For All My Karlach Enjoyers

Percy Plays The Maury Game

A few days after the toilet incident things began calming down, except for Clarisse's murderous rage. The blue marks Clarisse had given me were only just beginning to fade but at least Percy was beginning to settle into camp.

The senior campers and counselors were all watching him like a hawk though, which couldn't have been helping. There were already rumors of him being a Big Three kid, but it had gotten out that his mother was human and so everyone was now trying to determine who his father was. The counselors especially. A few counselors were even making bets despite the fact no one really had a clue. He wasn't gifted with the raw physical power of the Ares kids. He was honestly kind of awful at archery, so definitely not an Apollo kid. He didn't have any special touch with metalwork or technology and the grape vines wanted nothing to do with him, so Hephaestus and Dionysus were off the table. Wings had told him he might be a Hermes kid but I think he was just trying to comfort him. 

It was three days after his arrival that Percy got his first taste of sword fighting. Cabin 11 gathered in the arena. The arena was an amphitheater that we used for duels and training with straw dummies dressed in Greek armor, along with other miscellaneous training devices strewn around.

Wings certainly the lesson so I decided to help out like usual, handing everyone their preferred swords from the armory and making sure everyone was ready. We began our warm-up with simple slashes and stabs at the training dummies. Percy was having a hard time though, all his swords were unbalanced and we couldn't find a sword that fit him. It certainly wasn't doing any good for his strikes. 

We moved on to dueling and Wings took Percy as his sparring partner, prompting some of us to tease him a little bit. 

"Good luck," an undetermined camper named Ethan said with a smirk," Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."

"Maybe he'll go easy on me," Percy responded back.

The other kids snorted and I leaned over with a sympathetic smile to mask my smirk. 

"Don't count on it," I teased as well, but it wasn't just in mean spirit. Telling him that Wings wouldn't go easy on him was a genuine warning. 

I know from experience that Wings doesn't believe in going easy on newbies, he says that the best way to learn was through pain and mistakes; by that logic, Wings is a very good teacher. My cabinmate calling Luke the best swordsman in three hundred years wasn't an exaggeration, either. Even Chiron, who's been training heroes for thousands of years, is consistently impressed by his skill with a sword.

I partnered with a tall, older Hermes guy named Connor as my sparing partner. He usually partners with his brother, but every now and then they'd look for some diversity in their training. I didn't mind the height difference since we were just doing casual sparing. Plus it's good to practice against taller opponents every once in a while, especially when you're shorter than most other campers.

I sparred with Conner for a while until Wings called break time. He threw his water over his head, like the total drama queen he is, and I noticed that Percy had copied him. What a couple of dorks.

Wings said he was going to use Percy as a demonstration, but I knew it was really just another hazing ritual. This sparring partnership is similar to Clarisse's toilet routine, the only difference is that Wings is just a bit more subtle about his tormenting of the newbies. We gathered around, most of us not even trying to hide our smiles knowing Luke was just going to show off his swordsmanship by embarrassing the poor new kid. 

I must admit, there is some purpose to this initiation of his, though. It was to make sure that newbies didn't get big heads about their sword fighting skills and go around challenging people to duels and getting themselves hurt. He may or may not have begun this initiation after I got my ass handed to me by Clarisse on my second day.

"This is difficult," Wings stressed to the group after showing us a move that flung Percy's sword out of his hand. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique." 

Wings demonstrated the move a few more times, noting that you had to get the tip of your blade at the base of your opponent's sword, near the hilt, and twist your opponent's arm, forcing them to drop their sword. After he decided we understood the motions, he declared that he and Percy would be sparing until one of them used the move and disarmed their opponent. I expected Luke to do the move within the first thirty of the match but Percy was doing a good job at keeping Luke's blade away from the hilt of his sword.

Percy was keeping up quite well for a newbie, reminding me how natural battle reflexes came to demigods, but Percy's natural talent was still impressive. As the fight continued Percy seemed to get the hang of things. He even countered one of Luke's strikes and tried to thrust at him, not knowing how bad of an idea it was. An offensive move was like the green light Luke was waiting for to apply more force and intensity to the demonstration.

Percy started looking tired and just when I thought Luke was going to take him down, his blade hit the base of Luke's sword, sending it clattering to the ground with a loud clang. The tip of Percy's sword was now an inch away from Luke's chest. Both looked equally surprised, but not as nearly as stunned as us in the crowd.

 Nobody moved; nobody breathed. Everyone just stared at Percy and Wings in shock for a long moment. 

"Um, sorry," Percy interrupted our gawking, lowering his blade.

After a moment to recover from his shock, Wings grinned.

"Sorry? By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me again!" He enthused, retrieving his blade and hurrying back to stand in front of Percy again.

Wings hadn't had a real challenge in sparing another camper since before I'd come to camp, and his intrigue and excitement at Percy's apparent prodigy-Esque talent was obvious. 

They were going to try the maneuver again but this time the moment their swords touched, Wings sent Percy's sword flying and there was a long pause as it skidded across the arena.

"... Beginner's luck?" A Hermes kid said from next to me.

"Maybe," Wings replied while wiping the sweat off his brow. "But I wonder what Percy could do with a balanced sword..."

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The next day was Friday, and all anyone could think about was Capture the Flag. For a children's game, the evening before looked a whole lot more like preparation to go to war; the only difference was that the atmosphere was light and full of excitement. People were sorting out what gear they were planning to use or sharpening their weapons during their free time, chattering about attack coordination and strategy mixed in with the usual gossip. Clarisse had spent every moment we were together trying not to brag about how bad the red team would crush us.

