For a Bowl of Soup
2346 Words
Meditating, I can't help but feel mildly infuriated about when will they release us. We've been put here for a long time. It's around September now but I'm not sure what day exactly. This is not working. I should stop meditating. I can't do it while feeling this way. I have to find my sister. She's in my mind every hour, down to every second. I couldn't do anything to keep myself from worrying. Not even what Lord Enzo taught me can help. I want to find her so badly!
The second door opens with a clang. To get to my cell, they have to open two doors to make sure I won't escape. Not that I would but if I have to, I will and I can. It's Mila, waiting for the last door to open. Through the glass of the door, she's already smiling at me. I feel uncomfortable.
The door opens and she greets me. “Hi, Leo,” she says gently. The door closes when she steps in.
Without saying anything, I turn my back. I'm a bit mad at her. I just sit on my bed.
“What's wrong, Leo?” she asks.
Everything…
“Nothing,” I answer. “just leave me alone.”
“Something is bothering you, isn't it?”
Obviously, but I didn't answer.
Sitting on my bed beside me, she says, “I will get the two of you out of here, I promise.”
“Well, do your best, my lady,” I smile but putting it on is heavy so let my face drop into frowning again.
Even when I'm not looking, I can tell she's a little bit concerned. Where did the cold and scary Goddess of Death go?
“I'm sorry I couldn't visit you sooner. I've been busy.”
“Busy following the ‘humble’ requests of the Houses, I figure. To hell with them.”
She finally frowns at me. Standing up, she places herself in front of me. I could dodge but I'll take her slap.
To the left, I let my face turn there and stayed just like that. It's painful because I didn't use any protection. Oh look, my nose is bleeding and I feel my teeth aching. My left cheek is swelling and feeling numb.
I swallow my b****y saliva before saying, “That's a good slap.”
“What's wrong with you?!!” she blurts out. “I thought you'd understand!”
“I do and I hate it.”
“I have no choice but to make it seem that I follow their decisions. I just bend their decisions to keep them from making bad ones! And we follow them! I thought I explained it to you!”
“You did and that explains why we're locked away in these cells right now. You're locking us away.”
“It's not true! I'm not the one who decided it!”
“You're lying.”
“I told you, I'm not!”
“I don't know who to trust anymore, except Darius. He's not the smartest but that makes him incapable of lying as naturally as he breathes.”
“You're saying that you don't trust me?”
“Do I have to put it in other words, my lady?”
“Well, you don't have to!” she yells, turning.
“Fine!” I yell back.
Get me out of here as soon as you can, Mila—is what I want to say but I don't know why I can't.
Walking away, she yells, “Rot in there until you're old and die!” The door opens.
You don't mean that.
“At least I died without becoming a dog!” I banter.
She then turns and her eyes are all black. Flying towards me with her smoke, she punches my face. I let her beat me up down to the ground.
“Everything I'm doing is to protect both of you!” she cries. “And you pay me nothing but mistrust!!”
I protect my head from her kicks using my arms. “Here you go again!” I answer. “After our fight, I thought you've changed!”
“Shut up!” She stomps me.
“The truth is that you've never changed since then! I HATE YOU!!!”
She stops beating me so I sit up. Breathing hard, she looks at me like she's hurt. “You're a fool,” she says, forcing herself to sound insulting.
“Go! Don't come in here again! I don't want to see you again!”
I can't believe what I'm saying right now. I'm confused. I said that because I just want to be alone. Her mouth trembles a little and her eyes get moist. She's hurt. I feel a little bit satisfied. Now, she feels what I feel.
“If that's what you want,” she says in a stern face.
I watch her as she gets near the door. “I just want to find my sister,” I mutter. “and every one of you is getting in the way of it.”
She stops walking and turns to look at me. “So this is what it's all about,” she realizes.
I'm too ashamed to even answer that because she quickly changed how she treats me but I can't do that as well as she does. After walking towards me, she sits on the ground, facing me. I don't look at her and she wipes my b****y wounds on my face. The way she does it, makes me remember what it feels like to be calm. That's when I begin to remember what I lost again. Everything that used to make me calm, comes back into my mind and reminds me that I lost them. This is why I hate her. She makes me feel calm, telling me to put all of my trust in her and I should just wait and stay calm.
“Don't worry, Leo,” she says. “While you're here for the meantime, I'll find your sister. I also just visited the Underworld. Her soul is not there.”
“So she's alive?!” I exclaim. Looking at the ground, my tears are falling. “You're telling the truth, right?”
“Yes,” she says as he grabs my head, putting my face on her shoulder. “I'm telling the truth. So, just trust me and I'll help you find her.”
“Thank you, my lady!” I cry on her shoulder.
-
*
Punching the boulder, Icarus extends the tunnel with the help of an elf to dig the crumbled stone. Other demigods do the same and their hard work comes not from being forced to do so but from being able to help in any way they can.
“I can't believe I was a noble demigod of Olympus,” he says. “Now I'm voluntarily making myself a slave.”
