunited.

In all of her classes, she sat by Hwang Hyunjin. He was just as silent as the day before, spinning his pen, jaw propped on his palm as he absorbed the lesson from start to finish. It was a miracle Y/n jotted down a few sentences considering how distractingly nice he smelled. She hoped he didn’t notice her passing glances. Truly, it was embarrassing how secretive she was with it whereas he stared at her unflinchingly whenever he pleased for however long he saw fit. Not a care in the world if it made her uncomfortable. Why couldn’t she do the same? Why was she so embarrassed to look at him as they walked alongside each other from class to class, when their classmates would approach him during breaks to fool around, or when he handed her back to Minho like a fish that he’d been asked to take care of while the latter was away?

Other than that, things went as smoothly as they could, given the circumstances. Cleo didn’t get a chance to choke her as they didn’t share any classes and Y/n didn’t have lunch with the rest of her peers. She didn’t need to. Minho had taken the time to prepare their lunches (two boxes with ham sandwiches and something he called pesto sauce, sliced apples, peeled oranges, two pop tarts each, and a nasty concoction that she’d been so curious of that Minho had offered her a sip). They finished their meal in an empty classroom. No one around. Voices drifting from outside the door.

After classes were done for the day, the two of them headed to the Training Centre. Y/n had been secretly hoping he would let her skip today as well, ashamed of her lack of everything. Everything that made a demigod a demigod, save for supernatural abilities, she lacked. Agility, marksmanship, strength, speed, stamina, endurance, resilience. It was just too late.

“If you don’t master the conventional pin forget about doing anything else,” Minho repeated for the fourth time since they’d started training with knives.

“I know.” Y/n huffed. “I just don’t understand how I’m supposed to just know.”

Minho collected the knives that had clattered to the floor after her failed attempts and placed one of them in her palm.

“How could you when you’re not even present? You’re not even trying.”

Before she had the time to sulk about how he didn’t realize how difficult it was for her to get the fundamentals of knife-throwing down, a demigod she didn’t know approached them and whispered something in Minho’s ear. Y/n pretended she was busy studying the handle of the knife, but anyone could tell she was snooping. It was considered a bad habit but it had become second nature over the years. When the other student had gone on his way, Minho quelled her curiosity.

“I have to leave.” He told her. “Principal Jiang has called for me.”

Then who was going to train her? Was she to stay there and practice on her own until she managed to make it stick at least once?

“Should I leave without you?” Y/n asked as she watched him pack his gym bag.

Minho shook his head and took a swig off his water bottle.

“No, it’s forbidden.” He shot a glance across the room, where his friends were taking turns plunging knives into the target board. It seemed fun when they did it. “Hyunjin will take over while I’m gone.” He slung the strap over his shoulder and said, “See you at home.”

He approached his friends and had a word with Hwang Hyunjin who she could swear rolled his eyes at her. Asshole. It wasn’t like she wanted to be taught by him either. With Minho gone and Hwang coming toward her, the room seemed to have shrunk to the size of cardboard box. She wanted out.

He glanced down to where she ran her thumb across the handle of the blade out of uneasiness. Still, Hwang said nothing of it, choosing instead to look up into her eyes again. Y/n averted her gaze, breathing in.

“Should I throw?” She suggested.

A beat later, he plucked the blade from her hold almost as easily as a flower in a pot.

“No need.” He said simply, shooting her a bored look before walking up to the designated line. “Watch.”

Hwang Hyunjin must have been born with a blade in his grip. The fluidity of his movements and the speed with which he sent the blade flying while barely looking in the direction of the target board had her gawking. Minho had mentioned before that while he was great, Hyunjin was phenomenal. It’s just that with everything moving so fast, Y/n hadn’t given it much thought. Now that she’d seen it for herself, there was nothing she could do but open and close her mouth like a stupid fish.

As he walked back to her after retrieving the knife, Y/n pointed at the board.

“That was- how did you do that?” She stuttered. “Is there some kind of trick to it?”

“Get in position.”

The admiration faded as annoyance took its place. He could have at least answered her question, however stupid it might have sounded to him. Had it sounded stupid to him?

“The first thing you need to consider when throwing is the distance.” He explained, and suddenly Y/n was all ears as he got behind her, parting her knees and adjusting the angle of her torso. “It determines the number of rotations. The closer to the target you are, the fewer rotations you need to land a critical hit.”

Y/n nodded, all too alert. “Okay.”

“Adjust your grip.” He instructed, breath fanning the apex of her cheekbone as he fixed the placement of her fingers along the handle. “Didn’t Minho teach you this already?”

“He um- he did.”

“Follow his instructions.”

“I’m trying.”

Hwang Hyunjin scoffed. “No, you aren’t.”

Y/n caught her bottom lip between her teeth to prevent herself from crying for no apparent reason. Was she embarrassed or did she feel wronged in some way?

“Minho said the same thing.” She said under her breath.

Y/n felt his hair graze the shell of her ear as he leaned forward, his chest brushing against her shoulder as nimble fingers guided hers.

“Hold it up here,” Hyunjin coached. “The farther you move from the target, the higher you need to relocate your grip. Even though it comes down to strength at one point, the grip is still crucial.” He distanced himself, taking his pleasant body heat with him. “Throw it.”

Y/n looked back just in time for him to raise an eyebrow at her reluctance. That straightened her up real quick and she sent the knife flying. Something was wrong and Y/n couldn’t pinpoint what. Had she not exerted enough strength? Had she let go too soon? Either way, the blade clattered to the floor and she was forced to make the walk of shame to retrieve it without meeting Hwang Hyunjin’s eyes even once. He was probably rolling them again anyway.

When she got back, blade in hand and eyes on every surface but him, he spun her by the shoulders and parted her knees with his own. Hands at her waist, he adjusted the angle of her torso.

“Breathe in. Tighten your core.” She could feel his chest rise against her back with each instruction, “Throw. And this time,” The mocking lilt of his tone made her shrivel with shame, “Try to make it stick.”

With that, Hwang’s body heat parted from hers and Y/n felt like she could breathe at last. It was a few seconds until she could do as he’d commanded, and even when she felt confident that it would at least reach the target table she was met with the sound of the knife clattering pitifully on the floor, a few feet from the table. Involuntarily, she looked to Hwang and once she did, she couldn’t look away. His boredom was palpable.

“You’re so weak.” He remarked. “Too pitiful to even call you prey.”

That Hwang Hyunjin was bored out of his wits, she could understand. That he was also callous and didn’t have her good interests at heart it was hard not to notice. But he had a job to do when Minho was unavailable; he had to guard and teach her. He wasn’t happy with it? Big fucking deal! Neither was she. None of this was going to get Luna out of the lab or keep her alive, and with the way he always spoke it was becoming increasingly more difficult not to claw at him like a harpy.

“Is that why you’ve been staring me down like a creep?”

Both Y/n’s glare and question were met with an impassive look as if he couldn’t give less of a shit even if he tried.

“Is that why you ran away that night?” Hwang countered.

Her limbs froze. She scanned the room for places she could use as shelter for when the sentries came for her. The only thing she could think to do was bolt for the exit. But she’d be caught and Luna would be all alone and it would all be his fault.

“I didn’t run away.” Fuck, she was gasping for breath.

Hwang scoffed, slapping the flat side of the blade against his palm. “Of course you didn’t.”

The bastard was definitely taunting her and she couldn’t force him to stop. She couldn’t force him to do anything. On the other hand, he could. There was no place she’d rather be than anywhere he wasn’t, even if it was just for a few hours. Getting to Minho’s penthouse would get Minho in trouble, that’s for sure, but if she didn’t get away from Hwang Hyunjin, she’d pass out from poor respiration.

Y/n had just started to make a break for it when she heard it.

“Leaving already?” He challenged. She turned back only to see he was spinning the blade with his fingers. “You must not want to see your sister after all.”

Y/n glared because she did. There was nothing more she wanted at that moment than to see her little sister. How dare he state otherwise? Was he taunting her again? Was it something else? A threat maybe? Would he really tell the higher-ups about what had happened that night and cast more suspicion upon Luna?

While Y/n was busy chewing on her bottom lip, contemplating whether to try to run away (key word; try) or just swallow the fear Hwang inspired in her, he had pushed himself off the wall and sauntered toward her. Slowly, without her realizing, he’d led her back to their spot.

The demigod placed the blade on her sweaty palm and, in an even voice, commanded, “Be a good little student and get in position.”

Trembling fingers wrapped around the handle, Y/n did as she was told.

When Minho came home later that evening, he knocked twice before Y/n eventually grumbled in response and he entered.

“We don’t bite so come downstairs and eat with us.” He said, palm planted on the doorway as he peered at her bundled-up shape in the darkness. She buried her face under the blanket. “Y/n.”

“Who else will be there?” She spoke, her voice muffled.

Minho sighed and she could hear him approach her bed. Her fingers tightened around the edges but he pulled them off her with ease.

“As I said,” He turned on the lampshade and walked away like he hadn’t interrupted the first decent nap she’d had in a long while. He’d changed out of his training gear, now in an eggplant purple hoodie and grey sweats, and the pleasant scent of mint lingered. “We don’t bite so come down or you’ll go to sleep without dinner.”

Y/n planted her elbows on the mattress.

“Haven’t experienced that before.” She groused.

Minho laughed softly.

“Smartass.” He muttered before vanishing down the corridor. Didn’t even bother to shut the door.

Y/n looked around the room, examining the expanse of the wall before her for dancing shadows or morbid visions. Only after she felt certain neither would plague her for the time being did she pluck up the courage to go wash her mouth and face and join the rest of them for dinner. Surely enough there they were, eating slowly as they talked about… whatever it was they talked about. All of that died down when she pulled out a chair next to Minho. Only momentarily though. They were back at it in no time, pretending that she didn’t exist.

The first thing she noticed was that there wasn’t a fork or a spoon but two chopsticks. She’d never used them in her life. Hadn’t had a reason to.

“Hold them like this.” Minho showed her the proper way to hold them and the clamping motion. It took a few tries for her to get the gist of it (she sucked). “And don’t eat too fast.”

She couldn’t eat too fast. It made her feel sick and she’d end up vomiting on their precious tapestry. Gods knew how much it had to cost.

Y/n was trying to finish her bowl of rice when Choi Beomgyu spoke to her for the first time ever.

“How did you kill them?”

She couldn’t move a muscle. All eyes were on the two of them. “What?”

“Gyu stop this bullshit,” Minho warned.

Beomgyu waved him off, smiling like the insensitive idiot he was.

“Ruth and Juliana.” He chirped as though he was asking her if she preferred dogs over cats. “How did you kill them?”

Y/n shut her eyes. “I didn’t.”

“So, it’s true then. Your sister did?”

“No, she-

“Such a little girl with such an appetite for bloodshed.” He sing-sang. “Truly, a monster of all time, isn-

The bowl and the chopsticks clattered to the floor, the sound of metal hitting the floor and porcelain shattering rining throughout the living room.

“Shut up!” Y/n shrieked, eyes still shut tight. “Shut up! Shut up!”

Minho barely managed to get her to sit back down (she didn’t even remember standing up), when Beomgyu spoke once more.

“Don’t get all riled up now.” His did not sound as chipper as before. Perhaps the young man was afraid of what Minho might do if she broke any more bowls because of him. “I’m just asking since we’re living under the same roof you know. It’s not like-

“We didn’t kill anyone.” Y/n scanned the table, studying their expressions. So muddled were her wits that each one, be that concern, fear, or intrigue resembled that of a pool of repulsion. “Not that you care.”

With so much more than she wanted to shout but couldn’t find the courage to, and with the awareness that each step of hers was weighed down by someone’s acute stare, she walked up to her bedroom and got under the blankets once again. They’d shed the warmth and she had to rub her feet for a while until she got comfortable. She’d just started dipping her toes in the pond of dreams, light scattering at the edges of her vision as she readied herself to submerge when a knock dragged her ashore.

Before Minho had the chance to say a word, for she knew what he intended to ask of her, she beat him to the punch.

“I want to see my sister.” Her eyes remained closed. “Or I’m not telling you anything.”

He let out a sound akin to a groan of exasperation.

“The more you keep the truth a secret, the more they torture her.”

It was as if a tornado had ripped off the eyelids from her eyeballs. Frantic, Y/n threw off the blankets and got to her feet, Minho following suit in an attempt to placate her.

“Torture?”

“Calm down-

“No!” She pushed at his chest, her breathing getting shallower by the second. All sense was gradually being replaced by the gnawing need to maim. “You said they’re just- they were just running tests! She didn’t- she hasn’t done anything! You-

“Y/n!”

“What are you doing to my sister?!”

His round, brown eyes widened in disbelief at her outburst, even though she’d just had one merely half an hour ago.

“You think losing your shit will help her?” He jabbed two fingers at his temple. “Think, Y/n. Think. The only thing you can do for her is tell me the truth.”

She was already in tears, sobbing as she wiped at her nose with the back of her hand like the disgusting fucking freak she was considered to be.

“Take me to her.” She begged, looking up at Minho in hopes that he could answer the desperation in her eyes with mercy. “She has to know I haven’t abandoned her.”

“I would if I could,” was all Minho delivered. “But they’d have both our heads for trespassing. The only way I can help you is through Professor Hajjar. Think about it. You think you have the luxury to keep your mouth shut? Not talking will only make things worse for you during the hearing, which is three days away by the way. Get this in that head of yours, Y/n. Your sister might be doomed either way but you have a chance to do something to save her, yet you choose to remain silent. If she dies, the fault will be yours. No one else’s.”

That did it for her. Still shedding tears, she looked him in the eye with more hatred than she’d ever had the gall to show in front of another human being. Chiron had warned her not to, that they would treat her infinitely worse than they already had, that they would strip her of what little human rights she still possessed. But she couldn’t remember any of that. Not when Minho, who didn’t deserve her wrath, who wouldn’t hurt her even if she didn’t know that, stood before her, wearing the face of all the people who had hurt her.

“You’re just like the rest of them. You want me to talk so then you have an excuse to be rid of me and Luna for good. You want us to rot in a lab until we die just so you can eat.” Y/n spat the following sentence through gritted teeth. “I wish all of you would just die.”

Minho frowned. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Was he upset? Disappointed? So angry he could beat her to a pulp then and there? What was he feeling at that moment? Had she managed to wound him even a tiny bit?

He simply reached inside his pocket, where he’d stored a small packet of napkins, and handed it to her before walking out without a word. Sleep did not come easy this time. The pond was dry.

******************************************************************************************

If it weren’t for the stiffness of his shoulders whenever he spoke to her, Y/n would have thought last night’s conversation had been a hallucination. Minho made her breakfast, packed their lunches, bought her chocolate milk at the convenience store on their way to the university, and sat with her in an empty classroom once again. It was his duty to guard and train her. He didn’t have to take care of her, teaching her how to massage her muscles, buying her vanilla soaps and rose-scented shampoo, or even asking if she’d like to join them for movie night on Thursday. Truly, Y/n felt ashamed of the way she’d acted, even if those had been her genuine feelings at the time. Even though those same feelings persisted, she knew that he deserved an apology. But she didn’t know how to do it properly.

In the library, as she sat one table away from Minho, Y/n brainstormed while occasionally glancing his way. Each time, his eyes were glued to the page. Each time, she felt a little more guilt-ridden. At one point, someone took a seat opposite from her, and when Y/n raised her eyes, she was relieved to see him sitting there. It had only been a week or so since they’d last sat this close. He, of course, had made no effort to speak with her. Why would he? Kim Seungmin was not her friend. But she’d felt his absence nonetheless.

“It’s been a while,” Y/n said, smiling. Though she was used to being ignored, this time it felt different. His eyebrows were tense and his mouth was set in too straight a line for it to be attributed to concentration. Cautiously, she tried again. “Are you angry at me?”

Seungmin looked up then back down, turning the page. “No, but I will be if you keep talking.”

Y/n felt cold with embarrassment all over and she did not speak again for fear that her throat would clog up halfway through the sentence. She had a feeling that would annoy him more. They sat in silence, each busy with their own tasks, until Seungmin did something he’d never done before.

“Where did you get that?”

Startled that he’d struck up a conversation, Y/n looked up from the page she’d been scribbling on. He nodded at the book that lay on top of her backpack.

“I didn’t steal it I promise. Professor Hajjar gave it to me.” Yet she felt like a criminal still. She felt guilty, and it must have shown on her face because Seungmin deadpanned. Hoping to convince him, she added, “Do you want me to lend it to you?”

“I have a copy back at home.”

Y/n picked at her nailbed with the unmaimed fingers. “You must have read it front to back.”

“Three times.” He specified, taking a pencil to jot down notes on the margins. “The third part, the one on the Underworld, is the best in my opinion. Elaborate without veering off track.”

Smiling, Y/n flipped through the pages of the book until she found what he was referring to and dog-eared it. The shiver that ran through her was one of excitement. No one, other than Minho and Luna that is, bothered to talk to her. She had taken to having discussions with herself, asking questions that only she’d bother to try finding the answer to, whiling away the hours of the night when the stomach pangs kept her from much-needed rest.

“You’re shivering again.” Seungmin pointed out, sounding just as disapproving as before.

Y/n let out a sheepish laugh. “At least we’re not in the lab, right?”

The young man made as if to speak only to look back down, fingertips toying with the top corner of the page. Y/n didn’t know what came over her. Maybe it was the way he pushed up his glasses, the slightly disheveled hair from when his friend had ruffled it during recess, or the knitted cream sweater over the white shirt that made him appear the complete opposite of the way he spoke. It was all completely irrational. At that moment, it just felt like the right thing to say.

“You did the right thing.”

Seungmin examined her face for answers the way he did with samples at the lab.

“What?” He asked.

“Ignoring me.” Y/n clarified, scrawling at the edges of her handwritten apology. “You did the right thing.”

The confusion melted off his face, gradually replaced by understanding. He held her gaze for a few seconds longer before looking down once more.

“It was the strategic thing to do.”

Back at the apartment, things were rowdier than ever. Beomgyu had gotten the brilliant idea to just blast music as loud as he could without getting kicked out permanently, leaving Y/n with a brain-scrambling headache for the entirety of the evening. Eventually, Minho put an end to the madness, finally granting Y/n some time with her thoughts.

Sitting in the shower, Y/n had never felt so clean yet so filthy. Her neck was littered with bruises it was hell to scrub at it. Her fingernails were so cracked and torn that it hurt to hold a pen. Despite the stretching and the massage, her muscles ached terribly. At night, she was plagued by visions, and every time she thought that sleep might alleviate the symptoms, she was proven wrong.

She thought about the dining hall incident, Cleo’s rage, her fingers crushing her windpipe, and the repulsed acknowledgment of the other demigods. She thought back to when Luna had pleaded not to go to school but she’d forced her to, anyway. How Y/n regretted not having let her stay home and draw princesses on her little sketching pad. None of this would have happened. Luna wouldn’t be used as a lab rat, and she wouldn’t be faced with the choice of speaking or remaining silent. Both equally rotten.

For the first time since… she didn’t remember when, Y/n bit into her arm to stop herself from screaming. The tears and snot ran down her face, making her feel all the filthier. The muffled screeches were the only way she could speak. She didn’t deserve to be spoken to. She should have stayed in that shabby hut in Camp Half-blood. She should have stayed in the forest with Luna. They never should have returned. She had convinced Luna it was for the best and look where that got them. She was so stupid she wanted to die then and there. She deserved to be alone.

Minho called out to her from the other side of the door, asking if everything was fine. Y/n bit into her arm just a little harder, enough to draw blood, and then let go, affirming that she was alright. His footsteps receded down the corridor.

In her room, as she arranged her backpack for the next day so the rest wouldn’t have to wait for her, Y/n spotted the book Professor Hajjar had gifted her. She recalled her conversation with Seungmin and thought about how, regardless of her choice, she would never speak to him again. Even if Luna was released, Y/n would never see the sun again. She’d be locked up in the lab, getting drained on a schedule as the years wore on, and the rest of the demigods would go on to explore the world, creating families of their own, and share urns with their beloveds. She would get cremated, her ashes cast into Tartarus. Then, it would be Luna’s turn.