She may be my best friend but we both knew my loyalties still lay with Wings and the Hermes Cabin, who were on the blue team, opposing the Ares Cabin. Despite her best efforts, I did pick up on the fact she was definitely planning her revenge on Percy no matter how hard she tried to phrase it differently. 

I went straight to Annabeth with that information. I told her pretty much Clarisse had said about the game word for word. I knew she'd probably figured out that's what Clarisse would do, but I wasn't going to risk not communicating something as vital as Clarisse's position during the game. She indeed already had a suspicion it was confirmed when I told her pretty much everything Clarisse had said about the game word for word. Some of what I told her didn't seem like it meant anything but Annabeth was brilliant; she'd be sure to notice things in Clarisse's words that didn't. 

Finally, we had dinner and sacrificed the best parts of our meals to the gods. Now it was time for our friendly, age-appropriate fight to the death. The cheering of campers practically shook the dining pavilion as the councilors of the Ares and Athena Cabins brought out the flags. The flags were giant silk banners, about ten feet high and six feet wide. The Athena Cabin's flag was a glistening sliver with a clean painting of a barn owl sitting above an olive tree. The Ares flag was bright crimson with a bloody spear and a boar's head painted on with violent, sporadic strokes. 

Percy was asking Wings a ton of questions but I ignored him in favor of cheering and getting hyped with the rest of the cabin. I'd babysat Percy for a considerable chunk of the day when Luke had other counselor duties to handle, so I didn't have any desire to answer more of his questions.

They announced the teams: Apollo and Hermes would be on the Athena team while Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus on the Ares team. That might sound a bit unfair but the Hermes and Apollo Cabins both had maybe triple the number of kids in some cabins like Dionysus or Demeter, so the teams were fairly even in number. 

Chiron Hammered his hoof on the marble to quiet the roaring demigods and began his usual announcement before the game. 

"Heroes! You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gaged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!" Chiron finished his speech and raised his hands, summoning gear to appear over the white cloth of our tables. 

The gear was sorted on different tables. Some of the placement of gear was based on the table's cabin, like the Ares cabin having all the community weapons for half-bloods who didn't have their own, while some gear was randomly sorted onto a table.

I already knew what gear I'd need but I walked over to Wings to confirm my role in the game, hearing that Percy would be on border patrol.

"Sorry to hear that, Percy, my dearest condolences," I teased him, knowing he didn't know what plan Luke and the Athena kids had cooked up yet. "I assume I'm on my usual duty?" I turned to Wings with a brow raised.

He nodded and replied, "Yes, but you're also gonna be moving with me and a few others. Annabeth will fill you in on the rest of the plan we discussed." Wings' reply was vague and I knew it was because he didn't want Percy to have too much of an idea of what we were going to do. 

I turned headed grabbed some leather forearm and shin guards from the Demeter table and a small shield from the Dyonisus table. The shield only barely had a radius bigger than a dinner plate, but I wasn't really planning to use it.

I would have grabbed a chest plate and helmet too, but they were too heavy and would definitely get snagged while I was trying to move. I didn't need to grab a sword either since I had Copper hanging from my neck. I did have to grab a blue bandana to tie around my head so that people would know which team I'm on the blue team since I wasn't wearing a helmet, which has colored plumes on top to identify us.

The reason I wanted to gear up in a way that would allow me to have mobility and not get caught on anything is because my "usual duty" is recon. It's pretty much my job every game because of one skill that gave me a huge advantage that only the Apollo Cabin and a few others can combat: I'm incredible at climbing trees.

Yeah, it doesn't sound all that cool or important but since most campers use melee weapons, being up high was a huge advantage even if I'm found. People also have a hard time seeing if I'm even there since the trees cast shadows in the evening, meaning sometimes I can be right above people without them knowing. If I'm lucky, I'll even catch strategy or important positions of the opposite team members, which I can relay to Annabeth faster than any other messenger; since I could cut right through the woods without having to worry about running into enemy campers getting in my way. 

Plus, somehow that energy I feel up there allows me to cross the entire forest before most kids on foot could even reach the creek that flows through the middle. Sufficed to say, I'm the best reconnaissance option- with maybe the only exception being Annabeth herself since she's got that invisibility cap. Either way, it's no surprise I had the same job almost every game. 

"Blue team, forward!" Annabeth interrupted my internal boasting, prompting the blue team to shake our swords in the air and cheer as she lead us toward the south side of the forest. Threats and trash talk were thrown between the opposing teams and I wasn't going to join in, but then I saw Clarisse.

"Hey Classy, see ya soon! And don't forget to look up!" I knew she hated that nickname, so of course, I made sure to always use it when I teased her. My taunt was more than just a cocky declaration that I'd find her, I was also referencing the time she'd chased an Apollo kid named Lake through the forest after they retrieved the flag. Lake and I were on the same team during that game and Clarisse was on the opposing team. Lake had made it to the border but Clarisse was catching up and nearly grabbed them and I'd stopped her by dropping down from where I was in the trees and fell right on top of her so Lake could make it over the boundary and win the game. Clarisse got a few scrapes and bruises and I'd broken my wrist in the fall but it was worth it in the end. Clarisse still hated it when I brought it up.

After we reached our side of the woods I went over to Annabeth to discuss the details of the plan Wings hadn't told me and to establish where I'd be meeting her this game. Whenever we were on the same team we'd establish a sort of intelligence headquarters where I'd meet her if I blew my whistle to tell her I had urgent information to give her. It was always a place near the boundary line that felt secure enough for me to tell her important intel so she and her cabinmates could form strategies accordingly. We even made this map of the woods with its own specified coordinates that I used to tell her the exact locations if they were needed.

