Why is it that all school offices are the same?

You have the big desk/counter with one or more bored secretaries who look like they'd rather be anywhere than at their job, chewing gum and answering ringing phones in that bored tone of theirs. Then you have the random placards/awards from years ago that are practically falling off the wall, the photos of all the principals, and then there's that smell. A weird office smell that just hits your nose wrong. And the random janitor mopping the floor. Always.

That's what I experienced as I sat in a very uncomfortable chair that had been out of style for decades while waiting outside the principal's office. In which, the principal was having a conversation with my mom.

Of course, I was stretching my ear hoping to catch glimpses of what was being said, which I found odd because to my surprise the conversation was a lot quieter than I expected. I was expecting screaming and cursing, possibly even the sound of items being thrown around and broken. That would have calmed me down a bit since that's how Mom usually was when she got angry especially when it came to her little boy, but the fact that it was so calm, scared me even more. Not for my sake, but for the principals.

Thanks to my condition, however, I was only able to sit still for a couple of minutes before I started to get restless. But I had developed some ways to help cope with my restlessness, my physical restlessness anyways since my mental restlessness was a little harder to cope with. To cope, I would just pretend that my fingers were people and I would make them fight each other. So, that's what I did.

My left hand was a lithe practitioner of aikido while my right hand was a muscle-bound boxing champion. They had fought each other countless times with each one having an equal amount of losses and wins, but unbeknownst to me this would be their final battle.

"And the crowd goes wild. Rah." I quietly commentated as my right hand stood over my left hand while doing victory poses.

As the imaginary crowd cheered for the boxer, the door to the principal's office opened, and out came my mom and the principal.

"I hope you understand." said Mr. Haverty as I winced at his voice.

"Of course. Thank you, Mr. Haverty." said Mom before turning around and squatting to get on the same level as I was, something she did when talking to me about something serious.

"Hi, sweety. Who won?" she asked, pointing at my hands.

"The boxer."

"Aw, man. I was rooting for the other guy." she said, always rooting for whichever one loses.

"Am I in trouble?" I asked, looking first at her and then at Mr. Haverty.

"You got suspended for a day." she said, running her hand through my hair, "And you have to apologize to Ms. Lock."

"She started it. She made fun of my name."

"I know, and she'll get in trouble too, but what have I always told you?" she said in Spanish, which she taught me from a young age because she thought it was important I stay connected to my roots, and in that tone she used when I was in trouble.

"Own up to your actions." I replied in Spanish.

"That's right. You decided to talk back to your teacher and now you have to face the consequences of that. Understand?"

"Yes." I said in English, a little disappointed that I would have to apologize.

"Good. Let's go. You can apologize on the day you come back."

Mom grabbed my hand and we left the school and entered the busy streets of New York. And just when I thought we were going to head home, Mom picked me up and hugged me.

"Ahh, I'm so proud of you!" she said as she hugged and spun me.

Confused at the situation, I asked, "What's happening?"

"What do you mean what's happening? I'm proud of you for standing up for yourself!" she said, giving me a big kiss on the cheek.

Looking around I could see a lot of people looking over in our direction and smiling.

"Mom, we're in public."

"Okay, okay." she said, reluctantly putting me down.

"So, you're not mad?"

"Of course, I'm not mad. At you. I was this close to storming out of the office and going to shout at that teacher of yours, but my reasoning got the best of me. I didn't want to be a stereotypical Mexican lady in front of all these white people. She got lucky."

"Yes, she did. You're scary when you're angry." I said, causing her to flick my forehead.

"I'm still your mother."

"Sorry. But what about what you said about owning up to my actions and facing the consequences?" I said as I rubbed the spot where she flicked my forehead.

"That's still true. You did what you did and you must face the consequences for that. Even if they're bad for you. I raised you to be a smart and brave kid who does what's right. And for that, I'll always be proud. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Let's go get a treat. What do you want?" she asked as she grabbed my hand and we started to being our mini-adventure.

