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Song: PVRIS - Half

~one foot in the grave, one foot on the ground.~

I was nervous, no terrified actually.
During my lonely walk I had a lot of time to think. Specifically about the things that I've missed.

I missed my parents, and the way it used to be normal. Well, almost normal. I tried not to show envy at anyone who had family, that anyone being Aurora who I saw earlier talk lovingly with her mother and father. They showed so much care for each other, so much belonging. It was extremely hard not to wish for something like that for myself.

But off course, other than missing my old life, I also missed my supernatural friends. I used to be in so much despise of the paranormal world. Maybe because it seemed foreign to me. But now I was considering those strange and awfully scary changes better than being completely alone.

Sooner than later I found myself pass the same tree at least five times. Don't get me wrong. I have never left the path. This forest wasn't just any forest.

Just at the thought of this itself I felt eyes pry at the back of my head.
I turned quickly my eyes scanning suspiciously the area. Something hid themselves in those dark woods. I swear I heard something close to chewing coming right from there.

"Come out, you chewing culprit! Before I make you!" I yelled my voice echoing into the surrounding air. There was definitely something in the bushes because suddenly they shuffled as if in complete utter possession.

I reached into my pocket, grasping around the solid adamant which slightly brought reassurance into my senses. Creatures seemed to fear it more than the Gods themselves so I would put it to use.

"Noom-nam." It came from the leaves, shaking them slightly.

What I didn't expect to find is a bird leaping into the sky with a loud tweet. I stared after it confused wondering how in the world could a small bird produce such a pig-like sound.
Until the chewing picked up again.

"Noom-nam." It was suddenly next to my ear.

"Hey! Show yourself! Or I'll shove a stick up your throat so you won't able to chew this loud again!" Suddenly a man with a very round, plumpy figure materialised from thin air and stared at me agape with a piece of chocolate cake in his hand.

"Ah..hah...hah." He looked at me weirdly as if he wasn't sure whether I was seeing him. Maybe, he didn't want me to see him, but I clearly did.

"Wait....you..you can see me?" I met his gaze with an arched brow and nodded. The red haired dude gave me a side looped nervous grin before launching into runaway.

I ran hot on his heels.

Seriously, he was wearing heels!

Even though his shoes restricted the pace at which he could accelerate his speed to and he was becoming breathless with the aid of the large stomach hanging from under his blue shirt. However, none of these factors made him completely stop.

It was the cake that flew from his hand that made him gasp with the most dramatic sigh in the world.

He yelped even louder when the dirty ground met the sweet baked desert.
His eyes swarmed to mine, and I narrowed my eyes to slits.

"You can chase me with a deadly stone. You can make me break a sweat in this sadistic exercise. But no one. I repeat." The seriousness in his tone could not be mistaken.

"NO ONE. Drops my cake to the floor and expects to get away with this..this CRIME!" He exclaimed with a hurt expression.

"Maybe if you weren't as clumsy?" I offered to which the male only scoffed and raised his chin in a very prideful manner. There was something different about him, something I couldn't place my finger on.

"You don't get to pin this crime on me!" The male extolled with crossed arms over his chest. He was puffing with spilling annoyance at pretty much anything that I've said - it seemed to only get him more riled up.

"But you were the one to drop it!" I retracted back slightly when the male took a painful look at the crumbled piece of muddy chocolate cake still laying on the ground.

"Because you were chasing me!" He then circled the piece as if he wasn't about to give up on the cake just yet. That's loyalty right there.

"Who even are you?" At my question his ears perked up, then his light blue eyes lifted to mine. He stared at me for a moment before uttering under his breath.

"Momus."

"A mom?" The male gawked with so much offense I was almost sent blushing from embarrassment.

"Mom-us. Get it right!" He took a daring step forwards, somehow forgetting the cake.

"Well Momus, if you weren't chewing so loudly in my ear then you wouldn't lose your cake." Now he spit to the ground with distaste.

"Hey don't blame me!" He yelled, tapping his foot angrily at the cold floor bed.

"Why not?" I raised my hands to the sides, shrugging my shoulders in misconception.

"Because I'm the God of Blame! I put blame on others! And... in my defense, I was curious!" His saliva was dripping from his mouth by now. Momus was fighting the urge to leash out on me as if I was the person to take away his sweet dessert.

"Curiousity killed the cat, remember?"
His eyes blistered a curious purple glint that I have not see before.

"No, not at all. Curiousity killed the one who stole the cake!" He exclaimed crossing his alarmingly chunky arms over his curved chest.

"You stole the cake..?" My arched eyebrow ended up in his twitching irritably.

"You blaming me again!? How spiteful of you! I got things to do!" He launched into a runway once again but I stood in his path.

"Wait! Can you help me?" His eyes flickered with purple again, Momus was so much of a cat than he let himself think.