Y/n placed the book on the nightstand.

Downstairs, Minho had just finished preparing dinner. She offered to help him set the table but he shook his head saying that Yeonjun was supposed to since he’d shirked his kitchen duty and that the least he could do was help him with the utensils. The taller demigod rolled his eyes, made an offhand comment about her damp hair, and got to work. With nothing else to do but wait, Y/n sat at the table and zoned out.

Every time Minho snapped her out of it, she slid back into that empty space until eventually, Yeonjun had enough and snapped at her to just eat. Startled, Y/n picked up the spoon and tried not to let it spill. She was trying so hard not to cry again. She didn’t want them to mock her as a crybaby. Keeping her head down as she brought the spoon to her lips again and again, she didn’t know what kind of expression they were wearing as she swallowed spoonful after spoonful. If she did, she would have caught the glare Minho pinned Yeonjun with (the latter looking away as if nothing had happened), Beomgyu’s stunned countenance, and Hyunjin’s incisive gaze.

Y/n placed the spoon in the empty bowl and before either Minho or Yeonjun could say anything, she beat them to it.

“She started having nightmares a few days before Juliana was killed.”

7 notes · View notes

tuttumi · 11 months ago

Text

Pareidolia

Chapter 2 "Watchful silence"

*****

Trigger warnings: 1. Funeral 2. Smoking weed 3. Mentions of starvation 4. Human experimentation

Each resident of Camp Jupiter was within their right to request how they wished to be buried. Their individual choices were largely influenced by the customs of the empire over which their Godly parent presided, which served as a marker of identity even in death. Greek demigods and legacies almost always chose to have their bodies turned to cinders; their ashes preserved in urns. It was up to their family and friends to choose whether to keep or scatter them to a site of their choosing. The offspring of their Roman counterparts most often opted for inhumation, despite the practice having been just as commonplace as cremation, and there were cemeteries and catacombs designated to hold the remains for eternity.

Ruth Velasco, daughter of Mercury, had done no such thing so the decision had been left up to her siblings. Ultimately, they resolved to have her buried in the catacombs beneath the temple of Mercury on Temple Hill. The news had spread like wildfire and it wasn’t hard to understand why. A girl of twenty was found impaled on the statue of the ruler of the pantheon, her corpse violated.

The picture on the front page of Noctua Mane, Latin for Morning Owl, was nothing like the one Y/n had seen the night of the murder. Sweet smile, eyes that sparkled with good-natured mischief, olive skin, light brown eyes and arched eyebrows, and straight black hair tucked behind her left ear. She was the picture of joy. Or had been.

Now she was a girl whose life had been taken too soon, her corpse lying frozen in the morgue of the underground laboratories of the CIH, Criminal Investigation Headquarters. Somewhere, in another mortuary cabinet, lay the corpse of Juliana Pierce. Both of them were kept from the warmth of the soil so that the experts might produce some worthwhile evidence to conclude the investigation with satisfactory results. What that entailed remained a mystery to everyone but the members of the Council. There was nothing for Olympia University to do but pay their respects in the Hall of Ceremonies.

On any other day, Y/n might have taken the time to appreciate the grandeur of it all. It was immaculate, down to the most minute particulars. The Hall, a building in and of itself located 300 meters in the northeast, stood somewhat separate from the rest of the campus and the Training Center. Gardens of the most delectable fragrances and topiaries in the shapes of the most common perceptions of the Gods, celestial creatures, and animals associated with divinity made for an ethereal ambiance. Even today, the pelt of grief, in which the hearts of Ruth Velasco’s loved ones were engulfed, was not in the least reflected in their surroundings. The water pouring from the beaks of two marble swans in love remained clear, the surface of the water in the fountain before the front steps of the building unperturbed.

The interior evoked a different feeling. Significant effort had been made to convey the grief be it through the roses and violets lining the walls or the black drapes with those same flowers embroidered on them. The cushioning of the chairs, too, was black. Of course, the banners adorned with the Caduceus symbol, representing Mercury and Hermes, could not be missing from the ceremony. So large were they that the entire length of each column was concealed by the fabric.

Truly, Y/n would have loved nothing more than to sit in her chair and admire the intricacies of the edifice but how could she when the only things on her mind were the events of that night and the conversation she’d had with Luna before stepping out of the house? She’d made a repeat of the conversation this morning as well.

“Remember,” Aside from her voice, the sound of the zip of the green padded jacket coming up to Luna’s neck was the only one in the room, “Don’t talk about what you saw. Just don’t talk about it. Don’t mention it. If anyone asks anything related to it just say you feel bad that she died. Tell them she was so pretty, like a princess. Okay?”

Luna had nodded and her gaze had fallen on the place where Y/n’s fingers met the jacket.

“What- what if they take me?” Her little sister had said in a shaky voice. “What if they don’t let you take me home? Then I- then I-

“No, no, little moth,” Y/n had wrapped her arms tightly around her little sister’s shoulders and patted her back to calm her nerves (the past few days had been brutal for Luna). Then, she draped her scarlet scarf around the girl’s neck. “No, they won’t do that. They can’t do that because you’re innocent. See, you haven’t done anything wrong. You just saw something you shouldn’t have seen, something no one should have to see. But you were here, in our bedroom, and I was lying on the floor next to you. I’ll tell them that and no one will be able to hurt you.”

By now Luna’s chest is rising and falling rapidly and Y/n can feel each movement against her torso.

“But what if they don’t believe you?” She asked, fingers curling around Y/n’s jacket. “Then they’ll really take me away.”

“I won’t let them, though,” Y/n said, knowing she wouldn’t be able to stop them.

It had taken a few minutes but eventually, Luna’s breathing had returned to normal and they’d headed out the door, Luna in her padded green jacket, worn-out jeans and shoes, and Y/n in Olympia’s official uniform of dark sienna. The moist March wind had caressed their cheeks as they made the one-hour walk toward Luna’s school and when they had had to part ways at the towering gate of steel, for fear of showing up late for the ceremony, Y/n had squeezed the small hand one last time before ushering her inside. Those big brown eyes had glanced back one last time as she’d waved goodbye, trying to freeze some joy onto her face for the sake of the scared little girl. Then, she’d smoothed over the knee-length skirt that seemed a bit larger each time she tried it on, secured the pin on her chest, empty though it was, and set off for Olympia. Tardiness, justified or otherwise, would only arouse suspicion.

Professor Philomena Laqueus, daughter of Athena, head of Olympia University’s Academic Board, a senior Overseer, and an esteemed member of the Council of Rome, ascended the steps to the raised platform at the end of the Hall that allowed her an unobstructed view of each Cohort. Her appearance was enough to bring Y/n’s thoughts to a screeching halt. With her graying frizzy hair, strong jaw, and the gold and royal purple paludamentum draped over her muscular shoulders the woman was nothing if not overwhelming. The rest of her outfit was the same as that of the academic personnel seated behind to the right and the student body; a dark sienna, with the identification pin attached to the jacket on the left side of her wide chest. But she made it all the more unnerving; an exalted slaughterhouse.

As a sign of respect, each student stood. After a few moments of sweeping her gaze across the hall, the woman raised her hand for them to take their seats.

“Today,” Her voice had a heavy yet tremulous quality to it, not raspy like most would assume at first glance, and each word sounded like a boulder being flipped on its side. “We gather to bid farewell to Ruth Velasco, daughter of Mercury and member of the Second Cohort.” Y/n glances three rows to the right just as Professor Laqueus gestures to them. Some appear distraught. Others wear a mask of unflinching marble. The woman addresses the rest of the student body once again. “Miss Velasco’s kind and amiable disposition earned her the admiration of her peers and betters as she approached every obstacle with unwavering perseverance. Her courage and reverence for the Divine Rule of the Pantheon were profoundly inspiring, serving as a lasting testament to what a demigod ought to strive for. For this reason and her inestimable attributes, her absence will be felt deeply by all who knew her, even if in passing.” Her gaze slides across the hall in an almost wolfish manner, as though scouring every inch for the faintest trace of guilt. “Thus, we bid a solemn farewell to a compassionate person whose true potential was never fully realized, whose hopes and ambitions will remain unfulfilled as time moves forward towards a brighter tomorrow. But that is not to be an omen to a sorrowful ending to all things. Although her absence is profoundly felt, it may bring solace to know that her legacy can be enriched by those who have the means to do so. As a parting tribute, we make this vow to her.”

It was at that moment, as Philomena Laqueus uttered the final sentence of her speech, that Y/n felt eyes stalking her every breath.

“Though her flesh and bones may lay buried,” The grounding cadence of the woman’s voice drove each word home, “The truth shall crawl to light.”

Y/n wished she’d never craned her head to find the source of her discomfort. Four rows to her right, where the members of the First Cohort sat proudly in their black chairs, dark eyes pierced through the hundreds of students filling the distance between them. How she wished she had not picked this seat that was neither at the front nor in the far back but somewhere in between, because if she had, he wouldn’t have found it so easy to stare at her without raising some eyebrows. She meant only to glance at him but the moment their eyes met, she found herself holding his gaze. While she could feel cold sweat pooling down her back, he remained unabashed and unfaltering. He was dressed the same as the rest of the male students. His hair was in a half-up half-down style, with a few strands at the front framing his face. He looked like the only thing he had running through his veins was stardust and needed to draw blood to seem human.

Not wishing to be at the receiving end of his pursuits, Y/n turned around, swallowed, and tried to focus on the farewell speeches of the leaders of the Second Cohort, Choi Soobin, the only son of Jupiter, and Hwang Yeji, daughter of Victoria. No word stuck in her brain. Everything was an amalgam of parting words, sniffling, and silence so solemn and disquieting that Y/n found herself shifting in her seat, hands fisted on her lap. More cold sweat beaded on her forehead. It felt as though every gaze was on her, hammering guilt into the pin on her chest. The dread of being perceived as suspicious had her heart threatening to shatter the constraints of her ribcage. Over the course of several speeches delivered by Ruth Velasco’s loved ones, scenarios spun in her mind; of escape, imprisonment, torture, and execution. Not once did she imagine herself or Luna being saved.

When the ceremony came to an end, it took tremendous willpower not to bolt for the exit. She forced herself to picture their eyes narrowing in suspicion, their castigatory stares, and the disdainful curl of their lips if she were to let her panic take over. This was how she kept herself from shoving her way through as the other members of the Fifth Cohort made their way out of the hall.

Once they were out in the gardens, she decided to put some distance between herself and the rest. The topiaries were of various sizes. Some were the size of a poodle while others grew up to six meters. It was behind one of the latter that she found some solace, shaking as she massaged her knuckles. As if that would force her anxiety into submission.

Y/n could hear the students gathering at the front of the edifice while others headed back to the main building. Lectures didn’t start until 10:30 so they could afford to loiter about the grounds in the meantime. What she hadn’t considered was that other students would seek comfort in the gardens as well (she’d gone fairly deep within the labyrinthine structure after all) especially close enough for her to catch snippets of their conversation. Following the direction from which the voices were drifting, she at first estimated a distance of around five meters to her left. But upon gathering some of her wits about her, she realized it was the shadows telling her. The students, males by the sound of it, were standing in the shade of a topiary two rows behind her and likely at a far greater distance. If she made no noise, they would probably not realize someone was eavesdropping. Not that she was doing it on purpose.

“Was her corpse really missing the eyes?” One of the boys said, making no great effort to be discreet. “Or was that just a rumor?”

The silence stretched for a few seconds and Y/n could hear everything from the wind whispering in the dense forest beyond the garden to the leaves brushing against fabric as one of the boys leans against the topiary. When the response did come, it was in a voice so velvety and euphonious that she found herself pressing her left ear into the bush. The effect should have concerned her, but it didn’t.

“Yeah, her eyes had been gouged out.”

The first boy muttered a ‘damn’ before pulling something out of the pockets of his uniform. It sounded like paper.

“The killer must have taken them before fleeing. Since they weren’t found at the crime scene.” He laughed a little before continuing, “The CIH better pray the fucker isn’t a cannibal.”

The other scoffed. “They might as well save their breaths.”

That seemed to give the first boy pause. For a few moments, no words were exchanged between the two, and the only sounds were those of paper chafing against paper, birds chirping, and students talking among themselves at the front of the building.

“What do you mean?” the first boy asked eventually, in a lower voice.

“It wasn’t a cannibal.” The other one clarified. “Whoever killed her, stole her eyes, and put her body on display didn’t do it for self-gratification.”

The first sounded genuinely confused as he questioned, “What else was it then? Self-defense? But Ruth wasn’t violent. Not as far as I know.”

There was no other way to describe the moments between that last sentence and the one that followed other than grim and fretful. The blossoms around them, for all their vibrant colors and riveting fragrances, did nothing to lighten the atmosphere, serving instead as mere decorations. Synthetic. Hollow. Illusory. Y/n pressed her right palm lightly against the bush, dewy greenery against her skin, breathing as quietly as she could while listening attentively to each breath the male students took despite knowing she shouldn’t.

The boy with the mellifluous voice at last spoke, “I thought we you dragged me here for a smoke.”

The first boy let out a cartoonish snicker.

“Lo and behold, Hwang.” There came the sound of flame flickering to life. “This is prime quality weed I’ve rolled for you so let’s get high out of your fucking mind. I won’t accept anything else.”

After that, all Y/n could do was stay there and listen to them blabber about things she had no clue about. Every time the conversation shifted; it was for the worse. Whatever they were smoking was influencing their ability to hold a sane conversation. The smell wasn’t all that nice either so they must have been receiving the desired effects if they were willing to withstand it. As they were leaving, the males sounded slightly more collected, as if their brains had pieced themselves back together. Y/n waited ten minutes before following them out and heading for the main building.

**************************************************************************************************************************************

Their late breakfast was a gloomy affair, for obvious reasons. Several of Ruth Velasco’s closest friends and family sobbed into their steaming bowls of soup while others struggled to bring their spoons to their mouths with shaky hands, making sure to swallow their grief before taking a mouthful. The hall was relatively silent if one didn’t count the hushed conversations being had throughout the dining hall. Briefly, Y/n wished she could be part of a small group, weathering sudden woes together. Walking down the hallway and to Laboratory 205, where they conducted experiments concerning the field of Hematology, would be much easier then. But spying on the fleeting whispers around her would have to suffice.

Only five students occupied the spacious room by the time she stepped through the door. A girl sat on the row by the window, face hidden from view as she napped the minutes away. One of the auburn-haired girls at the front, twins by the looks of it, penciled in her eyebrows as the other cracked a joke and they both burst out laughing. So far, her feet had been going on autopilot. But right before she could make the mistake of invading her classmate’s personal space, one she had never spoken with before, Y/n stopped in her tracks.

Thoughts raced inside her head. And they were merciless. Had her seat been taken? Had Seungmin grown so tired of her that he no longer wished to be her lab partner? He’d become such at the beginning of the first semester but not by choice. Was that it? Had she made a mistake that had affected his grades? Seungmin was quite obsessed with them after all. His pride as a son of Minerva was on the line. Where was she going to sit now? If she had the nerve to ask the other boy where he had previously sat, then-

The boy clapped Seungmin on the back and made his way toward another desk near the middle. Students started pouring in, and Y/n breathed a sigh of relief before taking her seat. After that, nothing out of the norm happened. Orlova took a roll call, after which she assigned them to spot RNA and DNA abnormalities and determine what they could result in, and left them to their devices.

From time to time, she would approach students and oversee their work. Y/n always dreaded these moments. A bitter cold would sweep across the room, creeping into her circulatory system. Her very marrow seemed to freeze at the sight of Orlova heading towards their desk. The cold was without pity.

“Is there a reason you refuse to take the medicine you’re given?”

Seungmin’s voice from beside her was as low as it could be without the words being lost entirely. Still, she could detect the hint of annoyance behind his seemingly harmless question.

Y/n furrowed her eyebrows at him. “Is there a reason you keep asking?”

“You’re delaying our work.” He says and looks at her with utmost indifference. “I refuse to get a bad grade because of whatever complex you might have regarding your pills.”

“It’s not a complex. You don’t-

“You’re right.” He sets his pen on the notebook and looks into the microscope, adjusting the lenses. “I don’t understand. Which is why I posed the question, one you refuse to answer.”

Y/n could feel the last of the warmth in her body travel up to her cheeks, staining them a sorry shade of pink.

“Maybe you should ask the people who keep giving away confidential information.” She muttered.

Seungmin didn’t bother to look up from the microscope. “Maybe I will.”

A minute or two after their miserable and short-lived conversation, a knock came at the door and, at Professor Orlova’s permission, a boy about their age walked in, immediately making his way toward where she sat behind her desk. He leaned down and whispered something that had the woman’s mood visibly souring before stepping back as she shrugged off her lab coat.

“Continue to work on your reports.” She instructed, facing the students who had previously been immersed in work or gossip. “Do not forget that the average grade for them comprises 20% of your final evaluation for this course.”

There was only a unanimous nod and verbal affirmation before she exited the laboratory with the boy right on her heel.

“What’s going on?” A student questioned in a whisper but no one answered.

It didn’t matter anyway. They did have reports to finish after all. Liliana Orlova wasn’t one to try your luck with when it came to lab work. Many before them had attempted to pull one over her only to end up begging for the wretched yet invaluable 20% of the final grade and be met with her pitiless evaluation. She was within her right to do so. If exceptions were made, they had to be made for everyone. But that was exactly what was wrong with her. She had a soft spot for but a precious few, a group of elite students who were equally elitist, and everyone else got the stinky eye whenever they pled for leniency. Seungmin was, needless to say, a part of it.

At least he didn’t try to make her talk about the despicable medicine she was routinely prescribed by the higher-ups. She hated talking about it even more than she did ingesting the actual thing. She felt less than for being questioned about it.

Orlova returned a while later, heels clacking almost violently against the floor. Everyone in the lab could feel the frustration wafting off of her like some overpowering perfume. It made her resemble the children of Ares and Mars more than she or any child of Aphrodite and Venus would like to admit. Disturbingly similar. The space that had once been clinical could no longer be considered as such. Its sterility had become muddled.

The footsteps came to a halt right in front of Y/n. Professor Orlova’s question cut through the uncomfortable silence.

“Are you finished with the report, Miss. L/n?”

Internally panicking, Y/n looked up from her paper. “I’m almost-

“Being weak and slow-witted is not what a student of Olympia ought to strive for.” Even the way she said the words sounded cruel. How could the daughter of love speak with such loathing, looking her up and down as if picking her apart flaw by flaw? “Though I suppose it is rather difficult to be anything but given your… predicament.”

She could talk back, snap at the professor the way she had before, but where would that take her? Back to Principal Jiang’s office? The old man would love that. He must enjoy doling out punishments for the same student over and over and over again like he had nothing better to do. Right now, the only person with nothing better to do was Y/n. So, she kept her mouth shut, lowered her head, and nodded.

That seemed to satisfy the woman’s sadism because all she said was, “Place it on my desk in five minutes.”

“Yes, Professor,” Y/n murmured and watched as she walked away, taking some of her foul aura with her.

Then, just when the humiliation seemed to abate, Seungmin got the brilliant idea to speak.

“Does that mean we are being graded separately?” He asked, eyes flitting between Professor Orlova and Y/n.

The former turned and smiled slightly at him.

“Of course, Mr. Kim,” she answered in a much softer voice. “I do not wish for you to suffer the consequences of her bovine capacity. You may continue.”

Y/n dared a scathing glance toward Seungmin who had gone back to his work. Her fists itched to punch his teeth in and the sound of him breathing next to her after she had just had those words thrown at her was enough to send her into a fit of rage. It was cold though. So, the anger kept her warm. She didn’t need to look up to know the other students were staring at her. Some snickering. Others muttering to themselves. But if she had let her gaze roam, she would have met his. The one gaze that always seemed to linger when all else had ebbed.

Seungmin took turns using the microscope. A sort of silent agreement not to speak until the end of the class. They worked separately and efficiently because that’s how he liked it. They didn’t speak because that’s how he liked it. It worked wonders for him but for Y/n it was one more box into which she was shoved. When she was finished, she stood and went up to Orlova’s desk, handing her the report with trembling fingers.

“What is this?” Orlova spoke quietly, thumbing through the pages.

She didn’t look pleased. Not at all. Y/n could only curse at that.

“The report you asked for, Professor.” She answered, knowing the question had been rhetorical.

The professor stopped turning pages and glanced up sharply. Y/n would be lying if she said she wasn’t at once thrilled and scared shitless. And it wasn’t like Orlova couldn’t pick up on it. Children of Aphrodite and Venus were equipped with a hound's nose since birth when it came to people’s emotions. They knew when you were in pain or at peace. It was safe to say that she couldn’t be too thrilled about Y/n’s reaction.

That’s probably why she called Seungmin over. He glanced at Y/n in confusion as Orlova handed him the report.

“Mr. Kim, as your professor, I demand that you be completely honest with me.” Orlova’s tone left no room for interruption or defiance. She looked him in the eye. “Did she steal your work? Did you help her with it?”

If Seungmin felt awkward at the implication then Y/n was drowning in embarrassment. He took in her profile, the paper limp in his loose hold.

“No, Professor, she did not.” He answered. “Nor did I help her with it.”

Orlova was not satisfied. “Is that your final answer?”

“Yes, professor.”

Again, that did not satisfy her. Her lab partner’s answer only seemed to make things worse. Maybe he was unaffected by it or unable to perceive when authority figures saw him as a filthy roach, but Y/n was and she could. It was pointless to pretend otherwise.

“Very well, then. You may return to your seat.” She told him with a twitch of a smile and held out her hand for the report, which he placed on her palm before turning to leave. Y/n made to follow him. “Not you, Miss. L/n.”

She had dreaded this. The moment when she’d be left facing Orlova, this time alone. Seungmin wasn’t her friend, but he was just there. In his presence, Orlova softened her words, cushioned her remarks, and sugar-coated her distaste. None of that now.

The professor planted her elbows on the desk and clasped her hands. “What will it take for you to learn your place?”

Y/n looked anywhere but at the woman in front of her. “I don’t kno-

Orlova squinted.

“Enough with your pretend cluelessness.” She sneered. “You may have fooled Hajjar and Principal Jiang into seeing you as something other than what you truly are but you will find I am far more difficult to misguide.”

Her brain went into overdrive. She was short-circuiting.

“Whatever Professor Hajjar has in mind, I had nothing to do with it.” That only made the woman’s sneer grow in cruelty. “I don’t- I truly want no part in it.”

She gave Y/n such a pointed look, that she felt it poking her eyeballs.

“Then, it is only fair we question as to how a professor that has never once risen to your defense, has suddenly taken you under his wing.” Orlova unclasped her hands. “I warned you. I am much more difficult to misguide.”

Y/n glanced down at the report, finding solace in her handwriting.

“But I am not trying to.” She tried to appeal.

Orlova gave her one last scathing look. “Go back to your seat.”

She stood there, frozen, hands now purple from the cold and throat clogged up. This was bad. Whatever she had been called to attend forty-something minutes prior had ignited a new brand of hatred in the woman before her. Her grades would suffer for it. She would have no chance of being employed. Luna would have to live in even graver poverty. Penury as it was called.

The walk back to her seat was like trudging through heavy snow. She couldn’t help but bite down on her lower lip, drawing blood. Hot pain. The only warmth she could provide for herself. And he was staring. Staring while conversing with his lab partner, a boy she recognized from the ceremony. Leader of the Second Cohort and Son of Jupiter.

Y/n wanted to stare back, maybe even scowl at him. But he appeared too secure (symmetrical features, unflinching gaze, and physical adeptness) while she felt hounded on all fronts. They were horribly matched.

She had to see Professor Hajjar and convince him of the implications of going through with his plan. As absurd as it sounded for someone to say this, she had to make a son of Minerva see reason. How was she going to do that though? Genius wasn’t encoded in her DNA. She couldn’t compete with him in terms of logic, rationality, and strategy. Not when he had the advantages of both nature and nurture. Whatever her argument, he was sure to counter it with one more thoroughly constructed.

This was all she thought about while walking up the steps to his office, the same steps she had ascended just a few days earlier. Today she felt she had already received her punishment. So why was knocking on his door such a daunting task? When she managed, however, he gave her permission to enter.

“Good afternoon, Professor.” She greeted.

He looked up from his device and extracted a file from the neatly organized stack on his left.

“Good afternoon, Miss. L/n. Here,” He motioned for her to come closer and once she stood in front of his desk, handed her the beige folder. “It is your training and diet regiment. I trust you have refrained from overeating. A ruptured stomach after years of starvation is the last thing we need right now.”

She shook her head lightly. “No, I’m good. The lunch ladies are following your instructions.”

Anxious to find the right way to start the discussion on her supposed training, she began abusing her lower lip feeling the skin peeling under the brute force. Because, truly, how was she supposed to tell him she wasn’t planning on going through with it because his colleague had all but threatened her? She could just outright say it. But that was so pathetic. So fucking pathetic. It would sound so ungrateful of her after all the string-pulling he did to get permission for her to train with her peers. In each fathomable scenario, she sounded like a snob.

“There is someone I would like you to meet on Monday.” His words pulled her out of her steaming train of thought. His hands were clasped before him, but it was not meant to taunt her she thinks. “Someone I think would be suitable to your needs.”

She was back on the steaming train. “You won’t be the one training me?”

Professor Hajjar unclasped his hands to gesture at the stacks of documents on his desk.

“I am far too engaged with research and grading tests and assignments to oversee your training personally. The student I have in mind is hardworking and skilled at his craft.”

“Student?” She questioned, fingers curling anxiously around the schedule.

��Would that be an issue?”

His question would be insulting if it weren’t for the fact that Y/n fears her peers as much as she wishes she could stand by their side. Whoever it was that he was dead set on assigning as her mentor would not be gentle. He would not be patient because he didn’t have to. Not when it was her.

Y/n shifted her weight from one leg to the other until Hajjar had enough of her. He rose from his seat and headed for the bookshelf, running his fingers along the spines of books too expensive to dream of possessing. Being a renowned researcher and an esteemed professor at Olympia University meant he could afford such luxuries. Luxuries he apparently intended to extend to her.

It was curious, how this was the first time a hand stretched in her direction, not seeking to draw blood but to gift. While she fought between rejecting his gift and accepting it with a thousand thanks, he unfurled her hand and placed the book on her cold palm. Instinctively, her fingers curled around the binding.

“Just because I will not be there each day to supervise you, does not mean I will be left out of the loop with regards to your progress. One of your mentor’s duties will be to provide a weekly report on precisely that.”

Y/n nodded, unable to speak for a few moments.

“Can you tell me his name?” She asked when the initial shock had begun to subside.

Professor Hajjar regarded her stoically, hands clasped behind his back.

“As I said,” He began in an even tone, walking back to his seat, “You will meet him on Monday at the Training Center.”

What was with all the mystery? Why couldn’t he just tell her outright? Was it that crucial to his plans that she be kept in the dark? Despite having received the gift a few moments earlier, she felt her nervousness spike up again.

“Professor, can I ask you something?” The question slipped from her lips.

The man peered at her from behind his glasses once more. “Carry on.”

“Can I take some of the food back home to my sister?” She asked without delay, fearing that if she hesitated, she might never say it at all. “I thought that since raising our stipend is out of the question, I might at least take some of the food home to her. Like- like maybe half a burger, for example. Or a salad. That way she can- her stomach hurts so-

“Miss. L/n.”

“Yes?”

She was breathing erratically, something she realized after having been interrupted. Her heart beat so fast it hurt each time her chest rose and fell. But she could only look at Hajjar, sending him a silent plea.

He nodded and said, “It will be arranged.”

To say this was the best thing to have happened to her in a while would be a dishonest understatement. Because it was the most benevolent thing anyone here had desired or dared to do for her. It was the only thing anyone here, on Camp Jupiter, had ever done for her period. She would be forever grateful.

“Thank you, Professor.”

Eos Elementary would put the fear of the heavens in the foundations of any normal elementary school outside of Camp Jupiter. It was only right though, considering the attendees weren’t normal children and those other schools didn’t have to teach them how to control their gifts so they didn’t blow up the building for being upset. It was built to accommodate the talents of every young demigod and hone their skills so they could overcome the challenges they would have to face later on in examinations and quests. Easy-peasy? No. Not for any demigod, but especially Luna.

Luna, who stood outside the gate with her scarf wrapped up to her cheeks with only an armed guard to keep her company. Luna, who kicked at rocks, waiting for Y/n to pick her up so they could go home and do their homework in bed. She jogged toward the little girl, wrapping her arms around her.

“Heyyyy.” She greeted, trying to sound cheerful.

“Hey.”

Luna was less enthusiastic than usual, which wasn’t surprising. Given everything. Y/n helped take her backpack off her shoulders, carrying it in one hand and holding the other for the little girl to take, which she did.

“Everything good at school?” Y/n asked, trying to ignore the guard’s stare burning into their backs.

Instead of responding with words, Luna simply nodded and looked down at her feet as Y/n herded her through the streets.

“So, guess what,” Y/n said when they had to stop at a red light. Luna only looked up at her briefly before looking back down, kicking at the pavement. Still, Y/n tried to sound jovial as she delivered the good news. “I get to bring you food from the dining hall from now on!”

Luna perked up at her words, grinning from ear to ear.

“Really?” She said, dark eyes glinting with hope. “You can?”

Y/n matches her enthusiasm with an excited nod, fingers tightening around the smaller hand as she enumerated whatever came to mind.

“Hamburgers. Salads. Pasta. Soups and stews. Whatever is on the menu for breakfast and lunch.”

“Even the honey muffins?” Luna is practically jumping for joy at this point.

“Even those.”

The rest of the way home, Luna is asking her about how much food she eats at school, unaware that she has only recently tried the food there. But Y/n makes a good show of bragging about it in hopes that it will lift the girl’s spirits higher. It works like a charm.

There is little to no difference between their rotten apartment and the streets; cold, wet, and a tad gloomier than the lamplit alleys. But Y/n cooks a pathetic batch of what’s supposed to be pancakes for Luna (a bit of cheese as well sprinkled with olive oil and oregano she had stolen during New Year’s) and hands her a glass of water to wash it down. Then they get into bed and do their homework in silence so that tomorrow they can spend the day at the aviary. This is all fine. The problem is falling asleep. There seems to be no dream compelling enough to claim Luna’s consciousness for a few hours. No blanket so thick as to keep her warm.

Y/n tucked her black hair behind her ear. “Are you cold?”

Luna nodded slowly.

“I’m scared.” She confessed and looked up at her. “Can you stay with me?”

With that, all thoughts of sleeping on the floor were abandoned. Keeping Luna warm and feeling safe was her top priority.

“Here,” she said, cupping her hands under the blanket. “It’s better now, isn’t it?”

“A little.”

“You can go to sleep now. There’s nothing here.”

Even as she spoke the words the falsity of them rang loud and clear. Especially in a room so utterly cold, and dark, the walls of which were covered with mold no matter how she tried to scrape it off. Luna knew it too, even if she hesitated in speaking her mind. Fear did that to a person, a child.

“What if I see something again?” She asked, a tremor in her voice. “What if they kill me?”

Y/n pulled her into an embrace, bones digging into smaller bones, and rubbed soothing circles on her sister's back. She kisses her temple as Luna fists the back of her midnight blue shirt. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. I’m right here, aren’t I?”

Luna lifts her head and looks Y/n in the eye, a silent plea. “You won’t leave after I fall asleep?”

She couldn’t lie to her this time, couldn’t part from her when her breathing evened out, and lay down on the floor. She couldn’t part from her to sit at the edge of the bed, holding her hand when she was cold all over. No, tonight was going to be different.

“I promise.”

She secures the blanket around their shivering bodies.

************************************************************************************************************************************************

Monday turned out to be absolute poison. Not only did Professor Orlova keep breathing down her neck about every single noise regardless if Y/n had caused it or not, but her arms hurt like a fucking cunt from the apex of her shoulders to her wrist. She could barely write and could only take about five minutes of carrying her ratty brown backpack before removing it and sitting just about anywhere to roll her shoulders. There was no relief. It only hurt more. Breakfast went down smoothly so there was that, but other than the warm meal nothing about that day seemed promising.

The entirety of Olympia, be it the student body or the staff, had been almost a bit too eager to leave Juliana Pierce’s death behind like a rusty relic in a dilapidated museum, but the mood had shifted over the weekend. Now, everyone whispered amongst themselves, raising question after question. Some even had theories of their own to share over breakfast, and Y/n had eavesdropped from her table while pretending to revise one more time before classes began.

Lucky for her, she didn’t have to strain to catch the conversation a group of four students were having at the long table to her left which joined another, then another, to the very end of the vast structure. It wasn’t enough that she couldn’t afford to have a warm meal in the dining hall, but even when she could, it was an unspoken rule that she had to sit at a table separate from the rest. It was a mere three feet of a distance, but it cemented a tacit ultimatum; that she was not to mingle. She was not to pollute the other tables with her presence. She didn’t attempt to change that. Even if the group of students seemed to be of an amiable disposition.

Having had her blood drawn earlier than usual, as per Professor Hajjar’s instructions, Y/n had arrived there before them. She’d managed to catch glimpses of them. Not that there was any need to, as they were the same students who always sat there; two young men and two young women. The males, Jisung and Felix, were the same sons of Apollo she’d caught looking at her the week before when Orlova had put her on the spot. One of the girls was Hwang Yeji, leader of the Second Cohort. The other, whose Cohort Y/n didn’t know, she’d heard the three refer to as ‘Lia’. By now she’d memorized their voices.

“It’s been three weeks though.” Said Lia, “Shouldn’t the CIH have found a lead by now?”

A sound similar to a scoff, but more resigned came from Jisung.

“So what if it’s been three weeks?” He countered, and seemingly after taking a bite out of his cheesy bun, adds, “The paper said there were no footprints, no DNA left behind at the crime scene. So far, the only way for them to find a lead is by analyzing the killer’s method. They could just be a perfectionistic bastard who’s hard to catch.”

“The people that were there said that she’d stripped naked and skinned alive.” Said Yeji. “Remember what that girl with the black and red spiky hair said when they interviewed her?”

This time it was Felix who spoke.

“Yeah, we were about to turn off the TV when that came on and she started talking about the hole in Ruth’s chest. No heart. No eyes either. No traces of DNA, monster, beast, or human.” He paused, and Y/n flipped the page. “Poor girl looked about to have a breakdown. Good thing they cut it before they caught it on camera.”

“Like it would have mattered.” Shot Jisung through a mouthful of mushroom-and-dill chicken and dumpling soup. “She’s going to have to live with the sight of Ruth’s corpse for the rest of her life. What a bunch of pussies have to say doesn’t matter shit.”

Groaning in disgust, Yeji muttered, “Says the bitch with social anxiety.”

“Don’t start shit with me, Elmo lookalike.” Fired Jisung.

What followed was a back-and-forth worthy of the circus. Even amidst the clatter of utensils all around them, the cuss words being hurled across the table entered Y/n’s ears unobstructed. She tried to make sense of some of the expressions but without much success.

“Isn’t it strange though?” Lia spoke in a soft voice, and the rest of them stopped to listen while Y/n wallowed a spoonful of the soup.

When it became obvious that she wasn’t going to elaborate, Jisung took it upon himself to ask her to clarify.

“Lia, baby girl, everything’s fucking weird around here lately.” Y/n could hear the laugh he was trying to suppress. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“What Felix said before, about there being no traces of DNA.” She explained, voice still gentle. “There’s always something left behind, isn’t there? Cloth fibers. Skin. Nails. Body fluids.” Y/n started in her chair, soup spilling out of her spoon and back into the porcelain bowl, as booming laughter sounded from somewhere across the dining hall. It seemed to temporarily catch their attention. Then, Lia whispered. “It’s almost like whoever did that to Ruth was never even there. Like the only evidence they ever existed is the tragedy they left behind.”

Felix matched Lia’s whispery tone with his own. “What if they left something but we have no way of understanding it because we aren’t aware of its existence?”

Jisung groaned, mouth full of food.

“Whatever,” He interjected, likely wanting to end the conversation, “It’s not like we’re going to solve the case at eight in the morning.”

“No coffee today?” Asked Yeji, sounding surprised.

That seemed to ignite some kind of previously dampened frustration in Jisung as he all but pushed the chair backward, the legs screeching against the floor.

“I would have had some,” he emphasized and Y/n heard Felix make a choking noise, “If not for this chicken dragging me away from the vending machine like a wet rag going all ‘we have to cut back on coffee, Jisung’ and ‘it’s not healthy to put that much caffeine in your body, Jisung’.”

“Really? You’re trying to lay off coffee?” Yeji’s question was answered by another series of choking sounds. None of them paid that any heed as Jisung continued to do whatever he was doing, Yeji sipped from her cup, and Lia took a small bite out of the dumpling in the soup (Y/n spied from the corner of her eye). “That’s great, you know. I was getting worried seeing you chugging down liters of coffee like it’s water.”

Jisung released a short laugh of absolute derangement. “Yeah right. He just doesn’t want to have to run just to take a shit.”

Y/n couldn’t withhold her laughter anymore. It spluttered out of her even as she abused her lower lip by biting into it. Some of the soup that had barely passed her lips and that she’d been trying not to swallow for fear of choking with amusement, ended up on the silver tray. She swallowed what remained in her mouth and used a napkin to wipe her lips.

They’d stopped talking by now. Y/n could feel their gaze on her so she tried her best to act like she’d been laughing at something else, turning the page, and mentally punching herself for it as realization struck. Nothing about Hematology was amusing. In fact, it was rather infuriating considering who taught the course. Pathetic. Fortunately, the group of four had let her be pathetic in peace, not bothering with pointing out how disgusting she was, and they’d all gone about their day in peace.

The little comfort she’d derived from Orlova’s lecture was thanks to Seungmin’s presence. She would never tell him that though. Surely, he would hate to be perceived as someone she could trust, someone she could consider a friend. He made this obvious through his body language; maintaining a conspicuous distance when they worked in pairs even as the rest huddled near the microscope, mostly looking at her from his peripheral vision, giving curt answers, shrugging when she asked a question, and so on. Whatever ease she felt in his company was to be kept a secret from him.

What she couldn’t keep a secret was the unease that had taken root in her subconscious the previous week, when she’d first become conscious of his existence. Hwang, as his friend had called him, had been perusing the pages of his Hematology textbook just as Y/n had taken a few moments to look about the room. She hadn’t been paying attention to him specifically, but he had somehow sensed her wandering gaze and turned quickly enough to catch her admiring the architectural design, gazes locking. The oxygen had vanished from her lungs. Cold with fear of Luna being taken into custody, Luna charged with a murder she hadn’t committed, Luna taken away, Luna being tortured for information, she’d looked away and feigned interest in some other aspect of the lecture hall. But the dread had not ceased.

It had stalked her in the hallways, followed her at lunch, and, ultimately, tracked her down at the Training Center. She’d entered the changing room, put on her new uniform, the material of which showcased the effects of starvation on her body, and sat on the bench, waiting for her new instructor to arrive. After twenty minutes, it had become apparent to her that they were a no-show, so she’d braved the short journey across the floor to the archery area. Looking back, it had been the worst possible choice she could have made. But how was she supposed to know what to do? Just by having watched for years? She wasn’t the best at translating theory into practice, even if her imagination was what she’d relied on to compensate for the lack of tactile experience.

So, yeah, archery turned out to be the wrong discipline to start with. Not only did she not know which bow to pick from the shelves, but the gloves were tailored for each student specifically. It had either skipped Professor Hajjar’s mind or he didn’t intend for her to start with the bow just yet. Still, she’d picked a spot farthest to the right and watched the other students in action. How they placed the arrow. How they positioned their feet. The angle of their arms as they pulled the string. The required distance from the faces so it didn’t slice the flesh off once it was released. Not feeling all that confident, she’d taken her spot and raised the bow. Instant regret. Pain shot from her shoulder to her wrist as she struggled to keep the arrow in place and the string pulled. Not that she managed to pull it, to begin with. It was a rather failed, pitiful first attempt.

To make matters worse, she could feel eyes observing her. It was almost the same as before, the sole difference being the intensity of the gaze and the fact that when she looked to her right, Y/n came face to face with the person who had been stalking her nightmares for the past week. In her dreams, he was always a witness, the final nail in the coffin. Only, it wasn’t just a dream.

Her fingers trembled with the nerves. It was impossible to knock the end of the arrow on the string without the former veering to the right before clattering to the floor. She glanced at him as she crouched to pick it up. She bit her lip in frustration, tasting blood. It irritated her to no end; that he leaned against the wall, that she hadn’t noticed sneak behind her or lean against the wall, or that he made no attempt to hide the fact that he was watching, and a bunch of other things that, in the end, were irrelevant. Most of all, she loathed the effect that this man, whom only days before she hadn’t known existed, had on her. His mere presence served as an electric chair, constantly punishing her for her silence. The arrow clattered to the floor once more.

Again and again, she tried without success, and all the while, he was there to watch. Y/n wanted so badly to stomp her feet like a five-year-old. His presence deterred her. It came to the point where she worried about the smallest things; bending down to pick up the arrow, placing her feet shoulder-width apart, worrying if they were parallel with the shooting line, or when she bit back a whimper of pain as she pulled the string. That was the last time.

The fingers of her right hand clenched around the shaft of the arrow. Humiliated, Y/n took a tremulous breath before lowering the bow, picking up the quiver, and walking away, leaving the boy behind. He did not follow. Or at least, she didn’t hear him do so. To make sure, she halted and looked back just once to catch him with his gaze trained on her. Immediately, she faced the exit.

Enclosed in her own head and all the negative emotions brewing up in there, Y/n failed to notice the man headed toward her, which would be impossible in most cases considering the young man was hard to miss, even if he was clad in the same training gear as every other student. But miss him she did. And she continued to miss him even as she turned to the left toward the shelves, placing the bow on the rack with trembling fingers and the quiver where she’d found it. No amount of rubbing her palms against her thighs calmed them. This was just humiliating.

She turned and crashed into a sturdy figure. Hands came to rest on her arms, steadying Y/n as her forehead throbbed from the impact. After making certain she wasn’t going to collapse, Lee Minho stroked his chin, the flesh now rosy and tender.

“Well,” He began, looking at her, “This is going to bruise.”

Y/n didn’t feel all that sorry, but if she showed no remorse for the honest accident, she might garner the wrath of his friends. They didn’t look like the kind of people anyone wanted to fuck with, least of all her.

“Sorry.” She muttered, averting her eyes.

Before she could walk past him, he took hold of her arm and took a good look at her face.

“Did you have anyone take a look at your nose?” He asked.

Normally, it would have been hard to forget about the navy bruise since it was quite literally on her nose, but all concerns about her surface flaws tended to flee whenever more oppressive issues became the main characters of her life. Luna’s safety was her focal point, as was hunger. Her health had never been anyone’s priority, and she had learned to disregard it just as expertly. The same thing she had done with her appearance. Yet there were moments like this one when someone would point out the holes in her threadbare shirt or the hollowness of her cheeks, that she considered turning her skin inside out. Hiding her face beneath her flesh.

She looked at his gloved hand on her arm. “Like they’d waste their medicine on me.”

His hold loosened and then disappeared as he crossed his arms over his chest. Y/n looked up at him, asking herself why she hadn’t already left.

“It doesn’t look that bad considering the strength and speed of my kick. All you have to do is get someone to realign it for you.”

That was a low blow. Even for him. It was not a secret that she was quite literally an outcast, period. This truth was not easy to stomach but there was no easier way to say it either. And he knew it.

“You’re mocking me, aren’t you?” Y/n could only be thankful that the shame hadn’t drained the last ounce of strength from her limbs. “Leave me alone. You had your fun.”

Minho’s eyebrows furrowed.

“Where’s the fun in besting someone who has had no training? It’s like kicking a starved dog.” Y/n hoped he couldn’t tell how his words affected her, even if it wasn’t her first time hearing them. There’s a pause before he speaks again. “Besides, I’m not here to mock you. Professor Hajjar assigned me to be your mentor, show you the ropes until you get the hang of it. Basically, train you until you’ve built enough skill and stamina to level up.”

That caught her by surprise. Several questions started running through her head at a speed only an overthinker could achieve. Why was he so late? Why was he wearing archery gloves? Had she been right to pick up archery first? Why did he smell like the violets in the lush gardens surrounding the Hall of Ceremonies and the rum that children of Dionysus and Bacchus so often consumed behind staircases?

But what Y/n asked as she stared at him, frozen, was, “Why you?”

“Hm?”

“Why would he choose you?” She repeated, somewhat impatiently.

The pause that followed was filled with grunts, moans of pain, taunting laughter, thuds, whimpers, arrows swishing through the air, and more as he regarded her with a somewhat pensive expression. It wasn’t until she lowered her eyes to her feet as a resounding cackle sounded from the far left of the archery zone, that Minho seemed to break away from his train of thought.

With a slight shake of his head, he walked to the shelf and picked up the bow and quiver from before.

“Maybe he thinks I wouldn’t make a spectacle out of you.” He said, fingers running up and down the upper limb.

Another surprise.

As if driven by some newfound hope, Y/n stepped closer. “Is he right?”

Mouth curving up in a small smile, Minho nodded and handed her the bow.

“Any luck with it?” He asked.

Y/n shook her head, eyes on the bow as her fingers curled around the grip.

“None.” When he just stood there, staring as if he expected a more detailed answer, she went on to say, “The string- it hurts my fingers when I pull it. If I can pull it in the first place.”

“There are pads for that. Why didn’t you take a pair from the shelves? I know you don’t have your own yet.”

Because she didn’t know there were any. The archery zone was farthest from the benches, and this was her first day of training. Ever. She didn’t know her way around here, and it was only becoming more and more obvious by the second that she stood out like a sore fucking thumb among all of these well-fed, athletic, lethal cohorts. Her silence and the way she couldn’t look him in the eye was a clear enough answer for Minho as he placed his hand on her bony shoulder and led her back to the trenches of the archery zone. On their way to the farthest spot on the left, where she’d made a fool out of herself previously, he explained the parts of the arrow and the bow. They registered in her brain as follows; the point/arrowhead, shaft, fletching, nock, lower and upper limbs, grip, arrow rest, and the nocking point. Easy enough. Theoretically. Maybe with consistent training, she would get her arrow to stay still.

“Hey,” Minho says, eyes set ahead, “You’re here. Done practicing?”

She follows his gaze to the person it has landed on, and she wonders how she could have let his presence slip her mind. Had she been swept away by Minho’s explanation of the basics of archery to this extent?

The boy closed in on them as they halted at Y/n’s previous spot, and she hoped her discomfort at his presence didn’t bleed into her countenance, pale as it was. His height and appearance didn’t help. Over the past week, she’d seen him in passing and at a distance, but now that he stood before Minho and her it felt as though some looming threat had materialized before her very eyes. Some primal instinct in her urged her to scour her surroundings for an exit. It made her want to worm her way into the deepest layers of the earth if only to seek refuge from the misfortune one word from him might bring upon Luna and her. His eyes were on her for no longer than a few seconds.

“Finished a while ago,” Hwang told Minho in that honeyed yet neutral voice of his. His right thumb fit neatly inside the ringlike part of the black knife he had apparently been carrying the entire time. She noted the sinister curve of the blade. “Thought I’d try archery today.”

“Where’s your bow?”

“Changed my mind. Things are rather dull around here.” He said nonchalantly, but Y/n felt the sting. “I might go join Yeonjun and Beomgyu in the simulation chamber after all.”

Minho’s brows shot up. “There already?”

“They waited for you for about half an hour then left.” The boy’s eyes were on her, appraising her once again. “I see you had no plans of joining us though.”

“I told you gremlins on Friday that I’d be training her from now on.” Minho reminded him and suddenly he was standing a tad closer to her. “After simulation practice. Remember?”

Hwang’s gaze briefly shifted to the space between her and Minho and then he shrugged. “We thought it was a prank.”

Y/n couldn’t fault him for that. This whole endeavor sounded like a practical joke. She didn’t see how it could end in anything other than complete and utter disappointment for her. Orlova would humiliate her further if she failed. And she would fail. But the way he said it implied that she was the joke. A bleak, pathetic little gag that his friend was wasting his time on. True as it was, it still made her itch.

After that, Y/n tried to tune them out with very little success. Even with all the screaming and groans of pain around, his voice was impossible to dampen. She heard everything, from their talk about the new gear for the obstacle course to the nets on the second floor of Compartment A, a place she’d never stepped foot in. If Minho found the fleeting glances Hwang shot in her direction suspicious, he did not remark on it. In any case, Minho’s ability to pick up on the way his friend appraised her mattered little when she was cursed with feeling dissected every second of their interaction.

A bit later, the taller boy took his leave, toying with the knives in his grasp.

“Hyunjin, hey,” Minho called after him. Y/n glanced back just as Hwang tilted his head for his friend to continue. “Don’t forget about what we talked about before.”

After taking one last look at her, the boy answered simply, “Sure.”

The next 15 minutes were an overload of theory that she would soon have to put into practice. Minho was a good teacher, even if a little intimidating at times. His gaze could be equally warm and chilly, yet it appeared to melt entirely at a specific sound.

Her head snapped to the left, and surely, halfway through the thinning line of archers, stood Jisung with his brother Felix, both in their training gear. They were- well, he was cackling and pointing at Felix’s sorry attempts at hitting the target dead in the center while the blonde pouted, frustrated at his less-than-adequate skills. He must have been a healer then if he wasn’t even a little bit naturally gifted with the bow. The worst part about being a pitiful archer was probably having a brother who was just the opposite and made no effort to console you. Not that Jisung wasn’t trying to help. He just teased Felix in the process.

Y/n smiled a little at their bond before positioning her feet the way Minho taught her and made to pull the string. When she craned her head to the side for his approval, his attention was fixated elsewhere. While she’d pulled herself back to the matter at hand, he seemed to be under some sort of spell. Interest in their training had drained from his eyes. Now, the warm irises expressed something different, remote, and almost regretful. Y/n couldn’t put a finger on it.

Lowering the bow, she asked, “Do you know him?”

As if electrocuted, Minho tore his gaze away and looked at her. She felt a little sorry for having sought his attention.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding for her to raise the bow and get in position. “They’re my friends.”

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The next day starts normal enough save for the fact that they wake up earlier as she has to get her blood drawn earlier if she wants to have breakfast at the hall. Made breakfast for Luna, and endured the pangs of pain. Stomach acidity going wild in there. Reassured her little sister for the thousandth time at home and on the way to Eos Elementary. Ran a marathon to school. Got her blood sucked through a tube which left her feeling dull and lifeless like a dish towel. Breakfast was stellar and she even stuffed an extra honey chocolate muffin into an empty pocket of her backpack, all wrapped up in foil by the lunch lady.

Lectures went on and on, and for once Y/n didn’t feel like she was about to turn into one of Medusa’s little garden companions. Seungmin and she were still not on speaking terms. Not that they had been gossiping and chatting away before. Just… the silence was stifling. She’d have to get used to it. It was no different from what she had once shared with Chiron, her caretaker. An uneasy, dutiful coexistence.

Lunch came around but she tried not to seem too excited about it. Others would think it weird for someone to be that excited over a meal. Or maybe everyone did? Food was something to look forward to for everyone, wasn’t it?

Whatever the case, she tried to put a leash on her excitement as she received her prearranged lunch. On her way to her table, she spotted Minho talking with his friends and another guy with a muscular build she had seen around before. He caught her looking and acknowledged her with the slightest nod. Not even that seemed to escape his friend Hwang. His piercing dark eyes studied the exchange, which urged her to hurry to her table.

To her left, the four students from before chatted with each other. At one point she felt them watching as she dug into her small portion of spaghetti. She put the fork down and settled for studying the floor. What magnificent patterns. After a minute of speaking under their breath, they looked away and pretended they hadn’t seen her gorge on her food like a cavewoman.

Halfway through lunch, a storm of a dark-haired young man comes their way, clasping his hands on Jisung’s and Felix’s shoulders.

“Oh, my fucking fuck, you guys,” Is his first line, “You’ll never guess what happened!”

Jisung pulls him down to his eye level. “So, tell us since we won’t.”

The man sits smack between the two brothers.

“This little girl basically went barking mad at the school. You know the one. For the little kids. The one you went to when you were little.”

The redhead speaks, sounding incredulous. “Eos Elementary, Jeongin. How can you not know?”

“Why would I know?!” The guy, Jeongin, defends.

“You’ve been here like three years!”

“And I would have lived not knowing anyway!”

Jisung intervenes. “Oh, my fucking gods, who gives a shit?!”

“Yeah, you were talking about a little girl?” Felix attempts to bring them back on track a tad more gently. “What did she do?”

Jeongin smiles big, his eyes turning into glittering jewels as two adorable dimples appear on his cheeks. He leans forward, motioning for the others to do the same. But when he speaks, he makes no effort to lower his voice.

“From what I heard, the higher-ups sent some of their own to investigate. I know what you’re thinking; what the fuck are they doing there then. Well, at first, I thought they suspected a staff member. Maybe one of them got caught selling drugs on the low. Dabbling in crystal meth or cocaine. But, no, that doesn’t make sense because they’re busy trying to catch whoever killed Juliana and Ruth. Is that it then? Did the janitor kill those two? So, then I listen closer and-

Yeji lifts an eyebrow. “Listen?”

“Eavesdropped on the professors, whatever. So, then I listen closer, and when I tell you my jaw dropped!”

All five of them fall silent, and Y/n listens with bated breath.

“Wait…” Jisung looks to others for confirmation. “Don’t tell me they suspected a kid.”

Lia cups her hand over her mouth, her appetite long gone. “No way…”

“Way!” Jeongin effused.

Yeji threw up her hands. “This is getting ridiculous.”

“Is this what they’re wasting time on while Ruth and Juliana rot?” Felix asked in disbelief and anger, staring down at his plate. “Chasing and scaring little kids?”

“But you guys don’t know the best part.”

“Best?” Yeji shot him a reproachful look, just about done with his chipper attitude towards the situation. “There’s nothing remotely good about this, Jeongin.”

Her words appeared to strike a chord within him, for he got red in the face as if he’d been guzzling down cup after cup of wine. He removed his hand from Jisung’s shoulder, whose expression let him know he agreed with the redhead. Felix and Lia shared the same opinion it seemed.

“I know. I didn’t mean it like that. I- well, you know how I- sorry, I got carried away.” He apologized, and it sounded truthful, with the way he smiled awkwardly, blushing even more with each word. Then, with a shake of his head, he carried on, “Apparently, they started to question every kid that is known to have inherited powers. Started doing blood tests. Putting them through this trance-like state. This girl couldn’t take it and lashed out, injuring the medics before making a break for the gate.”

A few unnerving beats of silence. Lia rotated the pearly bracelet on her delicate wrist. Jisung zoned out, toying with a triangular-shaped object about the size of an acorn. Felix picked up his fork only to set it down again. Yeji was deep in thought.

“Do they have her in custody now?”

The question earns her a groan from Jeongin.

“That’s what I’ve been telling you! She broke out. The guards started chasing like fools but they couldn’t catch her.”

“Couldn’t get their hands on a little girl? Are you serious?”

“Deadass.”

“Are they still out looking for her?” asked Felix, who was now trying to force himself to eat.

Jeongin shrugged, picking up Jisung’s fork to steal some of his spaghetti, which the latter didn’t seem to mind.

“All I know is that the last time they saw her was before she bolted inside the forest.”

Jisung’s eyes almost popped out. Lia gasped and the rest were just as shocked.

“Oh, no,” She whispered. “Gods she won’t be able to survive in there.”

Jeongin swallowed the food and grabbed a napkin to wipe at the corners of his mouth.

“I think she will.” He counters.

“How so?” It was the first time Felix sounded genuinely angry as pushed his plate away, almost knocking over Lia’s glass. To him, the whole ordeal is absurd at best, and evil at worst. “She doesn’t have the training to face what prowls in there.”

No, she doesn’t, thought Y/n. For the entire duration of their conversation, her body had remained stock still, a veritable statue. Her body had gone into panic mode, reserving energy only for breathing. Her limbs had lost all feeling to the point that she had felt like a spectator to her miserable form sitting there uselessly while they reacted to the unofficial news about the runaway child. A child driven mad by experiments conducted in the name of an investigation.

It took a few moments for her to reclaim her anatomy, to perceive the surroundings through her eyes; the clattering of utensils, the boisterous laughter, the brain-rotting whispers, and the light streaming in from the windows high up. Then, utter void. She could feel their eyes on her but their voices were suddenly silenced by the buzzing in her head. The ringing in her ears. The blood rushed back into her face as she forced her trembling hands to grab onto the straps of her backpack. Darkness pooled at her feet as though every crevice of her framework bled pure, unadulterated tar. A fog that, if you touched it, curled around your fingers, slowly draining your life force. Not that she knew any of this.

By the time she snapped back into her body for the second time, she had already begun running.

No one other than the higher-ups knew of this, but back when she’d first arrived at Camp Jupiter, Y/n had done so through the forest. Lupa had found her at the very edge before she’d managed one step into the green nightmare. She had smacked her around a few times, glowering over her, thinking it would intimidate her into abandoning her newfound purpose. Meeting her baby sister. In the end, the guardian had granted her entrance. Only not through the natural path, and not without a few chilling words of caution.

Now, she found herself at the edge for a second time, preparing to brave the search for Luna in the gargantuan nightmare before which she stood. No forest was so imposing, so eerie in the way only living things promising a harrowing death can be. But what did any of that matter? What did it matter if she stayed outside of it, alive and with her sister's mangled corpse painted on her eyelids when she could just step inside?

Clutching the straps of her backpack, she willed the fear to melt off her extremities. The forest closed up behind her, alive with the desire to prevent her escape. Two more steps inside and her sense of direction turned to mush. There was no left or right, no up or down. Only branches, thorns, the hooting of owls, and somewhere, what felt like but a few hundred feet from her, maniacal laughter. There was only forward because the exit had been devoured.

Her heart hammered away inside her chest. How was she going to find Luna in this leafy purgatory? Encased by darkness as she was, she would assume she was without hands or feet if not for her sense of touch. Her soles prickled with the cold and her fingers were minutes away from turning into inoperable stubs. As she walked, she resolved to prevent that by opening and closing her fists. How quickly you forget us, spoke the shadows. It was difficult to tell which. They all melted together. But that single sentence was enough to make her remember who she was. She was the daughter of Nyx. Darkness was her legacy. Speaking to it, wielding it, that was her prerogative.

Luna. She spoke as softly and as low as she could so that she wouldn’t spark the interest of any creatures lurking nearby.

Luna. She spoke her sister’s name once again, and when that went unanswered, she took several steps in an unknown direction, feeling her way around with her hands. Thorns pierced her skin. Her blue oversized blue zip-up hoodie snagged on the branches. She could swear they were clawing at her face, back, thighs, and neck. The bark was so rough, she couldn’t lean on it for long. But the cold lessened the pain of the abrasions.

Luna, it’s me, Y/n. She tried a third time, never stopping to look into the darkness for fear of what she might find staring back. Answer me if you can hear me. Don’t scream or you will alert the monsters. Listen to the darkness and it will lead you to me.

No response, and after a few minutes of unendurable silence Y/n could no longer keep her breathing steady. She could hear her heart hammering away. Her blood rushing throughout. The ringing in her ears drowned out all sounds, which was dangerous considering where she was.

She recalled the way she had torn through the forest years ago. Her tunnel vision had proven useful back then. It had given her courage, the strength she needed to charge towards her purpose. Now it hindered her senses. She was going to get mauled before she could find Luna. It would all be for naught. All because she hadn’t honed the ability to commune telepathically with the shadows. It drove her mad to think about it.