"Ice cream!"

~

Roaming the streets of New York during school hours really sunk in just how many people lived in the city because it looked exactly like how it always did. Crowds of people walking down the streets living their lives, each person with their own families, jobs, and worries. If it was any other town, the streets might be dead during school and work hours.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

But it was weird roaming the streets of New York. Why? you ask. That's because I had never roamed the streets of New York. I had always been a homebody. I know you might be thinking to yourself why a person that was bedridden for most of their first life would spend their second life inside. My answer to that is because I wanted to. It's not much more profound than that.

That's not to say I hadn't tried the whole sports thing either if you're wondering, I just didn't find any of them interesting. Reading books and diving into a brand-new world of fiction were much more interesting to me. Of course, it was a lot harder to sit down and read a book with my Dyslexia and ADHD, but I managed to make it work.

If I wasn't trying to read, I would be doodling. Or more like drawing since I was getting good at it. Actually, when does it go from doodling to drawing? When you're more serious about it? Who knows.

Point is, drawing was another way I kept my mind calm since it let me put pen to paper and release all those overflowing thoughts. It let me draw all the fantastical ideas I had flowing through my brain; dinosaurs fighting aliens, mech robots vs kaiju, lion vs tiger. And thanks to my constant ADHD, I had gotten good at drawing. I even had thoughts of working in something related to art in the future, but it was just a thought.

Bit of a tangent there, so back to the sprawling streets of New York.

As Mom and I walked the streets of New York on the way to a Ben & Jerry's, I would look at people and imagine what their lives would be like. If they were happy, sad, angry, poor, rich, etc. I would put myself in their shoes, literally because I did this thing where I would imagine I was looking out of their eyes. And then I would think about their view of the world.

Of course, that would only last for a few seconds before my ADHD brain made me lose focus and start thinking about the squirrel that passed me by. Or the number of birds on the rooftops. Or even the one-eyed man in the alley.

'One-eyed man?' I thought as I stopped in my tracks and quickly looked back at the alley only for no one to be there.

'Weird.'

"Theo, you okay? What you looking at?" asked Mom as she looked down the alley to see what I was staring at and similarly not seeing anything.

"I thought I saw a one-eyed man." I said as I rubbed my eyes.

"Like a pirate with an eye patch?" she asked with a smile as we continued walking to our destination.

"No, like a cyclops." I muttered, as my mind began to race even more than usual.

I remembered that Percy's brother, Tyson, was a cyclops that lived in the streets of New York just like most cyclops. They were treated as mistakes and were forced to survive on the streets. So my mind started to race at the possibility that I might be in the Riordanverse, but since the man wasn't there after checking again, I just chalked it up to my overactive imagination thanks to my ADHD.

"Ooh, a scary monster. Don't worry, sweety, I'll protect you. Your mom took self-defense classes you know." she said, flexing her nonexistent muscles.

"Not all cyclops are monsters. Some are good. Like the ones who helped forge the weapons of the three major gods."

"Which gods? If you name all three correctly, you get another scoop."

"Zeus' Master Thunderbolt, Poseidon's Trident, and Hades' Helm of Darkness."

As I finished naming all three gods, I felt a sudden chill pass through me. Looking around I noticed people were dressing in more layers so I wrote it off as the weather getting colder with winter fast approaching.

What I wish I had noticed at the time was the shadows getting longer and darker.

"Ding, ding, ding. You win another scoop. But be careful using the gods' names." she said.

"Why? They're not real. You're not religious either."

"They're not and I'm not, but there was something your father said about names that stuck out to me. I can't remember what though." she said.

That was one of the only times she had ever brought up my father out of her own volition. She wasn't ashamed of what led to my conception but she just didn't bring him up, except for that one time I asked about him. Still, I think she avoided talking about him because she was afraid I would want to meet him and I would only be met with disappointment, even with me knowing she didn't know who he was. But she could never disappoint me because to me she was both my father and my mother and nothing would change that.