"With what?" Momus asked curiously.

"I need to get to the finish line, can you show me the way?" His eyes followed the path behind me and he tapped his chin for a few good seconds before he actually set his eyes onto mine. I needed his help, at this point I was lost, too far from the original path.

"What makes you think I know the way to it?" I nudged my left shoulder, as if he didn't just make it that obvious to me.

"Where else would you get the cake from? The squirrels?" He looked at me strangely before sighing tiredly.

"I mean..I could..but.." The hesitance in his tone could strangle a soul, honestly.

"But what?" I grew frustrated. I had no spare time on my hands for his hesitant replies.

"I was instructed to..."
He swiped his gaze across my frame suspiciously.

"What is your name?" There was this essence in Momus. I don't know what exactly like, but it was so..strange. Almost rotten, like the dead.

"Why would you need it?" His eyes rolled the full 360 degrees, I kid you not.

"Because." With that kind of answer, he was bound to get a no better reply.

"Oh well, if it's because...then my name's Aurora." I bit my lip, hoping it would pass, I couldn't let my lies slip now.

"Really?" His eyes danced across my figure for a thousandth time.

"Yes?" I could only count on the fact that he didn't know who Aurora was or what she looked like.

"You don't look much like the sun..." I could only shrug my shoulders impassively.

"I have blonde hair?" His face creased as the God laughed loudly in my face. If the God knew about the fake information I was providing, he didn't dare to let that come through.

"I see past glamour, you dumbass." Now it was my turn to display a confused front. His vibrant purple gemstone eyes sparkled in the light as his eyes carved out the lines in my face, inspecting every inch of my exposed body like a painting at an art gallery.

"This isn't glamour!" I took a step forward making the God of Blame stagger backwards into a thick oak tree. I could be wrong, but he seemed rather intimidated by my staggered movements, and sharp turns. If I didn't know better, I would think, Momus was pretty much scared of me.

"Oh yes it is. You can't fool a King of Glam!" He intoned settling his fingers into tight fists. Oh someone got angry!

"Glam and glamour are two different things.." The deity seemed to be in a bigger confrontation now, the light purple eyes turned a shade darker, almost the shade of the pitch dark sky with the littered stars giving it a soft radiant appearance.

"Did I tell you to speak?!" Momus cried, pushing against the large plantation behind him, and stalking towards me like an opponent.

"Why don't you show me the exit and I promise to keep my mouth shut about the cake." I offered resulting in the deity to halt any movement. I'm sure for a moment he even stopped breathing.

"You got yourself a deal." He practically spat in dismay, and gestured towards the left of the path to which I followed him close by.

***

"Are you sure this is the way?" I asked suspiciously, trailing after the God. It seemed like hours has passed with me walking behind Momus like a lost puppy. Even better, the God refused to respond to anything I proposed.

"Ya." His monotone admittance echoed into the forest, sending some of the birds flying into the skies.

"Shouldn't we see the Olympian castle by now?" I muttered quietly, shoulders sinking in unwanted defeat. The closer I paid attention to the forest, the more I realised nothing about this looking comforting. You know that feeling you receive when you are just a metre from reaching the finale? Yeah, I certaintly failed to encounter that emotion. Tension cursed through my body like a plague, or even a fatigue in my tired muscles. It was scarily dreadful how easily I was to trust a deity I had no clue about. My knowledge of Gods went so far, but I could tell that the strange attire that Momus obtained was just to mislead your perception of him. Because Momus was anything but unicorns and rainbows. He was indeed one ticking glitter bomb.

"Ya." Momus chirped for a thousandth time.

"How long before we arrive?" I pointed my vision from the suspicious trees and squared my expression into hardness, a frown, that failed to even gain his attention.

"Y-" I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and swing him close to me.

"Answer. Me." I demanded through gritted teeth, wrinkling the strangely pastel blue shirt between my fingers.

"Easy there." He remained stoic in one position, as if moving away could hurt him more than right here in my grasp. "I know the way, I'm the shepherd here, and you're the sheep." He mumbled with a slight fear lacing his eyes when his eyes landed on something behind me. I had the very nerve to turn around, to discover nothing but the bushes.

"What do you keep looking over you shoulder every damn second for?" I quivered prying my hands of the God, who inhaled loudly and straightened his shirt - which by the way, did not even shrivel up with wrinkles. I wonder what it was made up of.

"Nothing." Yes, because you clearly look for nothing when you're near damn pissing your pants. Still I remained silent, but this time clenched the adamant tighter in my grip, so hard that I felt its practically non-existent pricks dig into the surface of primary barrier.

Momus looked over his shoulder. Again.

"I will shove this stupid rock so high up your ass if you don't -" I didn't even need to show him the godly stone to see him yelping in an extreme high pitch and running off into the trees.

