Knock, knock, knock
The sound of someone knocking on my bedroom door startled me awake. I rolled to my left and hit the floor with a crash. Apparently, I wasn't lying completely on my bed. My mom opened the door when I fell.
"You okay in here, honey?"
I lay on the floor beside my bed, staring at the eggshell-colored ceiling as my vision cleared.
"Yeah, I'm good."
I looked at the window above me. The sun was shining. Had I only slept for a few minutes?
"You're running late. It's already 7:15. If you want a ride to school, you'd better hurry."
She closed my door and walked away. I sprang up. How could it be morning already? I had only laid down a few minutes ago. There was no way I had slept the entire night away. I grabbed my phone to check the time. It was dead. I dropped it back onto my bed. Something about the way it landed made me remember falling over the railing at school. That had actually happened. Would I even be able to go back to school today? After spitting acid in a guy's face, falling with him before he slammed into the ground and then fleeing the hospital, I felt like a criminal. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they arrested me on sight. The only reason I was risking it was I needed to talk to Nix and figure out what was going on.
Twenty minutes later, my mom dropped me off at the entrance to school. I gave her a kiss and got out of the car with my heart thundering. I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans as I walked in. As soon as I walked in, I was standing on the spot we landed. There weren't any dents or stains on the floor to show that the fall had even happened. The only evidence I had was the vivid memory that played on a loop in my mind. People walked casually past me as they filed into the building.
The entire scene felt surreal. Had I imagined it all? I put my head down and shuffled to my locker. No one seemed to notice me, which was a relief and a whole new source of tension. Every second that passed until someone confronted me about what happened yesterday was a second I had to spend looking over my shoulder. That was why I had always avoided getting into trouble as a child. I opened my locker door and looked inside.
"Look who's still alive," Nix called from beside me.
I closed the door and looked at her. Her joke and knowing smile were comforting in the strangest way. She seemed to be the only person other than me who remembered yesterday.
"Nix, what the hell is going on?"
I leaned close to her and whispered the question. She furrowed her brow.
"What do you mean?"
I closed my locker door and gestured to the other people moving around us as if it were just a normal Friday.
"That. No one seems to remember what happened."
She nodded in understanding.
"Oh, they don't. They were all treated by mind wipers, standard cleanup," she said, making imaginary quotation marks in the air with her fingers as she said the word treated.
My voice caught in my throat. I choked on the words I was attempting to rush out.
"Believe it or not, that's normal in a situation like yours."
What the hell did that mean? Was it common for people to vomit acid all over each other before toppling over railings? We started walking to our first class.
"You mean something like that has happened before?"
She nodded enthusiastically.
"All the time, your awakening was small compared to some I've heard about."
I stopped walking and stared at her. She turned around and met my gaze.
"What?" she asked
"My awakening?" I asked.
She flashed a short, embarrassed smile and put her hand on my shoulder.
"I'm moving too fast. People like us have a moment in their lives when their powers activate or awaken."
I nodded slowly in understanding.
"So my awakening was the vomit?"
This time she nodded, but much more eagerly.
"Yes, now you're getting it. We usually have a crazy dream first that warns us that shit's about to get real."
She looked at me expectantly after that statement, as if she were waiting for me to admit something. So I did.
"Do not say my name," Typhon said before I could speak.
"I had a dream where the storm told me the Olympians were gonna be after me."
She grabbed me by the arm before we walked into our first class and turned me around.
"Umm, change of plans. We need to take a walk."
If that was her reaction to what I had just said, how would she have reacted if I had said Typhon's name? We walked out of the school in a hushed hurry. It was alarming to me that the security guards stationed by the front doors didn't stop us. When we had turned down the street that would lead us to our favorite park, she finally spoke again.
"You said the storm itself spoke to you in your dream?"
The normal humor that filled her voice was gone. Concern sat in its place. I figured that could only be a bad sign. Did she know enough about Typhon to work that out for herself?
"Yeah, does that mean anything?"
