The Life of a Demigod

Chapter 18

A shot rang through the air and everyone looked up to the rainbow in the mist. Something hit the ground and sent dust in the air, everyone on the other side of the rainbow was running towards it with the weapons drawn. Another shot rang out and a camper fell to the ground. A monster was visible at the edge of the dust. When the air cleared it looked like the camp had more monsters than campers. Someone screamed and more people fell to the ground.

On this side of the Iris message there was a roar that seemed to shake the very ground and a crash as a giant monster came into view. It opened its mouth and something shot out of it and covered the sports hall. It lifted its front leg and smashed the nearest cabin in one motion.

"An Ethiopian drakon.. That's something you don't see every day." Ryo said while admiring the creature even as it destroyed the camp. Mei-Xing hit his arm and yelled to focus. The beast roared again and walked closer towards the group of unprepared demigods. They looked for their weapons. A bow and quiver of arrows appearing from nowhere, swords out of sheaths, somehow a whip and daggers from thin air, an axe carried on someone's back. Every demigod took a fighting position and rushed the monster. Its paw rose again and slammed down onto a camper. Blood splattered but there was no telling what was happening through the dust that rose in the air. 

I stepped back in horror, reaching for my sword that should have been in the sheath at my waist, but it must have fallen during the first step of the drakon. How do you kill those? I dropped to my knees to search for my sword, my hands scrubbed the ground until the sting of sharp metal bit into my flesh, but I just picked it up and waved the sword in the air. Most of the dust cleared, and I saw Ethan in front of me, a deep bite mark in his chest, and all of his weapons free from his hands. 

"I said I'd protect you, didn't I?" Ethan dropped to his knees, onto the dirt ground, his eyes wide open even though his movement had completely stopped. 

He... he died? For me? I couldn't move at all. The comotion continued, but this was so much worse than me getting hurt in a fight, or someone getting a small scrape during training. This was permanent, and it was because of me. I killed him. It was my fault that Ethan died. How could this have happened? 

The earth in front of me cracked, splitting in a wide enough divide to allow the drakon to fall through. More shaking of the ground threw everyone in the air, but I somehow stayed still on the moving rock and dirt while the drakon was being squeezed into the increasingly smaller space. I didn't understand what was happening, but was it because of me? Was this the power I got from being a child of Poseidon? If it was, this monster would pay for taking the life of someone here. 

Enormous rumbling increased, everyone ran away from the monster, but I still felt someone's hand on my shoulder. "Riley, please stop it. The monster is dead. Please!" 

I couldn't look. I knew their advice was solid, but why should the drakon be allowed a quick and painless death when it killed so many even before today? I didn't want to stop. Why should he have to die young? Why should anyone? I couldn't even feel my skin, and my eyes were practically rolled back in my head, but I couldn't care less. Not until whoever stayed with my pulled me into their  arms and refused to let go. I didn't have the energy to stand, so I fell limply with my emotions boiling over inside. Why was I so pathetic? 

I couldn't remember what happened after that. Did the iris message stay? Did the other camp survive? Did anyone else die in the process? Was I the only one suffering from Ethan, the son of Hades, dying in such a tragic way? He didn't seem to be well liked, but no one actually disliked him... He deserved to be remembered in a good way... 

When my memories finally came back, my skin was as cracked as the ground in front of the camp, and I was as dry as the rock buried in the earth. Where was water? My throat was burning, and the rest of my skin was on fire, as red and raw as Ethan's lifeless chest was the last tine I saw him.  What would happen next?

Apparently we, as in all of Blacksword, were invited to Camp Half-Blood as soon as we were able, but I didn't care. I would rather rot away right here. No one deserved the death demigods often experienced, but somehow when it happened to someone closer to me, it was so much worse. I'd go to the funeral, but that would be the end of my connections with any camp. Not after this.