We established the Intel HQ a little ways away from where Percy was positioned and I left my shield there for if I needed to come back and get it later in the game. Annabeth said she wanted to be nearby Percy's post to make sure everything went according to plan. Said plan was basically just to use Percy as bait to have Clarisse and her cabin mates distracted in their revenge so Wings could sneak around the other team's flank and capture the flag.

I decided to go over to Percy before the game started and give him a few tips for "Border Patrol." I was actually trying to give him advice on how not to get killed when Clarisse came after him, but I couldn't tell him that so I settled on just giving him defense tips and what parts of the body would give him the highest chance of survival if stabbed. 

I heard a horn blow in the distance, signaling that the game had begun so I decided it was time for me to get off the ground. I took a running start and practically flew up into a tree above where Percy stood and started traversing into enemy territory. My first priority was making sure Clarisse went after Percy as Annabeth had planned. 

Before I got too far from where Percy was, I thought I heard a familiar growl. I stopped dead, hanging awkwardly from a branch as I'd been busy reaching for another one. My blood ran cold as I was reminded of the painful experiences I'd had with the creatures that made that sound. I hung there listening for a few minutes, but I didn't hear anything else so I began moving again, hoping it had been my imagination.

I loved being up in the trees. Something about the ground being so far below was empowering to see people on the ground, looking smaller in the distance. When I was up high, it felt like all my senses worked perfectly and I could calculate every route between the branches and every move the people below me were going to make. I sometimes wished I was better at archery so I could just sit up in the trees without ever needing to come down to fight.

After a few minutes of searching, I heard heavy footsteps somewhere a few yards ahead so I stopped moving forward and climbed higher into the trees to be harder to see or hear from the ground. Sure enough, it was Clarisse and four of her cabinmates were heading straight for Percy's location. They walked right past the spot below me and I grinned to myself; Clarisse hadn't heeded my warning and really did forget to look up.  

Perfect, this meant things were going well for the plan and there was no need to blow my whistle. I rounded back to where Annabeth had told me to meet with Wings and kept track of the positions of red team campers as I went. Once I got there I threw a stick at Wings to get his attention and then we selected one of the faster Hermes kids to get the positions I'd seen on my way back to the Athena kids while I began scouting ahead for the group.

I weaved through the branches a few yards ahead of the group. Every now and then I'd see campers with red helmet plumes and I'd go back to Luke's and say something along the lines of, "Three reds on your eleven, 25 feet ahead." 

Then, Wings would say something like, "Thanks, we'll fall back ten yards. Scout out a route around them on our two."

Then, if that new direction was clear we'd adjust and move around the other team undetected. We did this procedure all the way to the North side of the forest, where I saw the Ares Cabin's flag on top of Zeus's Fist (a formation of boulders that served as a landmark in the forest) and scouted out the area around it. I went back to the group and reported the position of the two guards assigned to the flag and the scattered campers that were hanging around nearby. We decided that we'd split the group up to distract the other campers surrounding the area so we'd have a clear exit once we grabbed the flag.

We decided that I would be the one to signal the attack to take out the guards from their flank and after they were down Wings would take the flag back across the border with me leading the way above and some others covering his retreat. I got as close to the guards as I could in the trees and quietly unclipped Copper from its chain. I felt a tug in my gut as it soundlessly grew into its sword form, a beautiful bronze xiphos with an azure blue hilt. I took and deep breath and held it for a moment before breathing out.

I dropped right on top of the first guard, forcing his face into the dust below us. Before the other one could even turn around to see the commotion, I dashed over and hit her in the back of the head with the hilt of my sword, knocking her helmet straight off and exposing her red hair. 

"Wings! Now!" I yelled into the forest. The guard I'd landed on was already on his feet again and swung at me. I stopped his strike with Copper and kicked him away from the flag as Wings bounded into the clearing with a blonde Apollo kid. He grabbed the flag and made a mad dash back to the border. I ran after them, feeling much slower now that I was on the ground again, but once I made it to the tree line I jumped straight up into the branches and managed to start traversing ahead of Wings and his group.

The others that had split up to distract the other reds had caught up with us how and were helping to cover our flanks as more of the red team realized their flag had been stolen and chased after us like a pack of hungry dogs. Whenever a red managed to get in front of us I had to jump down and use the momentum to throw them out of the way of Wings, almost getting stabbed a few times in the process. A lot of people on both teams were screaming as we reached the border, some of them elated and some full of outrage and stress. 

I heard a familiar voice shouting ahead, "A trick! It was a trick." I could see the creek ahead and knew I wasn't needed anymore, so I decided to break from the group to pour some salt in Clarisse’s wounds.

Wings ran through the creek and the blue team roared with cheer and applause as the Ares Cabin banner slowly turned to silver and the spear and boar were replaced with Cabin 11's caduceus. Some blue team kids had emerged from the woods and thrown Wings onto their shoulders in celebration. Chiron came out of the woods and blew the conch horn to tell everyone who was still spread around the forest that the game had ended.

I found Clarisse sulking on the ground across the creek from where Annabeth was explaining to Percy that he'd been the bait. I shrunk Copper back into its whistle form and clipped it to my chain.

"Hey, Classy. How's it hanging?" Of course, that was a pun since I was now hanging upside down from a tree branch next to her; my camp necklace and Copper hanging in my face and my arms dangling below me. She glanced- more like glared- at me before looking back at the ground, but not before I saw the bruise developing in the middle of her forehead. Her reaction worried me since I was expecting more yelling in outrage and stomping around so I gave up on my original plan to tease her. I sighed and slid off the tree branch.

"You feeling alright? I expected you to be... I dunno, angrier? It's not like you to get all mopey like this just from losing..." Clarisse looked at me with a slight glare again, but this time it melted after a second and she opened her mouth and I heard that very familiar growl again. My blood froze and I looked up to the top of a formation of rocks.

