To Disturb the Harmony~Chapter 1

Chapter One~The Winter Solstice Field Trip
I walked in with a large group of campers into the lobby of the Empire State Building for the Winter Solstice. We were on our yearly field trip to Olympus to visit our parents, but if it was winter we still had to rent two busses in order to get everyone there. It was then that Chiron rolled up to the front desk and tried to gain the attention of an older man reading the newspaper.

“Excuse me,” he said and the man folded down his paper and gave Chiron a questioning look. “We would like a ticket to the 600th floor please.”

“There is no such thing as the 600th floor,” he said as he flipped his paper back up.

“I think there is and I would like the ticket please. Zeus is expecting us and you wouldn’t want you to get in trouble for not letting his guests visit. That would be most inhospitable,” Chiron said and this seemed to get the guards attention, Zeus was the god of hospitality after all.

“Fine, here is the key. Take the cargo elevator’s down the south hallway,” he said before handing Chiron a golden card key and went back to reading his paper. We all followed him down the south hall and arrived at a large cargo elevator. It was a lot larger than the elevator’s normal people used, most likely because there were so many of us. Chiron rolled up to the button and inserted the card key, causing a golden light to flash from the door as it opened.

“Alright, everyone listen to your councilors and we will head up to Olympus by the alphabetical order of your cabin,” Chiron announced. The Apollo cabin leader started leading his cabin into the elevator while the Ares cabin head started director his cabin mates as if he were a general. I still had a long wait ahead of me as my godly parent started with a P. I started kind of just pace up and down the hall as I was really excited to visit Olympus.

“Are you with the tour group?” asked a guy sitting on a bench. He had a pair of head phones in his ears and I wondered if he would be able to hear me.

“Yes, I just got here a little while ago,” I half shouted and the guy’s face took on an almost annoyed look.

“I’m not deaf,” he said as he pulled out his head phones. “These things aren’t even on.”

“Oh, sorry about that,” I said as I bowed my head apologetically.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. It happens all the time; I always forget to take these things out. I just love music,” he said as he spun the pair around his fingers.

“Nemesis Cabin next,” I heard someone say from down the hall and I knew I would be called soon.

“Listen, I have to go. It was nice talking with you,” I told him. “My name is Ashton Faith.”

“Nice to meet you. Enjoy your tour and don’t wander around too much, you might get lost. By the way, I’m Apollo,” he said as he gave a wink and vanished with the sound of a Lyre as his exiting tone. It was like he had his own personal soundtrack for his everyday life.

I ran back down the hall and my cabin name was called, so I pushed my way into the elevator where I was crammed in with about twenty other campers as we headed to the 600th floor of the Empire State Building.

“Hold that elevator!” someone yelled from down the hall. I pushed the Door Open button and they stopped allowing the girl to slip in with the already overcrowded people. “Thanks a lot,” she said as she gave me a pat on the shoulder.

“Hey, aren’t you with the Athena cabin?” I asked her. While I didn’t know her name, I had seen her around camp a few times, normally eating with the Athena cabin, but she never stayed in one place for too long, sometimes eating with the Hermes cabin or sneaking away to other cabins.

“Ya, but I wanted to take a look around. This place is huge; it is a shame that we only ever come here to go to Olympus when there is so much more to see. Maybe next year we can go to Time Square or see a Broadway show,” she said. In fact, she said a lot more after that to the point where I wanted to just tune her out. I didn’t have to endure her for too much longer however because after a minute or two, we reached the top and the doors opened.

“Well, it was nice talking to you,” she said and started running down the walkway before turning around. “I’m Aisling, I don’t think I introduced myself and my dad is always telling me to mind my manners. See ya!”

She ran off before I could even tell her my name and I decided to just look out at the large mountain top of Olympus. My group walked down a moving sidewalk that had been installed after a huge construction project years ago by someone named Annabeth or something. As we walked, minor gods and goddesses waved at us and a few people waved back. As we got closer to the throne room, I could hear the sound of the Muses playing music and I could tell the party had already started.

