"Mom?" I silently whispered.
Tori shut the door behind me carefully and we both scanned the whole room to see if there was any monster around. We didn't find anything in the living room so I quietly made my way towards the kitchen.
The door creaked as it opened slowly, there were dishes in the sink, the water tap leaked with little drops of water, but nothing was off about this scenery.
"It must be in one of the bedrooms." I whispered to Tori who just nodded in approval. We were just about to turn and head a different direction when I heard my mom's voice.
"Guys, what are you doing?"
My mom stood before the both of us, her body parts still complete and fresh. Her green hair still glowed with fertility, and she didn't seem like someone who was just attacked. "Thank goodness, you're safe."
"Of course I am, why wouldn't I be?" She asked, folding her arms.
"We saw blood on the pavements, leading all the way here, to your apartment." Tori explained.
"Blood?"
"Mom, did you see any monster trying to get into the house?" I asked.
"No, there wasn't even a squeak on the doors since morning."
As strange as it sounded, we decided to check the doors for scratches or any bare marks, but there was nothing to show as a stretch mark. However, when we checked to see if the bloody footprints lead elsewhere, we noticed that it stopped exactly at the foot of our doorstep, with no further steps ahead.
But the house was clean, there was no blood on the floors, and by then, we were beginning to get scared. Tori suggested that whatever monster that came out of the woods must have seen the other houses before ours, and that fact was even more than a scare for me.
We decided to wait and see if the monster would show up, but nothing happened, so after staying indoor for about 2 hours or more, Tori retired and decided to leave.
"So... Tori, she's just like you eh?" My mom asked me while we had dinner.
"Not exactly-- mom." I told her.
"What do you mean by 'not exactly'? She is a half blood."
My mom was gifted an extra-ordinary talent, she could tell if a person was human or god, but she couldn't tell what kind of powers the gods possessed. She explained to me that she had that ability ever since she learnt how to read, maybe that's how she met Hades, who knows?
"Yeah, I figured that out, right after she vandalized almost half of the school with her lightning and thunder."
Tori and I had already explained to mom, why we came home early. We told her that we were faced by two empusas who kept a little girl hostage. We also told her that nobody would have ever believed us if we told them that we were fighting some demon girls, and that was why we had to run.
"So she's a daughter of Zeus, I should have known, it was clearly written in her eyes." My mom said thoughtfully.
"Yeah, she sure has a lot of courage," I picked my food with my fork. "I wish I can be her."
If Tori could be so brave to approach some monsters she didn't even know about, regardless of her life, I didn't see why I couldn't do the same.
.
.
.
It turned out to be a rainy night in Kuyo, arrows of endless flow of water dropped from the sky, hitting me hard on my shoulders.
I heard our doorbell ring, but when I wanted to go check who was there at the hour, my mom offered to get the door. She had only opened the door halfway when I saw the strangest thing.
Suddenly, I saw life coming out of her body, being sucked to I-don't-know-where, and when she must have been drained of her own soul, she fell to the ground.
"Mom!!" I yelled and rushed to meet her, but it was too late, her comatose soul was now in another realm. I heard footsteps coming into the apartment and was totally shocked by whom I saw.
The man that walked into my house looked a lot like my father, but he wasn't my father. Fine, he had the same dark aura with Hades and also a twiny facial modification, but he was more pale than Hades, and also very lean.
"What did you do to my mom?!" I felt clear anger mixed with pain, I didn't even bother to ask him who he was, either because I already knew or because I was too busy fuming.
"Your days are numbered, Son of Hades."
"Your days are numbered, Son of Hades."
"Christopher." I heard another voice.
"Your days are numbered, Son of Hades."
"Christopher, wake up!"
"Your days are numbered, Son of Hades."
.
.
.
"HEY!" The voice came again, but this time, it was enough to wake me up from my distracting sleep.
I opened my eyes and saw day again, it was then I realized that I had been asleep and was only dreaming. "What happened?" I asked myself.
"You fell asleep in the middle of class." Tori explained, a look of annoyance clear in her eyes.
She was right, the physics class was so exhausting that even if I was immune to sleep, the subject had drifted me into a wonderland of nightmares. I looked around the class, there was nobody in the room except for Tori and I, and it was disturbingly resilient around, like as if the whole school had been attacked by zombies.
"Oh, I couldn't stand the class, where did everybody go?"
"They're all in the safe hall. The principal is addressing them regarding what happened yesterday." Tori explained and my heart skipped a bit, have we been figured out already?
"We've been caught?" I asked in shock.
