(#1) Roommates by Day, Enemies by Night

Chapter 43

Heroes are made by the paths they choose, not the powers they are graced with.~Brodi Ashton, Everneath

Dedication: To tick-tack for absolutely cramming my notifications full with all your votes last night, thank you so much. It's truly a welcome sight.

Dylan

Looking for a theater named after the sun god in Greek mythology wasn't very hard. As you would expect, the theater was full of flashy lights, big signs, and a huge, glittering sign that announced it's presence to the world. This literally must have been what Apollo would have looked like if he was a building. And if Magnus Bane had helped him design it while high.

We stood in front of the building, our necks craning up slightly to look at the bright, glittering sign in front of us. This place was legendary. Some of the world's most famous stars performed right there, in front of the stage, but the place was best well known for it's Wednesday amateur night, which it still held.

It had always been a secret, lifelong dream of mine to perform at the Apollo Theater, or any place where I could perform my music. It had always been a secret dream of mine, like dancing, even though I still wanted to go to college, I could have gotten a degree of studied music. But it had never seemed a worthwhile pursuit in my father's eyes. I had to serve the community, not do something as supposedly selfish as playing music.

Which, of course, wasn't true. But looking up at the theater, I felt a sharp stab of regret, not that I didn't pursue music, or that I had never even bothered to perform it out of the safety of my room. These people were incredibly brave, not just for performing, but for having dreams. To have the courage to pursue those dreams. And I wasn't.

Black Hawk bumped my shoulder with hers, and I snapped out of my revelry. I turned to face her, and she pointed to the top of the sign. When I quieted, I could just barely make out a symbol carved into one of the red borders surrounding the sign.

I thrust my hands down and made a platform that rose up and allowed us to stand on it and look at the sign closely. Even late at night, there were civilians here, especially in the Apollo Theater, so Black Hawk cast a shield all around us, so that everyone would stay back and no one would get hurt.

I leaned closer to the symbol, pressing my finger slightly over this one. Just like the previous one, this one only slid over halfway before it beeped and stopped. Black Hawk pressed her against it as well, and this time the panel slid over fully, revealing the clue.

"The sequence continues with a place of romance, where lovers came to smell blooms and take a chance. The first of a culture was shown in here, where many came to spell love, not fear. You must find the flower that smells like a dream, the one that give life to whomever it sees." I read, my memory taking in each of the words and stowing them carefully away in my mind. The clues were getting harder and harder, leading us to more and more obscure landmarks yet.

I rubbed my hands over my arms, warming myself up, and read the words again silently, my lips forming them but no sound coming out. "What do you think?" I asked her.

"The hell if I know." she muttered, cracking a smile for the first time in three weeks.

"These are getting harder and harder each time we get to a new one."

"That's kinda how it works. Trust me, I would love to be able to have kindergarten level tests in college, but that's not happening, so shut up." She sardonically said, rolling her eyes while turning back to focus on the clue.

"All right. So we know the first signs of a particular culture were here."

"And that it was a place full of flowers and romance. Because it says lovers came to smell blooms."