The Olympian Games 2/Nolan Swift

Challenge 1~Special Delivery
Write a short story (at least 1000 words) of your two characters or one being invited to the Olympian Games by Hermes.

Story It was early in November and I had just gotten home from hanging out with one of my friends for a few hours. When I checked my watch, I saw it was only about 4:37 in the afternoon, but it was already starting to get dark and a tad chilly outside. I was maybe a block away from my house when I heard the screeching of tires behind me. I turned around and saw a UPS van driving wildly all over the road, swerving between cars and pedestrians. I became especially worried when it may a sharp turn to the left and started driving along the sidewalk. I was like a deer stuck in the headlights as I watch it drive at breaking speeds right toward me. I closed my eyes and put up my hands, but the impact never came. I slowly opened my eyes to see the truck completely stopped in front of me. None of the mortals walking around seemed to care about the truck and started walking around it like it was just an inconvenience.

“Nolan!” I heard the driver yell and I instantly recognized the voice.

“Hermes…Dad? What in the name of the Underworld are you doing? Trying to kill me?!” I asked him accusingly as he quickly moved to the back of the truck and grabbed a small box from a shelf. He then jumped out of the truck and placed the box in my hand.

“No time to explain! Take this to the address and make sure it gets there by five or else,” Hermes ordered. No ‘Hi, how is my wonderful son doing’ or ‘Hey, nice job killing that sea serpent last month. Keep up the good work.’ No, Hermes was a workaholic to the core and I wondered if he cared about his packages more than any of his children. “Be back later!”

“Nice to see you too,” I said out loud, but by then he was already behind the wheel and took off down the street. I was left standing on an almost empty sidewalk about a block from my house with a package addressed to…Blinky?

“Well now what?” I asked myself as I looked at the package. It was small, so I gave it a few quick shakes to see if I could figure out what was inside, but to no avail. I looked at the address again and the GPS in me head began to activate, planning out the quickest way to get to the location. I was glad my dad was the messenger god because it meant I never got lost; but also because I don’t think I could ever find 117.1 Halo Alley, Pennsylvania. Thankfully it wasn’t that far away and even if I went at a light jog, I could make it in maybe fifteen minutes. I then noticed I was talking myself into doing the job.

“Hey you, give me that package!” I heard from behind me as horns began honking and tires screeched. I turned around to see a giant, possibly a Laestrygonian based on his looks. The guy was only about eight feet tall, but he was muscular with a sleeveless shirt to show his arms off. I turned to my left and right to see if there was anyone else he could have been talking to, but unfortunately I was the only demigod in the area.

“You wouldn’t happen to be Blinky, would you?” I asked him.

“No, I can’t stand him! All the noise he makes keeps me awake at night; that is why I’m taking his package,” the giant said as he made it to the other side of the street, with several drivers yelling at him or cursing.

“Well then this package isn’t for you. In fact if you had just said you were Blinky, I would have just handed it to you,” I told him. His face changed as if trying to get his brain to understand what I was talking about.

“Oh Blinky,” he said calmly. “I thought you said…Blonky. Yes I’m Blinky.”

“I know you aren’t,” I said flatly.

“Who told you?” he asked, staring at me with hate. This guy was obviously not the brightest bulb, I wondered if anyone had even put a bulb in his head. But maybe I could use that.

“You told me a minute ago, but that isn’t important right now because WHAT IS THAT!” I yelled, pointing behind him to the sky. The giant turned and looked at the sky wildly. I turned around myself in the opposite direction and took off.

“I don’t see it,” I heard him say as I kept going. I ran into the nearby park as there were enough trees around that maybe the giant wouldn’t notice me. When I got far enough away, I took a quick breather on a park bench and examined the package again. Somehow this thing had caused a giant to appear and I wondered if it was the reason Hermes didn’t want to take it, but Hermes was a god so he could have killed it in a flash if he wanted. Just then I watched as a tree came crashing down next to me.

“What in the Underworld?!” I yelled as I jumped to my feet. The Laestrygonian had followed me and was pushing trees out of the way to get to me.

“There was nothing there, now give me the package!” he yelled, pushing over another tree and I jumped to the side to avoid it.

“Are you sure? I could have sworn I saw something,” I told him and his head began to turn back to the sky, but he caught himself.

“I am sure, now I will kill you for it,” the Laestrygonian yelled as he ripped a branch off one of the fallen trees and swung it like a club. Seeing no other option, I pull at the small hammer charm around my neck and it morphed into a sledge hammer.

