Otherworld

Waking Up

The scent hit me before the sound did. The almost magical smell of water falling from the sky enclosed me like security did when you knew you where safe, and the sound of the rain pelting down on the hard packed dirt of the Earth was almost like a lullaby. I struggled to open my eyes, but they wouldn't budge. I sighed, recalling the ballroom.

Before I could freak, I heard voices. I relaxed my body and strained to hear what they were saying.

"You're crazy. Insane. stupid." The male voice sounded familiar, as if I've heard it before, but I haven't been around it nearly long enough to memorize it.

"Yeah, yeah. I know. It's my fault to begin with, but sacrificing her to a God is a bit..." the voice trailed off. Aleck.

"Aleck, you know I can't help you on this one. I'm his kid, for Christ sake." I strained to remember where I've heard this strangely irritating voice before.

Oh. Goth Boy.

A long sigh. "Well, we've gone this far." Another voice. The silence of unsaid words not spoken between them stretched on.

"At this point," Goth Boy said, sighing, "we've got a few very limited choices. Sacrifice her. She's the last one, anyways. Maime her and offer it as a boon to another God just to keep her oh-so-precious life, and in the process piss my dad off further. Or, we can cancel the deal. Lay twelve other lives at total shit and call it a Goddamn day."

Silence deliberated itself between them, charged with unsaid words and anger.

I knew I should be scared. They were debating on whether to kill me, chop a piece of me off, or cancel a deal that would possibly anger a God off enough to kill me anyway. I'm not stupid. I've read the Greek myths and legends back when I was reading that Percy Jackson series. They all have some kind of history involving death, rape, and betrayal. But all I could do was open my eyes, stare Goth Boy right in the eyes, and give a sharp sliver of bitter laughter.

Bringing myself up, I considered my options. "Cute," I said bitterly. "Real cute. Who knew you were going to turn out to be Hades' son? And that you'd suggest  chopping off a piece of me just to save me. It's so fucking adorable it makes be want to puke." Drake, Aleck, and Goth Boy's faces smoothed out with shock. In the back of my head I was mildly surprised that I could say something as bitchy as that.

No, I thought. I've got every right.

"Let me get this straight. I get 'saved' by someone I don't know when I happen to be doing just hunky dory in the Summer Court. I become the Princess," I spit, "of a Goddamn country I've never heard of just to be conspired against and nearly killed to fulfill a promise Aleck made to the fucking God of the Underworld before I was even born, and now you've got the gall to even think of saving me?" Silence of the guilty stretched on, scorned by their own pigheadedness. "You can all burn alive for all I care. Don't you dare think you can even talk to me after pulling the shit you have."

I swung my legs in front of me, hopping to my feet and making my way out of the hollow of a large tree. No one stopped me-not Aleck, not Goth Boy, not even Drake. They wouldn't dare. And I don't mind. I really don't mind.

I suppose I was on my own from the beginning, but this is insanely rediculous. They even had the nerve to drag me into a freaking forest for crying out loud.