Whatever Clarisse had been about to say was interrupted and a howl echoed throughout the forest. The second noise had flipped a switch somewhere in my head. Suddenly I was a 10-year-old girl sitting against the wall of an empty house again. Hands over my mouth and unscarred nose while a few tears streamed down my face, staring at the shadow of an impossibly large dog that was cast through the window in front of me. The memory faded as quickly as it'd appeared and where the shadow had been was now a different Hellhound standing on the rocks above us, and the fear that I had when in the memory was warped into hatred. 

My breathing picked up and adrenaline started to fill my veins. The hound jumped right over Annabeth, who had drawn her blade and landed on Percy, jaws open and going in for the kill. Suddenly the world had stopped moving and it was like I could see everything frozen in the middle of the action. Leaves were hanging in the air instead of floating to the ground, the water flowing around some campers' feet had stopped dead in its tracks, I saw Chiron about to draw several arrows in his bow, and I saw Clarisse next to me staring up at the Hellhound with wide eyes. Annabeth was beginning to turn around to face Percy and the hound, Wings was staring at the dog attacking Percy with a blank look on his face, and the hellhound across the creek just was barely beginning to sink its claws into Percy's armor. In the next moment, Copper was in sword form and in the hellhound's throat.

The hound fell to the ground and I stood over it breathing heavily. I didn't even realize where I was or what I'd just done. I'd never moved that fast in my life and my brain was still trying to catch up. The electric feeling in my nerves and skin was stronger than it'd ever been before and honestly, I was surprised I was still standing since I couldn't feel my legs. Percy looked like he wanted to say something to me but closed his mouth when he met my gaze. I realized I had been glaring at the hound's corpse and when he'd tried to speak to me I'd glared at him too.

I closed my eyes and took a breath, "Sorry. I uh. Hate these things?" I explained though it sounded more like a question. "Wait no- ugh, I should have said that I've got a bone to pick with them." I made the pun with a forced smile to try and defuse the tension while I backed up from him since I'd basically been standing over him with a sword in my hand and murder in my eyes.

"Di immortales!" Annabeth said while I gave Percy a hand to help him up. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't... they're not supposed to..."

"Someone summoned it," Chiron concluded what Annabeth was likely trying to say. "Someone inside the camp."

"It's Percy's fault! I bet the dumbass summoned it on accident!" Clarisse suddenly shouted from the other side of the creek.

"Be quiet, child," Chiron shushed her.

I slung Percy’s arm over my shoulder to help support him while I stared at the hellhound’s body disappearing into the shadows.

Annabeth suddenly spoke up with urgency. "Quick, Percy, get in the water." 

"What?" Percy and I said in unison.

The reason this was weird to me is that I figured Annabeth would be more concerned about the fact that Percy was bleeding from the hound's claws that had pierced his breastplate. After a small protest, Percy agreed and I helped him to the water. He stopped leaning on me and stepped in on his own.

His wounds began healing in the water but no one cared about that because there was a hologram floating above his head, he was being claimed. Just being claimed wouldn't even have been so shocking if it wasn't for the specific symbol floating above his head causing all our gawking. Hanging in the air above the apologizing Percy was a green trident, claiming him as very, very bad news.

"Your father..." Annabeth said in a low voice, "This is really not good."

"It is determined," Chiron announced to the campers, bending his two front legs in a kneel.

I followed and dropped down into a kneel as well, nudging Clarisse who did the same begrudgingly. Slowly others around us started kneeling too until everyone was kneeling to Percy. 

"My father?" Percy's voice gave away his bewilderment.

"Poseidon," Chiron declared. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Perseus Jackson, Son of the Sea God."

So there’s this famous phrase in Genesis, “לא טוב היות האדם לבדו" (“lo tov heyot ha'adam l'vado”), which means “it is not good for man to be alone.” I was thinking today that it might make a nice Jewish friendship bracelet or wedding ring inscription or something. Problem is, if you try to split it up it becomes

לא טוב היות האדם לבדו

“Existence is not good.” “Man is alone.”

All the other ways of splitting them up are similarly awful. And on the one hand, I think this is really kind of beautiful—how this phrase, which is about togetherness, is so beautiful as a whole but cannot be broken into parts without itself becoming splintered and distorted. The language mirrors the very nature of humanity that it describes.

But on the other hand it totally ruined my friendship bracelet idea so @G-d this is a callout post

@netflix

Hell world

I was made to love you, and yet,

Inspired by this observation by a friend:

Seeing this WHILE IN THE PROCESS of writing an OC fanfic about Zeus just shapeshifting into the form of a woman and seducing said OC’s father

so you’re telling me this whole time hades, poseidon or zeus couldve just banged a dude?? imagine another big 3 kid rolls into camp and they’re like “oh ur dad broke the oath… which means you’re gonna have to pay for it…” and this kids like “lol which dad?”

no oath broken. loophole of the century.

The guy talking about “bitchass cope” as if pretending that your health is entirely within your control isn’t cope for feeling powerless and afraid of an unpredictable future

the the crushing weight of our own looming mortality is what both drives us to live and makes us want to give up and natural selection means that people with genetic illness shouldn't have children and if the government did fake the moon landing then what was the point of the space race other then to gain meaning in this meaningless life that we can only attain through cheating and not gaining anything at all and yet the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell but we've never needed that information and it's been burned into out heads over and over for years so Michel Obama is rumored to be a man meaning that society's faith in the one true god, shaggy, is no longer strong enough to hold the fabric of this reality together thus we collide with others and that's why the Mandela Effect is putting chemicals in the water to turn the freaking frogs gay but a study showed that wasn't true but the study was made by the people turning the frogs gay so it didn't count... In conclusion: black beans are full of protein so they're good to eat during an existential crisis

Trust Lemon

Part 1: Meeting Clifford's Ugly Cousin

Look, I was told that if I wanted to sell my account of the Second Titan War for some mortal to post on the internet for a bunch of other mortals to read as fiction, I had to put a disclaimer on the inside of the cover and ensure they included it.