“Try your luck big guy,” I taunted, which only mad the giant angrier. He swung his club at me, but I broke it in two with one swift strike. He looked at the branch in confusion, which gave me just enough time to move in and hit him right in the head with my hammer. He crumpled to the ground with enough force to slightly shake the ground.

I considered turning him to golden dust, but delivering this package seemed like enough of a punishment. I looked at my watch and it was only eight minutes until five, not giving me a lot of time. So I took off running down the path and onto the main road. I managed to hit every cross walk without getting a single red light and I wondered if maybe Hermes was watching out for me. I managed to make it to the house with about a minute to spare, but the problem was there wasn’t a house anywhere and I was just standing in a dark alley with two doors labeled 117 and 119.

“Is that for me?” I heard a voice and I almost jumped out of my skin. “Down here.” I looked down and saw a manhole cover in the ground.

“Blinky?” I asked. The cover rose up with some clanging and it moved to the side. Under the cover was a Cyclops that barely fit in the tunnel leading down into the sewer. His one eye was moving between me and the small box I was holding. He let out a huge smile that showed all his rotten teeth. However he was obviously an older Cyclops. He was bald on top with only a small ring of grey hair along the sides. His face was wrinkled and the lines around his eye looked less like crow’s feet and more like eagle’s feet.

“That’s me!” Blinky said excitedly and ushered me down into 117.1 Halo Alley. I walked down against my better judgment and found that it wasn’t a sewer at all, or at least not totally. However the large room was full of clocks of all shapes and sizes. One clock was so large that it went from floor to ceiling. Another was maybe about as big as my thumb. “Let me see, let me see.”

“Oh sure, here you go,” I told him. I handed him the box and he ripped it apart. He then pulled out a small clock from the box. The clock was made of clear plastic and you could see all the gears inside. The Cyclops pulled a battery from his desk and put it in the back, causing the clock to come to life.

“What’s with all the clocks?” I asked, looking around. I could understand what the Laestrygonian had meant about the noise, as with all the gears from the clocks going at once I could barely hear myself. Thankfully cyclopes had excellent hearing.

“I used to be a worker in Poseidon’s forges,” he said, looking somewhat sad as if remembering something painful. “However I retired after the last war, forced retirement actually. But I still love machines and clocks were always my passion. Clocks are some of the most complicated bits of machinery ever invented after all.” “Your neighbor doesn’t seem to share the same view,” I said, but his eye took an irritated look.

“Don’t get me started on him. He claims I keep him up all night, but he is the one that stays up all night watching infomercials,” Blinky retorted. “I can’t tell you how many times his orders accidently end up here.”

“Well anyway…” I started, getting ready to leave. However as I lifted my hand to motion that I was leaving, a form appeared in my hand. I looked it over real fast and saw that it was just a shipping slip. I didn’t even bother reading the back page and just saw that I was supposed to sign it, so I did real fast. “Just sign here and the clock is all yours.”

Blinky took my small pen in his massive hands and signed his name in handwriting that was about ten times better than mine. I then handed him his copy and left the sewer. I looked around to make sure that no one saw me and thought I was hanging out with sewer mutants or something; the Mist was weird like that. I didn’t see any people, but I did see Hermes’ delivery truck flying down the street toward the small alley. I thought he was going to crash, but the truck seemed to become thinner as he got closer and it just barely squeezed into the alley.

“So how did it go?” Hermes asked, sticking his head out the window.

“Good, Blinky seems happy anyway but I can’t say the same about his neighbor,” I replied.

“And you signed everything?” he asked, an eyebrow raised. I handed him the clipboard with the forms on it and he looked it over. “Cool. Well, thanks for helping me out and see you at the next games.”

“What games? You don’t mean the Olympian Games? I don’t even know what happened last time. I had to catch a fox and then all of a sudden Zeus was like ‘The games are complete, everyone go home’ and he sent all the contestants back home,” I said in my best imitation of Zeus. Thunder rolled across the sky. “Oh you know it is true!”

“Yup, those games,” Hermes confirmed.

“I’m not doing it this time,” I objected.

“Sure you are, your entry form is right here,” he said as he pulled the back piece of paper out from under the clipboard. At the top is said ‘Olympian Games Application’ in big bold lettering. As I looked at the form with my signature on it, I started to realize how he had managed to steal Apollo’s cattle; he was a master trickster. “See you later and good luck.”

Before I could even reply, the truck vanished in a burst of bright light. I was left along in the alley and started walking home.

“Well it was just an application,” I told myself as I reached my front door. “Maybe I won’t be accepted this time.