|
Emily Fletcher was a waitress at a coast-side bar. Eros, in one of his many gaunts to the mortal world, visited this bar, mainly because it was the location of many one-night stands and mistakes in love. Emily was instantly smitten, but seemed curious about the new stranger who she had never seen before. She began to probe him with questions, and he eagerly reciprocated with a complete dating profile and a copious amount of flirting. However, halfway through his drink, he excused himself and went out onto the beach to make an iris-call beneath the pier, away from prying mortal eyes. After the call was finished, he then went back into the bar and resumed drinking. Unfortunately for him, Emily was a clear-sighted mortal and she had seen the entire affair. When Eros had finished his drink and was ready to return to Olympus, Emily cornered him behind the bar and questioned him on the iris-message and his origin. Eros initially tried to palm her off but Emily was having none of it. Her determination for answers intrigued Eros and he took the risk of explaining who he was to her. He told her about the existence of gods and his own identity, going so far as to also divulge knowledge of his other kids, their presence at Camp Half-Blood and its location. Emily was accepting of this; she had never had a strong belief in any particular religion and so had no conflicting beliefs. The truth behind Eros merely made him more appealing to her, which was hard to do, and she kissed him. He reciprocated and they ended up having sex behind the building. Not exactly glamorous, but neither party minded. They were simply two lovers caught in the heat of the moment. After the deed was done, Eros stayed with Emily for one evening. In this evening, she grilled him again and wrote down all of the information that he gave her, intrigued. After they spent a heated night together, Eros left Emily's apartment and vanished, never to return.
Emiily gave birth to Sam nine months later after a relatively peaceful pregnancy. She had accepted that Eros had godly duties to attend to. She accepted that she was a single mother and she provided Sam with a regular life, as far removed from his demigod heritage as possible. She explained to him that his father had died in a boating accident when she was pregnant with him. This resulted in Sam developing thalassophoia, the fear of the ocean, which often made him kick up a fuss whenever anything regarded the beach or his mother's workplace. Add this to his natural dyslexia and ADHD and this made Sam a troublemaker growing up. He would never pay attention in school and was much more interested in playing football with his friends. Any attempt to make him pay attention would be met with either hostility or cockiness. This would only worsen as he entered his teenage years, and discovered relationships. He would often forgo listening in class in favour of flirting with his classmates. It was his way of coping with his 'illnesses' and his father's 'death'. By the age of 13, he had had 3 girlfriends and 1 boyfriend (he was experimenting) along with several flunked classes. His school wanted rid of him, and the next event in his life didn't change their mind.
Sam was in an after school detention for vandalising the school gates (in an attempt to impress a girl). The teacher supervising it had left the room for a few moments. In was then that Sam heard a scrabbling sound at the window. He went to investigate it and, just as he reached the window, a celestial bronze spear smashed it, missing his head by millimetres. Sam was knocked to the ground when he saw the draconae climb through the window and advance slowly toowards him. He got up quickly and ran from the creature, jumping through the broken window and running, draconae in pursuit. It wasn't long before Sam had neared the bar where his mum worked. He was running for his life but nobody on the coast seemed to notice the snake-legged man pursuing him. He made it to the pier but realised that he was quickly running out of space to run. When he had reached the end of the pier, he knew that the only way to advance was to jump into the ocean. It was at this point though that he became paralysed with fear. He always saw the sea as certain death due to what Emily had told him. While he was stood there deliberating the terror of the ocean, the draconae had managed to catch up with him. It shoved Sam with the side of the spear, but Sam was ready. He grabbed the spear and jumped backwards, pulling the both of them off the pier and into the ocean. The draconae landed first and released its grip on the spear. Sam made a hard impact with the water but wasn't too damaged. The draconae swam at Sam, in an effort to reclaim the spear, but Sam was quick. He impaled the creature with its own spear and it melted into dust. Then, as quickly as he could, Sam exited the water, soaking wet and stained with ichor, and ran to his mum's bar. Upon seeing the state of him, she took a break and Sam told her about the monster attack. It was at this point that she filled him in on his godly parentage. They decided to try to continue life as normal, hoping that the attack was a one-off.
Sam kept the spear and spent the next year learning how to fight with it. Life had continued as normal for him, if you ignore the fine for vandalism that he had been charged with in wake of the school break-in. It was hard to explain why you return to your detention with a broken window and a dripping wet uniform. Upon learning about his father's existence, Sam had reduced his thalassophobia to a sense of unease. He still continued pursuing meaningless relationships though.It had become Sam's way of coping with his problems and he found that being the son of the god of love gave him renewed confidence. His academic performance hadn't improved either. It took Emily pleading with the head of the school to save Sam from expulsion. Which made it a good thing that Sam wasn't at school for his second attack. When he was 14, he was in a holiday park with his mum. It wasn't much of a holiday, but Emily had set herself a budget, saving up to move to New York, so that Sam could go to Camp Half-Blood. It was a memorable holiday for different reasons though. He had gone out to a shop in a nearby town to get some supplies. He was walking back home, cutting through a farmer's field in heavy rain, when he heard a sizzling sound drawing closer. He turned around to see a flaming horse riding towards him. He pulled out his spear, which he found out was retractable a few months back, and dodged out of the way. The horse charged again, but Sam sidestepped it and impaled it through the chest area, reducing it to dust. Sam retracted his spear again, which sizzled in the rain as it cooled down, and picked up the shopping, before heading back to his mother. Once she heard about what happened, they both agreed that they would give it one more chance and, if another monster attacked, then Emily would fuel all of her effort into sending Sam to camp.
One year, two girlfriends and three detentions later, and Sam's life was seemingly back to normal. Emily had taken note of the fact that monsters only attacked in yearly intervals and was worried, but Sam was living in the moment, as he often did. However, his mum was proven right when the third monster attack in three years happened. Sam was in the corner shop, chatting up a pretty young shop worker. She had gone into the back of the shop to take a stock check. Sam was leaning against the counter when a harpy flew into the window, aiming for Sam's handsome face. He fell backwards over the counter out of shock. The harpy hit the counter full on and fell to the floor dazed. Sam leaped forward and stabbed the stunned monster, killing it. Then, thinking quickly, he placed a tray between the handles of the door that the shopgirl had just gone through, trapping her. He then wrecked the shop, making the mess look like a robbery. Thanking the gods for the lack of CCTV cameras, he then ran home and told his mother, who was entirely unsurprised.
For the next year, Emily worked overtime to try and afford a one way ticket to New York. Sam knew that he would have to go alone because Emily's life was at home in Sussex. Sam put extra effort into his final year at school, because he wanted to make his mum proud of him before he went. He decided to leave dating girls for a year which was absolute agony, but Sam beared it. He took the flight and arrived in America the day after his sixteenth birthday. In his hand was a map showing where Camp Half-Blood was. Included in the notes that Emily had taken on her night with Eros was the co-ordinates of the camp, which she had fed into Google Maps to get a location. Sam was in the forest, near the camp, when his final monster attacked. He was resting by a tree when a stinger pierced the tree trunk just above his head. He rolled out of the way and faced the giant scorpion that attacked him. He ran from it and managed to reach the hill with Thalia's tree. He had almost made it to the barrier when the scorpion leapt and landed on top of Sam, trapping him. Sam managed to pull out his retracted spear and position it underneath the scorpion's belly. He then expanded it, and it impaled the scorpion, turning it into ash. Sam then put the spear back and scrambled up the hill into Camp Half-Blood. From there, he was allowed an iris message to his mum, to tell her that he had arrived. Sam has now been at camp for two days.
|