So, as 11-year-old me would have told you, being a half-blood sucks, if you think you’ve got some dead-beat god’s blood in your veins or relate too much to any of the “characters” in this “story,” turn off whatever device you’re reading this on and forget you ever heard of a half-blood. And for good measure, just don’t touch any electrical device again; especially if they have a history of blowing up on you.

The first incident I can remember happened when I was four. My dad had just remarried and wanted to find a fun way for us to bond as a family. The best way to do that, according to him, was to go camping in British Colombia. But the “family” part was lost on my stepmother, who opted to stay home, so it was just my dad, my stepbrother, and me. 

The first two days went smoothly. The drive out was normal, we didn’t have any problems with the cars or the places we stopped to sleep. But on the third day, when we got to camp I started seeing this dark, hulking figure stalking us through the trees. I just glimpsed it out of the corner of my eye at first, but its appearance became clearer and more frequent as the hours went by; its red eyes followed our every move as we set up camp. I, being a toddler, cried to my dad that there was a giant monster hiding in the trees that was going to eat me.

He held me and assured me that it was just the shadows playing tricks on me. Repeating the same reassurances all parents tell their kids. “There's no such thing as monsters" and "the worst the shadows will do is scare you." He told me that if I didn’t go looking for monsters I wouldn’t find any.

So we continued setting up the tent, chopping firewood, spraying bug spray, and I did my best to listen to my dad; I tried to ignore the pitch-black creature and the shadow it cast over my small body as it stalked, I tried to ignore its piercing red eyes glowing behind the brush and its gnarly bared teeth, and I tried to ignore how every time I stole a glance– “Not looking, just checking,” I told myself– it had crept closer than before.

The creature eventually inched its way right behind me while we were roasting marshmallows over the fire. I felt its breath blow against my back and heard the dirt shift as it lowered itself to pounce. But just then, lightning struck a tree near our campsite, splitting it in two, and rain began pouring seemingly out of nowhere. 

Somehow my dad had failed to notice the massive storm brewing right above us, and we were completely unprepared for the wind and rain. The storm got so bad that my dad was forced to take us to a hotel. Then it persisted for the next two days until we gave up and went home. 

My stepmom would tell you that the monster I saw in the woods was the first time I was afflicted by my "overactive imagination." This “imagination” would later have me completely convinced that giant men were walking around with one big eye in the center of their foreheads and a giant lizard with too many heads was selling donuts.

At first, my parents thought that my little toddler brain was misinterpreting unfamiliar things in my environment, but that explanation made less sense the older I got.

The Giant one-eyed men were of average height and apparently had two perfectly good eyes when my parents asked me to point them out, and the lizard was a regular, underpaid cashier. Nothing about the “people” should have been new or scary to me and my parents just couldn't understand why I insisted that something was wrong with them.

On top of hallucinating, I caused even more problems because of my “behavioral issues.” 

According to the numerous reports of teachers and classmates alike, I just loved to throw various objects at other students or pull chairs out from under them, despite never touching any of the objects. No matter what school I was in, someone would throw a stapler or a chair at a kid I was fighting with and everyone would swear up and down that I did it.

But the most trouble came with the arson and domestic terrorism. 

Lightbulbs, computers, radios, cell phones, toasters; if it's got wires, I've probably seen it short circuit or blow up at least twice. And I’m sure you’re beginning to notice a pattern because every time something blew up I was the closest to it. Which, of course, meant that it had to be my fault, and the teachers would accept any made-up story over the logical explanation.

What really hurt was that even kids I considered my friends would tell the teachers I’d somehow sabotaged a computer, or blown up a lightbulb. 

It was so obvious that they were lying too! Their stories rarely matched up and they'd change details every time they repeated it. Not to mention I was 5, how would I have known enough about wiring and electricity to make stuff blow up? I couldn’t even tie my shoes yet!

Growing up that way was confusing, I didn’t understand how I could make a whole class of kids hate me enough to lie about me within the first week of school. We moved too often and too far away from one place to another for kids to spread rumors before I arrived. At some point, I started to think that maybe I was just so terrible that people could figure that out without even talking to me.

Eventually, after reports of my wrongdoings became more frequent and outlandish, my parents decided that it was time to take me to a doctor. They told me Dr. Barlowe was going to see if there was something "special" about my brain, but I’m pretty sure he was just a behavioral psychologist. 

He did diagnose me with ADHD, which a lot of teachers and PTA members believed to be the root of my problems, but even after I started receiving treatment the only change was a slight improvement in my grades. I was still seeing things and causing terror everywhere I went, so Dr. Barlowe recommended that my parents take me to some other doctor who specialized in a different field. And “a doctor" soon turned into several doctors. 

After lots of tests conducted, lots of doctors seen, and lots of money spent, the only other condition they found was dyslexia. Other than my testimony, there was no evidence that I was seeing monsters. There was nothing in my brain that would be causing hallucinations and no signs that a physical condition was messing with my head. They couldn't even diagnose me as a compulsive liar, which my stepmom was really betting on.

The conclusion: I was lying– and not because I had a compulsion– just because I wanted to. Just because that's the kind of kid I was. 

That "diagnosis" was the last straw, and broke the trust that my dad still had in me. I was still adamant that I genuinely saw monsters, even if it wasn't real or true. That's when my stepmom started saying I "lied so much that I believed my own lies."

