We walked for five and a half hours. To make the walk even worse, someone decided to sing show tunes the whole time. When I say singing, I don't just mean the words. He sang the words, the instrumentals, and the back-up. I almost jumped in front of a couple cars if I'm being just real honest. When we finally reached the rundown gas station, he stopped singing and headed straight to the bathroom. I asked the clerk where we were at and for the phone. "Sure, we're in Sugar Grove, Virginia. Here's the phone ma'am," she said very politely.
I thank her, and I call my mom quickly, dialing the memorized number. I quickly told her what had happened and the things we were running into. She didn't like the fact that I was traveling with a boy, but I reassured her that he looked like an upside down elf. That made her feel a little better but not much. I tried to once again reassure her that I didn't find this boy attractive in any way and that I was only traveling with him for a couple more days. She was excited to hear that I was on my way. Our short call ended when she told me that she had to go and plug her phone in. I was a little sad, because there was more that I wanted to talk to her about. I don't dwell on it for too long. Instead, I walked the phone back to the clerk and asked her where the nearest bus station was. "Oh we don't have a bus station in towns! However, there is a train station about five miles that way," She points in the direction of town.
I didn't want to ask the next question but I knew it was needed, "Have y'all had any monsters lately?"
She laughs, "No ma'am. We ain't seen a monster in almost a year. They're ain't many of them around this area I suppose. Or they're good at hiding. Then again, we don't see a lot of your kind around here either."
"Thank you, I'll be right back." I was hoping that the monsters would stay away while we were in town.
I walked back to the cooler and grabbed two bottles of water before walking back up to the counter where Damon was standing with a pile of snacks.
"Do we really need all those snacks? Especially considering we don't have a car anymore?" I ask him, with a roll of my eyes.
"Of course we do, I'm starving," he says with a hand on his hips.
The clerk laughs at us, "Y'all are a really cute couple. Couple goals for sure."
She looked like she had wanted to say more but I think the look of disgust on my face made her stop. "Oh, my bad. I didn't mean to assume or anything." She looks at the ground.
Damon gives me a dirty look, "No ma'am don't look ashamed. In her defense, she's training to be an eternal maiden. She didn't mean to give you that look, it just came natural from her raising."
"I'm sorry," I say, "Damon is right."
She smiles, "No, don't apologize. I was always taught that assuming only makes an ass out of you and me. I shouldn't have been assuming."
She finished ringing up our things and we paid the total. Damon bought at least $15 in snacks alone. I only bought two waters and a salty snack for the road. I had quickly learned that while I was on the road, I needed to be wary with my money and how I spent it. It doesn't seem that Damon had learned this lesson.
"Thank you, have a good night," I tell the cashier as we walk out the doors with our food and our newly found information.
We walk in silence for the entire walk into the town. I couldn't help but how we were bringing danger to this town that hadn't seen monsters in so long. It's true about how our kind is going extinct. The children of the gods are accepting different religions or completely refusing to believe who they are. Some go as far as to reject their fate and live as normal of a life as they possibly can.
The thing is, when a child of the gods rejects their fate, that fate is destroyed. Destroyed along with it is their Olympian blood-line. This helps them not to be a target of monsters. Monsters don't typically bother mortals, unless they're in the way of their dinner. People quickly learned that when a monster comes to town, that they just need to stay inside.
"Are you feeling guilty about bringing the possibility of a monster to this town? Actually don't answer that. I can tell just by the look on your face. You need to calm down. If we can get to the train station fast enough, then we'll be out of this town before the monsters can even smell us," Damon tries to reassure me.
As you can imagine, it didn't work. I looked at him with a skeptical look. He just shrugged his shoulders at me and shoved an entire handful of cheese puffs into his mouth. Disgusting. I never understood how people could eat like that. He was basically inhaling the food, rather than eating it. Let alone eating such a terrible snack. "I suppose you don't know anything about nutritional value, just as much as you know about saving money," I say, rolling my eyes and then giving a look of disgust.
He looks at me like I'm crazy, "Cheese Puffs are delicious and they give me energy, and I do to know how to save money. You just don't like me, so you want to criticize everything that I do. To that, I say you can kiss my ass."
He said that with way more attitude than necessary. "You can cool your jets. I was just warning you that while those might give you energy now, they're probably going to make your stomach hurt later. Plus, we have a lot of walking to do and they might not sit with your stomach so well, since you haven't eaten in a hot minute."
As the last say, I walked ahead and started walking faster so I wouldn't have to deal with the crunching or the show tunes. It took us an hour and a half to get to the middle of town. The only reason it took so long was because we kept taking water breaks. It was about another half mile to the train station and together we made it, in another fifteen minutes. We checked prices and we had enough to get me all the way home, so we bought our two tickets and we waited. Our train was scheduled two hours from now and Damon looked like he was about to crash. I sat down on a bench outside, next to the train tracks and Damon laid down on the ground in front of my feet, using his backpack as a pillow. "Why're you laying right there? What if I step on you?" I ask him.
"This way, if you accidentally fall asleep, the monsters will get to me first," he says, as if that was a logical thing to say.
I took a minute to reply, deciding if I could feel a sense of impending doom, when I couldn't, I looked at Damon who's eyes were half closed, "Lay your head at the opposite end of the bench. You can put your feet on me. We're a team, as much as I hate it, for now. We'll have each other's backs."
Damon smiled up at me and then he climbed onto the bench as fast as he possibly could and as soon as I had his feet in a comfortable position on my lap and his head hit his bag, he was out like a light. I soon realized how tired I was, I knew I had to fight my sleep with all that I had in me. I didn't hold out for long though. Almost as soon as I fell asleep though, I woke up with a startle. Staring right at me was my father. Boy did he look angry.