"That's what I thought! Hey - wait, come back!" I placed my hands at my hips and squeezed out an exasperated sign. I even shook my head for a split moment before uttering a scream.

"Oh shut it!" I heard flat into my ear, a blade pressing into the side of neck. Then the pressure subsided before fully disappearing. I averted my gaze to find Melinoe giving me a sharp glare. Behind her stood Dysnomia with a limping Athena. A smile blistered on my face at the sight of the girls.

"How did you find me?" Melinoe shrugged impassively, and turned towards the direction they came from.

"Just your luck, I guess." She mumbled, returning the dagger in her accurate grasp back into its shovel, strapping it tightly against her side.

"I thought you said you want to help her?" I hear Dysnomia say quizzically, causing the Goddess with raven hair to lock her jaw in place and shift her piercing stare to me.

"I never remember saying that." Melinoe gloated glancing away from the small grin that laced on my lips. And here I thought the scary deity, daughter of Persephone did not have compassion in her.

"MOMUS YOU CAN COME OUT NOW!" The dark Goddess proposed at the tall shrubs that seemed to shiver at the sound of Melinoe's voice. Off course, the God of Blame wasted no time, flying from the depths of the bushes as if those hotly set him on fire.

"Yes, I'm here, my Lady of Madness!" He was at her knees in less than a second, a rather petrifying atmosphere fuelled the air, as if somewhere out there was a stack of dynamite sprayed with drops of benzene.

"Who told you to lead the girl astray?" She quivered stuffing the her pale hands into the side pockets of her trousers. That brought even greater tension upon the God's face. The fact that she exposed his motives seemed to sicken the deity; his face bruised with green, face biting back a gag reflex.

"She...she said..I'd be free if I..." Momus trailed off, whilst Melinoe approached him stiffly.

"Who?" You see, the female Goddess didn't even yell or raise her tone of voice. What she did was much more terrifying. Her eyes filled with blackness, reminding me so much of the pitch black eyeballs of a vampyr. Her neck erupted with black veins - but I was more so positive on the fact that her blood turned black.

Momus suppressed a fearful yelp as his eyes turned a darker shade of purple. His hands went still, just like his body. Whatever Melinoe did to him caused the poor man to stop trembling altogether and he lifted his eyes to meet hers in one single moment.

"Hera." The warm toned God announced.

Then as if an invisible force ceased, releasing its firm hold on the deity. Momus fell onto his knees, his head bowed slightly in almost defeat. Melinoe reached down and grabbed his cheek, lifting his chin up to form eye-contact.

"You served your purpose. You shall be free." For my own and likely to others terror, the girl with pitch black strands pulled out the same knife she has threatened me with and plunged it deeply into the heart socket of the God before us. The dark purple eyes expanded, they travelled from Melinoe to me and a whisper left his mouth.

"Finally." He collapsed on the same spot, the girl wiped her dagger onto the side of her sleeve and stuffed the sharp object back into its holder. I couldn't stop watching the peaceful smile that was plastered on the corpse of the God that laid dead on the ground.

"W-why?" I did not know I was shaking until Athena touched my shoulder, and I looked over at her, seeing a fairly blurry version of her. Melinoe exhaled slowly in my peripheral vision.

"Momus was instructed to mislead you to the finish line, you'd be stuck here for millennials should we have not arrived." I could fail to register the weak thought of mystery from the girl. There was seriously something not right with her, something absolutely not right.

"Don't look at me like that." Melinoe scoffed crossing her arms over her chest.

"You just killed a person, do you want me to smile about it?!" Athena was quickly to steal my attention before I could glare holes inside the Melinoe's head.

"Momus is a spirit of Blame. He was trapped for many hundreds of years in that vessel, by killing the solid form his soul was able to run from the Enhanced Forest." I took a stupendous look around and found myself frowning.

"Is that where we are? The Enhanced forest?" Athena nodded with a sour expression before she released her from the Goddess beside her and took a limping step towards me.

"We need a plan, now or others would be entering the next round without us." I glanced over at sulking Melinoe who was tapping her foot aggressively onto floor-bed.

"Well the map is gone! We don't know what part of this cursed we're in, and wait it gets better...I'M STARVING!" The two Goddesses were back to bickering at each other, throwing snarky comments back and forth, as if competing who was the more skilled one at naming the other.

"What if..." Dysnomia suddenly blurted. "What if...we don't play by the rules?" Athena and Melinoe twisted their necks towards our team member and then glanced at me and then at each other.

"Dysnomia..." Athena smiled proudly, and then hugged her tightly.

"Am I missing something?" As if I was the odd sheep in the group, I felt uneasiness spread through me when even Melinoe smothered a wicked grin onto her face.

"No Artemis. You have everything we need." They all stepped forward, encircling me as if I was their prey, I could only hope their intentions were good ones.