But she kept going. It seemed like a sin to stand still.

North.

She knew it was the darkness. No one spoke to her like it did. But did it actually expect her to be able to tell which way north was? She could barely tell which way was left and right. Y/n looked into the dark, truly gazed into it. She could make out certain shapes; owls on the trees, squirrels nibbling on nuts, and other larger-sized silhouettes prowling. Surely that couldn’t be north.

When Y/n turned right, the darkness spoke again. It sounded annoyed. North!

“I don’t know.” She hissed. “I don’t know which way north is. I’m not a fucking compass.”

This time she turned left. This must be the way because when she next heard the darkness speak, it sounded almost relieved. North.

“Thank you.” She whispered. “That’s how we’ll communicate.”

As she walked north for what seemed like an eternity but must have been just half an hour at most, she noticed the forest getting brighter. It flickered like the lights at their apartment. Only this fractured the darkness at even intervals, like a regular heartbeat that supplied the rest of the entire harrowing expanse of the wild with life. She gravitated toward it, drawn by the fluorescent aquamarine hue of the veiny roots and the scent of pine needles. The latter made the ground soft for walking, cushioning the footfall.

The closer Y/n got to the source, the more she could tell wasn’t the only one entranced by it. At first, all she heard were rushing currents, muffled sounds, then sobs, and lastly the voice of an adult male.

“Do you like flowers, little one,” it said, and his voice gave her chills.

Y/n didn’t need to hear the child speak. Her sniffling was enough.

“Yes.” Luna hiccupped.

Y/n was now behind the tree, petrified at the thought of what this man might be. Was he even a man? He looked like it; black hair curled at the ends, clad in a white blouse and ironed pants much too crisp for their surroundings. There should at least be some splatters of water or soaking hems. His clothed feet were in the stream after all.

The man bent down and plucked a blade of grass. It spiraled around his index finger and then sprung free, fluorescent petals of green and blue spreading like feathered wings.

“Here, then,” he said gently, waiting for her to accept his creation as he placed his hand on top of her head. “Beautiful thing, is it not?”

Luna nodded, her small fist closing around the glowing stem. The man’s mouth twitched.

“You may take it home with you if you wish.” He told her.

Y/n couldn’t hide any longer.

“Luna?” She called out, finally appearing on the other side of the stream. “Luna, throw that away.”

“Y/n!” Luna screamed for joy, crossing without fear of being swept away by the current. “Y/n, you came! You’re here! You came for me!”

The little girl pressed her face into Y/n’s hoodie and the latter responded by wrapping her scrawny arms around the girl’s shoulders.

“Of course, I did. I came to take you home.”

“I don’t want to.” Luna’s voice came out muffled.

“What do you mean-

“I don’t want to! I don’t want to go home!”

“Luna, they won’t hurt you. I won’t let them, remember?” Y/n tried to reason, rubbing the back of her head as her eyes flicked up at the man on the other side. “Do you remember what I told you to say if anyone asks?”

Her little fists tighten around Y/n’s hoodie.

“I was in bed sleeping. Then you suddenly remembered to go pick up something from a store at the square.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Y/n encouraged her. “And when I arrived there, people were crowded around the fountain.”

Luna makes a choking sound. “And then you came straight home to make sure I was okay.”

“That whoever had done that hadn’t hurt you.” Y/n finished but it didn’t do anything to calm her down. On the contrary, her body tensed up against hers. “See, they can’t say anything bad about you.”

“But I’m-

“It’s time you went home, little one.”

The man’s voice commanded their attention, even if the way he spoke was deceptively soothing. Luna loosened her hold and held onto her arm instead. Its petals unbruised, the flower remained in her hand.

“Thank you.” She said, “For looking after her.”

“Hardly. It is you I wished to have a word with.” He revealed quite plainly. Y/n waited for him to speak his peace, which he seemed to understand. “Tell the wretched vermin not to be so awfully stingy.”

Then, he turned on his heel. Before he disappeared, he craned his head a little and cast them one last glance.

“And keep that flower.” He told them. “It is, by far, the most precious thing you own.”

With that, he vanished from the shallow creek, leaving them to stand beneath the arching branches overhead, watching their glow sink into the bed of the stream, particles reflected off the current which got more violent by the second. They had to get out of there at once. So, they went south, walking as fast as they could without raising hell in their wake. Still, twigs snapped under their feet. Their breathing grew more labored as they neared the spot from which Y/n had entered. A little further and they would get to the clearing. But to do that they first had to claw through the barrier of thorns that had blocked her exit just moments before the darkness had swallowed her.

Glued to her side, Luna trembled with fear. Her heels dug into the ground.

“Please,” Came her quivering imploration, “Please, don’t take me there. I don’t want to go back.”

Y/n couldn’t see her face, only the shivering frame of a little girl.

“If we leave, they’ll find us.” She tried to reason once again. “Nothing could save us then.”

No reply. Sensing that Luna wasn’t going to be convinced to follow her out of the forest, Y/n began to panic. Nothing would convince the scared child clinging to her arm to step back into misery. A place, she was certain would not dither to sentence her for a crime they believed her to have committed. It was a losing game. The least she could do was gamble one last time.

She set down her backpack and felt around inside its pocket for the muffin she had previously stuffed in there. After fishing it out, she placed it on Luna’s hand, the one clasping hers, and let the girl bring it up to her nose.

“It’s a muffin,” Y/n confirmed. “I got it from the cafeteria like I told you I would. But if we leave, we won’t be able to have food like this ever again. I’m no one outside of this camp. I’m not a person. I can’t get a job and cook warm food for us every day. We would starve, and I don’t want you to suffer, Luna.” She clasped Luna’s hand into her own. “If we stay, I can get all sorts of things for you. Food, clothes, and maybe a better house one day. Then, you can leave and I’ll stay.”

She could feel her little sister tensing up and about to cry.

“Okay,” She said in a wobbly voice, “I’ll come with you.”

That was all Y/n needed to face the barrier of thorns and start clawing through it. She was not strong. That much she knew. But maybe her perseverance would suffice. Maybe the darkness would lend her a shadowy hand and snap each branch one by one, even as the thorns tore at her clothes and the rough branches broke the skin. Maybe crawling through it, roughed up and bloodied with her sister unharmed, would be enough. Maybe all the forest sought was her blood. Maybe it was divine. Maybe it was human after all.

It seemed like an eternity before they saw light peeking through the thorns, which somehow had made it their missing to grow behind them even as she clawed through. Meaning she had to be more brutal. Charge faster towards the beckoning light of the clearing.

What she had anticipated and tried to deny, was the welcoming party. A squadron of a hundred and fifty demigod warriors awaited their return; spears raised, blades drawn, arrows nocked. The celestial bronze was almost blinding in the glow of the afternoon sun. In stark contrast with the gloomy wilderness from which they had emerged.

An imposing figure led the troops, standing proud was Shin Ryujin.

“Do not resist.” She commanded. Luna took shelter behind her. The action didn’t go unnoticed by the daughter of Bellona, who called four of her subordinates forward. “Seize them.”

4 notes · View notes

tuttumi · 11 months ago

Text

Pareidolia

Chapter 1 "Old Blood"

*****

Trigger warnings: child abuse, human experimentation, human sacrifice, starvation, child neglect, isolation, mentions of suicide, mentions of drowning, mentions of hanging

Clouds were a form of cruelty. Y/n truly believed that. What reason could there be for them to stubbornly mar the midnight sky, concealing the truth of what lay above, other than mere sadistic pleasure? What could possibly be the goal of such obscurity? The questions were of a rhetorical nature, of course. She already knew.

Just as she knew that it wasn’t their fault for existing. Other forces were at play. Forces that clamored in her ears like the sound of a battle cry as millions jumped headfirst into battle. The sound of over 90 thousand demigods and legacies applauding the night’s gladiator as she sauntered out of the underground tunnel and into the arena.

Aggression. Conviction. It was all written in the smirk she sported, in the way she encouraged the crowd to roar louder by raising her sword, in the way her features taunted the weaker crop of those that had divine blood running through their veins. She never failed to make a spectacle of what was, in fact, dutiful bloodshed. As a daughter of Bellona, Shin Ryujin never shied away from the duty of slaughtering monsters to appease the gods. It was an art form that legacies and demigods in particular spent their entire life perfecting. No shirking of obligations was allowed.

Y/n knew this. Ryujin knew this. There wasn’t a single person in the world of myths that didn’t. Everyone knew that once the doors to one of the cages belowground yawned open, the cheers would soon turn to bated breaths, cries of terror, and triumphant cheers as the gladiator fought the monster to the death.

A gladiator’s black uniform wasn’t honored if unbloodied. Soon, the built-in breastplate would be slashed or burned, if not pierced or torn. One or both pauldrons might have clattered to the ground. By the end of it, random integrated elements of her protective gear⸺ vambraces, cuisses, poleyns, and greaves⸺ could be scattered all over the arena.

Eventually, the cheer died down. Ryujin stood at the very center of the fighting ground, feet firmly planted in the dirt. She raised her armor and adjusted her grip on the double-pointed spear. Y/n could almost feel her glancing from one opening to the other, wondering out of which the monster would spring. There was no way to be certain. The Battle Creators were cunning, shrewd, and cruel in their designs.

A minute or two passes in hushed whispers. Many of the spectators were likely wondering whether there would be a fight at all. Some of the more impatient ones were already rising from their seats. Others, like Y/n, sat there as if entranced.

There was at first a low rumbling. It sounded as though it was being filtered through several layers of cement. Suddenly the air grew thick with the stench of sweat, fear, and anticipation. Then came the roar. The ground beneath their feet vibrated as if zapped with lightning. The ones who had planned on leaving stumbled back to their seats and waited. In the arena, Ryujin flinched, and out of the cage, the monster soared.

The Manticore wasted no time in diving down for the girl. But Ryujin wasn't there to be a mere figurine. She propelled herself out of the way once it was too close to change its course and slashed sideways. The beast roared in pain, sinking its claws into the ground. Dust clouded Ryujin’s and the audience’s view of its body. All they could perceive was its mammoth silhouette. Even that was thanks to the burning torches stationed all over the Colosseum.

Fighting a beast at night while the children of Aeolus and its Roman counterpart, Aiolos, did the most to have the clouds smothering moonlight, was no easy feat. Y/n was sure Ryujin was mostly relying on her sense of hearing and touch, feeling the vibrations under the soles of her feet.

Her suspicions were confirmed when the beast flapped its wings, blowing out their only light source. Only Y/n and her younger sister Luna might be able to see and hear the truth of the shadows. Ryujin followed the sound of the manticore’s footsteps as it circled her. Predator and prey. In a fight of this sort, no one was certain which was which. Could you call a beast out of its cage prey? Could you call a demigod a predator?

The Manticore sniffed the air and bared its fangs.

“Ah, the stench of godliness,” It spoke, stalking closer to Ryujin who retreated several steps back. “How you reek of servitude.”

One step forward. One step back for Ryujin. The Manticore ran its lengthy tongue across its pointed teeth.

“Should you slay me,” A low growl, “You shall remain a slave still.”

This time, Ryujin was the first to lunge. She sprinted towards the beast, spear and shield raised. Precisely then, the torches came alive, children of Hecate, Trivia, Hephaestus, and Vulcan having taken it upon themselves to restore the visibility of their surroundings. If you looked carefully, you could pinpoint the exact moment when Ryujin’s plans were foiled.

The Manticore didn’t sidestep. It neither flew as high as the electromagnetic and magic-infused barriers can allow nor leaped over her. And everyone knew it was futile to try and goad it into a defensive mode. This was no horse you could whip into submission, no emaciated child you could starve into servitude. This was an intelligent creature mistakenly taken for a mindless beast. It made Ryujin’s victory seem like a pipe dream.

Staring her down, the monster stood its ground, remaining unmoving as Ryujin thrust her spear forward. The manticore swatted her like a fly, sending her body flying. Many in the crowd gasped. Others yelled encouragements at her, demanding that she pull the heart out of its chest. The rest spoke amongst themselves, making bets and pondering the odds.

Ryujin leaped to her feet, paying no heed to the possible injuries. She had to have at least fractured her elbow. But the demigods healed quickly and this was, by far, not among the most fatal injuries. It was not uncommon for them to shatter ribs, have their guts spilling out, or run even as the bottoms of their feet melted in the scorching hot sand. These were to be expected. As was death.

Her shield had slipped from her grip during the attack. Only her javelin remained. That meant the remaining defense was to attack the beast and hope it didn’t sink its claws in her chest during the struggle. The monster and the girl walked in a circle, maintaining eye contact all the while. As seconds passed, the circle got smaller. Once they were within 10 feet of each other, both raised their weapons. Ryujin’s spear spun in her hand as the manticore raised its unsightly paw. The claws glinted in the flickering light of the torches.

Passing the spear from one hand to the other Ryujin slashed and slashed, all while trying to evade the manticore’s attacks. Just because she was the one doing the attacking, it didn’t mean she was the one in control. In fact, the monster seemed to almost be grinning at her puny effort. It didn’t see her as a threat at all. Ryujin appeared to catch on pretty quickly. Instead of letting the beast manipulate her into thinking she had him cornered, she allowed herself to step sideways.

She didn’t lessen the severity of her attacks, thrusting with all her might and as much rapid succession as she could. This way the manticore would believe she was still being deceived. She ducked as the manticore’s claws swished through the air like behemoth-sized blades. It snapped its jaws right as she saw the light from the torches glowing all brighter as she walked backward toward the wall. It seemed to think it had Ryujin trapped. And, despite her best efforts to outsmart the monster, she was.

It didn’t matter if she slashed at its neck. It didn’t matter that she tried to plunge the point of her spear into its chest. The manticore only needed to loom over her like a shadow of a being. “Foolish child believes herself a victor.” It growled sinisterly.

Scowling, Ryujin sends a gobble of spit flying at the monster’s maw. “Fuck off to Tartarus! I am a victor! I am the-

“Offspring of something that loves you even less than I do.”

No one wants to believe it. No one wants to believe that they can ever cower in terror. But what else can a girl of 19 do when the monster she thought she’d be toying with is toying with her instead? Y/n wonders if this is what food feels like when the other demigods and legacies play with it. She wonders if Ryujin foresees herself becoming the monster’s dinner. The look of horror on her face tells her she might be.

The manticore raises its right muscular foreleg and swipes at her only to find its paw pierced through by a double-edged sword. A normal person would be confounded by the turn of events. But even if this whole thing was normal, this sentient being was no human. It growled in pain but its pain did not register. Saliva trickled from its monstrous maw. Its eyes burned furiously. The shadows told Y/n all about it.

As a child of Bellona, Shin Ryujin possessed the ability of telumkinesis; control over a myriad of weapons. Children of Ares and Athena, as well as those of their Roman counterparts, could also wield such power. It was a blessing truly. Now more than ever.

Ryujin twisted the blade. When the manticore struck again, she dragged the blade across its paw before sliding down between its legs. She made to slash at them. The manticore beat its bat wings before she could do any damage and sent several of the spikes on its tail spearing in her direction. Having no shield to protect herself with, she ran as the spikes stabbed into the ground one after the other. Before the audience could marvel at her agility, the weapon in her grip transformed into a chakram. It arched up into the air toward the monster. The manticore swooped down instead and Ryujin took off to the left, taking hold of the chakram as it came back down in a curved motion. The Manticore was not far behind. Ryujin stepped out of the way before its jaws snapped shut and she was lying there lifeless.

This time she didn’t see the attack coming. Some of the spikes on its tail carved deep gashes across her collarbone and arm as she tried to put some distance between them. Ryujin cried out in pain and faltered. But one look at the crowd, at their watchful, judgmental gaze, and she knew she wasn’t allowed to lick her wounds in the arena.

She had planned on altering the chakram into a spear to pierce right through the monster’s thick skin. Change of plans.

Once the beast turned to face her once more, its ghastly orifice agape, she separated the chakram and molded it into two daggers, each the size of her forearms. Swiftly, she plunged the blades into its feline eyes. The monster roared in agony for everyone to hear. It tried to shake her off but she refused to relent. The spectators rose to their feet, pumping their fists into the air as Ryujin pulled herself up by the two blades, landing right on the manticore’s back. She ruthlessly dragged the daggers through its skull. The monster’s anguish heightened as she split it open. Then she started to scoop up the contents of its head, blackened blood and unearthly matter that only slightly resembled the human brain. The liquified substance dripped down her hands as she hurled fistful after fistful of it to the mud below with a dull thud. The manticore gave a last desperate bellow and knelt. Its surrender became obvious to everyone as it fell limp on its side.

Ryujin yanked out the blades and dismounted. But her duty was far from finished. The spectators had demanded she pull the heart out of its chest. And that’s just what she did. Shin Ryujin was a gladiator and a victor. She never looked the part more than she did then; a monster’s heart in her grasp, bleeding gashes on her body, matted hair on her cheeks. Her weapon was a spear once again and it stood proudly in her grasp, one tip nailed to the ground.

The crowd roared and she stood there, crying out in triumph.

It was amazing, Y/n mused, how fast the world could pretend to have moved on from the mystery murder of the closest thing to a god. As she mulled the last part over and over again, Y/n couldn’t decide if it was the manticore she was thinking of or Juliana Pierce, daughter of Victoria.

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Never a dull moment at Olympia University. There was always some clownery to behold at the front steps; a noisy quarrel, laughable theatrics, failed confessions, foolish but clever pranks, et cetera. If you tried, you could probably assign a demigod to each of the aforementioned events. For instance, the boy who handed another boy a bag of chips as a gesture of kindness was a son of Hermes, if the repulsed screaming that followed was anything to go by. He howled with laughter as the victim chased him down the steps and around the fountain built into the expansive yard. Next to the front door, a monstrosity of Celestial Bronze, a buff boy trapped another in a chokehold. Son of Ares and Bacchus respectively. Next to them stood Ryujin, cheering on the ‘assailant’.

You might say it was all a merry affair. And it goes without saying that none of it involves Y/n. She could observe but never make herself welcome. She could study but never make it apparent that she was doing it. She was allowed to be the reason they ate plenty as long as she never made her existence known or felt. It was a rather isolated reality. She owed it all to her godly parent, whoever they were. Her fingers curled around the spine of her book as she crossed the schoolyard. Eye contact proved easier once you erased it from your dictionary. She couldn’t remember the last time she held someone’s gaze for longer than two seconds. Luna was the only exception but, being Y/n’s younger sister by 11 years, she didn’t really count.

The moment she thought of Luna, that’s where her thoughts remained. This morning the nine-year-old wasn’t that chipper about going to class. Actually, she’d begged Y/n to stay in bed, saying it was too cold outside, that her skin prickled and the light streaming in from the open windows was too bright. It hurt her eyes. Not knowing what to do, Y/n had given her one of her thick padded jackets which had been rotting in their shared closet for the past three years.

“See?” She’d told Luna as she zipped it up to the neck. “It’s dark green. Like the forest.”

Luna hadn’t looked too happy about it, pouting as she complained, “Everyone is going to make fun of me.”

Y/n had frowned.

“Why?” She’d asked, sitting at the foot of Luna’s bed.

“Because it’s spring!” The little girl had stomped her foot, hands bunched into fists. “Nobody wears this in spring! Only weird kids do!”

They had both been running late at that point and Y/n had wanted nothing more than to yell at her sister. Tell her to shut up and deal with it, and that they couldn’t afford to skip lessons. It would just make them even more of a target. But there her sister had been, eyes of the darkest brown squeezed shut as she stood her ground. It’s not even that cold, Y/n had sighed internally.

As the older sister, she had tried to reason, “But don’t you want to be warm?”

“I want to stay home.”

“Luna,” Y/n had groaned in exasperation, flopping backward on the covers. “Please, I haven’t slept at all and we’re both late.”

With that, Y/n had dragged her ass and Luna’s out of the cramped apartment and dropped her off her at the primary school on Camp Jupiter. It was a 1-hour walk from their living quarters to the front gate of the Academy for younger kids, a building the monstrous size of which was only rivaled by that of the Colosseum and the University. Only a 20-minute walk from there and up north to the University. But it felt like she’d been sprinting for miles.

