“What’s wrong Elias?”
“Nothing,” I muttered, “Just felt like someone was watching me.” I had been feeling strange all throughout my first two blocks and now I was glad to be out in the warm air. I noticed that it was nearly summer. Just another month and I would be free.
Alec looked up into the air and said, “Hey guys, I think we should go inside soon. Look.”
We all looked up and saw something none of us would ever forget. It was the largest storm I had ever seen. I mean, it seemed like it could hide the entire state of Virginia without any effort. It sped towards the school at amazing speeds; already it looked like it had gone several miles in the last few seconds. Now it seemed larger than we had thought. We knew that the school wouldn’t stand a chance if a bolt of that’s storms lightning struck it. But it was the only choice we had, other than being fried.
“Come on every, to the doors! Hurry!” Xeires yelled, holding one open. Just then, the doors slammed shut and we were stuck in the darkness of the storm. Luckily, Kammi had a flashlight that we used to see the lock as Alec tried to get it open.
“I wouldn’t try that if I were you”, someone said from behind us, which made us jump about ten feet in the air. We turned around to see a man in a toga and sandals, which seemed out of place by today’s standards, not to mention in the middle of this horrible storm. He also had an intricate wooden staff with carvings of snakes wrapped around it; at the top, there was a set of beautifully carved wings spread out, as if it was about to take flight.
“Who are you? Can you help us find a place to shelter down until the storm is gone?” asked Victoria, trying to sound braver than she was.
“I can help you” Said the man, “But first you must listen.”
By now, everyone had turned to the odd man, until we were a large circle made up of about twenty people if I had to guess. We didn’t care that we were soaking wet, we just wanted to be safe from the steadily approaching lightning.
The mysterious man began his tale.
“First things first, you need to know my name. My name is Hermes. I am the winged messenger of the gods, and the god of all that travel on the roads; I am simply a jack of all trades and master of none. Now that you get that, let me tell you about the rest of my family-“
“Hold on one minute” Daria said, “You expect us to believe that the Greek gods exist, and that you aren’t just some loony in a Hermes costume. Prove it to us first.”
After some people in the group nearly started a fistfight over this, the man who called himself Hermes yelled, “ENOUGH! If you wish, I shall show you that I am indeed who I say I am.” And with that, his sandals sprouted winged and lifted him off the ground.
After that no one needed any more proof. So Hermes started where he left off.
“The Greek gods are real, but something you did not know is that we are ‘fading away’ so to speak. So now we have to choose heirs to our thrones. Basically, this is where you come into the picture.” After this was an awkward silence. But before he gave us a chance to discuss this with him, he raised his staff and said, “This area shall now be the new Olympus, where you shall meet and converse on subjects of utmost importance.”
Hermes brought his staff down and smashed it on the cement. A large number of cracks emerged on the surface, and he vanished. At the same moment Hermes disappeared, I looked up to see a jagged piece of white light racing down on us.
Then there was only darkness.

“Still no word yet on the disappearance of fourteen year old Karma Warholl, but stay tuned for further announcements.”
I woke up and found myself in a hospital room, looking at a television with a picture of Karma’s face on the news. She wasn’t a very close friend, but I still wondered what had happen to her since the big storm to make her end up on the news. Before I could even collect my thoughts, a nurse came in, saw that I was awake and called out for the doctor. When the doctor finally came in, he told me that I had gotten the worst of the lightning damage, and that everyone else woke up about an hour ago. I then learned that even though we were hit by the lightning, all of us had healed faster than expected. But I had to spend the rest of the day in the hospital, along with all the other kids, and we weren’t allowed to leave our rooms.
The rest of the day was pretty much family members coming to visit me. Every person that came in there made a gasping sound that I didn’t understand until my older brother and my younger sister came in.
“Hi Maddi”, I said, feeling a little groggy after the long day.
“Hi, what happened to your hair?”
I said, a bit confused, “What?”
Jake said, “Your hair is weird looking.” That’s when Maddi brought me one of her hand mirrors. I almost dropped the mirror when I saw it. My hair had turned grey. Well actually, it seemed more like a metallic blonde color.
I said simply, “I like it.”

A few days later, we were allowed to go back to school. We all met in first block, and we were surprised at how we looked. All of us had strange changes to our appearances.

“Hey Dewey, nice hair” said Alec playfully.

“You too”, I replied. Alec had grown a five-o-clock shadow over the break.

“Don`t forget me!” said Cameron, and we noticed a yellow apple shape on his palm. This seemed especially strange to all of us.

The rest of the day rushed by, people seeing if all of us were all right. When we got to lunch, we were expecting the outside area to be completely destroyed. So we were astonished to discover, that aside from a cracked spot near the door, the place was perfectly fine. We were all a little nervous about coming back outside to eat lunch, because we thought another storm would come. After a little while we all finally relaxed, and that’s when I realized it. “Hey guys, where is Chris?” Everyone looked around and felt ashamed that they had not taken notice of this sooner. Alec, Cameron, and I decided to go visit his house after school.

After we all met up with each other, we all rode our bikes to his house. Once there, we went up the steps, and knocked on the door. We had to wait, but his mother finally came to the door. “Oh”, she said, “Hello, Cs has been waiting for you all day!” This caused us to feel a slight shame for not noticing him missing sooner. “He woke up first, but because of his condition, he had to stay in the hospital while the doctors tried to figure out how to help him. He had just gotten home today, because the doctors had no idea what else to do.”

With that, we followed Xeires’ mother into his bedroom where we saw Xeires. He was wearing dark glasses and looked like he was sleeping, until his mother closed the door behind us. He looked around and said, “Hello? Is anyone there?” With this his mother replied that we had come to visit him. He got up and used his hands to feel his way over to us. “Hey,” he said, “I guess you’re wondering what happened to me.”

“Yeah,” Alec said, “Are you blind?”

“In a way. It’s all just one color, and I’m wearing these glasses to stop the headaches. Though it’s funny; every time I take the glasses off, I can see past the glare of monotone a little better. Maybe I’ll be able to come to school soon.”

This made all optimistic, and so we left to our own houses.

Once I made it home, Jake and Maddi came over to me and told me to get dressed. I asked what the occasion was, and they said that mom and dad wanted to have photos of us in case we ever went missing like Karma Warholl. So I got dressed in a suit and tie, and came back in the living room to see my mom holding a camera up, waiting for us to get in a huddle.

Jake, Maddi, and I stood together looking odd in such fancy wear. I slightly brushed up against Maddi; and suddenly there was a spark, a popping noise, and Maddi cried out. I backed up and bumped into Jake, when the same thing happened. There was a spark where I had touched him; it made a loud “Pop!”, and Jake said very loudly, “Ouch!” I was so confused and then suddenly there was a strong wind blowing through an open window, adding to the chaos. Then all of a sudden, it was all over. We got over the commotion and got our picture taken with no more interruptions. The only proof that such an odd thing had happened was that there was a faint smell of flowers in the air. Almost like lilies, but somehow different.