"No, the little girl really covered up for us, it seemed she told them that two girl monsters from Tyl'l high was responsible for the vandalism."
I sat back in relief. "Oh great." But at that second, it popped into my mind. "Wait, she explained that two female monsters destroyed the band room?"
"Yeah, what were you expecting her to say." Tori asked with a feisty frown.
"No, not that. She saw the empusas we were fighting against." I said.
"You can't be sure, maybe she just saw them as humans."
"I 'can' be sure because she said 'Girl monsters', she wasn't just talking about normal girls."
Tori quenched up a minute to finally realize what I was talking about. "She saw those empusas, she's--"
"Half-blood, like us." I finished, I should've realized this a long time ago, because these mythical monsters don't feed on humans (except the werewolves and ancient bats), they only enjoy eating half-bloods and if there was a reason why Lauren and Sandra would have collided to eat the young girl, it would've been because she is a half-blood.
But I was expecting Tori to have the upper hand, especially after she figured out that I was a half-blood, why didn't she see anything about the girl? Come to think of it, were there other half bloods in the school apart from the three of us.
"But she's very young and very exposed to threats, what do we do now?"
Tori was about to answer my question when the students came flowing back into the classroom, all of them had looks of worry on their faces, and they were all chittering incessantly. Just then, the announcement speaker came on.
"DELAZ CHRISTOPHER AND TORI MEDRIGUEZ, PLEASE REPORT TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE, IMMEDIATELY. I REPEAT DELAZ CHRISTOPHER AND TORI MEDRIGUEZ, PLEASE REPORT TO THE PRINCIPAL'S OFFICE IMMEDIATELY."
I gave Tori a what-now? kind of look, but she didn't seem concerned, either because she knew we were eventually going to be caught, or because she already had a cover up plan.
"Do you think they called us because of yesterday's incident?" I asked as we headed towards the principal's office.
Tori eyebrows creased at me. "Yeah, definitely."
"Then why the hell do you look so calm about it!!" I almost yelled at her.
"Because I'm not scared of getting kicked off the line, anyways why do care so much about protecting your expulsion? Schooling here seems like garbage to me."
I didn't bother to reply her from that moment, the reason why I took school so important was not a subject I wanted to pick up, it's a very long story.
Tori and I both walked into the principal's office, but I on the other side was gripped with all sorts of fear. The office was not so much large, but it was fully decorated with portraits of the principal, Dr Carlos. According to the rumors, Dr Carlos was a medical practitioner who was fired and withdrawn of his medicine certificate for nobody-knows-why. He was left to start an entrepreneurship business all by himself and so he invested all of his previous income into the establishment of Tyl'l high.
I caught a glimpse of the middle aged principal, his eyes seemed as cheerful as ever and he didn't seem like one who had a tankful of worries, he appeared most comfortable as he sat on that chair. As I looked on at him, I couldn't help but wonder if this man was ever a doctor or not.
Sitting opposite the principal was the young girl whom we had rescued yesterday, she seemed scared, she even looked up at Tori with a eye expression that said, "He's about to break me."
"Christopher, Tori, so nice you were able to announce yourselves," The principal greeted as soon as he noticed our presence. "Have a sit the both of you, I'm only just going to ask you a few questions."
The way he said just a 'few questions' gave me the creeps, but I did deem it fit to occupy the guest seat right beside the little girl.
"So, Christopher and Tori, are you the ones responsible for the disfigurement of the band room?" He started.
Both our eyes were instantly directed at the young girl, but it she made it clear to us that she wasn't the one who spilled that fact.
"N.. N.." I was beginning to stutter when Tori found the right words for me.
"Definitely not sir," Her eyes were filled with so much boldness, one wouldn't even believe that she was lying. "We weren't anywhere near the--"
"No, no, no kids. Don't play secrets with me, I know that you two were at the band room yesterday because I came across a witness who saw you heading there." Dr Carlos spoke, matter-of-factly. It didn't seem like Tori's lies were making an impact on him.
Now, we were stuck and didn't what to say next. The expression on Tori's face told me that she hadn't planned well enough for this and she was by then, defenseless.
We couldn't tell him what exactly happened in that room, because that would've meant us being figured out as Son and Daughters of Greek Gods. And we couldn't just explain that two female monsters attacked us, we would definitely have a lot to explain if he asked us what kind of monsters they were.
"Plus, we got news that two students got missing, and they were last spotted in the band room," Dr Carlos looked at us with his cheerful/fear-giving eyes as he spoke. "Their names are Lauren and Sandra, did you come across any of them?"