• I woke up that morning to something not so pleasant.
    I screamed when I awoke, looking around and nearly upchucking when I saw the disgusting liquid covering most of my things.
    A clear, but super sticky, gunk was draped over my dresser like cloth and it covered the floor in layers. Thick, wet, sticky goop. When I walked on it, it sounded like swamps. A gurgling, wet, and empty noise. Shwoolp. Shlumpk. Shwoolp. Shlumpk. I stumbled out the door of my bedroom, my feet now covered with it. I looked down at it and scowled, I could feel my face contorting in disgust. My mom looked me over and gasped, “What the hell happened!?” she cried, looking past me into my bedroom, “What did you do to your room!?” I looked up at her pleadingly, “I’m sorry, but I swear I don’t know, it just…was there…” My mom rushed downstairs and dialed someone on the phone, while shouting to me, “Get in the shower before you track that throughout the house!” I grinned sarcastically and called back towards her on my way to the bathroom, “Don’t worry, mom, I wasn’t even thinking about going to school like this!” When I shut the door I grimaced, “Pain in the-” I stopped short and yelped in pain, turning on the water frantically and dipping my foot in the steaming hot water. The strange ooze had eaten through some of my skin and was inching up my leg, “Gack!” I screamed, tears stinging my eyes as I cried, “Mom! Help! Please! It hurts!” Mother came running up the steps and looked at my foot when she came in, “What the-! Damn!” she turned pushed end in her latest call and dialed nine-one-one. The phone instantly was answered and my mom quickly informed the person about our location, our names, and what was happening. I could hear the receptionist tell my mom to calm down as my mom clutched my head to her chest, crying more herself than I was. I grunted as I turned off the hot water and let cold water seep into the tub, cooling the inflamed feet. My mother hustled through the cabinet, looking for something, then she took out some ibuprofen and shoved a pill into my mouth. I swallowed the pill painstakingly and glared at her, but she was already rushing down the hall to her bedroom.
    I waited in the bathroom, watching the water calm as I held my feet still, creating not a single wave. I sighed and my vision went fuzzy, not because I was blacking out or anything, but because I was thinking deeply. My eyes not focusing on anything.
    I sent out a silent prayer to the gods, Please, tell me what this…stuff is. I’m scared and I don’t know what to do. Which one of you is my mother or father? Please, give me something!
    I blacked out then, because I slipped and hit my head on the side of the tub. I didn’t know how, but it seemed the water had pushed me.

    I woke up to the sound of birds chirping. It was odd. I opened my eyes, but I could only see that I was under an intense blue sky, vines and differently lush plants reached up into the sky. No clouds surfaced and I could see the sun nowhere.
    Birds fluttered in and out of the treetops and some looked down at me with knowing eyes.
    “Where am I?” I asked, but my voice sounded different somehow. I felt my throat and called again, “Where?” but my voice, instead of its deep mature tone, sounded like a smoky whispery sound, light and harsh. “Hello?” the words came out in silvery swirls, catching the hidden sun’s rays and flashing beautiful blues and whites, “Hello!?”
    “Quiet now, girl!” I turned my head to see two feet, obviously feminine, and bound my old looking and worn sandals. I looked up into a woman’s face. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen; her eyes were a mixture of swirling midnight blues and light bronzes and silvery whites, her skin was pale and radiated youth, and her hair was dark, sometimes brown, sometimes white, sometimes black, tied up into a bun. She wore a tiara like helm which held a crescent moon on its side above her forehead. And her clothes were just light white robes, like a tunic.
    She looked down at me harshly, and helped me up, offering her hand for help. When I stood I swayed slightly and took a look around, I was in a forest, lush and green. Every animal imaginable was here. I look the woman over again and noticed the bow around her shoulder and the quiver of arrows. I also noticed fifty nymphs running around and some hounds sniffing the edges of the clearing.
    “Are you…Artemis?” I asked, surprised to actually see the vain goddess.
    “I am not vain, child, just…youthful and want to stay that way…and yes, I am Artemis, daughter of Zeus and goddess of the hunt and moon and youth.”
    I looked at her, my favorite goddess of all.
    She smiled slightly and brushed away a stray lock of hair, “I’m your favorite am I?” I blushed and looked down, embarrassed. Maybe I should keep my thoughts from straying too far. “You needed help, did you not?” Artemis sighed, certainly impatient, it seemed. “Y-yes…I don’t know what to do, I woke up and this stuff got on me and…”
    “It’s from the Chimera, it’s the disgusting acid drool it left all over your room while you were asleep…”
    “What!? Why was it in my room!?” I asked, shocked.
    “Oh, dear, it was there on its mother’s command, they want to kill you you know!” I glared at Artemis and looked away, watching the mysterious birds circle around us, “Whose daughter am I anyway?” I asked, I watched Artemis out of the corner of my eye, just as she flinched and glared back at me, “You’re a goddesses, let me tell you, your mother is a goddess…find it out for yourself, I’m sure you’ll be claimed sometime…maybe when you find camp half-blood”
    “But how am I to find it when I don’t know where it is!?”
    “Just ask some satyr, they’re all around…” Artemis said it so confidently I admired her calmness. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, “You’re no help, and I shouldn’t have asked to see you…”
    Artemis looked surprised for a moment, “Me?”
    “Yes, I asked for you personally, you’re my favorite goddess and I thought maybe I could relate to you…I never want to marry, I hate boys…” I remembered everything that happened at school and nearly burst out crying if it weren’t for Artemis, “Well, looks like we have more in common than I thought…”
    “What?”
    “Well,” Artemis considered going on, “you are my relative since you were born from…so I never thought you’d want to not marry…especially considering your father…”
    “My dad!”
    “Oh, yes yes!” Artemis sighed, waving her hand around as if to sway the matter, “your father is a hopeless womanizer…never really gets around to one particular girl…”
    “How do you know my father so much?” I asked, risking turning Artemis and facing her wrath, but she just rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers, “You’ve asked too many questions, bye…” she watched me fall back, losing consciousness once again.