The Forest Gods' Fight

by Alexandria Hook

  It was about ten minutes later that we came upon the camp, and I heard scared whispers from all around us as Alec broke through the crowds. Ahead of us, a limp Demeter was being carried into the tent by the black centaur Anton, and I saw Pan use his strong arms to drag himself through the long grass toward the tent, his furry goat legs failing to support him.

  “MOVE!” Alec shouted in despair, racing for our tent at the other end of the circle, and the crowds parted nervously, though they surged forward afterward and tried to follow us into the tent. Enraged, Alec dropped Zeus and me from his shoulders, but still kept an arm around each of us for support as he whirled around and ordered to the crowd, his voice hoarse, “No one comes in here. Get it? Absolutely no one.”

  Silence ensued until Cole stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Let me come in. I’m their friend too,” he begged Alec worriedly, not quite sure what was happening.

  “No,” Alec snarled maliciously, his eyes flashing like some kind of warning alarm. “You’re friends with humans, not gods.”

  The unforgiving hero turned around to lead Zeus and me into the tent, but Cole suddenly took hold of his blue T-shirt and yanked him backward, finishing with a swift punch to Alec’s jaw. Needless to say, Cole had made a huge mistake.

  Before Cole could even prepare himself, Alec temporarily let go of Zeus and me—we simply clung to each other in an effort to stay standing—and tackled Cole in one graceful motion. Cole then received a brutal punch to the nose, which broke it, no doubt, and blood began to gush out of his nostrils like two red rivers. I did not have the energy to tell Alec to stop and knew he wouldn’t have listened to me anyway, though I was more than slightly ashamed to admit that I didn’t even try, that I felt nothing. Therefore, the punches continued relentlessly, leaving Cole no chance to fight back, and Alec only stopped his ruthless campaign when Cole went limp—unconscious, not quite dead.

  Without saying another word, Alec picked us up again and closed the flap of the tent behind him before laying us down on our small, green cots. I struggled to keep breathing as I glanced around the tent, seeing that Persephone, Hestia, Demeter, Pan, Hermes, Poseidon, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, and Hera were on their cots as well. Obviously having heard Alec and Cole’s fight, Anton, Jan, and two water nymphs acting as nurses abruptly put down their bandages and cloths to hurry out of the tent. A few minutes later, Dionysus, Ares, and Apollo were also brought in.

  At last, the tent was filled with only the sounds of the gods gasping for air or sobbing violently. This was the end for us. Even Alec, who was usually so strong, had tears welling in his eyes as he held onto my hand, begging me to stay with him. “You should have up to twenty-four hours left here, r—right?” he clarified hopefully.

  I shook my head sadly. “We are already tired and weak from the war, Alec. We won’t be able to hold on much longer,” I croaked softly, running my fingers through his hair with my free hand.

  As if to prove my point, the Oracle rushed in at that exact moment, carrying the little Eros in her arms. As soon as she sat him down next to Aphrodite, the winged god of love turned his small head full of golden curls toward me, gave a nod as if silently confirming the prophecy, then crumbled to dust without uttering a single word. Aphrodite just sobbed harder, covering her beautiful face with her frail hands. As my stomach began to cramp up, I winced and silently wondered if I would be the next god to die.

  “You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” Zeus asked from beside me, noticing my unusual calmness, and as the Oracle sat down cross-legged on the grass, all of the other gods turned their heads toward me.

  My slight hesitation gave them the answer, and they responded with only a chorus of sighs. When my forlorn gray eyes met the Oracle’s solemn green ones, she nodded in encouragement, so I monotonously recited the prophecy that had been haunting me for years, “Still you must listen, for the goddess of wisdom will no longer be free of that blasted curse called love. Her beloved hero is great, but he is only bait for the man who will decide this mighty one’s tragic fate.”

  Between all the sobs and sadness, the other gods and Alec exchanged confused glances. I took a short pause to let the words sink in before I admitted, “That was the second part of the prophecy. Hades, Eros, and I were the only gods who knew about it.”

  “The ‘mighty one’ referred to your entire generation of gods, not just one person,” the Oracle concluded blandly, as if it wasn’t obvious by then, and I nodded.

  “I guess the Oracle and I were the only ones who realized the gods would die. Hades always seemed to think the ‘mighty one’ would be Alec,” I added, meeting my hero’s deep blue eyes once again.

  “Well, this explains a lot,” he muttered darkly, apparently flashing back to when Hades had tortured him only the night before and when Eros had confronted us a few days earlier.

  Then the Oracle cleared her throat and all eyes turned toward her for the second time as she whispered, “And the man who killed you—Jerome, if I’m not mistaken—was one of Alec’s old acquaintances. He was loyal, just following you to protect you, I think. Unfortunately, he did his job too well.”

  Staying quiet, Alec did not look too concerned over the death of Jerome; his sad eyes were focused solely on me, one of few he was really worried about.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered in distress to everyone in the room, “but telling you all about the second part of the prophecy would have had no benefits. I—I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  Depressed silence ensued, and I felt a few hot tears run down my face, if only because I was leaving Alec to fix the corrupted Knowing society and the chaos that would rage on after we died—things someone should never have to face by oneself, things we should have been able to fix while we had the chance. In truth, he wouldn’t have to face them completely alone, but I knew he would want to.

