It was clear that Ariana started having troubles in school as she grew older. She wanted to tell her mom about her problems, but she hadn’t come back to their house for a month now. Ariana forced herself to study the consequences if she was in her mom’s shoes and what would happen.

‘I’d still be with her daughter’, Ariana thought. It was cool for a kid to be the daughter of a famous musical singer. What people don’t know is that it gets really lonely for the daughter to be alone in their house day and night.

Her mom scolded her that she can’t go to the tour with her, because she had to attend classes and seminars; which Ariana would’ve considered ‘boring’. Ariana understood her reason, but waiting for her eight in the evening, every single day, made her somewhat angry.

‘Doesn’t mom get a break?’ She asked herself. Ariana checked if her mom’s musical tour was within the country. It was, that’s for sure.

She looked at the wall clock in her classroom. It was lunchtime, yet their math teacher extended their class, again.

“We’re going to have a quiz on exponents two days from now.” Her math teacher, Mr. Lim, announced to the class with a monotone voice. It gave Ariana that he was an evil robot that will take over the world with his constant blabbing about math.

Everyone groaned, Ariana couldn’t help it and joined them. Mr. Lim got his things and went out of class. Nobody bothered to cheer that the robot teacher was gone so instead; her classmates rushed out of the classroom the second he was gone.

Ariana’s stomach grumbled and she instantly regret waking up late for school and didn’t eat breakfast. She hated those dreams that seemed too realistic, that she couldn’t even wake up. Her best friend, Nicole, called for her when she entered the cafeteria with a take-out from Pizza Hut from last night.

She walked toward the table with the least crowded. It was only Nicole was sitting there. Oh boy, how am I going to survive this school year? She wanted to tell her best friend, but held it back.

“How’s it going?” Nicole asked while chewing her cheeseburger.

“Uh. . .fine. . .” Ariana paused and thought if she should tell Nicole that her mom was on tour. It would help though, because she didn’t have to hold it in and her emotions wouldn’t have to be kept. But the reason is that she wouldn’t care at all if she Ariana did tell Nicole.

Nicole snorted and then drank water, “I know about your mother, by the way.”

“Great.” Ariana sighed. She saved her lunch, pizza, and only ate a piece of bread. She had a feeling that she’s going to use for something important, an emergency.

“Great, right?” The brunette with dark green eyes continued eating her cheeseburger.

“What’s great about being alone in a huge apartment?” Ariana raised her eyebrow.

Nicole stopped eating and stared at Ariana as if she was a crazy dolphin, “You get to stay with us,” She rolled her eyes, “Duh.”

Ariana nervously took a sip of her orange juice, “I don’t think I will. I’ll just stay in my apartment.” Her best friend gave her a scowl, “What changed your mind? You used to stay in my family’s house every time your mom was on tour.”

She didn’t get to have a reasonable answer so instead she said the first thing that came to her mind “I have to get used to it, you know, and I’ve been having a nightmare that a giant will kill me in Times Square.”

“Nobody tried to help you?” Her best friend asked. Ariana nodded as a response. As she thought about it, she asked herself how come nobody helped her? She was attacked by the giant, for Pete’s sake!

“I wish I could save the day and all, but I have to go somewhere after school.”

Ariana almost forgot that Nicole had to go to a funeral because of her grandma’s death. She gave her condolences to their family before summer finished. She didn’t really meet Nicole’s grandma, yet she knows that she was good person.

The school ball rang. All of the students inside the cafeteria ran back to their classroom.


***


When Ariana was finally released from school for the day, she never felt happiness unlike today.

Now, all she has to do was go buy dinner from McDonald’s before going to her house. The branch closest to her house was in Times Square. Her spine got a jolt and she shivered. If she was nervous about the continuous nightmares she had. It’s not like the monster will pop out from the closet. She hadn’t have any nightmares like that since she was seven.

The blond shrugged it off and focused on having her dinner even though she had the slice of pizza with her. It was like her body didn’t even dare to eat the, as if it was poisoned or rotten.

She got her phone and headset out of her bag and listened to songs while going to McDonald’s.

Ariana hummed the whole song till she arrived in the fast food store. She always hated Time Square. The place is always crowded, billboards everywhere about musicals. Every time she passed there, she would never miss out the billboard picture of her mom in it, smiling.

