In the Dark

Chapter 4

It was exactly 8:10 am when my mom started her lecture of the day, it was my favorite subject: Greek mythology. I know what you might be thinking, Mythology? Who studies ancient Greek in this day and age, but it was my favorite subject, we learned about Greek myths, the gods of Olympus and their stories. Although I'm dyslexic, somehow Latin and Greek came easy to me, I could get trough a long text without struggling as much as I did when I read a text in English. Plus, it was one of the few subjects where I could beat my sister. I know its unhealthy to  compete with my younger sister , but I admit it, I was jealous of her, she two was younger, but she didn't have dyslexia nor ADHD, she had a natural advantage which I found annoying. She aced her exams without even having to try as hard as I. and since it was just the two of us learning together, I couldn't help it.

My mom said "Today we're going to be talking about the myth of Circe; so what do the two of you recall about this myth ?"

Phoebe answered" she was an evil sorceress, who turned men into pigs"

"Well that might be true to a certain degree Phoebe, it isn't the whole story. She was a Greek sorceress, the daughter of Helios, the sun god, and of the ocean nymph Perse. She was able by means of drugs and incantations to change humans into wolves, lions, and swine"

"didn't she turn the men into guinea pigs?" I blurted out

my sister laughed "Guinea pigs? Seriously? Why would a powerful sorceress turn her victims into cute small guinea pigs, it's so anticlimactic. Where did you get this idea from, it wasn't in any of the written materials that we studied."

"uhm, I'm not really sure, I just thought that guinea pigs might be more convenient, smaller, and easier to keep. They wouldn't make as much of a mess as normal pigs" I lied

To be honest the real reason I asked her this question was because of one of the dreams I had, I knew what the myths said, but what I had seen was a bit different.

It was maybe 5 years ago, I saw in one of my dreams, that Percy and Annabeth were on quest for the golden fleece in the sea of monsters, after a lot of things went wrong, as they usually do for the poor guy, they ended up in a small boat drifting in the sea until they docked on a beautiful island in the middle of nowhere, they were welcomed by beautiful women wearing white silk dresses. This alone sounded alarm in my head but then again, it was just a dream. 

 Circe ended up turning Percy into a guinea pig, to show his "true" nature. Thankfully Annabeth saved him, and they were able to escape the island.

"you talk about practicality as if they were actually real, they're myths, stories that humans who didn't have science made up to explain phenomenon's like thunder, lighting and so on"

My mother looked at me strangely and said, "your sister is right, according to the myths, Circe turned her victims into pigs, and when Jason and the Argonauts docked their ship while on their journey in the sea of monsters, they were changed, and that is because circe wasn't very fond of men all together"

My mom continued her lecture, but I wasn't really listening anymore. I thought about the dreams, Percy Jackson, he was a son of Poseidon, a half blood. Half god half mortal. Son of one of the big three gods. His existence in itself, according to my dreams, was a mistake that never should've happened, yikes. I can't imagine what that must feel like, to be told "hey son, you were never meant to exist, you were a mistake", but if that wasn't bad enough, his life was a constant struggle for survival, apparently everyone wanted to kill him, the gods, monsters, even earth itself. I pitied him, he was fighting to survive, but couldn't even enjoy small victories without being hit in the face with a new problem.

Stop, I told myself. He isn't real, you must be going crazy, you created a character in your subconscious, and now you're starting to have feelings for him; I was definitely out of my mind.

After Latin, we had English, then math. My favorite subject !! said no one ever. Seriously, I might be smart but that doesn't mean I like math, ugh today's calculus was especially hard. My mom was pushing us so hard. We worked twice as hard as any normal students, she expected so much from us, from me. But it was a good thing too, I was going to take the LSAT one year earlier than everyone else. To be honest I couldn't wait to go to college, my mom couldn't possibly stop me from doing so, I planned on going to Yale or Stanford. Finally get out of my house, meet new people, and finally be able to do a presentation with someone other than my sister. The fact that I had registered for the LSAT and applied for college was a secret, I hadn't told my mom yet. I knew that she would try to stop me. Make us move somewhere else in the world; and then say I could go to college online.

We hadn't lived in the states for 5 years, but 3 months ago we finally moved back. We were living in Seattle. Although i didn't get to see a lot from the city, i liked it here. I loved the rain. Our house was pretty big and nice, I mean considering the fact that we had to stay inside all day, it was the least that our parents could do. But i had learned not to get too attached to material things. We moved constantly, I've had to switch rooms so many times that I only needed one box for my things, But that doesn't mean that i don't appreciate all the perks of this Lifestyle. We even had our own indoor gym. But one thing was always missing from our homes no matter how much I begged my parents was a swimming pool. Wherever we lived, be it the middle east, Russia, Australia or even south Africa. We never had a pool, not even a bathtub, I don't know why mom was so adamant about it. I suspected the latter was because I nearly drowned, but that happened so long ago, and I wasn't a child anymore. But it was useless to argue with my mom, once something Is decided, its nearly impossible to change her mind.