  It was the very first time I had cried, really cried, since I was little, which, of course, caused me to think of my human family. Sighing, I let go of Alec’s hand for a moment and pulled out the crinkled paper from my jacket pocket. “Alec, I want you to post this letter on the DANGER sign outside the forest and make sure someone finds it. Can you do that for me?”

  Alec gulped as he took the letter from my shaking hands, finally realizing why I had hidden it from him earlier. “Th—this is a suicide letter, isn’t it?” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.

  I wiped my eyes. “Well, technically it’s not suicide, but yes. I figured that the people in town deserve to know something about what happened to us.”

  I watched him hesitate for only a heartbeat before stuffing the letter into his jeans pocket, his woeful eyes meeting mine for less than a second, but it was plenty long enough to make my heart race. He left my side for just a minute in order to bring a few other gods some cool water and wet cloths for their foreheads to try to control their rapidly rising fevers—a result from both fighting in the rain for long hours on end and our internal organs finally beginning to fail us.

  All of a sudden, the tent was once again filled up with a bright light.

  When we had all regained our vision, our generation’s Aphrodite was dust. Then Ares, flashing out with a frustrated war cry, was instantly followed by Dionysus and Hephaestus. Feeling as if some other vital organ had stopped working inside of each one of our bodies, we remaining gods let out a collective gasp. I couldn’t breathe, let alone shout out, as I helplessly watched sweet Hestia’s soul rise up out of her ashes in another flash.

  Alec, meanwhile, raced around like a madman, unsuccessfully trying to deter the deaths of each one of us, and our old friend Pan crumbled to dust in his arms. Everything was happening so fast. Unfortunately, I had yet to see a god’s spirit make it safely out of the tent and soar on to inhabit another baby human somewhere else in the world. In other words, their spirits, like Hades’s, were still among us in the tent, in a different body, and they probably weren’t going to leave.

  “A—Alec,” I was just barely able
to gasp, and my little hero whirled around, bits of Pan’s gray ashes still slipping through his fingers, panic in his wild eyes. I couldn’t speak any more words as my head exploded with searing pain and my stomach twisted in knots, making me feel as if my whole body might burst into flames at any second.

  But simultaneously, Persephone and Demeter began having the same issues on the other side of the tent and they too cried out to Alec for help. Not knowing which way to turn because he knew he couldn’t save all of us, he froze up like a lost puppy, and a tear leaked from one eye as the other bedridden gods looked on powerlessly. “Alec, go to her,” Persephone finally whispered, a pained smile on her face and love in her soft, brown eyes.

  Then she grabbed her ailing mother’s hand and their bodies were reduced to ashes.

  Sniffling, Alec raced to my side and gripped my hand once again. “Hang on, Athena,” he pleaded and gently kissed my forehead before slipping outside for a moment.

  As my mind continued to race at full speed, I turned my head to face the Oracle and beckoned for her to come closer. Sensing that what I was about to say was important, she scrambled over to me immediately and put her head near my quivering lips. “Alec. When I look at him, I see . . .” I tried to whisper my confession to her, but my voice trailed off when I started to cough up golden blood with so much force that I was sure my ribs were cracking.

  “Yourself?” the Oracle guessed, her eyes boring knowingly into mine.

  I nodded. “Yes, and the other gods. It worries me for more than one reason.”

  “As it should.”

  “He will never be happy. A long time will pass before his work fixing the Knowing is done and our world can regulate itself again.”

  The Oracle smiled. “Hearing that from you, I’m not sure if it’s an understatement or an exaggeration. But I know. I promise to keep an eye on him for you.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered to her, closing my eyes and sighing. I felt strangely at peace now, but I wished the pain would go away.

  When Alec returned mere seconds later, my leather journal, which would later become this book, was in his rough hands. I forced myself to ignore the fact that Cole’s dried blood was still smeared over them. Apparently on a mission, Alec swiftly opened the journal, placed it in my lap, held out a pen for me, then told me hoarsely, “You have to finish this. It’s what you wanted.”

  Still incapable of transforming my thoughts into coherent speech, I simply nodded and took the pen from Alec’s warm, blood-covered hands. That was when I finished this book, and these are the last words I shall ever write:

  As I watch my closest friends and fellow gods vaporize around me, I think about the prophecy one last time. Before the war, I constantly worried about when and how we would die; I was not afraid of death or the pain that would come with it, but I worried about the timing most of all. What would happen to the human families of the gods? What if our deaths caused even more terrible things to happen?

  But lying on my deathbed, I just worry that I haven’t prepared enough for our passing. Maybe I should have left something besides a letter for the citizens of the Woods, and maybe I should have made certain that every Knowing member knew all of the gods would die at once. My biggest regret, however, is that maybe I should have confided in someone else about the entire prophecy, rather than take sole responsibility for their lives. But I see that it didn’t matter anymore, and it probably never really mattered because the ending would have been the same either way. Our fates were sealed immediately with the revealing of the prophecy, and nothing could have stopped our deaths from happening at one time or another.

