Athena's Enigma

4 - Welcome to College

My apartment was a cozy little one bedroom place. There was simple furniture already set up as if someone had been living there for a while. When Porus said 'Feel like home' he meant that there was a little statue of Athena in my kitchen. It actually scared me when I saw it. I felt like there was a camera in it and she was watching me. I decided to put it up in a nearby cabinet.

I found my schedule sitting on the bed in my room. It seemed that I only had one class tomorrow at 8 AM. There was a little sticky note on the paper that mentioned that my major was 'undecided'. I believed that was Porus's way of saying that I could pick it. I would have to look up majors later. For now, I would stick with my general classes.

I opened my closet to start shoveling in my clothes when I noticed a blue and black backpack. I pulled out the messenger style shoulder bag only to notice that it was filled with school supplies. It seemed that Porus really did think of everything.

After touring my little place and finally putting my clothes away, I decided to turn in for the night. I felt exhausted but I couldn't seem to fall asleep. I believe that it was the constant worry that my mother could just show up here and demand to know what I was thinking. Also the fact that I was in an entirely unknown place made me feel uncomfortable.

Though my mother didn't bust down my door, I was wide awake once 6:30 AM came around. I decided that it was pointless trying to sleep after that. I got up and made myself presentable for the day. After I was dressed and my hair was thrown up in a half ponytail, I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder. I searched the fridge before I left noticing that it was filled with necessities. I didn't feel hungry so I skipped out on breakfast.

I grabbed my schedule and headed out the door feeling so very lost. What was I suppose to do now? I didn't even know where the college campus was! I walked out of the apartment building and looked around. There wasn't a single person in sight but ahead of me was a yellow taxicab. The driver was casually leaning against the car.

"You Avena?" He asked his question in a bored tone. I nodded walking over to him. "Your uncle told me to take you Westclover campus today."

"Oh," I muttered shifting my weight awkwardly. "Thanks."

He got in the car and I followed him keeping quiet. I watched out the window as the cab moved forward. It was an amazing sight really. All the trees and the blue sky were so different compared to up in Olympus. I was so intrigued by it all.

"Look," the driver said after a minute. "You're uncle also said something about not telling people your real name. He suggested that you use a nickname so you won't be as noticeable."

"Why?" I was confused as to why a random stranger had to tell me this.

The driver shrugged. "I'm only the messenger kid."

'God, young passengers are so annoying these days.'

I scoffed as his thought penetrated through my invisible mental block. I slumped back into silence. A few minutes later, we reached the campus. There were buildings connected to other buildings all over the place in an odd horseshoe shape. There was mostly stone pavement everywhere but there were patches of green grass in certain places. There were the words Westclover Bengals written on one of the buildings in gold.

I got out of the car but the driver made a weird coughing noise pointing to the meter that had been counting how much money I owed. I panicked quickly trying to remember what Porus said. I reached into my pocket and handed the driver the credit card. He swiped it across the meter and everything worked out. He handed me back the card and tipped his hat to me respectfully.

I thanked him for his service and then walked onto the campus feeling like the lost puppy again. I looked at my schedule and wondered where the Calculus classroom was. I was immediately hit with a small pain as thoughts rushed to take over my brain. Many students were awake and bustling around frantically like the world was about to explode and they had to duck for cover. I wanted to ask any one of them for some help but they all moved so fast or had headphones in their ears that I couldn't work up the courage to ask. I blocked out all their pointless mind chatter and tried to focus on my task at hand. It was quite difficult to do both.