Alex Anderson The Last Son
of Zeus
Sevan Paris
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"Perhaps we should
leave, yes? Before the local mob decides to blame everything on the nearest
teenager?"
Alex turned away from the
carnage that had once been downtown Athens. Zeus stood behind him. The god put
his hand on Alex's shoulder and gestured to the nearest alley.
Alex didn't say anything. He
didn't think anything. He just stood and moved into the alley. Zeus followed
and they both stopped under a bright light outside the rear exit of a Mexican
restaurant named Taco Loco.
The light hurt his eyes, so
he turned and faced the mouth of the alleyway. "I can't go back."
Alex looked at Zeus. "I can't go back to...to the way things were, can I?
It's all gone. My whole life, it's just--just gone."
Zeus sighed and sat on an
empty tortilla crate. "Such is the curse of all knowledge."
"I don't--what do you
mean?"
"Every time you humans
learn something about yourselves, you can't forget it. It's not the way you're
designed. Your kind can, however, choose to ignore it as you often do with
disastrous consequences. You ignored what you were and look what
happened."
"I didn't ignore it,
alright? This--this just doesn't make any sense! In one day--just one--I went
from being a nobody to the son of a freaking thunder god. Can you understand
how maybe this would take a little bit of time for me to adjust?"
"Last son."
"What?"
"You're not just 'the
son.' You're the last son of Zeus. And that makes you special, not just to me
but to the other gods as well."
"That's why..."
Alex pointed to the street. Somehow the fire had spread to one of the
buildings. Alex couldn't tell which one.
Zeus nodded. "That's
why. Some of them want you. Some of them need you. They all hate you."
"What? Why? What did I
do?"
"Quite simply, you were
born. Born during a time when all gods are forbidden to have children."
"Wait a minute. You're
the big guy. You're like the daddy god. The big, bad uber. So who could've
forbidden them?"
Zeus straightened his pant
leg.
"You? You told them not
to?"
"You should've seen us,
Alex. We were pitiful excuses for deities. We were supposed to help humanity,
in a way to atone for The Fall. Instead, most of us used them like toys. We
only helped them when they provided some form of entertainment or, at the very
least, distraction. So many mortals came to our temples, praying to us when
they lost their way." Zeus seemed to look past the brick wall of the
alley. "How ironic that we also lost ours."
Zeus stood. "I grew
sick of it. I told the gods no more. No longer could they use their powers or
have any children here on Earth."
"But..."
"Oh there are those who
still try. Most of the time it's small enough that I can ignore. Occasionally,
one will go too far and I have to punish them. As I soon will tonight."
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