  Now, if you are actually reading this, you might be wondering how on earth I knew that my generation of gods was the “mighty one” referred to in the prophecy. Well, it was obvious to me for many reasons, the first being that this ending made the most sense. Honestly, how much longer could we have kept our powers and true identities as gods a secret from the tight-knit families in our tiny town? As I mentioned briefly, many of the other gods’ human parents (besides those of the Monster Watch) were starting to be suspicious of how their children seemed to disappear almost every day and why they always came back with scars. In short, lies about going to the mall in Pine Grove were no longer believable.

  And what were we all supposed to do when we were older? Outside of our hometown, it would have been awfully hard to get normal jobs and try to stick together at the same time and, going off of my argument above, we definitely couldn’t stay in the Woods for much longer. I suppose we could have fled to the Knowing base camp, but I am positive that none of us would have been able to stand the nonstop worship from the people there for very long. We would become wanderers then, though even a seemingly simple group of good-looking people would be closely watched by others.

  This is one of the many troubles with being a god: you’re always going to be noticed, but you can’t just hide away because somebody somewhere will find you eventually, whether it happens by accident or due to a prophecy, like what happened with Alec. Plus, you’re always going to have things to do and people to care for, no matter how much you hate your job or would rather be doing something else. Ignorance causes more problems than it’s worth. Perhaps my generation of gods, the Forest Gods, as the Knowing called us, figured this out too late and should have tried to establish contact with Hades years earlier. Or perhaps, deep down inside ourselves, we just liked to cause problems. After all, problems need attention and so do gods. I told Alec and Cole that it is always better to die a hero than a monster, but I should have followed my own advice a little more closely all along and tried harder to prevent the war in the first place; causing problems is not in the least bit heroic.

  Secondly (and I promise I’m not trying to be snobby or anything), the gods were probably the only ones worthy of dying in the prophecy, besides the man who would ultimately kill us. In Alec, we would have lost a great fighter and the only person I ever loved as more than a friend or family member, but, theoretically, his death would not have had a huge effect on anything, except for causing sadness and pain amongst the gods, his only friends. And apart from Alec, there weren’t many other significant people in our lives who could be even remotely considered as having to do with the prophecy.

  Therefore, the whole prophecy was about us. It always was, and I knew that. I knew what was coming, but that didn’t mean I was completely prepared. Sadly, it took me six years to realize that accepting all of our fates alone might not have been the fairest reaction to the prophecy. Would it have been better to tell the others and probably cause the war to start sooner and last longer? Would it have been better to suffer together than alone? There are no right answers. Possibly, the rest of the gods and I could have stayed in the forest for years and years without even bothering to come out, trapped in a constant loop of wars against Hades and his giant army, wars fought over disagreements that would never be completely settled until we were all dead anyway. Possibly, you could say that I sacrificed all of the gods’ lives sooner than was absolutely necessary. It was about time for our remarkable reign over the forest (and the rest of the world, I supposed) to come to an end.

  Now, I would love to say that I deserve more time in this world, but I don’t. Overall, I had a fulfilling life; I did all I needed to do and had everything I ever wanted or required, except for more time with Alec. One summer was simply not enough, but perhaps he can read this story over and over again to remind himself that he actually was happy once, that the Fates aren’t totally merciless.

  All of this reflection brings me to the original reason I wrote this book, something you should understand. The truth is, most people worship gods for two reasons: hope and blame. The wisest people, however, view gods as examples and know that they too have the ability to be better than the gods, at least in character. After reading this book, I hope you all can learn from my tips and from the mistakes made, whether you believe in the Greek myths or not. I always thought G. K. Chesterton said it
best: “Fairy tales are more than true—not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.”

  Who knows? Maybe one of you out there will read this book and say, “Hey, these kids and their powers remind me of my friends and me.” Well, congratulations; you and your friends may be members of the next generation of Greek gods. If so, my final piece of advice to you is this: don’t get too excited, for being a god takes a lot of work and is not as fun as it seems. Please, remember the Hades of my generation, whose hunger for power caused a horrific war. Remember me and how a single choice ensured all of our downfalls. You probably wouldn’t want to meet the same “tragic fate” so early on in your own lives.

  At last, here is where I put down my pen permanently, for the pain crushing my chest suddenly becomes too much to bear and my hands shake uncontrollably. But thank you for reading.

  Chapter 13

  CONCLUSIONS

  By Alec

  Athena asked me to write down what happened next, so I did. Here it is: She handed her worn, leather journal back to me, hands shaking violently. That defeated look in her pretty gray eyes . . . it killed me. Another tear leaked out of my eye because I really didn’t want her (or any of the others) to die, and I knew she didn’t want to either. The gods, my friends, were all I ever wanted and all I ever needed. How was I supposed to go on living without them?

  “D—don’t cry, Alec,” Athena stuttered in Greek, choking on her own words. But she started to cry with me again, so I did my best to stop myself, seeing that it was upsetting her.

  Sighing, I set the journal down on the ground and wiped my eyes with my bloody hands. “But I love you. You can’t leave now, babe. I only got to kiss you once,” I said in a shaky but lighter voice, hoping to cheer her up.