The son of Health

Welcome to Hell.

"My Mom and brother died when I was a kid so I lived on the streets, I was a pickpocket and I found this one weird-looking coin that said drachma, I snuck into a library and searched it up.." I switched my gaze to the ground "I never stayed in one place because I didn't have any friends or family to keep me there, I decided to go to a free school and then I found you guys."

"Don't you have uncles and aunts or your grandparents you could have stayed with?"

"That's the tricky part. My mom moved out when she was 18 she had me at 25 but she never told my family about me and my brother, I can't really just walk up to their door and say I'm their relative. besides-." I got interrupted by severe pain in my wrist.

Everyone turned facing me as I winced in pain.

"What's wrong?" Jamie asked

"Nothing." I scratched the back of my neck with my opposite wrist.

Alex walked over to me, grabbed my numb arm, and started wrapping gauze around it.

"Your lying." She continued to wrap "Your a super bad liar Ramírez, you know that?"

"I thought I was doing a solid job but out of curiosity, how did you know?"

She put my arm down and looked at me.

"You always scratch your neck when you lie. I've seen you do that when you say you've done your homework when you clearly haven't,  I saw you do it when you said your mom was still alive. I've seen you do it when you said Graham, and you were just 'joking' around after you got a black eye, and I've seen you do it just now. So don't lie, because around me it's a useless cause."

She grabbed a flashlight out of my backpack and turned it on, I followed her footsteps as they blew away behind me. I looked down at my wrist. Did she know I couldn't heal myself and only others? Did she not care and just wanted to help? Did she forget that I could heal? I looked back up and I realized Alex had stopped and I was walking right into her before I could stop, I tripped over my shoelace and she moved over and I fell forward on the ground.

"Twice this week, wow that's gotta be a new record. Maybe tie your shoe next time Ramírez." Half her hair was out of her ponytail and In front of her face, making it almost impossible to see her freckles, she had taken off her glasses. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and yet she was still her sassy, funny, pretty, and kind self.

I must have been starring because she waved her hand over my face.

"Hello? Earth to Niko, do you need help getting up?"

Being the manly guy I am I tried to get up by myself using the wall but my broken wrist slipped and I landed in the same position as before.

Laughing, She bent down and tied my shoe double knot only before she held out her hand to help me up, I gave up and took it. She clapped me on the back and continued walking. I looked around and Ezra and Jamie were far ahead of us.

I saw Alex marking the map with a sharpie tracking how many paces we've been taking.

66, 67,68. I saw a timer shine on her watch, it was a countdown. 14 day 57 minutes 34 seconds. We were walking for what seemed like an eternity. We passed rivers made of fire, tar, and green stuff I rather not describe. We made a stop at one river in imparticular.

The river Styx.

"Anybody wanna go swimming," Jamie said with sarcasm.

"That's not a bad idea." Alex implied. Our heads snapped towards Alex in concern. "Griffin, you do know you could die right?" I said a little too loudly

"Yeah, yeah but it makes you invincible if you think of the right things. Trust me Ramírez, I know what I'm doing I think, you have nothing to worry about."

I trusted Alex but that was a pretty big if. But once an idea is in her head there is no turning back. Before I opened my mouth to talk some sense into her she was already in. She was pale, eyes open but grey instead of brown, shaky breaths escaping her.

"Don't die on me, please Griffin." Right as I thought she had died a light glow swirled around her and before we knew it she was on land, sitting against a wall.

" I think we should set up camp for the night," Ezra suggested, all of us nodding in agreement. We all sat against the wall, Ezra made a fire replacing wood with bones and fire from his hands. The warmth spread across our bodies, the flames danced across the nearly burned bones. I opened my backpack and pulled out 4 bottles of water, and 4 granola bars, and offered it to everyone. Ezra and Jamie accepted but Alex shook her head. Within 7 minutes Ezra and Jamie fell asleep. 

"I will take the first watch," Alex said to me

"you should really get some sleep, Alex. you haven't slept in what? 4 days. Now that's gotta be a new record." she opened her mouth about to argue but she gave up and went to sleep.

...

After an hour and fidgeting with my fingers and a wishbone from the floor, I got bored.

I said I would take the first watch but the truth was I couldn't sleep.

I saw a figure move, it was coming towards us. I stood up to check it out but then it vanished and Alex Jolted up in terror. I slowly made my way to her. As I sat down she began to calm her breathing.

"Bad dream?" she nodded in response 

"I don't know why, but I feel like something's wrong I feel like I need to stop it and-" she started tearing up. 

"No, don't cry, I hate it when you cry." I had a feeling that wasn't helping so i tried a different approach.

"it's okay, your going to be okay." she played her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes, after a while, I fell asleep too.