The Government spared no expenses where the education sector was concerned, providing only the most updated data on any and every field of study as well as equipment for the harnessing of the demigods and legacies’ physical skills. A system had been put into place that allowed for experimentation in terms of how well supernatural abilities could work in tandem with physical skills and prowess, and children were not exempt from it. In fact, it was made clear on their first day on camp that the training would be a grueling one and that their duty was to endure it without a word of complaint. But like everything else, this was provided for them under several conditions. Unlike the other progeny of the divine, Y/n and Luna were forbidden from accessing certain texts and documents. They were never granted permission to leave the camp and had been warned that if that were the case, neither would be spared from the dungeons of torment. Meals were provided for them but they preferred to have them alone. At least, Y/n tried to convince herself that was the case.

The topic of food was one she hadn’t told Luna about even if she eventually would have to. It was a subject as tender as the flesh from which her blood was drawn, darker than the deep violet bruises littering her skin from shoulder to wrist. It had been some time since she’d last seen the natural hue of the inner part of her arms. For years, her blood had been used as an offering to the Pantheon. What better insult to the primordial entities than bleeding its offspring dry?

By law, everyone was supposed to offer exactly three drops of blood at the temple each morning but, every time a child of the Titans or some other entity that preceded the Gods of Olympus in age was born, the Pantheon would hunt them down and drag them to one of the camps. There, they became the Vetus Sanguis, palió aíma in Greek, or ‘blood piggy’ as campers liked to call them. Before Y/n, it had been more than a century since the birth of a child of an Old God. There had never been that many of them around, to begin with. And even when there were morsels of them for others to feed on, those reserves soon ran drier than a scorching desert. Bot metaphorically and literally.

Vetus Sanguis, Old Bloods, always found a way to escape. If captured, they resorted to committing suicide; hanging, drowning, setting themselves on fire, slitting their wrists in the dead of night, ingesting highly active substances that liquified their insides, and so on. Bottom line⸺ they got creative. Over time, the respective caretakers of Camp Half-Blood and Jupiter had learned to identify the symptoms of a defective blood piggy and taken the necessary precautions. Chiron had told her this one night, in that fatherly way of his, after he’d caught her sobbing in her confinement. To his credit, he had always stayed up late to read her bedtime stories, after which he’d rub her head and leave. The lock on the door always turned.

As she passed through the front door of Olympia University, Y/n could only be thankful for the long sleeves of her midnight blue zip-up hoodie seeing as it was the only thing shielding her arms from scrutiny. She could have worn her uniform jacket⸺ it kept her warmer after all. But to quote Luna, only weird kids wore those at Olympia. It wasn’t obligatory for the students to present themselves clad in formal attire so they didn’t, save for ceremonial events. They were no longer in service to the One Legion Alliance or the Senate as they had once been. Now, they were adults who serviced New Rome and the world at large. To keep them contained, the higher-ups allowed them some freedom of choice. It was taken from them one way or another. Nothing ever evened out.

She passed by countless students on her way to the lab, where blood would be drawn from her vessels. Y/n tried her hardest not to look back, it would make the current so much stronger. It would only embitter her. It always did because she always looked back. She was never strong enough not to glance at the stream of students. She wasn’t strong now either.

At the lab, a nurse she hadn’t seen before made the preparations necessary and sat by her side as the blood left her body through the transparent tube. This nurse was much gentler than the other one, who always pierced the flesh a little too hard, gripping her wrist a little too tight. It was the first time in a while that her arm hadn’t throbbed during the process. That morning, at 7:40, Y/n could move her arm without wincing. Lightheadedness was still there and she had to stop outside the lab for a few minutes. As she sat on one of the benches, the blood collector entered the lab with a box of celestial bronze in his hands and came out just the same. This time, the box wasn’t empty.

Y/n took deep breaths as she walked to her first lecture. At 8:03, it was already too late to have breakfast. The dining hall was sure to be bustling with students, some still drowsy while others screeched. No table would be empty enough for her to eat her meal without the weight of their condemnatory gaze on her.

She was late for everything today; waking up, taking her sister to school, and for the offering. If she kept this up, the principal would likely duck points from her record, which was neither entirely clean nor too grim to behold. But she couldn’t afford further fuckups. Once Y/n got her degree, she would have to get a decent-paying job⸺ hopefully in the field of astronomy, but that dream was far-fetched⸺ in New Rome after University so she could be taken seriously and afford a living that neither she nor Luna found shameful. Especially Luna.

Luckily for her, the lecture had yet to commence. The hall being on the second floor of the northern wing of the palace-like edifice, made it so the walk from the dining hall to where she was currently sitting took about 15 minutes longer than the one from the lab. It made sense as it was on the other side of the campus. Having been bored one morning, Y/n had spent her spare time doing the math. Then, bored once again, she’d found herself studying the cream coloring of the walls, the bronze lining on the columns, the gilded embroidery of the burgundy velvet curtains, as well as the fresco on the ceiling.

Right now, the only students present in the lecture hall were the children of Athena and Minerva. Three of them, two girls and a boy, were clustered in two of the desks on the front row, whispering amongst themselves about the gods knew what. Probably their latest architectural designs or documentary. The fourth sat separate from them and right next to her. It had been his self-assigned seat from the beginning of this academic year.

Kim Seungmin, a son of Athena, presently seated on their shared mahogany bench, was her desk mate and only spoke with her if absolutely necessary. Meaning, his evaluation would have to be on the line. One time, he’d turned to her and asked if she had a pen to spare, and when she’d handed her only pen to him, he’d thanked her and immediately returned to his notes. That had marked the end of their first conversation. After that, they only spoke if paired on an assignment⸺ even then, in fragments. He didn’t seem like the type to enjoy meaningless conversation in general. At times, he quite reminded her of an owl; diligent, studious, and cuttingly critical.

The imagery was painted to completion by his manner of dress. His wardrobe, though of significantly higher quality than Y/n’s, appeared to consist mainly of loose linen dress shirts, wool sweaters, plain slacks, and vests of the same material as the sweaters, most of which were in neutral to earthly colors.

Y/n tried to relax in her seat and lifted her eyes. The lecture hall’s vaulted ceiling echoed sounds to perfection. If one were to start singing, it would sound like if you belted out notes in an empty church like people in the movies did. So, when the students trickled in, their voices were the first indication that the room was coming alive. They poured in, and with that came the sense of being watched, as if from a distance.

Not five minutes later, Liliana Orlova, daughter of Venus and Professor of Hematology took her place at the podium. Like that, the lecture hall went silent and she started taking absences. The speed at which she spoke Y/n’s name was astounding, truly. The woman moved on to the next student before Y/n could even open her mouth to let her know she was present.

Once the roll call was done and every student had opened their textbooks, Professor Orlova got on with the lecture. Last time they had stopped at “Molecular Hematopathology”, a 53-page chapter that had, curiously enough, not bored her into jumping off the balcony at 3 AM. The theoretical analysis was to be wrapped up by the end of today’s lecture and on Friday they had to put the knowledge into practice. Some liked it. Some didn’t. Everyone, however, found the schedule unfortunate. They had this evening and the 3 days in between to get through the class material; not slow enough a pace for most to learn comfortably. Even having gobbled up the information on the pages, Y/n had to agree with the shared plight of the collective.

The room had become too cold for her liking. She felt goosebumps rise on her skin despite the thick, black shirt underneath. Y/n pulled the zipper of her hoodie up to her neck. In a few minutes, the cold had gradually spread to her extremities, freezing her hands and feet to the extent that she had trouble moving her toes inside her scruffy, white sneakers or jotting down notes from the lecture. Not that she could write anything down anyway. Without her noticing, Professor Orlova’s voice had become background noise as Y/n rubbed her palms against her baggy jeans. She could feel the soft flesh burn, but none of the warmth. Soon her vision blurred to the point where the words swam across the page and the entire lecture hall appeared to tilt.

“You’re looking pale.”

Her desk partner’s voice, though startling, was always welcome as it was a rare thing to behold. But at that moment Y/n wished he hadn’t looked her way. She wished he hadn’t witnessed her present state.

She looked down at her book, trying to act as if she was reading.

“And you’re shaking.” He added.

“Yeah, sorry.” She didn’t mean to sound so snappy, especially feeling that drained. But the familiar feeling of folding in on herself always rose from within whenever she felt threatened, humiliated, or flat-out sad. And right now, she was ashamed to be seen in such a state. Trying to fix it, she looks at him and says, “I mean, yeah, I am.”

Kim Seungmin seems to be peering at her through his thin, round-framed spectacles, his gaze dull. “You didn’t have breakfast, did you?”

On her thighs, her hands come to a halt.

“How did you know that?” She asked in a low voice.

“I didn’t either.” He answered, glancing ahead for a second before adding. “And you were here earlier than me. You should take your pill at the very least. They give you 31 each month, don’t they?”

“How do you know so much?” But what she really wanted to ask is ‘why’. “This information isn’t for public record.”

“Really?”

“That’s what they told me.”

“Just because you have no friends doesn’t mean your life isn’t public.” He looked at her as if all of this was common sense. “Everyone knows. So, take the pill and focus.”

“It’s not that-

“L/n.”

Y/n all but jolted. When she looked forward, she was met with the disapproving stare of Professor Orlova. It was as if the woman could penetrate the deepest layers of her skin, capable of finding fault with every fiber of her being. It was not the first time. Every lecture with her was followed by an aftermath of crippling self-assessment.

“Yes, Professor?”

Her delicate features morphed into a scowl but only for a short moment. Then, a sickly-sweet smile took over as she leaned forward with her palms planted on the lectern made out of cherry wood. “It must have been of great interest to you,” She said, “To be interrupting the lecture.”

Y/n swallowed a thick lump in her throat. There was no other way to react with how hypervigilant all eyes that were on her made her. At least Seungmin kept staring down at his open book, pretending to flip through the pages slowly.

“Apologies, Professor,” Y/n tried to keep her voice from sounding like a crow’s, “It wasn’t.”

The woman’s lips twitched.

“Still, I believe we would all like to hear it.” She goaded and turned to the other students as if to urge them to join in. “Wouldn’t we?”

There were a few nods, some firm affirmations, but for the most part, the hall was enveloped in silence. How the hell was Y/n supposed to break it with a convincing enough answer that would get Professor Orlova to let this slide? Why did everyone have to know? It didn’t concern them in the least. She was sure none of them, save for the ones seated closest to them, had managed to catch onto anything.

Y/n looked everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Her glances were furtive at best. But in the short time she swept her eyes across the hall a few faces registered. She caught sight of two guys whispering amongst themselves as they stared at her. She knew them both to be sons of Apollo. The one doing the talking was the one seated closest to the column. From what she could see, he was dressed in a sleeveless black t-shirt. His caramel brown hair had a slight perm to it and a silver earring glinted from his right ear. The more he talked the more his features resembled those of a hamster. By contrast, his desk partner, a boy with bleached blonde hair and plump lips in the shape of a heart, clad in a plain white shirt and washed-out jeans, just listened. If Y/n had looked a little longer, she might have noticed the pity in his gaze.

Near the center of the lecture hall, another boy her age stared. His gaze wasn’t nearly as empathetic though. All she allowed herself to discern before she slid her gaze elsewhere was the sleek black hair flowing down to his shoulders and the full, defined lips.

Next to her, Seungmin stirred. Y/n gaped at him in shock.

“Professor,” He started, “We-

“Not you, Mr. Kim. Her.” She bit out, emphasizing the last part as she pointed in Y/n’s direction. “I wish to hear it from her.”

If she’d felt cold before, it was nothing compared to the glacier plunging into the pit of her belly. Being put on the spot was never something to look forward to, especially for her or Luna. Nothing good ever came of being in the spotlight. Y/n swore she was going to freeze before she managed to get a word out, no matter how long or how hard Seungmin kicked her shin under the desk.

Meeting Professor Orlova’s jeering gaze, she braced herself.

“I wasn’t- there’s nothing to tell.” Her voice sounded at once dead and panicked. The twitch of Professor Orlova’s eye told Y/n that she wasn’t convinced. That she wished to hear more come out of her mouth. “Truly, Professor, it was nothing. Again, I really am sorry for the disruption and I promise not to do it aga-

“You’re looking quite pale, Ms. L/n.”

The sentence was like a punch to the fucking gut. It served as a reminder of where she stood in comparison to her peers. The absence of worth and one sole use. The only part of her that remained visible at the end of the day was the one they couldn’t see, the part that kept them fed. In their eyes, she was merely a tube made of flesh.

From the corner of her eye, she could spy Seungmin shooting a glance at her clenched fists. He shook his head.

“My appearance,” Y/n bit out and trembled with exhaustion, from the cold, and the strength it took not to scream, “Is none of your business.”

Some students gasped behind the hands clasped over their mouths. A few snickers here and there. Seungmin shook his head again, exasperated by the whole thing. But most of all, she felt the colossal weight of the opinion of the collective. Never before had she talked back to a professor, choosing to stare at them until they eventually demerited her, issued a warning, or gave her some sort of punitive task to complete. They likely thought her audacious, a pathetic thing who should have learned her place by now.

Professor Orlova's piercing mint-green eyes twitched. A sandy-brown strand of hair escaped her tight, previously immaculate bun.

“Respect!” She slammed both hands on the lectern, causing the students in the lecture hall to turn their attention to her. Then, in a calmer tone, she continued, “I am your professor, your superior, and you will show me respect.”

“We’re both in bad luck then because my parents never taught me any,” Y/n said slowly, “They weren’t around you see.”

It was no secret that demigods rarely interacted with their godly parents. Over the years, a few had even become estranged from their mortal guardians. But it was different with Old Bloods. No matter their achievements, they were never claimed, or if they had been at one point in history, such was no longer the case. Being acknowledged by the Old Gods only put a target on their back. It meant they were accepted in some form so those around would do anything to prevent them from reveling in it. Y/n had always thought that was such bullshit.

Luna was a daughter of Nyx because she’d once curled into a ball at the corner of her room during a thunderstorm. Nobody had been able to detect her. Trying to escape the terror of lighting, how it made ghouls out of branches, she’d become one with the shadows as if seeking comfort in the closest manifestation to her mother. All of this had happened prior to meeting Y/n, who, unlike Luna, had been told her case was different.

This time, Orlova straightened and regarded her with a cold smile.

“Out of this hall, at once.” She pronounced each word clearly, for all to hear. “Go to the Principal’s office.”

Y/n packed her backpack and left without a word, despite the lump in her throat and the dread leisurely settling in her chest. Luna had been right; it was just so fucking cold today.

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The walk to Principal Jiang’s office took about 10 minutes. On the way there she saw a few students smoking pot under stairwells as some of their friends dozed off with their backs to the wall, sitting on the benches along the corridor, students with their noses in books, boys and girls with tears in their eyes as they tried not to get caught howling with laughter. She tried her best to delay the inevitable but her feet, spurred on by humiliation and the desire to put as much distance between her and the lecture hall as possible, were marching across the campus to the personnel building. It was adjacent to the kitchens and the cafeteria, and it made meals much more accessible for the academic staff. If the lecturers ever missed a meal, it was deliberate.

The interior was impressive, to say the least, with marble stairs of cream coloring much like the walls if not a tad darker, and coffee brown handrail to match. On the walls, sconces were installed, and there hung paintings depicting battles, triumphs, slaying of monsters, defeats, revels, and grief. What always struck her (it wasn’t her first time walking up these stairs) was the depiction of the Pantheon as glorious guardians of humanity. It left a bitter taste in her mouth. Was it really how the rest perceived them? Were they really so loved, so revered? Would they look kindly upon her and Luna if she did as everyone did if she saw them as protectors as opposed to predators?

Before her tendency to overthink could take over, Y/n found herself on the third floor of the building. She walked up to the door to Principal Jiang’s office and knocked in hopes that he had taken leave. She should have known better, because, of course, Albert Jiang, ever the punctual man, would be past that door. It wasn’t nearly close to being 4 PM. The class was still in session and after that, a training that ended with some students pressing ice packs to their wounds and nurses administering vials of ambrosia.

“Come in,” She heard the man say in a brittle voice. Y/n turned the knob and walked in. Upon seeing it was her, the old man straightened in his seat and clasped his wrinkly hands on the table before him. “It is you again. Sit. What are you to claim culpability for today?”

The thing about Principal Jiang, son of Pluto, was that he didn’t seem to loathe the sight of her more than he found some of the reasons she was sent to his quarters downright preposterous. A waste of time as he often called it. Many of these offenses consisted of accidentally dropping her ratty pencil case (there was only a pencil, an eraser, and a pen inside so it couldn’t have been that disruptive), laughing when she found another student’s joke too funny to suppress her mirth, and failing to answer a question right because she was too anxious to breathe properly.

Today, she’d been sent here because she’d run her mouth. Knowing he would eventually hear Professor Orlova’s version of the story, Y/n decided to share hers in advance. For a man of 73, who had to have more pressing matters to attend to, Principal Jiang, hands still clasped on the table, listened to her story from start to finish without interrupting her a single time. In a way, she was fortunate to be living at a time when he was in charge.

Near the end, Y/n felt like bursting out laughing when he shook his head and the morning sunlight pouring in from the open mullioned window started tap-dancing on the rock-hard surface of his gelled, swept-back silver hair. Restraint, she told herself. Practice restraint. Because truly, out of all her educators, Principal Jiang was the only one who had never insulted her, which was ironic considering that he wielded more influence than those who had. It would matter very little if the man before her were to change out of his velvet cloak, which was the deepest hue of purple she had ever seen, and into a pair of polka-dot overalls. Having the blood of Hades running through his veins, the old man before her was ruled by the planet of riches, power, and transformation⸺ if one spoke the language of the cosmos.

“Your response, though irreverent, was not unwarranted.” Principal Jiang states after a prolonged silence, during which he caressed his silver bear which ended in a sharp point just an inch below his chin. His serious black eyes look up at her. “However, if I were to let your attitude go unpunished, such leniency on my part would arouse suspicion. That cannot come to pass. Both your place and my position as Principal of Olympia would be viewed with more scrutiny than you can possibly fathom, child.”

With the fear returns the cold, and she rubs her palms over her jeans. “Will I receive another demerit?”

“Perhaps not a demerit,” He says in that brittle, old voice of his, “But a task to allow Professor Orlova to revel in the illusion of having forced a punitive measure upon you.”

Well, that was significantly better than earning yourself a demerit. But the fact remained that her record would be littered with punishments and misdemeanors, one after the other.

“And my record?” She swallowed. “Will I be able to get a decent-paying job if I get in any more trouble?”

Principal Jiang’s pensive expression and the silence conveyed that he was at least considering her words and not just waving them off.

“That remains to be seen.” He told her.

Y/n bit her tongue, curbing her pleas for help. His answer would have to suffice for now.

“It seems proper that I let you know,” His voice, though just as brittle as before, is now nuanced with sympathy, “That if everything were up to me, I would not allow for this. What was decreed by the Gods centuries before you were born, holds value to this day. It may not be what we wish for, but the truth of it remains. They govern us because we remember they exist, and they exist because they never let us forget. That is why the Statute of Realms remains; so that neither can live without the other.”

For a minute or two afterward, Y/n stared at the old man before her, dissecting his words in her mind. Sometimes she wondered whether old people talked just to talk. But that couldn’t be the case with the old man before her. On numerous occasions, namely, her being sent to his office or festivities, he would listen while others rambled away. Whenever he spoke it was always with a purpose and held meaning.

Taking the silence and the way he turned his gaze to the stack of papers on his desk as a dismissal, Y/n stood from the chair.

“Have a good day, Principal Jiang.”

As she left the building, Y/n had another thing to ponder such as why the picture of Juliana Pierce was on Principal Jiang’s desk, stapled to one of the documents in front of him, and why there had been no updates since she’d been pronounced dead.