It felt bad to play dumb like that, but there was still so much I didn't know.
"Well, gods take different forms. If a storm spoke to you, that confirms that you fall somewhere in Typhon's bloodline."
Her expression was grim as she spoke. I wondered why.
"Is Typhon a storm god?"
I knew he wasn't, but that was all I knew about him. That and Zeus hated him. Anything more she told me would be helpful.
Nix bit her bottom lip and looked down at the ground before looking back up at me and answering. The split-second hesitation sent a tidal wave of ice through my body.
"Typhon is one of the most powerful evil monsters that ever lived. He almost killed Zeus. Depending on how close you are to him, your potential could be limitless."
The memory of what it felt like just being in the same room with Zeus replayed in my mind. I absentmindedly rubbed my chest. How could anyone be strong enough to stand up to that kind of power? Part of what she said did bother me though.
"What do you mean by his bloodline?" I asked, still rubbing my chest.
She tucked a piece of dark hair behind her ear as we continued walking down a deserted backstreet.
"I mean you are a member of his family. He could be anything from a distant ancestor to your actual father," she said with a sorrowful frown on her face.
My eyes snapped open as several key phrases played in my ears. Zeus had called me Typhon's spawn. Typhon himself had called me his. My throat dried out as the question occurred to me. Was Typhon my father?
"Of course I am. Do you think Zeus would visit anyone farther down the line?" Typhon answered.
I shook my head at his words.
"You don't believe this is really happening, do you?" Nix asked with trepidation.
I continued shaking my head. It had to be a prank or a bad dream because this was completely insane. No one's life could change this much in two days. On Wednesday, I was Troy, the average guy just trying to make his way through the 10th grade. My biggest worry was dateless Friday nights. Now on Friday, I was Troy, the son of a storm monster, and I had powers to match. Suddenly, the Olympian god Zeus is my biggest concern.
"Yeah, this seems a little too crazy to be my life story," I said.
She let out a deep sigh and touched my arm.
"Stormie, I wish this were a prank. It would be my best work, but this is real."
As she spoke, the temperature dropped so low I could see her breath.
"They are attacking, be ready to fight!" Typhon said.
"Look, Stormie, I need you to accept that you have the power to defeat anything," Nix said in a rushed, panicky voice.
I didn't have time to analyze what they were saying further because tiny yellow orbs of light formed in the air between Nix and me. They looked like thousands of fireflies had gathered in this one spot. It was mystifying. I reached out to touch one of them, but Nix yanked my arm so hard I stumbled sideways.
"Stormie, something is coming, and I can't help you fight it. You have to do this all on your own."
Her words were still full of panic. A million questions flooded my mind, and some of them managed to spill out of my mouth.
"What do you mean 'something'? What's coming? How do you know that?"
As I asked the questions, I couldn't help gazing over at the orbs again. They floated weightlessly for a few seconds before they merged into a pillar of yellow light that seemed to touch the sky.
"Move," Nix shouted just before the pressure I had felt in my hospital room hit me a second time.
The pressure hit me on the shoulders and drove me down to one knee. Straining, I looked up at the light pillar. There was something inside it, speeding toward me with reckless abandon.
"Get up, the storm does not kneel before the gods," Typhon said.
It felt like a sumo wrestler was standing on my shoulders. I could still breathe this time though, and it hadn't driven me completely flat. Maybe Typhon was right. Maybe I could fight against this pressure.
Gritting my teeth, I slowly struggled back to my feet. It took all the strength and willpower I could muster, but I managed to push myself off one knee and stand up. Satisfaction burned inside me as I steadied myself.
The traveler arrived the moment I stood. It hit the ground with an explosion so powerful it knocked me flat onto my back. I stared up in a daze as the light died away and revealed a man in bronze armor standing over me. He held a six-foot iron pike pointed at my exposed chest.
So Zeus was serious. The Olympians were going to kill me.
"Son of the storm, you have been sentenced to death by the gods of Olympus," its voice boomed like a megaphone, as if the gods themselves were speaking through him.