DIMITRI

  Dimitri stood there, shocked by those words. His teacher opened the jar and simply killed an entire army. Looking at the dagger now, he understood why everyone was panicking so much when he was the one who was holding the covered blade.

  ‘’It happened thousands of years ago,’’he explained to me. ‘’I was given a root that was swallowing the poison inside me, and it made me…’’He took a deep breath and changed the subject.

  ‘’After that, I tried to find the boy and the girl that I helped escape. Or what was left. I needed to find out the truth. Each angle of this world, every rock, every drop of the oceans. I searched everywhere until I found them two hundred years ago in a village in Thessaly. Well, their descendants at least. When I first looked at them, they seemed to know me from the start. They embraced me tightly, and they looked at me like I was their own family and blood. However, I didn’t stay with them. I kept travelling the world, I needed to stay as far away as possible, and yet, once every decade, I was returning to check on the long family that they all had made. one more communion.

  Yet, the communion slowly vanished from mortal violence, and only one girl remained. I helped that girl to move on to Crete, far from anyone. I taught her things at first before she began having her own opinions. Then, I left again. And when I returned, there was a man and a little girl looking at me with the same eyes. The woman, now grown, told me that she was expecting’’

  Dimitri’s core trembled with the idea of him, his family, and his line was a cruel joke that fate brought. And the teacher took one more deep breath.

  ‘’They were all so kind, so happy that you were born, I helped you get out, I gave you a name, your face looked like a dry date with the light from the fireplace making your face look even more red.’’

  Was he trying to insult the boy, even when he was confessing?

  His voice broke. ‘’I didn’t mean-’’

  ‘’Why did you kill them?’’Dimitri’s impatience grew.

  ‘’For a hawk. ‘’His voice rasped, and the boy could hear the painful woman breaking out of that mask.’’A silver hawk was watching from the window, and when I asked your mother if anything strange was happening those few days, she told me that she found a friend of mine. I began to panic, thinking that he would come soon, he would take them again, he would kill them. I told them they had to run, but they refused. They wanted to raise you. But I kept telling them that they were not safe. Your father pushed me to the table where I left the candle and the oil scattered, and the fire grew. There was more panic inside the blaze. Yourr mother couldn’t walk, your father was now screaming to try to save your sister, but she was now all covered from the fallen ceiling. Soon, your father was too, and your mother was burning from the blankets. I tried to save them, I tried to .’’

  That was not his teacher. That was Lyssandra now.

  ‘’You were so little when I carried you away. So fragile, I didn’t know what to do. I had so much blood in my fingers that I was afraid of holding you any longer, I could not…I-’’

  ‘’So you sent me away’’ Dimtri finally let her rest.

  And Lyssandra wiped out her small tears. ‘’You were not meant for this. I tried to push you away, but it seemed as if-’’

  And she finally stopped talking. They were both now facing the floor. He had a family. A family that she killed. A family that she also protected for centuries.

  ‘’Did you know who I was?’’ Dimitri asked now his teacher.’’When you first met me?’’

  And Lyssandra shook her head. ‘’I found out a few months after you began staying with me. I didn’t know how to tell you everything, I did not-’’

  ‘’It was an accident’’Dimitri swallowed his spite, and Lyssandra faced him in shock. Maybe it was her fear that caused the entire incident. Maybe her carelessness. But it was an accident. Before that, after he saw what she had done before, he thought that she killed them out of joy or revenge. But she actually cared for them. For the entirety of her immortal life, she cared for his family line. She cared for him.

  ‘’If you want me to tell you that I forgive you, I cannot.’’

  Those words became sharp in Lyssandra’s soul.

  ‘’Because there is nothing there to forgive.’’

  There was his dream of a family. His sisterisg happy, his parents love him, and achieving his dreams. However, he knew that this dream was too good to be true. Meanwhile, there was his Teacher, standing there, risking everything, rushing to save him. He always told the boy that he was not his parent. And yet, when he was having the dream, he could only think of what he was teaching him, what he was telling him all those years.

  ‘’You are my family too, right?’’Dimitri arched his shoulders high, and suddenly Lyssandra lowered hers, so she could hide those tears.

  Suddenly, familiar steps approached them, and Dimitri could see Pup emerging from the desert and stepping to Lyssandra’s lap like he was still a puppy.

  And there was Hermes, all mighty, now, holding his staff. Lyssandra seemed to ignore him as she kept hugging Pup with all her might.

  ‘’Listen, what I did was…’’His head turned to Dimitri. ‘’Wrong, however, I believe that we could help each-’’

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  Lyssandra completely ignored him as she was now once again Odysseus, the teacher, the parent that Dimitri always wanted. So, the boy began packing up his things and showed his teacher the covered dagger. One simple glance at it made Odysseus push the dagger aside. ‘’Keep it’’He said. ‘’But don’t do anything foolish with it.’’

  ‘’Lyssadra’’Hermes grabbed her hand, and Pup walked close to Hermes and nuzzled his head between his legs. Dimitri wondered if it was a trick. Or that Pup knew something that they did not.