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Classes ended much the way that they began; her limbs freezing despite the faultless heating system, trying to take notes but never managing to follow the lectures for longer than five minutes, dizziness, fatigue, and an immobilizing sense of paranoia. This motley of symptoms was not news in any way. Years ago, she must have been no older than ten, Y/n had been diagnosed with anemia. It was to be expected, they had said as they drew blood from her one morning, it is only normal. So, for the longest time, she’d felt as if the gentlest current could sweep her away if she were to dive into the river⸺ she wasn’t the most athletically inclined. And honestly? She would let herself be carried.

Needless to say, Y/n didn’t bother returning to the lecture hall after leaving Principal Jiang’s office. There would have been no point in doing so. What little she knew of Liliana Orlova was enough to keep her from trying, and she had no energy to waste on lost causes. No, she’d sat on one of the benches in the corridor and waited for the next class, Advanced Radio Astronomy, to start.

At lunch, from 12 p.m. to 12:45 p.m., Y/n didn’t bother to occupy her usual spot. Staying in one place was a crime against her body when it came to the cold, but so was moving too much. So, she had to alternate between pacing and sitting, something she couldn’t do in the presence of other people. Not when she’d been kicked out of class three hours or so before that. There would be no end to the rumors. She didn’t want to hear any of it. That’s why she’d grabbed a chocolate bar from the ‘candy store’ and an apple from the fruits section, and left right after. As much as she craved a warm bowl of soup and the soft bread fresh out of the oven, Y/n knew her breathing would turn into wheezing once the jeering began.

There was only one more class after, Celestial Mechanics, which, along with Advanced Radio Astronomy, was mandatory to get a degree in Astrophysics, and around 02:30 PM it was time for her to head to the Training Center.

Now, this building was special in that it was positioned somewhat separate from the main ones on campus and resembled a box with three separate compartments. Calling it spacious would be a severe understatement considering that each ‘compartment’ stood at 20 meters in height with an area of around 10000 square meters. These parameters made the building nothing short of enormous. In every remaining aspect, it was identical to the others with its cream coloring, the vaulted ceiling, the columns near the walls that provided support, and the frescoes above.

Impeccably organized was another way to describe the building. Not all three compartments were of the same layout, but they did have a few elements in common. For example, the mats for wrestling were laid out on the left and the archery unit stood farthest from the entrance, bows, and quivers arranged neatly on shelves just outside the shooting area and range. The first floor of Compartment A (Alpha) focused mainly on hand-to-hand combat (that was meant literally) while the second was furnished with nets and ropes for climbing, acrobatics, and gymnastics. The three floors of Compartment B (Beta) dealt more with blades; swords, knives, daggers, axes, polearms, spears, scythes, and so on. Compartment C (Gamma) consisted of three floors, each with various simulation chambers that one could customize for combat.

Y/n spent much of her time admiring the architecture, weaving the wildest of stories, and observing the other students as they trained with weapons and sculpted their bodies. Sometimes she even took the opportunity to start early on her reading. What else was she to do when she was barred from participating? Well, not exactly. From her first day on Camp Jupiter, after they’d let her scrub the dirt, blood, and gore off of her, it had been made plain to her that her priority was to provide them with her blood. It didn’t matter if she was weak and couldn’t train, leaving her in possession of no skills whatsoever. She was an Old Blood before she was a warrior.

Keeping all of the above in mind, it became obvious then that training was out of the question. Especially on days when she could barely stand or even sit. In all honesty, there was nothing she wanted to do more than sleep. Right there. On the bench. Hugging her knees as she lay on her side.

So, what reason could Professor Hinsen, son of Mars and one of the Overseers, have to be telling her to join the training? It wasn’t like him at all. She knew that for certain not because she was his favorite student but because the last time that she’d asked him to train her he’d basically told her to shut her mouth and fuck right off. Him being a tall, rugged man in his forties, with deep taupe brown hair cropped close to his scalp and a scar running along the length of his bulging neck, had certainly discouraged her from approaching him after that.

Yet, there she was, sitting on the bench with her legs crossed and her Hematology book nestled between them.

“What?” This was her first question to him since that day. “But why?”

One of the veins on his neck became visible as he grunted, “Just get up and do as you’re told.”

Y/n didn’t need to be told twice. Closing her book, she rose from her comfortable seat and dusted off her faded black sweatpants, the closest thing she could afford to the actual training uniform. As she stood there, looking anywhere but the man next to her, she was overcome with the urge to ask.

“Are you going to instruct me?” Y/n hoped her voice sounded steady. Professor Hinsen barked out a laugh as if the mere notion of it was absurd. Y/n frowned, and before she could inquire further as to what she was supposed to do, a figure manifested at the edge of her vision. A man of average height, though still towering over her, with tawny brown skin and hair at least five shades darker that curled just an inch past his ears, slowly made his way toward the benches. It wasn’t that she didn’t know who he was. They had simply never been in each other’s presence before as he didn’t teach any of the courses she took.

“I will.” He stated, and for a moment Y/n had forgotten her previous question entirely. The man held out his hand for her to shake. “Khalil Hajjar, son of Minerva, Professor of Tactical Operations and Military History.”

I know who you are, Y/n wanted to say as she shook his hand. Although, upon meeting his analytical gaze, she suspected he knew. He released her hand.

Not wasting any time, Professor Hajjar asked, “Do you have any skills? Griffith, that’s enough.”

The other man, who had started to laugh at the presumption that she would be skilled at anything, only roared with laughter at his colleague’s reproach. What was he? Five? Was he that overjoyed to know that she was the least capable in the room? Professor Hajjar paid him no mind, and Y/n decided to follow his example.

“Not really.” She answered honestly.

Hajjar stared at her. “If you didn’t, then you wouldn’t be in this camp to begin with.”

“I’m not here because I’m good at something.”

He almost seems startled at her instantaneous answer. I’m here because I’m good for one thing, she wanted to correct him.

Chest rumbling with laughter, the five-year-old man patted Hajjar on the shoulder. “This one is all yours.”

Once Hinsen had disappeared down the corridor leading to Compartment B, Hajjar focused his critical gaze on her. It felt as though she was being probed on all fronts.

“Do you truly believe you’re not skilled at anything?” He asks her.

Ashamed but accepting of this aspect of reality, Y/n replies, “Yeah, I do.”

She didn’t know how long he kept studying her. What she could tell, however, from his impassive expression was that he didn’t take her words at face value. Hajjar neither distrusted nor swore by her account completely, which Y/n would have usually thought a wise thing to do. But at that moment, as they stood facing each other in that large room filled with individuals far more accomplished than her, she would have preferred for him to take her word for it. Better than anyone else, Y/n knew the depth of her incompetence.

“Follow me,” Hajjar tells her, and she does.

While on their way to their unknown destination, she takes the time to take stock of her surroundings. On one of the mats to the right, a girl with flaming red hair had pinned another boy to the ground and had a knee pressed to his back. A second later, the roles were flipped. He made as if to bang the back of his head with her face, a decoy of a move. In reality, he hooked both of his legs around her neck, caging her in. The move required extreme flexibility and core strength, but it was worth it in the end. The girl released the hands that pinned his arms against his back. She clawed at his calves but he yanked her backwards only to release her at the last moment. Before she could rise to her feet, the boy pulled himself up just so he could press his knee at her throat.

On another mat to the left, two girls battled with one another with their arms tied behind their backs. The taller girl sent a kick flying and the other ducked, swiping her leg across the floor. The bigger girl fell down with a thud. Still to the left, on the next mat over, two boys were going at it in full swing. They pulled no punches even as their knuckles bled. Neither was willing to yield. Entranced by the people training on the mats, Y/n almost bumped into Hajjar’s back when he halted.

“Stay here.” He told her without looking. “I’ll be back.”

And stay there she did. While walking, she could at least pretend that she was just passing by, that she wasn’t trying to observe. But standing there, rooted in place, analyzing other students’ matches felt odd. It wasn’t until she truly looked around her that Y/n realized why that was. Never before had she stood in the middle of the room. Always on the bench, barred from training, she’d always been outside looking in. From here, she could smell the sweat, could hear their labored breathing, could sense the exertion it took to be that good. It almost felt as if all that time she’d spent observing from the bench, she had been doing so with one eye closed. It made her want to run.

The students surrounding her, both younger and older than she was, clad in their black and gray skintight training uniforms were far more intimidating from up close. Though she attended classes with them regularly, it was only then that she understood the disparity between them and her. It started from the basics, the uniform, and up to their abilities. She missed her bench.

In an attempt to shake off the tension wound around her muscles; Y/n searched the compartment for Professor Hajjar. She found him speaking with a boy three mats ahead to the right. They seemed to be discussing something, and she could hear none of it from where she stood. It didn’t help that the pair wrestling on the mat closest to her to the left decided to end their match with a triumphant cry. Despite being unable to hear, she could see the way a trio of boys looked at her. Two of them, the tallest of the bunch stood on the mat but weren’t sparring. It didn’t seem like they had any plans of the sort either. No, they regarded their friend and Professor Hajjar with curious eyes and whispered among themselves, glancing at her from time to time. It wasn’t those two that worried her, though they certainly carried an intimidating air. No, it was the third person standing just outside the outer margins of the mat. With his sleek black hair that went just a bit past his shoulder, those defined features, and that flawless posture, he could have been a god. Without a doubt, he was the closest thing to it. The problem was that he was staring right at her.

Y/n looked away at once. She wasn’t a dimwit. Nor was she inclined to forget. That was the same boy she’d caught staring at her during the Hematology lecture. She didn’t remember ever having been in such close proximity to him. It had cold sweat pooling on her forehead. Her hands had become clammy from the nerves. The more violently she tried to wipe it off on her sweatpants, the more anxious she became. Every nerve in her body was screaming at her to bolt for the exit. So distraught was she that she didn’t notice Professor Hajjar walking over with the boy in tow.

“Y/n, this is Lee Minho, son of Hermes.” He introduced them while the boy stood there looking at her with a blank expression. “He’ll be your sparring partner throughout today’s training session.”

The boy, Minho steps closer. “Hey.”

Not knowing what to say to him, Y/n chose to speak with Professor Hajjar instead. What did he mean by ‘sparring partner’? Did he truly intend to have them go against each other? Had he not heard what she said back by the benches?

“I just told you I-

“Have no skills. I know. I heard you.” Hajjar repeated, and though he was not rolling his eyes, Y/n could feel it. Maybe it’s the way he’s standing there, utterly confident that this is the right thing to do and she’s the short-sighted little fool who couldn’t see it. “But I need to see it for myself so I can decide how to proceed from here on out.”

He lifted a finger and Minho stepped onto the mat. Though begrudgingly, Y/n does follow suit, taking off her shoes before she does.

“Oh, and Minho,” She heard Professor Hajjar say behind her, “Try not to break her bones.”

They stood at a distance of around 3 meters, and now that they were both facing each other on the mat, Y/n took note of his appearance; coffee brown hair and eyes to match, pronounced upper lip, and a high nose bridge. He wasn’t tall, per se, but that didn’t mean much in a fight. That much she knew. His muscles, though not stretching his training uniform taut like those of some of the children of Ares and Mars, were well-defined in their own right. His thighs, in particular, looked nothing short of lethal. It wasn’t uncommon for children of Hermes and Mercury to possess the ability of enhanced speed, which only became full-fledged once the muscles had been exerted beyond comprehension.

Minho raised a dark eyebrow. Realizing he’d caught her studying him, Y/n looked away and then back at him.

“Now what?” She asked.

His hands formed into fists, positioned on both sides of his head as his elbows stood just a tad wider apart. Both his legs were slightly bent, the right one more so than the other.

Tucking his chin in, he said, “Now you get into position.”

After a prolonged beat of painfully awkward silence, Minho straightened and looked at Professor Hajjar in confusion then back at her.

“You don’t know how.” He finally stated. Y/n simply stared ahead, ignoring him, and before she could turn to ask Hajjar to reconsider the whole thing, she heard Minho say, “Well, try to keep up.”

There was a whoosh, like the sound of an arrow flying right past you, and then she realized it was just her head swinging to the left like one of the speed bags she’d watched students hit repeatedly. It didn’t end there. As if to humiliate her further, her own body betrayed her as she knelt, hands cupped over her nose. Oh, Y/n thought in a daze, oh, fuck, my nose! Until her knees hit the ground, she hadn’t realized he’d kicked her in the face and blood was now gushing out of her nose. It was so cold. Everywhere she touched but especially her nose, was so fucking cold. So why did it burn like hell?

“Get up,” She heard Professor Hajjar order and turned around to glare at him. How pathetic she must have looked. The man didn’t so much as flinch. “The match is not over yet.”

It was at that moment that Y/n understood. He wouldn’t end the fight until she demonstrated something. What that thing was, she had no clue.

Her lips parted so she could breathe. What came out was a wheezing sound as some of the blood started to coat her teeth. Swiping her teeth along her upper teeth, Y/n removed her hands from her nose and placed them on the mat. It occurred to her that they might find this disrespectful and gross. None of that mattered when she could barely find the strength to climb to her feet and then found her vision worsened as she tried to stand properly. Everything switched in and out of focus.

She glared at Minho. He’d messed her up with one kick and there was nothing in his face to convey remorse. Not that Y/n expected anything of the sort.

Deciding it was better to go along with the charade, Y/n formed two fists and tried to mimic his hand placement from before. A poor imitation but it would have to do. This time, Minho’s lips quirked up just a little.

Realizing she wouldn’t throw the first punch, he lunged forward and she sidestepped. He was going easy on her no doubt. As a son of Hermes, he’d have no trouble blocking her evasive attempts. She didn’t see how she’d be able to outmatch him anyway. Her nose continued to bleed profusely as he all but flew across the mat, never doing more than grazing her skin. It hurt to the point that she’d rather tear it off with her nails.

“Don’t just dodge.” He told her at one point. Y/n was out of breath while he seemed to be breathing normally. “Try to get a hit in.”

Inhaling through her mouth, she cupped her hands on her knees, “I can’t.”

“Then what can you do?”

His irritation took her off guard and she stared up at him somewhat shocked. Most would seize the opportunity to humiliate their opponent, driving home the fact that they were far superior in skill. Most would revel in the sadistic joy of hearing the bones of their adversary crunch under their feet. The pleasure was heightened if the enemy was an Old Blood.

Y/n swiped at her nose with the back of her hand again and winced. It vexed her, his annoyance. She’d revealed the truth of her incompetence before stepping onto the mat. Had he not taken her seriously? Or did find the depth of her ineptitude so utterly irredeemable that even the fact that she was an Old Blood couldn’t deter him from expressing his frustration? Whatever the reason, Y/n wanted him to shut the fuck up.

Perhaps sensing her irritation was a response to his, he smirked right before swiveling on his heel and sending his kick flying up to her face. In the short time that she’d been watching the students hone their skills in the Training Center, she’d been able to memorize some of the most commonly used moves and countermoves. But none of them were of much use if it was your first time trying. If she were to stand there and try to block him, she’d only end up getting her forearm bruised. Even shattered. No one would heal her. Knowing this, she bent down.

Pure, unadulterated pain exploded across her back and she dropped on the mat like a fly. It felt like her vertebrae had severed ties with the spinal cord and become one with her front. For a moment she thought her lungs had squeezed through the thin openings between her ribs and spilled out like minced meat. This wasn’t Y/n’s first time experiencing such immeasurable agony. But she had yet to get used to it.

As if to elevate the torture, Minho pressed his knee between her shoulder blades. Her eyes prickled with tears as her mouth let out a silent cry.

“What have you been doing all this time?” He asked.

Her voice sounded weak as she answered, “None of your business.”

“You observe.” His mouth was near her ear now. “I’ve seen you do it. So why don’t you put that knowledge into practice?”

Struggling to breathe or even afraid to do so in case she ruptures something, Y/n settles for scratching at the mud with her blood-caked nails. He just wouldn’t let her go, digging his knee into her spine as she squirmed like a worm on the sullied carpet. Gods, how they must have been enjoying the sight of him besting her like it was nothing. How weak she must appear to them.

“Get off of me.” Y/n hated how wheezy her voice rang to the ear.

Her words seemed to have no effect on him. Neither did he release her, nor did he torment her by pressing his knee further into her injured back.

“That will be it for today, Minho.” Professor Hajjar said.

At the older man’s dismissal, the boy rose to his feet and stepped off the sparring mat. Y/n was slow to do the same, the pain had buried itself deep and her flesh was sure to bear the coloring to prove it. The blood had thinned to a trickle but the throbbing remained. She could just imagine the flecks of blood painting a grotesque image of herself in the middle of Compartment A.

She hunched over for a while, with only her palms and knees to steady her, and then heard a snickering sound not that far from where she was. Upon lifting her gaze, she met those of Minho’s friends, the ones who had been whispering amongst each other and glancing at her earlier. Only now they were unabashedly doing so. There was no reserve in the way they watched her. All they did was snicker and jeer as she coughed blood that had struggled to come up to the surface from when Minho had slammed his leg flat against her back. As blood-tinted saliva slid out of her parted lips, Y/n caught sight of the other boy. He was sizing her up the way a butcher did cattle as they sharpened their blades in preparation for slaughter. He sharpened his dark gaze across her features, cutting into them with a slight smile of self-satisfaction.

Y/n looked away and reached for her shoes. She was conscious of the eyes on her as she put them on.

“Are you angry?” Professor Hajjar asked when she’d climbed to her feet.

She began to scratch off the dried blood on her face. He offered her a wet wipe which she accepted.

“Yes.” She answered, sounding nasal.

“At him? Or at yourself?”

Y/n’s head snapped in his direction to see his analytical gaze trained on her.

“At you.” She emphasized.

Hajjar hummed, almost pensive, and in the meantime Y/n was violently rubbing off the stains. Each movement shot pain across her chest and spine, which she ignored in favor of preserving what remained of her dignity. What had transpired minutes before had been beyond mortifying.

“Those three boys you saw,” Hajjar began to speak in a voice lower than before. Even though she refused to look at him, Y/n felt as though she was staring right into the mockery that they’d made of her. “They’re Minho’s friends, some of the most lethal warriors on Camp Jupiter, and they were laughing at you. Your defeat is their amusement. Do you want it to keep happening? Do you want to remain weak and pathetic, a monkey in a circus? Is that how you want to be seen and remembered?” She opened her mouth to argue but soon discovered that no words form. Hajjar waited and when he received no response, continued, “If your goal is to stay as you are, frail, malnourished, and wretched, then you should know that you’re not getting your wish.”

A million responses brewed in her mind. Acidic. Bitter. Scathing. Violent.

Thinking he won’t hear her with all the usual noise, Y/n mumbles, “It’s unfair.”

“What is?” He said, and her gaze zoomed up to his face. “Speak your mind.”

Under any other circumstance, she would have apologized profusely and walked off, dreading the moment that she’d receive the news of having become homeless. Every word she said would be reflected in their treatment of her. It was nothing stellar, but what little she had could be taken away. She and Luna couldn’t afford to badmouth the laws, the government, least of all the Pantheon. They were to be grateful above all else.

But anger had a way of nibbling at her until nothing remained but to let it out.

“It’s unfair that I’m always miles behind.” She clenched her fingers around the bloodied wet wipe. “From the beginning, everyone, everyone including you, professor, has forbidden me from training. You told me that you’d have no use for someone like me on the battlefield. And now, when I’ve finally accepted it, you decide you’ve had enough of me being frail, malnourished, and wretched. It’s unfair that you get to change your mind.”

Hajjar stared at her, silent, offering a nod while tapping his fingers as he crossed his arms over his chest. Then he spoke.

“Everyone, including yourself, looks at you like you’re a meal. Look at them.” He tilted his head to the side, eyes trained over her shoulder. She turned slightly to see the boys from before training in pairs. The two snickering boys were on one mat and Minho was against the other boy on the one right after. They were a flurry of movement, a blur. But they weren’t the only students Professor Hajjar was referring to. The entire Building is filled with such students. “Do you see that, Ms. L/n? That’s the product of years of training. If the weakest of them were to attack you, you’d stand no chance. No chance against their hand-to-hand combat skills. No chance against their inherited abilities⸺ abilities they’ve been honing under ruthless tutelage. If they come for you, you are dead meat.”

