The Flames of Hope Ch 8

Chapter 8~I Don't Enjoy Sleeping
After trying to move the large rock failed, even when all of us tried pushing it, we decided to simply drive around it and let a real construction crew take care of it. Gear, who had missed the entire fight, had just woken up from his seat in the back of the van.

“Did I miss anything?” he asked.

“Not much, we just hit some road work which put us back a few minutes but we should be fine,” I told him, and he seemed to except this answer. If I told him what really happened, he would start complaining about how he would have demolished them and right now everyone was feeling pretty down. Even though we won the fight, it still felt like a loss as our team fell apart under the Earthborn’s attack. Megan, Malcolm, and I were use to covering each other’s weaknesses in combat, but our team didn’t include the new group of demigods who also didn’t seem to know how to work as a team either. To some extent, I blamed myself because I wasn’t use to leading anything. I react to things as they happen, but to command a force was different as I needed to have clear sight on the battlefield to keep my new friends safe.

“I need some sleep,” I called out. “Who wants to take the wheel?”

“I’ll take it,” said Gear as he crawled toward the front seat. “I just had a good long rest anyway.”

It didn’t take long for me to fall asleep as I always felt at home on the road at I figured it would give me a chance to clear my head. However, my sleep didn’t give me a break from my troubles as a dream broke its’ way into my head. In my dream I saw a snow white owl flying in the sky. I somehow knew it was female as I watched it fly and she looked panicked as she flapped her wings franticly. I didn’t understand what she was running from until I saw a large figure cast a show in the light of the moon. As the owl looked back, I saw the beast. It looked like a large metal falcon with green fire trailing behind it like it had a rocket inside its’ body pushing it forward. It dove down and the owl flew between trees and branches with grace despite the panic she must have been feeling. On the contrary, the metal falcon was ripping through trees as if they were only annoying him as branches snapped off when he crashed into them.

As the owl dove down to about a foot off the ground, she hovered for a few seconds before landing inside a circle of trees. The falcon followed her and landed right in front of her. It extended its wings as if preparing to swallow the owl, but she just sat their unmoving. When the falcon lunged forward a bronze rope wrapped around its feet and pulled it in the air like a hunting trap. The owl took this time to fly around and began to activate more ropes that tied up the falcon until it looked like a caterpillar in a cocoon. She then flew under the cocoon and slammed into the ground causing a large hole to open up. The cocoon fell down the hole and the owl pulled out a branch from a nearby cliff. Rocks began to fall like an avalanche over the pit and the falcon was no more.

“Hephaestus is not the only one that can make traps. I knew you would come for my so I had a strategy prepared,” I heard inside the owls mind or possibly it was talking out load, I didn’t know. However, the cracks between the rocks began to glow as a bright green light could be seen from below the pit. All of a sudden, a metal gantlet sprung from the ground and grasped the owl before the rest of his body crawled out from under the rocks.

“You underestimate me Athena. You’re pride is your downfall,” he said and the pieces of his armor began to glow as well as the owl. She seemed to be turned into energy and was absorbed into his body and his flaming body flared for only a second before returning to normal. He then started laughing, but stopped and started looking around him as if being watched. He then turned around and reached out to grab me and I woke up.

“Leiomenos!” I yelled sitting up in my seat as I felt my hand shake. I looked around nervously trying to figure out where I was before remembering it was only a dream, or was it. I calmed down and looked around to see Megan staring at me with a concerned look on her face and I noticed that my hand was firmly grasped in hers.

“I managed to pull him out just in time,” came the voice of Kat who was sitting behind me and she took her hands from my head.

“What happened,” I asked, but Kat and Megan looked at each other as if asking silently which one would tell me.

“You started dreaming,” Megan began. “We all thought you were just having a bad dream until we tried to wake you, but you didn’t wake up. Eventually, we had to hold you down while Sammy went to wake up Kat to try and see what you were seeing.”

“I came in a little late, so I don’t know what you saw but I pulled you out as fast as I could,” Kat said.

“Thanks a lot,” I said as I couldn’t think of another way to thank her. I thought back to the dream and new it had to be important. It wasn’t like Athena to overestimate anyone and she always had a plan so was the dream sent by Leiomenos to torture me in my sleep or a message from Athena? As I thought about it, I wondered if I should tell Megan that her mother had been captured if the dream itself was true. He was becoming too powerful if he was already capturing the Olympian gods.

“So what were you dreaming about?” Megan asked and my whole body tensed. “That hurts Slowpoke!” she yelled as she pulled her hand out of mine.

“Sorry, it was a bad dream. I don’t want to think about it,” I said as I lowered my head. That concerned look returned to her face, so she let the question slide and placed her hand into mine. It calmed me down and all the other campers pretended not to look at us, which I didn’t mind.

“So how close are we to Hell?” I asked, not knowing exactly how long I was asleep.

“We…are…” Gear said slowly as if waiting for something. “…THERE!” he yelled as he passed a Welcome to Hell sign on the road.

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive