The Mighty Ones' Fall

Chapter 1: A Strange Girl

I frowned and studied the fair-skinned girl, who was leaning up against a street lamp and breathing heavily, as if she had just ran a mile. The girl was shivering violently, and she tried to pull her black sweater tighter around her arms for warmth, but it was just as drenched as the rest of her due to the rain. She then gave up trying to stay warm and simply clung to the gray pole for dear life, trying to avoid the heavy foot traffic around her. When she looked around the street wildly, I knew she was lost, perhaps in some kind of trouble. Which meant that Brady and I were about to be in trouble, too.

Sure enough, Brady jumped off of his chair and exclaimed, "We've got to help her!"

"No. She's fine," I argued firmly, staying seated. "We have to stay here and wait for whoever we're supposed to be meeting. It's almost six o'clock."

"Come on, Jace. The least we can do is buy her a coffee." Brady started tugging my arm to try to get me off of my own chair, but I just sank lower into my seat and glared at the girl outside, wishing she would quickly walk away in order to escape the wrath of Brady.

But that was when I saw a huge, looming figure making its way toward the girl out of the corner of my eye. This was the infamous minotaur, all seven feet of it. Its beady red eyes gleamed with bloodlust as it strode towards the poor girl, whose back was facing away from the horrific half-bull, half-male monster. The gap between the two of them was shrinking by the second, and I was certain that the girl was going to be dead meat in a matter of minutes if Brady and I didn't do something about it.

"Oh my gods...Jace, she must be Knowing," Brady whispered, finally noticing the black beast heading straight for his newest potential girlfriend.

"I know," I responded through clenched teeth, slowly standing up. After all, monsters usually tried to kill only the people who knew about the Greek myths, people who had the Sight. And all of the humans I knew about who had the Sight lived in just a few scattered Knowing camps, the societies founded specifically for our kind thousands of years ago.

Brady urgently grabbed my arm and literally dragged me towards the door, leaving our McDonald's French fries behind to be stolen by another customer. "Maybe she's the one we're supposed to be meeting. Jace, we've got to save her! She's one of our own! Come on!"

"I know!" I shouted at him in frustration just as the girl whirled around to see the minotaur, which was now within an arm's reach of her. Brady and I quickly burst out of the doors onto the street, the rain pounding against our skin as we raced over to her aid. However, Brady and I happened to be unarmed at the moment, so I did the very first thing that came to mind. Before the minotaur could even touch the girl, I took a flying leap and tackled her to the hard pavement, and the two of us rolled out into the street, away from the bloodthirsty monster. Her dark hood slipped off to reveal a cute face and bleach blonde hair styled in a pixie cut, momentarily distracting me while a yellow taxi honked loudly and suddenly veered around us, narrowly missing another car as I stood up, grabbed the girl's hand, and pulled her to her feet.

"Ow!" she said, but I didn't apologize because my focus was back on Brady, who was trapped in one of the minotaur's huge, muscular, furry human arms. As much as I hated the annoying blonde guy, I really did want to save him.

But I'll admit that Brady was a bit more muscular than me, so he was able to elbow the black-furred minotaur in its gut and worm his way out of the monster's tight grasp on his own. "Run!" Brady screamed desperately at the girl and I. Then, in unison, we turned on our heels and began to sprint across the busy street, dodging the cars as they sped toward us head on.

The girl had no idea who Brady and I were, but she followed us through the thick crowds purely because we were the only ones around who could also see the monster in its true form, and therefore, we were her best hope for survival. Because their clouded brains were trained to ignore or be immune to the sight of monsters, I didn't know what all of the un-Knowing people without the Sight saw the minotaur as, but they obviously weren't too concerned about it, since no one on the street gave the minotaur a second look. The three of us, on the other hand, were receiving dirty glares by every single person we accidentally bumped into on our mad dash.