Mistakes

Nightmares and Promises

Leo woke with a start, drenched in sweat. His heart was racing and he couldn’t seem to calm himself down. He glanced over at the alarm clock by his bed, the little red numbers burning into his brain. 3:45. Leo groaned and pushed his legs over the side of his old worn bed, placing his head in his hands. He kept having dreams of Sammy being kidnapped or lost. At first he thought they were just dreams. That’s the way they seemed at first, but now the dreams were so real, so unbearable, that Leo was fairly certain was seeing into the future.

He remembered Percy having these dreams every once and a while- he could see certain things to point where he felt like he was literally in the place were he was having the dreams. Leo finally understood what he had always tried to explain. Leo was experiencing his son’s kidnapping as if it was really happening, an experience he wished he had never experienced. Tonight had been the worst of the dreams.

Sammy’s room was dark, the nine year old fast asleep in his bed that his dad had made for him. Leo looked at his peaceful son; he was trying so hard to keep Sammy from the tortures and evil he lived as a child. At times, that was a task far too difficult to succeed in. Slowly the old window in Sammy’s room creaked open with the awful sound of rusting hinges. Yet, still Sammy slept, completely oblivious to the world around him.

Leo’s heart began to race- his son's door had been locked from the inside; there was no way any human could have snuck in and opened the door. Leo was paralyzed with fear- he knew he was dreaming and yelling to his son would be pointless (he had tried in other dreams), but he couldn’t stop himself. That was his son.

A hand reached into the darkness of Sammy’s cold, damp room. An entire body soon followed the hand, a woman, well at least Leo thought she was a woman. The woman was tall, around seven feet tall, and also very ugly. The face was contorted and greatly resembled a bat human hybrid. The woman that had just walked through the window walked with power and grace, the way a ruler should walk. Leo never did well in mythology- even after living many of the myths, he still couldn’t tell the difference between Charon and Thanatos. The figure before him did not remind him of any common myths.

Leo watched with slight awe and shock as the woman crept into the room and gently picked Sammy up from his bed. Sammy still did not wake up. Leo tried shouting louder until his voice was hoarse. “HEY! Give me my son back!” His voice went through the room like an echo... slowly fading until it was nothingness. He was dreaming; they couldn’t hear him- he wasn’t really in Sammy’s room. He was in his own room across the hall sleeping away.

The kidnapper, although, did hear Leo and quickly turned its head to face Leo. Its eyes were red like coals yet they sent shivers down Leo’s back. Large bat wings unfolded from the lady’s back and went to full span, hiding any light that could have entered the room. The only light was the woman’s eyes, which was only strong enough to show off the woman’s large teeth and claws. Leo felt himself begin to grow intimated. Was this creature a Fury?  Snap out of it Valdez. You fought Gaea herself; this bat- human does not scare you. But sadly, the Fury did scare him; the Fury had his son.

“The Dark Lord is rising Valdezzz,” The Fury hissed. “You will not succeed. Olympus will fall and there is nothing you can do,”

That was when Leo woke up- completely drenched in sweat and panicking to no end. Leo’s head snapped up when he realized that house should be completely silent, yet he heard a slight rattling, very much like wind moving an object.

Leo’s senses instantly went on full alert as he darted across the dark hall into Sammy’s room. The room was completely empty except for the wind blowing Sammy’s old toy spaceships that hung from the ceiling.  The wind came from the open window, the window that was closed when Leo had tucked Sammy into bed. Cursing himself, Leo slammed his fist into the wall as tears instantly began to fall down his face. Sammy was gone.