"What did he say?"

"Ugh, I can't remember. Sorry, sweety." she said, smiling at me apologetically.

"It's okay. But can I get another scoop if you don't remember by the time we get to the ice cream shop?" I asked with a scheming smile.

"You little." she said with a grin, ruffling my hair while I giggled, creating a picture of a harmonious and happy family.

After a short walk consisting of imaginary battles in my mind, while Mom hummed a song that became the battle music in my fantasies, we arrived at Ben & Jerry's.

"Did you remember?"

"No, you little rascal. You get another scoop. But no more. I don't want you to ruin your dinner." she said pinching my nose.

"Okay."

Entering the ice cream shop, it was empty except for the two workers behind the counter who were watching TV to pass the time.

"Welcome, how can I help you?" asked the younger of the two while still watching TV.

"One strawberry scoop on a cone for me." said Mom before looking at me, "What do you want, sweety?"

Without even looking at the many flavors present, I already knew what I wanted. They were flavors that I loved in my first life but rarely got to eat.

"Mint chip, chocolate, and cookie dough on a cone, please."

"Okay, coming right up." he said before quickly getting our cones ready, which I promptly began to eat while Mom paid for them.

"Let's sit down. I'm tired from walking." she said as we sat down at one of the tables.

As we sat there eating ice cream in peace with the background noise of the TV, Mom was silently eating her ice cream with a look of concentration. I could tell she was trying to remember what my father had said because I knew it bothered her when she couldn't remember something. She would spend the entire day actively trying to remember until she did. One time she spent an entire week trying to figure out something from her childhood until it finally clicked.

That stubbornness of hers was something I had inherited as well, but maybe not to the point of spending an entire week trying to remember something.

So while she tried to remember, I began to think about the Riordanverse again thanks to my overactive imagination creating a cyclops. And while doing that, I heard the bell above the door ring, signaling that a new customer had entered the shop, but I paid it no mind.

"I remember!" she shouted, snapping me out of my daydreams.

"What did he say?" I asked as I looked at her and out of the corner of my eye I saw a customer at the counter.

"Names have power. I think he was into magic and stuff because he said you should refrain from using a god's name."

To her, that was some one-off thing my father said, but to me, it meant much more.

Everything I had experienced that day started to click.

A well-established teacher leaving in the middle of the school year for no reason, a brand new teacher who was mean, her sniffing around the classroom and pausing on me for a split second, her laughing at my name, the fangs I saw she had that I wrote off as my overactive imagination, the one-eyed man in the alley similarly written off, and the chill that went through my body when I said Hades' name.

Add all that to my previous reasons for believing I was in the Riordanverse, my absent father, my ADHD and dyslexia, and the fact that my mother couldn't find my father, as if he had disappeared off the face of the Earth.

And I knew.

I was in the world of Percy Jackson.

And I was a demigod.

Unfortunately, since I knew, so did other people. Or more specifically other monsters.

"Ahhhh! I knew it was you!" shouted the lady at the counter, surprising us all.

Turning to look at her, I realized it was Ms. Lock. But she no longer looked like the teacher I had met earlier, she was different. Her features were off.

"Ms. Lock?! What are you doing here?! Don't tell me you followed us here to yell at my son! Because if you did, you got another thing coming!" said Mom, standing up and getting in front of me.

But if she could see what I was seeing, she wouldn't have done that.

"Mom. We need to run." I said tugging her sleeve.

"Don't worry, sweety. I'll protect you. Just stay behind me."

"No running, Theseus Martinez!" said Ms. Lock as she started to change. Her eyes started to glow, her fingers turned into talons, and her clothes were torn to let loose large, leathery wings.

"What the hell?" said Mom, clearly able to see past the Mist enough to see that Ms. Lock had changed.

"Run!"