The Heir of Olympus and the Forest Realm Read Free Page A

road. He raced through street lights and stop signs alike, pushing his Hemi up to 90 mph in town, barely aware of the devastation surrounding him. Houses were becoming less and less recognizable as dwellings the further east he travelled. Structures more closely resembled wood piles the closer he got to home. An eerie silence had descended over the town.
    Gordie flew past the Jensen farm a quarter mile away from his house. He felt a twinge of sorrow as he scanned the utter destruction of the Jensen family home, but his concern for his own family outweighed this empathy. There was a small hill ahead concealing his house from view. His anxiety mounted as he approached the slope. His heart was racing faster than it ever had in his life and he was nearing a state of sheer panic. When he mounted the berm he was greeted by a terrible sight.
    Nothing was visible but a charred black ground cover. His confusion at the starkness of the landscape was gradually replaced by terror as he came to the realization that his house no longer existed. In his moment of shock, Gordie released the gas and coasted by this scene, watching it through his window as if he were watching a film strip roll by. The thought of his father began to creep into his mind, but he pushed it away. He knew he had been home, finishing the chores that Gordie hadn’t after sleeping in, yet he told himself his father had gone into the city. He could not concede his life. Not without proof.
    Gordie was still rolling. His hands were glued to the wheel. He was lost, lost in a struggle inside his own mind. Images of his father disintegrating wrestled with reassuring thoughts that he had been far away at the time of the blast; they were competing for his sanity, his will to live. He had no sense of reality. He was still rolling.
    His wits returned enough to register the entrance to his driveway looming thirty yards ahead. The prospect of turning the wheel and entering the bounds of his family’s property seemed impossible, a Herculean task. He took a deep breath to steel his nerves and steered his car onto the lot. At this point his tires were crawling across the pavement, but he didn’t have the strength to step on the brakes. He waited until the car rolled to a stop.
    Gordie was numb.
    He had seen so much—so much horror. The reality of all this was starting to well up inside him as he stared across the barren land that was once his farm, his home. Again, he pushed those thoughts away after the image of his best friend floated to the surface. Not yet . He couldn’t address that pain yet.
    As Gordie surveyed the land, something in the distance finally provided visual relief to the endless nothingness. There was some kind of jagged form lodged into the ground, protruding from the middle of where their pasture had once sat. It looked almost like a sculpted lightning bolt. A tingling sense of foreboding crept into his mind. He stared at it.
    “What is—” His mouth went dry and he couldn’t finish the question that exploded in his mind—along with a thousand others—as he continued to stare at the spire.
    In a labored effort, Gordie pushed open the car door and stepped out into the dust and ash. The smell of burnt grass filled his lungs and the residual smoke made his eyes tear up. His gaze was fixed on the stone as his legs pulled him toward it. It appeared to be a few hundred yards away. He stepped towards it, one heavy footfall after another.
    When he was within a hundred yards he could make-out some form beneath the bolt. He maintained his pace while the ominous feeling loomed over him. A crow flew overhead, cawing into the void.
    He was fifty yards away and he could see a ring of grass around the site of the bolt. The figure beneath the object took on a more recognizable shape, but Gordie would not accept what his eyes were telling him. He began to slow his gait; he did not want to see what he feared awaited him. He focused on the grass so he could continue