It irritated her every time she sees her own mom smiling in a billboard with a picture of another famous singer. Ariana barely had any pictures of them together.

She was so close to the restaurant and she wanted to run so fast. Ariana was scared because people kept staring at her. Not staring, but watching her.

Something caught her attention by the Coke billboard. She gasped, “How can people not see that?” Nobody paid attention to her.

Ariana looked around to see if people looked at the thing she saw. She didn’t even know that her mouth was wide open.

“Ah. . . a daughter of Dionysus.” The thing with horns looked directly at her.

“Me?” She pointed to herself. Ariana looked around again and nobody was paying attention. They were busy with their phones, texting or either calling. She didn’t like this generation, it was getting so stupid, being too distracted all the time. She’d rather have a party without using a damn phone. Ariana knew why she was so pissed-off, she was distracting herself from the thing in-front of her.

Too bad though, the features of the thing kept on capturing her eyes. The monster had a head of a bull and a body of a very muscular man. The word muscular wasn’t enough to describe it. Sure if a guy is muscular and good looking, it’ll be Ariana’s new crush. But when she saw the thing, she wanted to grab a plastic bag and barf in it. It was huge, really big, maybe twelve feet tall?

The huge bull/man slowly walked towards her direction. Every time the creature took a tiny step all the people seemed to dodge his footsteps from squishing them. Even though they dodged it, they didn’t even know that there’s an ugly gigantic creature right in front of them.

I’m going insane, Ariana’s conscious said in her head.

The monster stopped walking. Ariana hesitated. She wanted to be in her apartment with her mom right now, telling her that everything will be okay. She held back those tears from her eyes. “I wasn’t supposed to kill you. Have you seen the son of Poseidon?”

No response came out of Ariana’s mouth.

The son of Poseidon? Was the monster talking about the Greek God? If she’s going to see a God shopping in the shops of Manhattan, she’d faint.

The monster frowned in mock disappointment, “I’ll take that as a no. Sorry kid, I’d have to kill you because you’re one of those demigods.”

Demigods? What’s a demigod? Ariana started to panic. She couldn’t move. Her feet wanted to take another step, but she was frozen. Something was weakening all her strength. It must’ve been the monster that was causing all this.

One way or another, she had to kill it, or else she’ll just die like a poof. She had a plan, she wished that it’ll work no matter how ridiculous it was. Well, it was all she could she think of at the moment.

Ariana waited for the thing to come closer. She found a ladder and decided to climb on it. She prepared her things to attack it; A slice of pizza, her thick schoolbooks and the pocket knife that was in her pocket.

The monster was close enough to let Ariana attack him. She targeted all the books she’ll throw to the half man/half bull’s face. She threw it, which thankfully distracted the giant. Ariana had to rest for a while, before the giant can take charge on her. Her arms started to hurt and she felt helpless.

“I can do this.” She encouraged herself.

The giant stood and analyzed what she was planning. Before the monster can squish Ariana with his bare hands, she climbed as fast as she can to the roof-top by the ladder.

Fortunately, it was a success. The giant lost track of her for a minute or two. Why is this happening so sudden? Ariana wanted answers.

A hand appeared right in front of her eyes and patted the rooftop. She tried to get her bag from the edge. But it was too late, the giant’s hand took it. All what Ariana had left was her knife and aluminum foil with food in it.

Suddenly, a head of a bull appeared with two horns, looked like it was ready to kill her. She removed the aluminum foil and threw the pizza to the thing’s eye.

He covered his face and made a loud noise. She was sure that half of the country could hear it. The thing turned around which gave her the opportunity to jump to the bull’s head.

She ran so fast and had the confidence that she can defeat it. Ariana was about to jump, but a voice caught both of the giant’s and her attention.

“Pizza? That was awesome!” The voice started laughing. It was a relief for her, because that means that she must have been imagining things. There was a problem, it pretty much ruined her plan killing the monster. Thanks to that person, she has to think of a new plan, it was stressing her out.

The monster stopped moving and so did Ariana. She could hear noises coming from the ladder she used a few moments ago. The monster got to remove the food from his eye. His face was so dark and he clearly was furious at her.

