A Strange Situation

Chapter 12

Jonathan blew his whistle right in my ear. I flinched at the sound, and began to run again. I have been working out for the past four hours. It was eight o'clock now. I was beyond tired, Jonathan said it was only an hour a day, liar. I wanted to go home, I wanted to sleep. I can't handle being pushed like this. I began to observe the neighborhood I was in. It was very quiet; no one was around. It was eight o'clock at night, who would be out? I started to slow down, which made Jonathan speed in front of me. I completely stopped and Jonathan turned around to see if I was still following. I spread my wings and took off. Jonathan stared at me in awe; I guess he didn't think I could do this already.

By the time I got home Alex was sitting on his front porch drinking what looked like a beer. I walked steadily over to him with caution. "Uh...You ok?" I softly asked, not knowing how he would react to my question.

"It's root beer, don't worry. Why aren't you with Jonathan?" He questioned.

"He bores me. He yells to much, so I got tired of him and flew home." I took his drink from him and took a sip, "Hey this isn't root beer!" I laughed.

"Oops," Alex chuckled, "Why are you bored?"

"No motivation." I sighed. Alex took his bottle back and sighed. We sat in silent for a few moments until Jonathan walked up.

"What the hell Annabeth! You can't just fly off like that in the middle of everything!" Jonathan screamed at the end of the driveway. He walked up, well almost sprinted up the driveway.

"It's been four hours, I was tired. I needed a break." I said calmly.

"If you were doing everything I asked, it only would have taken two hours to get everything done." Jonathan shouted.

"Um...no. You had me run for the first two hours. Then you mad me lift weights, do crunches, and squats. After that I was running again. No one was built to work out four hours a day, when they've never worked out in their life." I squabbled.

"You know what? Whatever. I'm done. Be at the arena tomorrow. They moved the date, but you wouldn't know that because you ran off before I could tell you." Jonathan took off down the driveway and sprinted down the road. I turned towards Alex and apologized to him about what just happened, kissed him goodbye and took off home. When I walked in the house my mom was sitting at the dinning room table drinking tea with a man on the other side. I said my hellos and started walking up to my room but my mom stopped me. I was told to come into the dinning room and have a seat. She introduced the man in the white coat as Mr. Crolix. Mr. Crolix was a scientist who worked very close with my mom on project me. He was bald and had deep grey eyes, almost black from where I was seated. He was more informal about his presence here; maybe he liked my mom or something. He talked to me about my task tomorrow. I was half listening, I more curious about why he was even here. I can handle myself can't I? I mean it's obvious I'm independent. So why should I listen to someone who wants to hook up with my mom? Mr. Crolix was maybe thirty-nine or maybe even forty. I still can't decide. Part of the conversation between him and my mom struck me. I was so bewildered by what he said.

"I know what she will be up against tomorrow. I wanted to inform you of what is to come." Mr. Crolix said.

"How do I know your not lying? What if you were programmed to say this? To trick me into believing I was up against a fairy or something and then I ended up defeating King Kong." I intruded.

"Annabeth!" My mom warned. Mr. Crolix put his hand up, gesturing it was ok.

"Annabeth, I'm a scientist. We do not do tests on other scientists. Every one of us is critical to this project. I'm not programmed; I'm coming her willingly. Actually I could lose my job telling you this." Mr. Crolix looked up at my mom as if he was speaking directly to her. I rolled my eyes as my mom blushed. Gross! I thought to myself. I excused myself and was told to sit back down. I groaned from exhaustion. He went on about how the project worked and all the different formulas for the different gene mutations. I wanted to go to sleep because of how boring his speech was. When he was done I yawn and my mother hit my arm, causing me to flinch. I can't help yawning when I've been awake for 13 hours already. I'm losing sleep by the minute. I thanked Mr. Crolix for the information he had just provided me with and began to head up to bed. I wanted to just tumble and sleep on the floor. Mr. Crolix cleared his throat; which made me turn around.

"You're up against Dragons. Plus you have 2 days to get to the arena before they take away all your powers." Mr. Crolix mentioned and walked to the front door.

I stood in the middle of the stairs staring where he was standing. I ran up stairs and called Alex. He ran over to my room and hugged me. I told him what Mr. Crolix had mentioned to me, and he was excited, yet sad at the same time. He informed that dragons are majestic creatures. They usually have a soul mate connected to their heart. They tend to travel individually and live alone. They are very territorial and hate to travel during the day. The best time to get them at their weakest moment would be during the day when they are a sleep. Not only will it be the easiest but, if you are quiet enough then you could hear the love of their life through their thoughts. It will consist of not thinking of anything, because yes most dragons can read your mind. Not all, but most. If you listen to their mind you can manipulate them into taking you to their loved one and become one of the family. If you cannot do that, then you must kill the dragon. Killing dragons are not an easy task. You must take the sword of a brave king and cut off its head. Not only will this stop the dragon from killing you, but it also gives you a great trophy....sorry bad joke.

I wondered what dragons looked like and how they interacted with one another. Alex had laid with me the whole night, just cuddling. I fell asleep in his arms around 10:30pm. He started snoring right after.

Tomorrow will be very interesting.