The worst part was my dad's sympathy. I'd tell him what really happened to that projector at school, or that I was missing because I was hiding from a giant scorpion. My dad would sigh and then tell me that it was okay, that he forgave me and I'd grow out of my “phase” soon.

I hated the resignation in his voice, and every day was a struggle; I just wanted to regain his trust. I wanted to tell the truth, and for him to comfort me, I wanted him to look at me and tell me that he believed me and I wasn't crazy, that he saw the weird and scary things too and he'd protect me from them. But he didn't trust me, and he couldn't protect me from things that weren't there.

I didn't want to lie to him, but he wouldn’t believe me if I told him that we shouldn’t go to the lake anymore because I'd seen a shirtless man with a moving, breathing face on his chest. I couldn’t tell him that I was scared to go back to school because one of the cheerleaders in the next building had a pair of bat wings and a blazing fire instead of hair. 

By age 7, I had mostly figured out what was considered real and not real. If I saw a big dog that went up to the owner’s waist, it was probably real and I could point it out. If I saw a giant lion just walking around with no one else pointing it out, I just decided I wouldn't say anything. 

So reality stopped being the world I saw in front of me; it was whatever my teachers, family, and classmates told me it was. I understood that it didn't help to tell my parents what I was seeing and no one ever seemed to get hurt when monsters were nearby, there was no reason to mention them. So I just kept silent, even if being near them made me sick to my stomach and set my nerves on fire with panic.

After a while, it was almost like I couldn’t see them either. Yes, I’d still notice something that I thought shouldn’t be possible, but they were less frequent, and I could close my eyes or look away. Then, when I looked back, they’d change. Either they would suddenly become more “normal,” or their features would blend together in a blurry mess; like they were standing behind translucent glass. But if I looked hard enough, they’d become monstrous again, so I tried not to look for too long.

That tactic worked for two years, until one night. I was home alone, my stepbrother was out with friends and my parents were getting last-minute groceries for dinner. 

I heard heavy footsteps climb the steps to the front porch. I peeked out the window and saw something blurry, but definitely not human standing quietly at the door. I ignored it like usual and ignored it again when it rang the doorbell. 

After barely a few minutes, it banged its leathery, clawed hand on the door, nearly blowing it off its hinges. It continued to beat and claw at the door as I panickedly grabbed my bike from the garage and wheeled it through the house to the back door. 

I held my breath and slid the backdoor open as fast as I could, sprinting next to my bike until I reached the backyard gate.

As soon as I opened the gate, the monster at the door figured out that I wasn't in the house. It chased me for hours that night as I peddled for my life. Most of that night is just a blur of panic and biking until my legs went numb, but somehow I managed to get away. 

After giving my legs a rest, I made my way back home to find a police car in my driveway and my parents worried sick. They'd come home to find the door broken in and thought I'd been kidnapped; somehow missing the large scratch marks and various holes that indicated the culprit to be non-human, or at least an animal of some kind.

I saw my parents through the window as I got closer to the house, my dad was holding my stepmom on the living room couch. He had an expression I’d never seen him wear before; the grief, worry, stress, and pain were all on full display. 

Seeing him like that made me realize for the first time that he was human. He and my stepmom were both just people. They couldn't have protected me from the monster. They couldn’t protect me from any of the monsters. They were in just as much danger as I was, and they couldn’t even see it.

That was when I realized that ignoring the monsters wasn’t going to work anymore. They weren’t passive and they weren’t harmless. By ignoring them, I was putting both myself and my family in danger.

I needed to know what exactly I was up against, and how and why the thing had found me that night, so I decided to conduct a few somewhat unconventional experiments. 

In one of those experiments, I left dirty clothes hidden around a park and wore a horrid combination of different colognes, perfumes, and air fresheners for a week.

I staked out the park with a pair of binoculars, sneaking out of the house to watch the places where I'd hidden the clothing each night. It was difficult staying there for hours with nothing to do. Originally I was going to set up a camera overnight but for some reason, the battery kept draining before I got to the park.

Regardless, I learned a lot from that experiment. The biggest lessons were:

1) The number of faux-humans or like-animals-but-not creatures (LABNs for short) that showed up was greater if the dirty clothes were mine, and they weren't just more common, they were actively looking for something; sniffing the air and darting around the park. This contrasted the results when I hid clothes that I "borrowed" from friends or family, which would only have the occasional monster, and said creature always passed through without lingering for too long. 

Conclusion: For whatever reason, faux-humans and LABN creatures were looking for me specifically, or at least whatever smelled like me.

2) The longer I had worn the clothes without washing them, the larger the turnout of faux-humans or LABNs coming to look for the source, and if the clothes were clean or had sat out there long enough, the less would appear.

Conclusion: The monsters weren't following my clothes, they were following my scent. That one was obvious, but it didn’t hurt to be sure. 

3) Whenever one of the faux-humans or a LABN happened to run into an actual human, the person would interact with them differently. The faux-humans would play the part of a person going on a walk, receiving friendly nods or greetings from other parkgoers, and the LABNs would act like stray pets or animals. I even saw one person pet a lion thing with the head of a bird.

Conclusion: They were hiding from people and somehow appearing as something more normal. Which I already knew, but it was nice to finally be certain without someone else telling me I was crazy. 

That still didn't answer why that faux-human had only come after me now. Maybe moving around so much had kept them away? That way a monster wouldn't have had the time to catch wind of my scent before we moved again. That hypothesis did make a bit of sense. The house we were in at the time we'd lived in for two years, the longest we’d stayed somewhere since I was six.

