Gaming Alone

I: A Weakling's Will

It's strange isn't? How fleeting and quickly life can disappear, just like breath. It seems to always be there, all around you, but when you breathe it's only there for a short while before you need to let it out. It's so strange how it's said your life flashes before your eyes when you die, but my reality was something different.

It's so strange how I've lived my life without knowing the world around me, the truth of what lies beyond the veil, and only now do I finally realise the truth.

Whatever the case, I plan to start living life by my own terms, not the terms someone else has decided for me.

Hello. My name is Percy Jackson.

You're probably wondering what was up with that short and weird intro. And all I can say is, you'll understand what I mean soon. As unbelievable as it sounds, this is the story of how my life changed. How I went from a troubled kid who went from school to school, to one of the most powerful forces on the planet.

If you want to stop reading, I suggest you do so now. Because once I start talking... Well, I've been told it's hard to make me stop.

You're gonna stay? Alright then, I'll tell you my story.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been a troubled kid. ADHD, Dyslexia, and a strange tendency of trouble following me everywhere I go.

When I was a baby, for example, a snake somehow snuck into my cot while I was asleep, but I was somehow able to strangle it to death before it could get to me. Another time was at my last school with my friend Tyson. These guys got really crazy during a Dodgeball game, and set fire to the school, and the blame somehow got pinned on me. I was found innocent and ended up with a nice cheque as an 'apology' from the school, but I still wasn't allowed to come back this year.

Which I was fine with, don't get me wrong! See, getting expelled is nothing new for me. I've been getting expelled from basically every school I've attended since I was a little kid for some extraordinary reason or another. But the school I found myself in at fourteen was actually really nice.

It was called Westover, a boarding school. I figured it was just gonna be another one of those strict schools, where most of the guys are jerks, and I get picked on for being 'different.' And I was mostly right, except I wasn't picked on. It was the kind of school where everyone left the others alone unless they were looking to make friends, it was great!

I even found a couple of friends! Siblings in fact; Nico and Bianca di Angelo.

Nico was a cheerful kid, ten-years-old, who was obsessed with this game called 'Mythomagic,' a game that seemed to use cards and statues and looked to be based on Greek Mythology. He was hyper, barely able to sit still, and was great at cheering people up when they were down.

Then there was Bianca di Angelo, his older sister. She was twelve, a couple years younger than me, but she acted really mature for her age. That was mostly due to her needing to look after Nico, who no doubt would have gotten into some kind of trouble or danger if she wasn't around to stop him from doing so. She was pretty strict with Nico, and much more grounded in reality than he was.

How I met them is kind of funny, actually. I ran into them, literally. My last class for the day had just ended, so I had some free time, and was walking through the halls, when I remember I had some homework I had to hand in before the end of the day to one of my earlier teachers. I immediately started running through the halls to finish my homework and hand it in, when I accidentally ran into Nico. I apologised, he apologised, Bianca told us both off and we went from there.

But I guess you're tired of all this background stuff, huh? I suppose I should get into the nitty gritty of the story.

It all started towards the end of October, very close to Halloween.