  ‘’Please, let me come with you’’He was eager. He knew that his tricks were failing. His desperation and greed were now showing with his spite and pride slowly breaking. He wanted to free that strange man, too.

  The teacher simply faced him. No words were coming from his mouth. He was just staring, unsure what he was going to do. No, he knew. He simply waited for his student’s decision.

  ‘’He did save me’’He mumbled, and both of the immortals were facing him, stunned.

  He didn’t trust him. His body was still being used as long as he knew his name. However, he couldn’t stop imagining that inside his slider chest, there was a tiny existence of a heart.

  So, Odysseus kept walking with his student, completely ignoring the god who kept following them as Pup was trying so hard to keep the pace. The road was now quiet, with the whispers now growing stronger behind their cold cells. Every one of them was having the same echo. Free me. He finally found the cold, dark stone where the man inside the throne was being imprisoned. Dimitri stopped for a second there, with his dagger trembling to touch it. What if he could do it? What if he opened it?

  ‘’Not, today’’Hermes pulled him far by using his staff, and the whispers were cut out. Maybe Tartarus had prisoners that did not have to be there. Maybe had prisoners who could repent of their sins. And maybe, it had prisoners that deserved to rot. To plead and wait for anything coming near them.

  Pathetic.

  Hours passed, and they all began to rest, with the boy still being wounded.

  ‘’Let me do it’’The teacher grunted and removed the bandages. ‘’How did you even manage to defeat those creatures before?’’

  His wrapping was even tighter, as if he was ready to lose his entire hand. But Dimitri told him how he fought them off. And Odysseus smiled impressively. Even Hermes was about to speak, but one glare of Odysseus, and he was cut off.

  Dimitri tried to fall asleep, but there was the worry that he might have nightmares of the people inside. The whispers appear again; everything is about to happen. But his teacher tried to reassure him that nothing would happen. Even with those words, the bright light of Tartarus was not helping him out.

  And yet, there was a dream. A dream of a man with bright blazes for hair singing a song, inside the darkness. Dark as the place was, he was the only one shining. He was the only one singing in that dark place.

  And then, his body turned slowly back to Dimitri, and his lips parted. ‘’She is here, isn’t she?’’

  The boy tried to hold his scream as his entire being was aching in pain. The teacher saw it and tried to ask questions. But Dimitri had more than he did. Who was that man who was posing for so long? Waiting inside the darkness.

  Instead, the teacher turned his interest elsewhere.

  ‘’Are we close?’’The teacher finally spoke to Hermes. And he let out a dramatic sound.

  ‘’Oh, you finally spoke to-’’

  ‘’Are we close, Hermes?’’ He asked once again, and his wings covered his face and grabbed Pup close to him. ‘’Mommy is angry with me, isn’t she?’’

  He replied by licking his nose.

  Was that man still the manipulative god Dimitri saw not a few days ago?

  ‘’One day of travel,’’ he replied.

  ‘’Good, I need you to take the boy out of here.’’

  What?

  Dimitri stood up shakily and tried to protest.

  ‘’Why?’’

  There was that iron taste inside his tongue. His body was sweating heavily. And his legs barely kept up. How foolish he was to ask the reason?

  Yet, the boy couldn’t leave his teacher. He couldn’t make him go this path alone.

  ‘’Teacher, I can keep carrying on, please. ‘’

  ‘’I will come back to you in a few days, I promise’’His harsh hands cupped the boy’s face. When you will be already treated by good hands and no time.

  ‘’No, I can’t let you not now’’He tried to hold back his tears.

  The teacher took a deep breath. ‘’I cannot make you risk your life.’’

  ‘’You said that you won’t leave-’’

  ‘’Dimitri’’Teacher raised his voice. And everyone there was stunned. ‘’No matter how I come, empty-handed or not, I want my family to stay alive. I want you to stay alive.’’

  And his words shattered his heart. He knew that those words were honest; he knew that he was right. And he hated it.

  ‘’I will do it’’Hermes raised his hand. ‘’If you let me guide you.’’

  There was a gaze of irritation coming from the teacher. A few minutes passed after he finally gave up.

  ‘’I will come back’’The teacher said and kissed the boy’s forehead. ‘’I promise.’’

  And so, Dimitri nodded and walked closer to the god who was showing his staff with the snakes moving left and right.

  ‘’Where to, my boy?’’He asked, and he suddenly bowed.

  Behind all of his threats and greed, he was actually just a fool. Maybe because the teacher knew everything, and he had no more plans for him to use.

  So he took one more deep breath and rushed back to his teacher and hugged him tight. His body was weak and hot, against the teacher’s coldness. His hands were slightly moving on the boy’s back, trying to embrace him even closer.

  ‘’Please come soon, Lyssandra’’He said, and noticed that her face was so painful to watch. And there was a small doubt that she would ever come back.

  However, Dimitri, the thief, the student of an immortal deceiver who was dressed in crimson violence, still had the light of hope inside him. So, he walked back to the god of travellers.

  ‘’Cairo ‘’