"Retrieve the adamant." I pulled the stone from my pocket and looked at them once again. The appearance of the magical rock seemed to be the reason for their discomfort; Dysnomia turned vainly pale, as if she was about to vomit.

"This stone can lead us to the Olympian Tower, if it lets you guide us." Athena jumped back slightly as the stone flickered with some sort of blue light. For a split second the stone vibrated against my skin, sending millions of shivers down my spine. It was purring. The. Stone. Was. Purring.

Show us the way. Please.

I pledged inside my head staring at the priceless object in my hand. Then my vision doubled, I saw two of everything, my palm was hot, blood dripped sinking into the earth. Shaking my head I focused onto the warm feeling inside my chest that expanded.

"It won't help us." Melinoe grunted, glancing away in disappointment.

I squinted my eyes at the stone once again.

Please! I need to avenge Selene's death!

Suddenly a spark radiated from the stone, it blinded all of us momentarily but then dimmed.

Follow them.

It was all in my head, it had to be. Shock spread through my body at the meaningful sight of the small but very clearly seen dots of light hanging in the clear air.

"Do you guys see that?" I asked but the Goddesses looked about the area, confusingly almost.

"See what?" Dysnomia quivered, I smiled to myself a little and clenched the stone protectively closer to my chest.

Thank you.

"ALRIGHT COME ON! WE'RE LEAVING THIS CURSED FOREST ONCE AND FOR ALL!" I dashed into a sprint with my team, including the adamant off course that laid securely in my pocket.

After about twenty minutes Athena turned to us, breathing strongly in and out. "The skies, they're turning red." She pointed upwards and my eyes lifted to watch as the invisible ceiling stained itself in bright crimson fades. "We are close by."

"But not close enough." I heard from my left. Hera and her team were blocking our pathway. I actually managed to meet Aurora's gaze, which she instantly drew away.
The females were covered in scratches and wounds that were much more severe compared to our own. But then we'd lost Tyche, but their number was greater.

Athena stood in front of us, her expression could not be mistaken. The girl was pissed off that's for sure.

She looked over at us and smiled. Smiled!

"I'll gain you a few minutes, go." She declared and fished out a thin yet long sword. She curled her fingers around its base and pointed it in offense, ready to strike.

"Athena-" The Goddess threw me a glance and cocked her head to the side.

"Go. You need this." I nodded my head, a thank you to which Hera chuckled and daringly stepped forward.

"You against the five of us? Seems like your failure is inevitable." She snarled lifted her hands in the air, a sick yellow glow radiating from the tips of her fingers.

"GO!" Athena yelled, ignoring the consistent giggles from our opposed team.

I wordlessly made a run for it, Dysnomia and Melinoe hot on my tail. I admired the courage and bravery of Athena, hoping to maybe one day reach as high as hers potential.

We broke through the gates, which were laced with blue ribbon. Don't even ask me why..I wouldn't know the answer to that.

"And the second place is taken by Artemis, followed by Dysnomia and Melinoe!" One of the individuals dressed in white satin clothes announced as the three of us breathed out unevenly.

Wait..second?

I brushed my sweaty hands onto my knees and looked up meeting pleased eyes of Hera.

She took the first place?

When did she have time?

"Now it's time for our next round, we have ten deities ready to spar!" Gaia yelled out pleasingly and glided forwards from the balcony.

"Actually. I'd like to induce one more task." I heard a dark voice boom from my left. I turned my head to see Hades with crossed arms staring holes right inside my skull.

"Sure child, if you must." Gaia muttered fairly perplexed. I think everyone was.

"Oh yes, I must." Hades was so close to growling, he clenched the edges of his cloak for support.

"I call upon the chosen ones! Show yourselves!" There was a brief silence as seven dressed in what looked like ancient clothing stepped from nothing but thin air.

I watched familiar and both unfamiliar faces to me surround the last contestants remaining.

"Pride." Nemesis didn't look up from her toes as she approached to stand next to us.

"Greed." It was probably one of the only faces I did not recognize, in addition to Gluttony who was a male dressed in bright colours.

"Sloth." I recognized Hynos.

"Sorrow." Borias had a harsh gaze on his face.

"Wrath." Lyssa was the only one glaring right at me. Her lips curled into a snarl.

"Lust." The sixth sin, Eros the skeleton. He had a massive dagger strapped to his side which let me tell you did not look friendly.

"Envy." Hades' voice was toxic, holding no mercy as an individual walked forward.

It barely left my lips, quieter than a cry for help.

"Ethan."

A/N: it honestly feels like it's been years guys....
But I hope I made up with this super long chapter! Hehe.
I'm going to try to finish this story as soon as I can, we're very close VERY.

Please leave a comment and a vote if you'd like me to update more often!

Thank you so much for 10k reads and wow 80k reads on the first book! Ily all!

Note: unedited!

em

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