“Well, you're not a slave if you volunteered to help dig the tunnel,” says the elf helping him. He is an elf that has become Icarus's companion for a while since they started dogging the tunnel. He is older than Icarus at around five years. He is thin, wearing ragged clothes, dirty jeans, and worn-out sneakers.
“You got a point,” Icarus nods.
“You got a sister to care for, after all. We need this extra space for new arrivals like us.”
“She's not my sister.”
“What? She's not?”
“Yeah, you got a wrong idea, man.”
“Then why is she with you?”
“She's supposed to be my hostage.”
“Say what?”
Continuing to punch the rocks, Icarus confirms, “You heard right.”
“Alright then. For what ransom?”
“Life of the guy who humiliated me and killed my father.”
“The brother of the girl?”
“Yeah. That prick.”
“Well, you're far away from the Olympus Capital. How are you going to go back there and find him?”
“Nah, he will come to find his sister even in the Depths of Tartarus. He's a type of a stupid guy who will do that.”
“Who is he again?”
“Leonide Padine.”
“Oh, that boy I saw on TV. Oh, wait. Are you the one he fought in the Demigod Tournament?”
“Don't bring that back now, Ping.”
“I'm sorry it's just mind-blowing to meet the one who fought the first human that entered Olympus.”
He stops punching the rocks. He faces him and says, “This is why I don't want to tell people who I am. They always see me next to the guy I hate. I just want to be known alone and not under the shadow of anyone.”
“Alright, it won't happen again.”
Icarus continues to dig. “It's not that I care much about it but it slightly irritates me.” He remembers himself as a child under the shadow of his father.
“Okay. And guess what, I found a bottle of booze.”
“Shhh…,” he shushes. “not here. We'll talk about that later.”
“You're worrying too much.”
“I'm not.”
Half an hour later, they are finished digging. What they made is a large chamber three meters tall and dozens of meters across.
“Hooray!” they celebrate, giving each other hi-fives. Icarus goes with it without much enthusiasm.
They line up along the large pot of soup where an elf maiden is serving them one by one. She pours the soup into their bowls. They thank her and she gives them her warm smile. Icarus lining in after Ping is far from the start of the line.
“You're from around here, right?” Icarus asks Ping.
“Yeah.”
“Tell me more about you, elves.”
“About what?”
“What do they call you if you're a human-elf or god-elf or something like that?”
“Well, like humans, I don't have powers or super strength. I'm simply called a Lesser-Elf. Demigod elves are Noble-Elves and Deities are called High-Elves. Do you even listen in school?”
“Listening in school is for the nerds.”
“Yeah, I figured that out.”
“You told me you never had any girlfriend, right?”
Raising his eyebrows and turning his head to look at Icarus behind him, he asks, “Why talk about that all of sudden?”
“Tell that cutie that she's beautiful.”
“What? No!”
“Don't be shy or you'll be single the rest of your life.”
“No, being shy is a superpower!”
Icarus laughs. “You actually believe that? What are you? Dumb?”
Ping's turn to be served is nearing. “I will not do it. Besides, what do you know about this thing? You're a child!”
“I've dated quite a lot of times.”
“Children these days…”
“Oh, your turn.” Icarus pushes him. “Say it,” he whispers.
The maiden scoops her ladle into the pot. Ping looks at the maiden's face as she is focused on what she is doing. She pours it into his bowl and he swallows. Icarus pokes his back.
“You're…,” he stutters and she looks at him. “beautiful… miss.”
Looking into the pot with a smile, she is trying to stop smiling too widely. “Thank you,” she says quietly.
With a widened eyes, Ping steps aside to let her serve soup to Icarus. He pulls out two bowls. “Thank you, beautiful lady!” he thanks her after giving him his serve. He covers the other bowl with a clean plastic wrap. He eats the other one.
Seeing him only as a child, she nods and smiles. He steps aside, putting on a smug at Ping. “She likes you,” he says to Ping.
They walk to a corner to eat their food. “How do you know?” he asks.
“Isn't it obvious by how she reacted to your compliment?”
“How can a child like you know for sure?”
“I've already been arranged to a girl of noble family like ours. But her father wants me to court her properly. So I just asked her and she accepted.”
“A noble life is so… noble. You kids are arranged at that age?”
“Well, yes but the girl had to wait until I've come of age. She's about your age if she's still alive. Just trust me on this. I know what i'm doing.” He puts up a smile that looks like a smirk.
“That's not very convincing.”
“How so? Anyway, normally, girls will call you a creep for saying upfront that they're beautiful or sometimes sneer at you then look away. Her reaction to you is genuine. I don't know how you elves court but try courting her.”
“No, that would be bad.” They finally reached the corner and they lean against the wall while eating the soup. “She might reject me.”
“If she does, you can still find another one.”
“Easy for you to say. I don't know if I can find another girl that I like. I'm not even sure if I like her.”
“Liking comes later. Just like I did,” Icarus mutters, remembering what he experienced.
“You sound like an old man.”
They finished eating their bowls of soup. Icarus says, “I gotta go back or this soup will go cold. I'll see you again.” He means the bowl of soup he covered with plastic.
“Okay, see ya.”
*
-
- Writer
