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Somewhere in Milan, Italy, I was born to Samson Evergrace, my father who was part Italian and part Mexican. His real surname was Adventine but he changed it when we moved to US. He was an acclaimed conductor in an orchestra. My mother? Lost. Or so they said. Getting to that topic makes me feel as if my whole life was a lie. How did I know it was? It's quite a long story to tell.
I had an annoying twin brother, who always tries to make my life a complete misery. But of course, I never made him win over his puny guise. Whenever we fought, it always leads to chaos. Especially in school, I had enough troubles in my grades when I was diagnosed with ADHD (yeah, I'm a troubled kid, you could say that) and he made it even worst. Dad couldn't take it anymore, not after the 'Mom incident'. He ran out of school choices in Italy so we moved to the US when we were five. To be more specific, in Mexico.
Money slowly faded away from Dad's grasp when he gradually became unstable and unpredictable at most. He usually comes back home late in the night, drunk. And this had affected his career first as being a conductor in his orchestra. His liver finally gave up when we were eight and that was when our lives had their turning point. We were left orphaned to our grandmother in Ohio and Dad had left us with strict rules to follow. Early curfews, no reading of myths, and so on that nearly took away our freedom to do the things we love. But one perk is that we get to inherit anything that belongs to our father. For me, I got his flute and his music book filled with his notes written in a weird sort of way and musical notes, too advanced for me to be able to follow. I grew exhausted trying to read his notes and figure out what it says but I gave up and never again opened his music book.
As we stayed at grandma's, she tried to lift our spirits by telling us various stories of different genres. Whether it would be of epics, legends, fairytales, folklores and myths that led me to grow fond of stories and another reason for that is to clear out the air before bedtime, the time whenever my brother and I would love to strangle each other. As for the flute, well, it had always been with me, like a part of me as I grow. Whenever I'd puff out a few tunes, I feel at peace, my worries, washed away by the tides of musical rhythm. When I was thirteen, I had the sudden urge to open Dad's music book again. This time, I was already a 'prodigy' at playing the flute as they say. So I played his music and, as if magic, the weird handwriting written in Dad's book glowed, the lights turned off and rearranged themselves to form words I can understand. And that was the moment I had regretted opening his book again.
Afraid, I resort to grandma and my brother. After I told them what I knew, silence became the barrier between our voices. We fixed our eyes on grandma as if she knew something we didn't. Her stories were a mistake. And they were slowly coming alive from her words. We got attacked by a monster at that time and we didn't have the exact weapons to defeat it. Our house were trashed and in ruins when grandma's satyr friend arrived to the rescue and gave us weapons I wouldn't want to use if the situation wasn't like this. In my hands was a bow and arrow I am quite adept at (since I asked Dad once that I want to know how to shoot with arrows so he got me into Archery Class), the satyr kept on calling Celestial Bronze. My brother had a spear and a shield. The satyr said he got the gifts from Pandia a few days back when she knew that soon we will get attacked by monsters.
The three of us fought the monster until it disintegrated into a pile of dust. It was a crucial experience that nearly killed us cold-heartedly. We never knew how to fight that creature. But at least, I'm thankful I'm still on my feet.
Before we left for this Camp Half Blood they say, grandma told us a painful story---probably the last we would ever hear from her. She told us she knew we were 'demigods' as she watched us grow since his son, was in fact, a son of Apollo. It would explain why he's a genius in music. She also said that Dad met Mom in the studio as he played music that rippled a magical effect to the spectators since his flute---the flute I now inherit---was given as a gift from Apollo. It was love at first sight and Dad kept on composing music with Mom as his inspiration. When she left or should we say, 'disappeared into the horizon', he was heartbroken of course. And he grew unstable ever since. He raised us with love and care, all that he could ever muster for us almost overprotective. But deep inside, he was pained as if we were a piece of her. And the painful truth was that he knew Mom was a Greek goddess yet they chose to have children with each other out of love. And he was prepared for every risks. Which would explain why he was really harsh and overprotective with us because he knew we were demigods.
She also inserted, after wiping tears from her eyes, an explanation for what we are. That we are demigods like the ones in Greek myths. Camp, the dangers that awaits us, that the monster that attacked us earlier wouldn't be the first and the last monster we would ever encounter. So, without further ado, we set out for camp. Along the way, we encountered many monster attacks that slowed our progress down. We were often bruised, scratched, bleeding and nearly dead if it wasn't for the satyr's healing abilities and the ambrosia and nectar he packed for us. We wouldn't be able to survive to reach camp if it wasn't for our mother who gave us gifts that could be useful on our journey as demigods through the satyr. I had a sword and a necklace shield. My brother had a shield too and each of us were given a falcon.
When we were almost to camp, stupid Stymphalian birds attacked us. It was, like any other attacks, hard to beat and we were almost at the brink of death. But in the end, we managed to shoo them off with the noise we made and reached camp bloody, pecked, messy and injured. And I was 14. When I awoke in the infirmary, I was claimed by my mother. As for my brother, he recovered faster than me and they say he's out somewhere on the strawberry fields.
After a while, he decided to leave camp unexpectedly and the reason? I'm not sure. He told me to come with him but I refused. So he stayed overnight but when I was asleep, he left me. The nerve. He never changed.
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