There were still questions left unanswered, like why the creatures weren't hiding from me, and why the one had been so hellbent on catching, and probably killing, me specifically. My hypothesis wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do for now because the most important conclusion I’d come to was that I had to leave, and soon.

If I didn't move and keep moving, who knew when the next time something dangerous would show up at our door again? What if my family got caught in the crossfire? They could get hurt or even killed if I stayed. But if I kept moving those things would probably follow. They'd have less time to pounce and I'd have more time to run, while at the same time, I’d be leading them away from my dad and stepfamily. This was the best option to keep everyone safe.

So I packed what I needed in a duffle bag and a backpack, wrote a note to my parents explaining the truth and saying goodbye, and started heading south. 

I wanted to lie to them in the note. I should have said that I was running away because I hated them, and I should have told them to never come looking for me, but I couldn't bring myself to tell them they were the reason I was running away, even if it was for their own good. They didn't deserve to believe that for the rest of their lives. They probably thought I was lying in the note anyway, but at least I knew that I gave them the truth, which was the only thing I had left to give them, other than a goodbye.

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It was just after midnight, and I was walking through Okotoks's residential streets, 200 hundred miles away from my family. The smelly hoodie I’d been wearing since the day I’d left didn’t provide much protection from the rain. 

Luckily, the storm had soothed temporarily, the rain had stopped before returning as a light drizzle while the storm began to reanimate itself. Only the occasional clap of thunder in the distance betrayed the presence of unseen lightning. 

I chose to come to Okotoks because it was the town I grew up in. At least for the first six years of my life; before my family began moving every year for my dad’s job. At the time, it felt like the only place that could ever feel like home without them. 

It didn’t, but it still brought some comfort to walk down its vaguely familiar streets. Which was a much less depressing way to spend the first hour of my birthday, rather than alone in the abandoned Safeway where I slept. 

Living like this was awful but necessary. Even if I had no way to actually verify it, I chose to believe that my family was safe now that I wasn’t around to attract monsters. And I was safer too because I had the freedom to pack up and move when the monsters caught up to me. 

But in the end, I was still a homeless kid on the run from monsters and police looking for a missing child. Even at the age of 9– 10, as of seven minutes ago– I still somewhat understood that my situation and the amount of stress I was under was way more than a kid my age should be able to handle. So I tried my best to cope. 

Being an unsupervised child, I wasn’t usually busy with the most constructive hobbies. 

Stealing, vandalism, fighting, and eating junk food ‘til I was sick had all become commonplace for me. But I did find a few ways to destress without causing trouble; such as climbing trees and going on walks.

But of course, why I would ever be allowed a moment of peace, even on my birthday.

I noticed that a pair of red eyes had materialized from the shadows as I passed a car that was parked on the street. Their eerie glow, like a barely contained fire, caught my eye as it reflected off the car’s window.

 I slowed to a stop in the street and listened for if the massive dog was creeping closer, taking deep breaths in an attempt to choke down my rising panic. Adrenaline began to flood my veins and every nerve in my body was set on fire as I tensed up.

Only once had I been bold enough to try and fight a smaller one-eyed guy with my bat and knife, and I’d learned the hard way that both were useless. My baseball bat could barely knock him off balance, and when I tried to stab him his skin was as tough as leather. 

Keeping in mind what it was like to fight a small monster, I made a beeline for the nearest house, hopping the low fence into the backyard. The giant dog burst through the wooden boundary, sending its splinters and chunks all over the homeowner’s yard. I continued hopping fences into more backyards, consequently destroying more private property. 

I knew I couldn’t run from the fleabag forever, and watching it tear apart the fences made me sure that I couldn’t just run and hide in the dilapidated building; the monster would rip it to pieces in seconds. Meaning my only option was to somehow force the dog to lose my tail– pun not intended.

I turned a corner back out into the street but it had gotten in front of me somehow; rising up as if from the shadows themselves to tower over me. Time felt like it was slowing down as I stared up at yellowing fangs, my brain trying to process how they had gotten there.

"Oh,” I blinked, “shoot!” I cursed before the fangs began to descend towards me. 

I rolled forward between its front paws as it lunged towards me, barely evading its jaws as its teeth snapped together where my head had been with a ‘click.’

I finished the roll awkwardly kneeling underneath its stomach and put my hand on the ground for stability. I took a large step to the side with my sneaker landing next to my hand and threw my weight forward. I struggled to get my other foot underneath me, but I managed to slip out from under the dog and stumble into another full sprint.

I ran down the open street for a few more minutes before I began to run out of stamina. The dog was slowly closing the gap that I had gained and I needed to find a way to catch my breath and come up with a plan.

I decided to run towards two adjacent houses, praying that they were close enough to one another, and placed my foot on the wall of one house. Kicking off of it towards the other, I hopped back and forth until I could grab the ledge of a window on the second story. It had taken me seven hops; the highest I’d gotten with that move before had been three. 

Honestly, I didn’t think I’d make it, I’d only practiced wall jumping twice before. 

I dangled there gasping to catch my breath, still in awe that I'd even made it so high up. But I didn't have much time to celebrate my little achievement, the dog was already right under me.

The monster jumped and I took a risk, kicking off the wall again and throwing myself up to grab the other house’s roof and accidentally kicking its nose. 

Before I could pull myself up onto the roof, it jumped again. I panicked and tucked my knees to my chest with a yelp, curling into a semi-fetal position as the dog’s fangs snapped close centimeters from the soles of my shoes. 

I barely let my legs drop down for a second before I swung a leg over the edge of the roof and scrambled up.

I lay on my back and tried to slow my breathing. I knew better than to assume the mutt wouldn’t be able to find some way to get on the roof, but I was willing to risk just a few more seconds to catch my breath and come up with a plan to lose it so I could go back to the Safeway.

