User blog:Joeaikman/Wiki Half-Blood Chapter 1 - Noah

I'm running. I don't know why, I don't know where. All I know is I'm running. The voices are telling me too. They tell me to run for my life. Twists and turns down the dark alleyways, lost in the backstreets of New York, the shadows stretching out to me like clawing fingers, reaching out to me, trying to engulf me. I trip over a can of coke strewn on the floor. My ankle flares up, it's been doing this since I fell on it last week.

I haul myself to my feet. The shadows are in front of me. Nowhere to run. I turn back the way I came. They are there too. The voices are louder now, whispering in my ear about my parents, my grandmother, my friend GIR. "No" I yell out, but I know no one will hear it, no one ever hears it. The shadows are closer. I fall to my knees, my head in. my hands, wishing for it all to stop.

"Psst" there's a voice just above me. I look up and see a young boy offering his hand "I'll pull you up" i tentatively reach out and grab it. He must be stronger than he looks as he hauls me up onto the fire escape without an issue. I look down and see the shadows have stopped "come on, we aren't safe yet" the boy has already started leaping up the stairs that head towards the roof.

I follow in his wake. He wears a green hoodie over an orange shirt. It's too bright for my taste, I like darker colours. Black, purple, red. They are my favourites. He's quite far in front of me now, bounding up the stairs two steps at a time. Eventually we re ah the roof and I stop, double over and start panting. I've been running for bout half an hour non-stop. I need water, I need rest. But both are at my safe house and I already saw the shadows consume it.

"You alright?" The boy is looking at me in a weird way, like I'm a book and he is reading me from front to back. I get the feeling he knows more about me than I do. "I'm fine" my voice is deep, contrasting to his sing song voice, mine echoes around the roof "thanks for helping me up"

"It's no problem. It's my job" the boy smiled at me, his face a light pink. I was panting and sweating and his cheeks weren't even flushed. He must be really fit. I remember how he pulled me up from the danger below. "What were those things?" He asks me.

"Shadows" I say simply. I get the feeling that my answer doesn't surprise him, that it was exactly what he expected. "Well if you're being followed by killer shadows we should probably get you some help. Buy first, im a bit peckish, would you like to come get something to eat with me?"

It was about 15 minutes later and I was sat with my new friend at a KFC. I was chewing on some gristly chicken hilts he appeared to be eating the box that it had come in "the names Tiger, by the way" he slipped another bit of the cardboard into his mouth "I'm Noah". What I said seemed to amuse him "I know" he looked at me again, his eyes daring me to ask how.

I was intrigued. It didn't surprise me that he knew who I was. I had been notorious on the news for a while. It seemed more than that, though. He had been on that fire escape when I needed him most. He saved my life. "Are you my guardian angel?" I asked him tentatively. He laughed at this comment quite raucously "I can be if you want me to be" he flashed me a wink "you had enough to eat? We really should get moving, we don't want to keep Chiron waiting"

"Who's Chiron?" I ask, feeling as if I should know the name from somewhere but can't quite recall it to memory. I wonder if he was a celebrity, someone from a film, perhaps. Tiger smiled at the question, not like his other smiles that had started to irritate me, it was more empty, his eyes were glazed over. I look around and see the same effect has come over others in the cafeteria.

One hooded man doesn't appear to be effective. I can't see his face in the shadows. A voice enters my head as he stands "Child of Shadows.....your life is forfeit...my child snatchers come for you...and when they do....you will be mine" his voice was croaky, it wrung in my ears. I can hear another voice over it, Tiger's voice "Noah! Noah! Wake up! We have to go!"

I open my eyes. All I see is darkness.

"What is this?" I whimper, my voice sounding like it did when I was a child. As I say this I feel bad. I remember that day in the cemetery. I scream. Suddenly Tiger is there, fussing over me. We aren't in KFC anymore. I look around. It doesn't even look like we are in New York.

"where are we?" I ask. Tiger looks sad, like wherever we were was somewhere we shouldn't be "the tree of wisdom" he mumbled, almost to himself "last resting place of the satyr Lord Grover Underwood" his hands reached out for the tree but stopped inches away from touching it "one of the last surviving places of pure natural beauty in the world"

I look up at the tree in awe, this clearly meant a lot to him. That was when my own brain kicked in "did you say satyr? Like the little sheep people?" When my eyes met him his were glaring back at me "sheep?" He sounded incredulous "we are part goat, if that's what you mean"

"We?" My voice sounded deeper again. I was shocked, but not surprised, like I had been able to sense that there had been something wrong with my saviour "but aren't they just myths and legends?"

"Myths and legends, my left hoof. Do I look like a myth to you?" He pushed his face down near mine. It was then that I noticed his goatee. It was small and an odd colour that camouflaged it to his face

"N-no" I mumbled "I guess not" I remember the hooded figure I had seen at the KFC. The swirling robe he had been wearing. Almost as if it was made up of shadows "so what are you trying to tell me?"

"What I am trying to say is that you're special. You are someone that I need to protect. My name is Tiger, Chief Protector and Member of the Council of Cloven Elders. You are Noah, demigod child of Olympus"