Born in a Storm

Chapter I - 'I Barbecued a Dog'

At first I thought...well..this day couldn't possibly get any worse. I know my Greek myth just like everybody else does, which pretty much means I know nothing. The least on my mind was that I was related to a god.

It was just your typical day at school: the bullies picking on the nerds, the cheerleaders calling everybody losers and blah blah blah. Did I mention I was ADHD and Dyslexic? So concentrating in class is almost like getting shot in the head with an arrow.

The bell rung, "Well...time for PE," I muttered.

"Yeah...your favourite time of the day...and mine too" Hedge said. Well see here, Hedge has been my best friend since I came to this school a year ago. He's always excused from PE class cause he has this muscle disease on his legs. So he walks using crutches.

"I've always hated PE classes, and I still do" said Claire. Claire and I have been friends since childhood.  We had been living in the same orphanage since we were 5. She's smart and pretty beautiful, with her intense black eyes...but don't tell her I said that. Everyone thinks she and I are a couple, just because we're close friends doesn't make us a couple.

During PE, Hedge is sitting on the benches as usual while the whole class was doing laps around the gym when suddenly our Latin teacher, Mr Brunner came in and said he wanted to see Hedge, Claire and me. He told us he wanted to take us to this summer camp thats supposed to be good for 'special' people like us.

"Your luggage is packed and I've informed your guardians at the orphanage." Mr Brunner told us, "I'll meet you all here after school."

"What's this about anyway..some kind of Latin camp?" Claire asked.

I was too busy listening to my Ipod to even notice what they were saying until Claire knocked me in the head with her textbooks, "Hey...that hurts you know?"

"Pay attention Brian!" Claire demanded. "Mr Brunner wants to take us to this summer camp" she said. "And I don't like the looks of it too" She whispered in my ear.

"Well since we've got nothing planned this summer we might as well right?" I told Claire.
"Yeah...yeah you're right."

During recess, we all sat together as usual, but then Hedge started to ask me something weird.
"Ya smell anything weird? Cause I do.."
"Yeah..I smell food...me hungry...me wan get some food" I said. Claire just sat there and laughed with her arms crossed, like she was worried about something.

As I was about to go get some food, I heard a voice talking to me in my head, "Brace yourself, boy." Just then, half a dozen dogs rushed into the cafeteria. But they're not ordinary dogs, they're as big as tanks! Nobody seemed to notice the dogs besides us, so we ran like a bunch of maniacs out the school. The dogs were gaining on us.

"Oh Gods, hellhounds! I didn't think they would be able to track you guys down like that. We have to get to camp right now!" Hedge said as we ran.

"What? How could you think of camping at a time like this!" Claire said.

"Its a special camp for people like us, Claire! We have to get there!" Hedge demanded while taking off his pants and shoes.

"Whatever! Anywhere away from here is pretty good if you asked me! And what are you doing?!" I said.

And then we say Hedge's lower body...it was covered with fur and there were hooves where the feet were supposed to be.

"Woah...you're half donkey?" I muttered. "I'm half goat! I'm a satyr!" Hedge told us.

We ran up a hill with the dogs still chasing us and the next thing I know, one of the dogs pounced on me with two of his ugly friends looking pretty pleased. But then Hedge tried to hit the dog with a stick...yea that works. Just then I had a tugging sensation in my gut, I felt pain coursing through my body and then I let out a big scream. The next thing I knew an arc of lightning shot down from the sky and the dog that pounced on me was now a pile of black ash, still smoking. Claire and Hedge looked at me in amazement.

"No time! Run!" I said.

We reached the entrance to the camp and the signboard is written in some language I don't know. The weird thing was I could read it — Camp Half-Blood.

The hellhounds were still gaining on us but then suddenly Claire closed her eyes and calmly said " Go away.." Then a 3 metre chasm opened up and swallowed the hellhounds into the ground.

"What the? How the?" I asked.

Hedge just looked at us in amazement for a few minutes. When we got into the camp, we don't really know what just happened. Then Hedge said we have to talk to Mr Brunner.

Mr Brunner, in his wheelchair as usual was playing cards with a guy wearing a tuxedo. Hedge told them everything that happened.

The tuxedo guy mumbled " Aww great...just what we need, more demigods."
"Demi what?" Claire and I asked.

Mr Brunner just said " Lets take a stroll...shall we?" As we walked, he explained that the Greek gods are very much alive and that a demigod is an offspring of a mortal and a god.

"Nah..this couldn't be..my dad died when I was a baby" I claimed. "And my no good dad ran away from home and left my mother to take care of me." Claire muttered as tears started to form in her eyes.

Mr Brunner looked as if he knew what happened, "Your mothers told you that to protect you. Monsters will smell your scent when you realize you're a demigod."

Then, Mr Brunner sat up from his wheelchair...his lower half started to rise and his full form appeared. "Ahh...feels good to stretch every once in a while. In my world, demigods, I am known as Chiron, the immortal trainer of this camp."

"Uhh....you're a...?" I said intelligently.

"A Centaur. Half man, half horse." Just then I noticed my shirt, it was filled with blood. I passed out from the blood loss.