After less than thirty seconds, I risked a peek over the edge of the roof, only to be greeted with the now familiar sight of yellowing teeth, which snapped shut inches from my face. 

I quickly pulled myself back onto the temporary safety of the roof and decided now was probably a good time to get moving again.

I hopped from roof to roof with the dog hot on my tail. I felt strangely more secure up off the ground, despite knowing a single stumble would likely be a death sentence. Because, even if the fall didn’t kill me, I'd definitely be too injured to continue running. 

I couldn't lead it to the abandoned grocery store. It'd rip the place to shreds and I'd lose my only shelter, but if I didn't get the dog off my tail soon I'd run out of energy. Just then, I saw Crystal Shores Lake in the distance. 

I hopped a few more roofs in the direction of the lake before jumping into a tree. The plan was to use it to reach the ground without breaking my legs, but I felt clumsier and more off-balance the lower I got. I slipped on one of the lower branches, falling at least six feet out of the tree and landing flat on my feet. The stinging in my legs forced me to stumble and land on my knees. 

My stomach dropped and the image of one of my legs going limp where the bone should have been popped into my head. But to my surprise, my legs looked perfectly fine and the pain subsided within seconds.

I jumped to my feet yet again and hopped the fence of a house on the lakeside, before sprinting to the Beach House’s dock. 

Knowing I'd regret it, and that I didn't have much of a choice, I took a deep breath and plunged into the icy water. 

Absolute, chilling terror shot through me when I opened my eyes and stared into the depths of the inky black water. It took everything in me not to flail around in panic as my heartbeat became more sporadic and my already burning lungs screamed for air. 

I desperately swam up, trying to ignore the feeling that the depths of the lake itself were trying to drag me down. 

When I finally surfaced and attempted to catch my breath and not hyperventilate a massive wave forced me under again as the dog jumped into the lake after me.

I swam towards the floating dock in the middle of the lake at a frustratingly slow pace as my backpack and clothes weighed me down.

I finally managed to reach the dock and climb out of the water before it got too close. Now it was time for a miracle.

I took my backpack off my shoulders and looked through it for what I could use. I decided to take out a bag of chips, some spray-on deodorant, and my bat. I started hastily crushing up the chips inside the bag while the big mutt in the water got closer to the dock, which shook with every splash it made.

When I felt the chips had been pounded fine enough, I opened the chip bag and shoved my hand inside, bringing out a handful of salty chip dust; a layer sticking to the water on my hands. I held the deodorant at the ready in my other hand with my foot stepping on my bat to keep it from rolling into the water.

"Gosh, I hope this works," I said to myself while I waited for the dog to get close enough for my plan to maybe work. I was already looking it in the eyes, or rather, the fire in its eyes was burning straight into my soul, but I still needed it to be a little closer if I wanted to ensure it couldn't follow me anymore.

It put its paws on the dock and brought the rest of its body out of the water. Just as it prepared to lunge, I threw the handful of chip dust in its face.

Most of it got in its eyes, but that was fine because I still had the can of deodorant. I took advantage of its blinded state and shoved the can more than halfway up its nose. Then I took a step back to aim and swung my bat at the part of the deodorant that was still visibly sticking out of the dog’s nostril. The can exploded on impact, sending the chemicals straight up its snout.

"Haha! Yes! That’s what you get, you nasty fur ball! Whoo!" I yelled, riding the high of adrenaline while it stumbled around, blind and struggling to breathe. I was so busy celebrating that I almost got my arm bitten off when it snapped in the direction of my voice.

Deciding that was my cue to leave, I jumped into the water again and swam for the Beach House dock while the dog continued to whine and shake its head. Once I was back on the sand of the lake's beach I booked it back to the abandoned Safeway.

The calm of the storm had passed and now it was heavily raining again by the time I arrived back at my dilapidated "home." Immediately, I headed over to the back corner of the store where I kept my stuff and began packing. As much as I hated the idea, I knew that it was finally time to leave Okotoks. Most likely for good.

Despite how hard it was to get here it wasn't any safer than back home. Deep down I'd known that it'd be the same here and that the only option I had was to keep moving, but I'd decided to come here anyway because it had given me a place to run to, and it was the only place that could still feel like home without my family.

"I guess that's the plan, then." I sighed ruefully as I rolled up my hole-riddled, yellow sleeping bag. "I'll just have to keep moving. Forever, I guess. That's the safest option."

My self-pitying was interrupted as I heard the sound of a small piece of metal hitting the ground. I stiffened for a moment, worried that something had been knocked over somewhere else in the store, before seeing the source of the sound in front of me. 

A metropolitan whistle, like the ones you'd see cops use in old movies, was slowly rolling away from me on the ground.

I puzzled at the little brass object before a small postcard fluttered down next to it from my half-rolled-up sleeping bag.

Crouching down, I put my sleeping bag next to me and picked up the whistle, blowing the dust off of it and twirling it between my fingers as I picked up the postcard, which had a picture of the Empire State Building on the front.

I flipped the card over to see if anything was written on the back, but one of the words on the bottom me freeze for a moment in shock before I anxiously started reading the card’s contents. 

The most shocking, unbelievable part of the card wasn't the instructions to follow an address to a place in New York called "Long Island Sound." It wasn't the part that said that the metropolitan whistle in my hand was supposed to turn into a magical sword that could vaporize monsters. It wasn't even the fact that the card was written in a language I didn’t know, and yet I was reading it better than I could read English.

No, none of that had the chance to phase me yet, because I was still in total shock at the words scrawled out at the bottom, on the line where the sender was meant to write their name:

From:____Happy Birthday, from Mom____

Karlach’s little dance is everything to me

🏕