Okay so here's the thing about being the literal King of Gods reincarnated as a teenager.
Nobody cares.
Like, nobody. Not even a little.
Mr. Peterson gave me a B-minus on my mythology essay last week. My mythology essay. About MY mythology. I invented some of those stories. I was there.
B-minus.
I'm not over it.
Anyway. Tuesday. Cafeteria. Scrambled eggs that I'm pretty sure were neither scrambled nor eggs.
I was poking at them with a plastic fork — because apparently the King of Gods doesn't get a real fork, that's where we are — when the wall exploded.
Not like, metaphorically exploded.
Like actually. Exploded.
One second: wall. Next second: no wall. Just a lot of dust and concrete and the fire alarm absolutely losing its mind and every kid in the cafeteria screaming like they'd never seen structural damage before.
I moved before anyone else did.
Old instinct. The kind that doesn't care that you're currently wearing a Jefferson High hoodie and have a math test fourth period.
I grabbed the girl next to me — Demi, my lab partner, who was mid-sentence about something I genuinely wasn't listening to — and pulled her under the table before the first chunk of ceiling hit the floor.
"What—" she started.
"Don't move."
She didn't argue.
Smart.
I peered through the dust trying to figure out what exactly I was dealing with here. Gas leak, maybe. Structural issue. Some kind of totally normal non-divine completely explainable—
There was a crack in the floor.
Not a regular crack. Not a building-settling, call-the-contractor crack.
This one glowed.
Faintly. At the edges. A color that doesn't have a name in any language invented after the gods left.
I know that color.
It's the color of places that existed before light decided to be a thing.
Oh, I thought. Fantastic.
"Jason." Demi grabbed my arm. "Jason there's something in the crack."
"I know."
"What do you mean you know —"
"I need you to stay here."
"Absolutely not—"
I looked at her.
I wasn't trying to do anything. I wasn't reaching for the whole divine-authority voice. I was literally just looking at her.
She went quiet immediately.
Her eyes went a little wide.
Okay that one was a little satisfying. Not going to lie.
I stood up and walked toward the crack because apparently that's what I do now. Walk toward glowing floor cracks. In a school cafeteria. On a Tuesday.
This was not what I imagined when I thought about returning to power.
To be fair I didn't imagine much. Sixteen years of being Jason Whoever from Columbus Ohio has a way of grinding the epic out of you.
The crack was wider than when I'd first seen it.
I crouched down and looked into it. Dark. Deep. Pulsing slow at the edges like something was breathing down there.
Like something was sleeping down there and had just woken up and was taking a big stretch.
I pressed two fingers to the floor.
Even in this body — this completely inconvenient, still-growing, needs-eight-hours-of-sleep body — I can feel the divine current if I reach for it hard enough. Like trying to fill a bathtub through a garden hose. Technically possible. Takes forever. Very annoying.
I reached.
Felt along the crack.
And the crack felt back.
Something on the other side recognized me.
Something on the other side laughed.
I yanked my hand back so fast I nearly fell over.
Stood up.
Okay.
Okay.
So. Current situation. I'm Zeus. King of Gods. Ruler of sky and storm. Lord of all creation. Currently: sixteen-year-old foster kid, Columbus Ohio, B-minus average, no license, no thunderbolt, no plan.
Something from before the age of gods — something that should be so far down in the dark it would never, ever surface — just punched through the floor of the school cafeteria.
And it knows my name.
Great, I thought. This is great. Love this. Really excellent Tuesday.
"Jason."
I turned around.
Demi was standing up. Which I told her not to do but fine. Fine. Nobody listens. This is fine.
She was looking at the crack. Not scared exactly. More like... the expression you make when you're trying to remember something that's right on the tip of your brain. That frustrated almost-recognition look.
Something cold moved through my chest.
I turned around slowly.
She was standing up — which I told her not to do but fine, whatever — and she was looking at the crack in the floor with that expression she gets. The one where she's connecting things faster than she should be able to.
She looked at me.
And for just a second — one blink, barely anything — her eyes changed.
Not her regular dark brown anymore.
Silver.
Old silver. The kind that has been around long enough to have opinions about it.
Then it was gone.
Just Demi again. Dusty blazer. Straight face. Like nothing happened.
The fire alarm was still screaming.
Someone's backpack was on fire.
I stood there and stared at her and thought about those eyes and didn't say a single word.
Neither did she.
I should have stayed in bed today.