Biting back a string of insults, Y/n shut her eyes and then turned to face him again.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” She snapped and pointed at the mat. “You saw me back there. I was-

“For the past few weeks,” He began in a calm tone that forced her to listen (the man sounded reasonable in anything she said), “I have been coming up with a program. It starts with the basics of every kind of training until you decide what your fighting style and weapons of choice will be. You will need to have more than one, yes. As far as your diet is concerned, there will be adjustments. I am aware of your financial situation, but there will be no more skipping meals in the dining hall because you cannot afford some of the better choices. No more having chocolate as a substitute for a nutritious meal.”

Y/n scoffed and swiped her hand across her forehead to wipe off the sweat, accidentally brushing her wrist against the bridge of her nose. The swelling had progressed for the duration of their talk.

“You don’t seem to understand my financial situation, professor.” She stressed. “That’s what I can afford, so that’s what I’ll eat. Unless you’re suggesting I steal which-

“I will have a word with Principal Jiang, and try to come to an agreement.” That and the committed expression on his face forced her suggestions of theft to a halt. “Other members of the academic staff will surely disagree, which is an understatement, as I am certain you understand. But they’re not the only ones we have to worry about.”

Y/n looked around her. “The other students.”

“They won’t be happy about this,” Hajjar said, nodding. “Once your training begins, many of them will make it their mission to make it as unpleasant as it can get if not more.”

“Can’t the higher-ups just increase my allowance or something? Then I could make proper meals for my sister and me and-

“An Old Blood being granted special privileges?” Hajjar gave her a pointed look. “That would only make matters worse.”

Y/n’s jaw almost hit the floor in disbelief. That was such bullshit.

“Special privilege?” She said, incredulous. “They all get large amounts of money each month.”

That was the truth. Governments all around the world paid exorbitant sums of money for the demigods’ services, and as the students of Olympia University were considered up-and-coming warriors, they, too, received significant payment. On top of that, many of them already were already signed under organizations, institutions, and companies. For example, some were modeling for high-end brands while others had gone into tech. Whatever the talent, it was certain to be channeled in a productive manner. They could leave or stay, and always prosper. Such wasn’t the case for her and Luna. They would never get to leave the Camp, forced to serve until their very last breath.

Roaring laughter pulls Y/n out of her trance of resentment.

“I never said compared to them Ms. L/n.” Hajjar clarified and she only glanced up at him for a second before looking down at her knuckles. There was still some blood left. “Old Bloods have always lived in poverty. If privileges were to be granted to you when your antecedents had none, much like you at the moment, that would signal change. Not everyone likes that. The Gods certainly do not.”

For the first time since they’d been properly introduced, Y/n looked at the older man with genuine curiosity, though still tinged with confusion and acrimony.

“Why are you going out of your way to help me then?” She asked. “You’re one of them too.”

Hajjar looks at her too. But his is a look of understanding, or something akin to it. A look of acknowledgment. There is less condescension in it than she has seen in an adult for the past five years. It reminded her of Chiron and she wanted to grate her brain against scorching hot pavement for it.

“What was the first thing the Council of Elders and the Senate did once Juliana Pierce was pronounced dead?”

The change of direction almost gave her a whiplash and she stared at him, rigid. How was their previous topic in any way related to the mystery murder of Juliana Pierce? In the end, Y/n decided to just go with the flow of the discussion.

“They said that they would be investigating the matter thoroughly.” She answered.

Hajjar nodded.

“And has anything come of this investigation?” He gestured with his hands in the space between them. “Have they divulged the particulars, any novelty?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Y/n replied slowly.

“Why do you think that is?”

Just what kind of answer did he seek to hear from her? Y/n let out a sigh of exhaustion.

“They could be trying to cover it up.” She said, scratching her temple. “It’s only one student, after all, and there hasn’t been a murder since.” She paused, looking at him only briefly before she slid her gaze to her left. “Or they could be trying to come up with a way to frame it on someone.”

That seemed to please him a little, the light in his dark brown eyes shining a bit brighter. He was probably relieved to discover that she wasn’t the clod he’d initially taken her for.

“I will leave you to deliberate about what we have discussed.” He said, and before turning to leave, added, “Do not presume to evade your upcoming training, Ms. L/n.”

She watched him walk straight towards the exit and, in less than a minute, he was out of the Training Center. With his departure, the sense of being watched returned in full force. This time it was just one, however, and it ruthlessly drilled holes into the back of her head. No part of her felt safe and when she turned to catch the culprit in the act, he didn’t look in the least surprised. It looked like he had wanted her to react- like he had wanted her to know it was him.

Seeing as they were nowhere in sight, his friends had to have relocated, but that didn’t matter when his presence alone was this overpowering. As he slipped each finger into his black leather archery gloves, never breaking eye contact, Y/n felt as though she was the deer caught in the headlights. Everything about him unnerved her. From the way he rotated his wrist to his exemplary looks, the boy was his own warning sign. Thankfully, he turned and headed toward the area designated for archery practice without another glance her way. She could finally breathe.

After scanning her surroundings one last time, Y/n headed back toward the benches, gathered her belongings, and marched out of the building. Absentmindedly, she cupped her right hand over her swollen nose and grimaced. They must have found her downright horrid to look at. Especially that boy. Hopefully, they would never have to speak with each other.

******************************************************************************************

Luna and she lived in a cramped apartment, the appliances of which were dysfunctional for the most part and the furniture half-broken. There was no TV in their house as they couldn’t afford to purchase one, so they had no way of watching the news or having a movie night like she’d heard the other students do. This made it all the more difficult for them to bond with their peers. Not that the other campers were dying to, anyway. They didn’t own a laptop to complete their assignments or a phone for communication so every task was completed by hand. They received any grim news by post and did their assignments and projects by borrowing books from the libraries of their respective institutions. But the absence of these ‘luxuries’ paled in comparison to the scarcity of food in the house.

From the moment she and Luna had been given this rat’s nest to live in, there had been several nights, one after the other, that they’d gone to bed on empty stomachs. As a fifteen-year-old, with a four-year-old to care for, Y/n had had a lot to learn in terms of management. She’d spent her entire life until then caged, locked, and kept in such solitary confinement that the workings of the outside world were but silhouettes of the truth, so the task of raising a preschooler who didn’t fully trust her but needed her, had been strenuous to complete. Or ‘handle’ might be the better term. The books Chiron had lent her for study, and the fairytale picture book he’d gifted her on her 15th birthday, weren’t of much use. Geography hadn’t helped her and neither had science because above all else she lacked social skills. Above all else, she found human beings the most callous. Alien creatures amongst which she was the most peculiar.

She’d learned to ration food, skipping at least one meal every day, preferably dinner, and always reserving food for Luna. If there was one crumb of bread left, it was Luna’s. If there was none, then Y/n would beg the restraint down the block for some leftover bread. The quality mattered nothing. It could have stayed on the shelves for a week for all she cared. All that mattered was that Luna didn’t huddle beneath the sheets holding her starving belly.

Of course, whenever they received their monthly stipend, Y/n made sure to set aside the money for the bills and staple food such as potatoes, flour, oil, eggs, milk, and frozen or canned beans. If they were lucky enough to find some cheese on sale, then she seized the opportunity at once. It goes without saying that the eggs, canned or frozen beans, and the rare cheese were for Luna only as that was the only way to ensure the younger girl survived. The only thing Y/n had consumed for years was plain bread, occasional boiled potato (they couldn’t afford to fry them), milk, and water.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew what the malnourishment was doing to her body. She could feel herself wasting away one day at a time. Cracked nails, dull frizzy hair, pallid skin, sickly frame, visible ribs, hipbones, and collarbones, perpetual nausea, constant fatigue⸺ these were things she’d accepted to an extent.

When she came home today, after having picked up Luna from school, she didn’t dare have dinner upon seeing only half a bun and a glass of milk remained. The thought of allowing herself more at Luna’s expense was enough to make her fold in on herself. It made her anxious to think about having more, despite wanting so. She even dreamed of it often; stuffing her face with fried eggs, cheese, fries, sausages, and literally any kind of dessert. The alarm clock always brought the feast to a disillusioned end.

This time it wasn’t the rusty clock on the floor next to her that startled her awake. Luna’s whimpering was enough to jolt Y/n out of dreamland and she was violently pulling off the covers in a hurry to get on the bed to comfort her little sister. Only, when she rose to her feet, Luna wasn’t there. Panic swelled in her chest at first and then she found her in the corner of the cramped bedroom, knees pushed against her chest as she rocked back and forth. Her small hands were pressed against her ears, almost clawing at the shell. Y/n rushed to her and took the younger girl’s hands in her own.

“No!” Luna screeched, freeing her hands to cover her ears again. “No! No! No! Leave me alone!”

The rising panic prevented Y/n from thinking clearly. Her sister was in pain, terrified out of her wits for whatever reason, and she could do nothing but join in the screaming.

“Luna, what’s wrong?!” But the younger girl shook her head rapidly before pressing her forehead to her knees. Y/n wrapped her arms around her sister’s wispy frame. “Luna, you have to tell me. Please, you have to tell me so I can help you!"

But all Luna did was whimper and continue to shake her head. “It’s so cold. So cold. So cold!”

Y/n rubbed her hands up and down Luna’s arms and calves, trying desperately to generate some heat, but the shivers simply refused to cease. Her frustration bubbled to the surface as she stroked at a bruising pace. Luna recoiled away from her touch and nestled further into the dark corner. Her eyes were still screwed shut, tighter than before. Y/n wanted to fling all of their belongings across the room but there were so few of them to begin with. The sour concoction of fatigue, hunger, the throbbing on her face and body, and the awareness of her worthlessness was skewing her judgment. When she managed to calm her breathing, she understood that she could either soothingly coax the truth out of the whimpering girl or waste the night by staying awake and crashing at a random location during the day. Faced with these two options; Y/n sat in front of Luna on the cold floor, legs pressed against her front as she caressed the little girl’s hands. The little girl’s eyes fluttered open, wary of what she might see if she opened them too quickly.

“Hey, little moth,” Y/n said as if in greeting and pressed the tip of her nose, “You look so little sitting here.”

At that, Luna scowled and indignantly said, “I’m not little.”

“But look at you.” Y/n poked her cheek teasingly and then her ribs and then her nose again, watching her sister squirm until she finally gave a little squeal of mirth, “So little.”

When Y/n stopped teasing and instead rubbed Luna’s small hands for warmth, the little girl’s big brown eyes bore into hers.

“Is that why I’m so cold?” She asked in an unsteady voice.

Y/n didn’t know the answer to that. She was older than Luna by more than a decade, had experienced both the biting cold and sweltering heat, and only Chiron had cared to provide her with blankets that didn’t improve her condition much. She’d learned to sleep through it, shivering even in her dreams. But did the cold ever stop hurting?

She gave Luna a small smile.

“Maybe.” She said, easing Luna’s hands inside the frayed sleeves of her nightwear, watching as the fingers curled bunched around the hem to form a stump. Then she moved on to her feet, massaging them as gently as she could. “The smaller you are, the more sensitive you are. When you’re grown, pain doesn’t make you cry easily.”

There was a gleam of uncertainty in Luna’s flitting gaze as she muttered, “But she was crying.”

Y/n halted, and for a few dreadful moments she could hear nothing over the ringing in her ears⸺ not the engine of the motorbikes at such late an hour, not the whistling of the spring wind, not the occasional shout that her neighbors responded to with profanities of their own, not even Luna’s sniveling. Nothing mattered more at this moment than what her little sister had just confessed. Never before had displayed abilities of this nature. For a long time, it had seemed as though she possessed none other than the cloak of darkness she so often draped over her form when anxious, panicked, or terribly hungry. One especially cold night with the wind rattling their sorry windows, bundled up under two incredibly frayed blankets, Luna had asked Y/n if she could do anything with the darkness, and the latter had answered that she could. How it had delighted the 5-year-old, her eyes glinting with excitement as she asked for a display. Y/n had apologized, saying she couldn’t do anything special, only hear what the shadows whispered and listen as the darkness came alive. One look at the disappointed pout on Luna’s face and Y/n had known, as they lay in bed, shivering with their arms around each other, that she would never be able to make her sister proud.

“What?” Y/n asked, and Luna glanced at her before looking down at her feet, clearly avoiding her elder sister’s questioning gaze. She couldn’t. Y/n wasn’t planning on letting her, so she clasps her hands around Luna’s calves, and massages the flesh underneath the tattered clothes. “No, look at me, Luna. Who was crying?”

Finally, the truth bursts out of the girl like water from a dam, “The girl! She was cold! She was crying!”

What girl is she talking about, Y/n thought. But there was no time to dwell on it with how Luna had begun to sob, snot running down her chin. Y/n opened the drawer next to the bed and pulled out a handkerchief she had been gifted four years ago.

She used it to wipe Luna’s nose clean as she tried to calm her down, “It was probably just a dream-

“But I wasn’t sleeping.” It was said in such a small, feeble voice that Y/n almost had to puzzle to the pieces together for the meaning to come in full. Luna herself looked startled and ashamed at her abrupt admission, her eyes wide like those of a spooked animal. Met with Y/n’s silence, the little girl wiped at her eyes with her stumps. “I’m so hungry, I’m sorry. I can’t sleep. I’m sorry. She was screaming and I-

“Do you know where she is right now?” Y/n blurted out the question as she gently helped Luna to her feet and led her to the bed. “Can you tell me?”

Luna sat there at the side of the bed, still wiping at her eyes. Even in the darkness, lifted only slightly by the scant golden hue emitting from the lampposts outside, Y/n could tell the skin around them was red and tender.

“Will you go there?” At her big sister’s stillness, Luna’s expression morphed into one of fear. She launched her shivering body forward and wrapped her scrawny arms around Y/n’s middle to prevent her from leaving. Y/n tried to gently detangle herself, but the girl’s arms tightened. “No, no, don’t leave! Don’t leave! Please, don’t leave!”

This was going to be harder than Y/n had initially thought. Luna wasn’t used to being alone. Y/n had learned during their first few days inhabiting the same space that the little girl loathed the thought of being left alone. That’s why she subconsciously used her powers; so that the shadows might keep her company. If Y/n went to the market, Luna would, too. If Y/n sought refuge in the sunflower fields, it would be while holding Luna’s hand. Even at school, where the nine-year-old spent the majority of her time as an outcast, there was always an adult nearby to keep an eye on her. She was never out of someone’s sight.

Tonight, that would change.

“I have to know what’s going on. I have to know why you’re…” She shut her eyes momentarily, slowly unfastening Luna’s arms from around her. She looked into her big, dark irises that looked up at her, pleading. “I’ll be back, okay? I’ll be back sooner than you think. I promise. But you have to tell me.”

Luna was quiet for a few moments that felt like an eternity at a standstill. When she was ready to talk, her eyes screwed shut once more, removing the present from her sight.

“I saw a fountain. And then- and then stairs.” She hiccupped, and, seemingly trying to recall the events in greater detail, her face scrunched up as if she’d tasted something bitter. Her hands came up to cover her ears, leaving whatever warmth they’d accumulated while bunched up in the sleeves. “There was a big statue.”

Instantly, Y/n pulled Luna into her chest and rocked her back and forth.

“Alright, alright, little moth. Calm down,” She shushed, gently stroking the back of Luna’s head. “It’s alright. It’s alright. Everything’s fine, you’ll see.”

Luna sniffled. “What if you don’t come back?”

Y/n took a deep breath and kissed her temple. Then she eased her sister beneath the blanket, adding her own since she wouldn’t need it for the night.

“Here. You wait for me here, okay?” She instructed, and Luna nodded. Her eyes were the only parts of her peeking above the hem. Y/n put on the thickest hoodies she owned and the jeans she’d worn during the day. Before heading out the door, she turned to Luna once more, “Don’t move, okay? Wait here for me. I’ll be back soon.”

The night air was always crisp in New Rome, regardless of the season. But it being March, the month with the most unpredictable weather of all, it meant she could be going home drenched from head to toe despite it being only a bit humid outside. But the weather was far from being her biggest concern at the moment. No, there was something else in the air. Something foul yet clinical, far removed from the world. The darkness shivered but it did not speak. The streetlights flickered as she all but sprinted up north in the direction of the inner city.

Luna had described the setting using but three objects but that had sufficed. Only one part of New Rome fit that description, but it took 45 minutes by subway to get there, and there was none at this late hour. She looked at her watch to confirm the time; 1:54 AM. Still, she had to try and get there, hopefully not before other people or that would make her a prime suspect if what Luna had seen had indeed happened. She didn’t have the luxury of stopping to catch her breath or gag from exertion and fatigue. Those things she could do back home when she returned.

The farther up north she ran, the more alive the world appeared. Barracks turned into rundown apartments which in turn evolved into skyscrapers. Each time Y/n had come here from age fifteen to eighteen on school trips with her classmates, the inner city had seemed all the more gargantuan, as if expanding. Later, she’d learned that such was indeed the case. New Rome was thrice the size of New York and far better equipped to defend itself against foreign attacks. By the time she turned forty, its borders might have stretched to the size of France. All of this while most humans outside remained none the wiser.

She took several turns to get to her destination, though never straying far from the main road. She wasn’t the most familiar with the nooks and crannies of the city and could easily get lost. But when she got to the destination, she wished that she had.

What had once been a place of magnificence, was now a site of crucifixion. A young woman’s body, probably around her age, remained suspended in the air only thanks to the tip of Jupiter’s lightning which jutted out of her abdomen. The fountain surrounding the gargantuan marble statue resembled less a spot of relaxation and more a pot in which blood had come to a boil and sprayed the crimson hue all over the stairs below. The roaring of the engines of vehicles was reduced to an afterthought as the people gathered around the edges, never daring to climb up the steps. There was screaming but Y/n couldn’t tell if it belonged to a toddler or an adult. Not that it mattered. At one point, everyone was either shrieking for help or screaming at others to call for the ambulance and authorities. Others fled from the scene, horrified at the sight before them.

Because it wasn’t just the death of the young woman that had terror spreading throughout the crowd like wildfire through a forest that hadn’t felt a drop of rain in months. It was the distorted limbs, bent at inhuman angles. It was the sight of her eyes or lack of them. The skin of her upper torso had been flayed and where her heart had once beaten, there now existed nothing but emptiness. Enough muscle had been left intact so as to prevent the organs from spilling. Her lips were open in a scream, one that had likely gone unheard. Part of her long black hair clung to her skin and the rest followed the direction of the wind. Whoever or whatever had done this to her had not done her corpse the courtesy of preserving her dignity in death. She was completely bare from head to toe. A morbid spectacle. Luna had witnessed this. Luna had heard her screams and watched her cry. For some reason, the darkness had wanted Luna to keep her eyes and ears open for the crime. Or hunger had. Perhaps both. And for Luna’s wellbeing, that had to remain a secret between the three of them. In fact, she had to get away from there as fast as she could, before her presence registered.

With this thought in mind, Y/n took three steps backward, still taking in the gruesome sight of the dangling corpse, and turned around to bolt in the direction she’d come from. Before she could take off properly, her feet were held hostage by some invisible force on the ground. It took a few moments for her to realize it was the shock.

Before her, stood the young man she had wished she would never have to speak to mere hours before. He stood there, no more than six yards to the right, apart from the rest as he beheld the crime scene. His dark eyes appeared to hold no emotion, but the way he gulped told Y/n he wasn’t entirely unaffected by the grisly picture. He looked different than he did back at the Training Center, too. Dressed in a simple white shirt with sleeves that reached just two inches above his elbows, washed-out jeans, and plain white trainers, he looked no different from a bystander who had just come across something vile and stopped to look.

Maybe it was the way he immediately found her eyes (as if he’d expected her to look at him) and stared back at her. But there was something in those irises of his, something almost predatory. A gleam so cuttingly uncaring and methodical. It wasn’t studious like that of Seungmin or analytical like that of Professor Hajjar, things she could comprehend and get accustomed to. No, his gaze resembled that of a serpent, one that withheld more than he revealed.

Before she knew what she was doing, Y/n sprinted right past him. She felt him stare as she rounded the corner and it burned against her back all the way home.

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