Ariana squeaked and stumbled back. A hand that appeared in front of her was offered. The guy had a glowing sword with him. If he was the knight and shining armor, he better apologize to her, that he ruined her plan that was she was depending her whole life on.

“Percy Jackson. I’ve been waiting for you.”

The guy, Percy, had a smile on, “It’s been long. Right, Minotaur?” Percy looked at Ariana with an exciting face, “Ready to take that ugly monster down?”

Ariana nodded, still baffled but instead of arguing with him, she took out her knife from her pocket. She had a tiny sharp metal and that Percy guy had a sword that even glows. What a great similarity. They both charged to the so–called Minotaur.

She got to jump on his head and stabbed his forehead. The Minotaur made a loud sound, and made her ears hurt so badly. She wanted to give the Minotaur a slap on the face. But with those tiny hands? She guess not.

She was looking for that Percy guy, but didn’t see him. It worried her because she’ll fight all by herself.

“Percy Jackson! Where are you?!” The Minotaur yelled.

Ariana wanted to ask the same question. She obviously didn’t want to die easily by a giant, but it would have been cool but no one would know what happened. There was no response from Percy. Ariana had no choice but to stab the Minotaur’s face.

She started off stabbing its nose. Ariana almost fell because she had a really hard time balancing. Ariana got so irritated, because the Minotaur kept screaming when Ariana stabbed it. The Minotaur kept on hitting himself where she was. Thankfully, she was surprisingly skilled and dodged every punch and hit he threw.

She climbed on his face and concentrated stabbing his black eyes.

“Oh my god, where is he?!” Ariana asked so loud, that she wished Percy heard it. She deeply sighed and stabbed the Minotaur’s left eye. I thought he was cool, Ariana thought about Percy and felt betrayed even though she just met the guy.

The Minotaur’s hand hit his left eye to catch her, but she already ran to the right eye. In the back of her head, she was amazed by the fact that she hasn’t fallen off yet.

Before she could stab it, a voice started talking inside her head, “By the fall of sunlight, you must fall with a son of Hephaestus on a cliff to save your one and only family member.”

Ariana froze and was in fear. Her fingers went numb and dropped her knife. Was the voice talking about her mom? What if her mom was in danger? No wonder Ariana hardly got to contact her. The voice was different, she never heard a voice like that before.

It was raspy and dry, it gave chills when she listened to the voice talking. The voice sounded like it could came from her grandma, but she could never give that kind of threat to her granddaughter.

She forgot what she was supposed to be doing.

Her mom was in trouble.

Why is all this happening in just one day? Ariana wanted to scream so loud and ask where her mom was. “What happened?” The guy asked her from behind. Percy was having a hard time breathing. She wondered what he was doing the whole time while she was stabbing the Minotaur with her pocket knife.

“My mom is in trouble, I have to save her.” Ariana shook the guy and tears started coming out. She looked up and noticed that Percy was tall, handsome and fit even though her vision was a blur. Percy gave her a reassuring smile, “I think I know a place where you’ll be staying. Let me take care about the Minotaur. Go up the rooftop, now.”

She did what she was told to do, she jumped from the Minotaur and climbed the ladder.

Ariana didn’t even get to blink when she saw Percy slice off one of the Minotaur’s horn. Percy was so fast in action, she didn’t even know if it could be possible. The place became quiet for a while. She took a peek from the edge and the Minotaur was gone.

Percy landed perfectly on the rooftop, his sword was gone. Ariana guessed that he lost it from the Minotaur. He was holding a horn and offered it to her, “Take it, it’s your ticket to go uh. . . somewhere.”

“What kind of place that would take a Minotaur’s horn for a ticket?” Ariana joked and Percy laughed with her, as if he remembered his memories, “That’s what I thought at first. I’m sure you’re going to like it there, it’s a cool place.”

Ariana got the horn. She hoped that his definition of ‘cool’ is the same as hers. The both of them went down the ladder. When they were in the streets of Times Square, Ariana was so relieved to be there. The both of them had nothing. No phone, food or any life essentials. Ariana asked Percy innocently,

“What just happened?”

Notes

Please vote and comment if you like it so far <3

(haven't edit this yet, so sorry if some sentences didn't make sense)