TAMING APOLLO | completed

01. the naked man

I was curious at first, but when her stupid excuses started truly annoying me, I just simply stopped asking.

Today, however, is the final straw.

"I've been calling you for days. Where have you been?" I ask. She seems taken aback by my words, as if she expected that by now I would have stopped asking.

"Visiting family." She lies effortlessly, raising my levels of irritation through the roof. I roll my eyes.

"I just got back..." she continues.

I feel a pang of annoyance pelt my chest as she runs her thin painted fingers through her smooth russet brown hair.

It looks like she wants to tell me something, and her eyes are pleading with my own when I decide to break contact.

There's an awkward silence for a number of minutes, the only sound being the humming of the wind from outside. I start to feel the coolness of the tiles creep up on my feet as I shift on the both of them awkwardly.

"So you dropped — " her words are cut short when the ground beneath us starts to tremble, and I lose my balance and land up on the floor. The door to my bedroom flies open, and there where my bed is, there seems to be fires burning wildly.

My feet aren't cold anymore, in fact they're warm and I feel goosebumps form on my skin as Thalia takes my hand into hers. She pushes me aside as she sprints straight into my bedroom.

The ground is still trembling and this inspires an annoying sense of deja vu in my mind.

My brain starts to feel just the slightest bit itchy.

It's like this has already happened, but I blink that thought away with the realisation that Thalia just ran into my burning bedroom.

And then, it all stops. The floor is cold again, and everything is back to the way it was before.

Thalia emerges from my bedroom, which looks just the way it did before all of that occurred just several moments ago.

Her face is pale and her brown eyes are wide open as she ambles out of my bedroom, losing her balance a couple of times as she heads straight towards me.

"Did you feel that earthquake?" I ask her and she nods, then sucks in a large breath before momentarily staring back into my bedroom, and then returning her gaze back to me as if she's afraid to be seen looking.

I quirk my brows at her confusedly.

She pulls me aside and pushes me behind the couch where we both crouch as she catches her breath.

All thoughts of the earthquake are straight out the window as my gaze focuses on my best friend.

"You look like you've just seen a ghost." I chuckle awkwardly and her brown eyes meet mine, pink lips stretched into a straight line.

"Unless there was a naked man in your bed before the earthquake, then yeah, I think I have." I frown at her words, and confusedly stare across the hallway into my bedroom. I don't see much.

"Huh?" I say to her.

"Okay... okay, I don't know what I saw, b-but I ran straight into your bedroom during the earthquake, I don't know why it was like something was pulling me towards it. A-and it was completely empty, right?" I nod at her words, attempting to follow her madness.

"I- then I blinked, a-and this bleach-blond guy just zaps onto your bed completely naked!" She raises her voice a little bit at the end, and then slaps her palm over her mouth.

"I think you may have hit your head, we should — " my diagnosis of Thalia gets cut off when a voice sounds from the bedroom.

"Where am I?" The admittedly raspy male voice echoes throughout my one-bedroom apartment and my breath hitches.

Suddenly my mouth is dry and my palms are sweaty.

I glance back at Thalia, who looks as if she's about to faint.

"Is anybody out there?" The voice sounds again, and I can hear the springs of my bed uncoiling, like somebody is getting off of it.

My hand instinctively reaches for the bat on my couch. I push it into Thalia's arms and she glares back at me confusedly.

My eyes are pleading with her as I silently beg her to go out there and do whatever needs to be done.

Her mouth springs open per my request and her head shakes vigorously, and she mouthes the words 'hell no, you do it' at me and tries to shove the bat into my hands but I refuse to take it and point at the couch for her to get moving.

She sighs, running her fingers through her hair once again and holds out a fist.

I glare at her fist, knowing exactly what she wants from me. I nod, haunted by the fact that I might actually lose this and have to go out there on my own.

"Rock, paper, scissors..." we both mumble and I close my eyes before holding out scissors.

When I open them, my heart rejoices as she has chosen paper and her face is pale. I smirk at her. "Always with the paper." I tease, restraining myself from sticking my tongue out.

"I know somebody is out there." The voice seems to be getting closer, so I urge Thalia to move.

She takes a deep breath, and I pat her shoulder before she hops up, body shuddering as she creeps towards the man.

I can't watch, but I do it anyway, peering over from the couch.

That man is definitely naked, but I can only see the top half of his body because of the couch.

Parts of me begin to tingle when I see his face, his platinum coloured hair is streaking out like a mop and he is very toned. He looks familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Where do I know him from?

My brain starts to itch as I try to remember him, but it feels as though there's gaps in my memory.

Thalia creeps up behind him, and as he turns, she's already bashed the bat against his skull.

I can't help the little shriek that escapes my lips as the man collapses onto the ground.

Thalia looks back at me.

"So, turns out he's definitely not a ghost."