“Welcome to Olympus!” Zeus yelled as we entered the throne room and lightning flashed around him as he spoke.

“Always with the dramatics,” Poseidon said as he just smiled and leaned back in his throne which looked more like a fishing chair. Hades on the other hand just placed his head in his palm and shook his head at his brother. The demigods started heading to their godly parents and I say the hyper girl from early run up to Athena.

“Hi Grandma!” she yelled and her voice seemed to echo around the room. Athena’s face took on an almost sour look, the kind of look that young women get when someone calls them old. Even if Athena was older than all the demigods in the room put together, she didn’t look it and the sour face soon faded as she let out a half hearted smile. I wondered what she meant by grandma, but just then a large arm wrapped around my shoulder.

“There is my boy,” he said as he gave me a quick friendly joke. “How have you been? Been eating well? How is your mother? You just had a birthday not to long ago, didn’t you? I believe I’ll have to get you something special.”

“Thank you Lord Pisteuo,” I said with respect.

“Oh please,” he said and his voice softened considerably. “I may be the god of belief, but I’m still your father and I would appreciate it if you didn’t treat me like a stranger. Being treated as one is more painful that ignoring someone all together,” he said as he looked around the room at some of the older gods.

I didn’t understand what he meant as my father’s past wasn’t something that the other gods talked about, or the demigods at camp for that matter. There was no mention of him in any mythology books either and I wondered if he was one of the major Olympians, why wasn’t he ever mentioned until recently. However, I never brought up the subject as I knew it upset him.

The rest of the trip went pretty smoothly. The gods tried to impress their children and the children of others by showing off displays of power. Poseidon made the water fountains around the room shoot water into the air that exploded like fireworks. Hephaestus made an old World War II talk appear in the center of the room before tossing it up in the air and dismantling it piece by piece without it ever touching the ground. Zeus grabbed a few lightning bolts and tossed them into the sky, causing them to explode as smaller lightning bolts streaked across the sky. Everyone started clapping until darker storm clouds started rolling in over the open roof of the Olympian Throne room.

“Going a little overboard?” Hades commented, but Zeus just looked up at the sky and clapped his hands. A roof started to appear over the room until the throne room was encased in a large dome which depicted the gods performing generous deeds for man-kind. It reminded me of the story of a tapestry Athena made when she was in a challenge with Arachne.

“I’m glad you all came all this way to see us, but I’m afraid we will have to call this Winter Solstice short. I hope we will be able to see you this summer and I hope you have had a good time here on Olympus,” Zeus declared. The other demigods have each other disappointed groans and complained that it was too early, but no one wanted to openly oppose Zeus.

We all started heading for the elevators with groups heading down pretty fast. The larger cabins got to go in first while the smaller cabins had to wait as we would all get to go down at once. I looked up at the sky and saw more storm clouds rolling in and wondered if h had done something to upset Zeus somehow. No sooner did the thought cross my mind, a funnel cloud started forming and touched down on a portion of Olympus, ripping apart several structures and statues. A moment later, a lightning bolt shot from a cloud and hit other building, causing a fire. I wanted to run for the elevator as a lot of other people started doing, but I saw something out of the corner of my eye. The girl from earlier sprinted for a hallway toward the fire and I ran after her, grabbing her arm.

“Where are you going? We have to get off Olympus,” I told her, but she pulled her arm away.

“I thought I saw someone in that fire, I’m going to save her. You can come with me or you can run scared like everyone else,” she yelled and ran toward the fire. I wasn’t sure what to do as I felt like my feet were locked in place. I didn’t see anyone in the fire and I wondered who would even be there as we didn’t even visit that area. I also remembered that Apollo told me not to wander around and I turned around and started heading for the elevators. However, a second later I turned around and headed for the fire as well. I’m such a tool.

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive