This is a fanfiction written by Lottie
Lana, daughter of Bacchus
The main character of this fanfiction
Lana is a demigod, a daughter of Bacchus, the Roman god of Wine. It is a secret that only Lana and her mom know.
But there was another secret that even Lana's mom didn't know. Even until now only Lana knows about this little secret.
Lana liked the boy next door...
The boy's name was Bobby, and Lana liked him since the first time they met when they were only toddlers. They practically grew up together like brother and sister, but slowly Lana harbored feelings a lot more than that toward Bobby.
Of course, as a girl, Lana would rather sky-dived without a parachute than to tell anyone about her feelings. Especially because Bobby never showed that he had similar feelings toward Lana.
This feeling was the reason that Lana adamantly refused to go to Camp Jupiter even though she already reached the age when it is dangerous for a demigod to walk around outside the camp without any proper training for fighting monsters.
She can't bear the thought of leaving Bobby behind, or living her days far from him. Lana felt that being able to see Bobby every day was the source of her energy, like the sun to solar-panels.
From Lana's point of view, there were no better times than the times she spend with Bobby.
Like today, she and Bobby was walking in their town's park, passing through the time together, waiting for night-time to come.
"You wanna go watch a movie?" Bobby asked.
"Naaah..." Lana shook her head. "We've already watched all of them." That, and Lana hated the fact that she won't be able to see Bobby's face in the darkness of the cinema.
"Well, we can always re-watch that movie." Bobby said while grinning expectantly.
Lana rolled her eyes, Bobby and his fascination with sci-fi movies. Lana really didn't want to re-watch the movie that Bobby was talking about, but she can't resist Bobby's oh-my-God-why-do-you-have-to-be-so-irrisistably-cute-that-I-just-want-to-spend-my-whole-life-watching-it grinning face.
Lana sighed, "Okay, we can watch that movie again."
Bobby cheered.
"But!" Lana interjected. "You have to give me a piggy-back ride from here to the cinema."
"No problem." he said while turning his back to Lana and crouched.
Lana hop onto Bobby's back and he started jogging toward the cinema with Lana on his back.
Lana knew that she was being devious. She exploited Bobby's desire to watch the movie so that she can get a piggy-back ride from him. It wasn't the piggy-back ride that she wanted, but the chance to hug and touch Bobby without embarrassing over and undertones.
One thing she regretted was that she didn't know whether Bobby liked her touching him as much as she was.
"So," Bobby said with panting breath once they arrived at the front of the cinema. "Here we are."
Lana scowled a little. She wasn't ready to let her hold on Bobby go just yet, but their journey was already finished so she didn't have any choice but to dismount from his back.
"You get the ticket, and I'll get the pop-corn?" Lana offered, cloaking her disappointment.
Bobby just nodded and started toward the queue to the ticket booth.
Lana just sighed and turned to walk to get their popcorn and drinks.
Although Lana won't be able to see Bobby's face in the darkness of the cinema - and also the fact that they had to sit side by side and not across each other - Lana at least enjoyed the fact that Bobby was sitting beside her. She felt foolish for having those feelings, but she just couldn't help it.
As usual, Bobby looked so happy and even giddy to watch his favorite movie, while Lana fought the urge to just fall asleep. It wasn't because she hated the movie, no, she liked watching that particular movie ...for the first 5 times she watched it. Yea, Bobby really liked the movie that he practically dragged Lana to watch that movie over and over again for God knows how many times already.
But something was different this time. Lana felt something was wrong.
The feeling came to her when she was buying their popcorn, and it continued while they were walking toward the studio where the movie was being played, and even after the movie started, Lana just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
She felt her senses heightened, and it made her jumpy. She didn't like the feeling one bit.
About half-hour into the movie, she heard a growl.
It definitely didn't come from the movie. That movie didn't have any dog in it, and Lana already watched that movie enough times to know that there wasn't suppose to be any growling on that part of the movie.
Bobby was too immersed by the movie that he didn't realize the growl. In fact nobody in the studio seemed to notice anything different.
Lana took a deep and shaky breath, and said to herself that her ears were just playing tricks on her.
But then the growling continued, and this time even closer than before.
Lana was positive that this cinema forbids anyone from bringing any pets in. There was a big sign of it on the cinema's front door, so where did this growling came from? Was one of the movie-goers smuggled a chihuahua into the cinema?
Whatever made that sound growled again, closer still, and it definitely not a chihuahua's growl. It was a big dog's growl.
Lana afraid that she was getting mad, since everybody else didn't seem to notice the growl. They just continued watching the movie peacefully.
Lana was considering to raise her head to scan around the room, when suddenly the growl sounded once again, really close to her.
And then Lana felt something wet dripped on her right shoulder.
She touched it and it felt like warm water, although a little bit stickier.
Slowly Lana raised her head
And there it was, a hell-hound's humongous head perched right over Lana's head, ready to strike and gulped her.
Lana screamed as hard as she could, making Bobby turned to look at her. "Wha... what happened?"
"There's a big dog!" Lana screamed on the top of her voice.
It seemed like that that was the key word. Once Lana said "Big dog" it looked like the mist dispersed and everybody in that studio was suddenly able to see the huge hell-hound in the middle of the room.
Every person in the room started screaming and standing up from their chairs to run away. It was hectic, although the sound of their screaming was muffled by the padded walls of the studio. But it was enough to draw the hell-hound's attention away from Lana for a while, enough time for her to grab Bobby's hand and together they started making their way out of the cinema.
Both of them finally able to escape from the cinema, but the hell-hound who was clearly aiming for Lana from the start also able to got out of the building and started chasing them.
Lana and Bobby tried to run as fast as they could, but their running speed was clearly not a match for a hell-hound, because the beast managed to catch-up to them in no time at all and it lunged toward Lana's back.
Bobby noticed what the hell-hound was trying to do. He stopped running and used his body to hinder the hell-hound's lunge, effectively shielding Lana from it.
Lana was too late to notice what had happened. When she stopped and turned to see what Bobby did, his shoulder was already bitten by the hell-hound.
Lana's head was reeling to saw what happened. She screamed with all her might, unable to come up with what else she could do.
Suddenly numerous grape vines started to grow on the street. Those vines started slowly, but then within a blink of eye, their growth was accelerated and they moved swiftly toward the hell-hound, entwining it and made it unable to move.
Lana ran toward Bobby who was lying on the street, bleeding from his wound. She didn't dare to move him too much, so she just cradled his head on her lap while shouting for someone to call an ambulance.
“Don't worry, it's not that bad,” Bobby said to calm Lana down. “It only got my shoulder.”
What Bobby said was basically correct. The hell-hound only bit his shoulder. But what Bobby didn't know was the fact that he was bleeding profusely. Clearly the hell-hound managed to nicked his carotid artery.
Lana didn't want to make Bobby panic, so she just forced a smile and a nod while trying to stop Bobby's bleeding with her hand.
A futile effort...
“You want to know something funny?” Bobby suddenly asked.
“W... what?” Lana asked, trying to keep her voice from trembling.
“I doesn't hurt anymore.” Bobby said with a weak voice.
Unknown to even Lana herself at the time, she also activated another one of her ability as a child of Bacchus, which is nullifying pain, something quite common to happen to people who drank too much wine, a thing that Bacchus is the patron god of.
“Really?” Lana asked, holding back her tears.
“Yeah,” Bobby said, his voice somewhat weaker. “And you wanna know something else?”
“What?”
“I'm also getting sleepy.”
This time, it wasn't because of Lana's power. Bobby was loosing a lot of blood, and he was gradually loosing his consciousness.
“Hey, Lana,” Bobby said again with a weaker voice.
“Yea Bobby?”
“I like this.”
“Like what?”
“Not the part of being bitten by dog. That part sucked,” he said with his eyes dimming. “But I like putting my head on your lap. It feels... good...”
“Well, you can put your head on my lap anytime you want, Bobby,” Lana said, her voice stammered a little with tears. “As long as you give me a piggy-back ride first.”
“Yea, that's a good deal.” Bobby smiled weakly. “I like that.”
Slowly Bobby's eyes closed.
Lana, feared the worst, pat Bobby's cheek quite forcefully while calling out his name. “Bob! Bobby! Wake up, Bobby!”
But at that point Bobby already didn't have the strength to even open his eyes and just grunted a little.
Suddenly Lana heard the sentence that she longed for years to hear, but also dreaded at that moment, came out of Bobby's lips.
“I like you, Lana.”
With Lana's name as the last word that ever came out of his mouth, Bobby finally stopped drawing breath.
Lana couldn't believe it. She could never believe it. Bobby had always been with her for most of her life, and suddenly he was just gone.
Lana just lost her mind. She simply lost it.
She shifted her attention from Bobby to the creature that killed him. The hell-hound.
The hell-hound was still trying to free itself from the grape veins that were entangling it.
Suddenly Lana's head cleared up. As sudden as it was scrambled by Bobby's death, it was just as sudden got calmed.
There was only one thing she could do at that moment. She must kill the hell-hound. She must avenge Bobby.
With a very calm mind, Lana took a deep breath and concentrated on the grape veins, willing them to grow faster, bigger, stronger.
And the veins heeded her will. They slowly grew, overwhelming the yelping hell-hound until it no longer visible from between the veins.
After she was sure that the the hell-hound was enveloped completely by the veins, Lana took another deep breath and willed for all the veins to grow thicker.
She could hear the hell-hound's bark and growl gradually changed into pathetic yelping as the grape veins surrounding it grew thicker and thicker, slowly crushing it inside the veins' entanglement.
And then, with a bat of her eyelids, the grape veins crushed the hell-hound inside.
Lana expected blood to come seeping out from the gaps between the veins, but rather it was golden dust that came out pouring from the gaps.
As Lana's hatred toward the hell-hound dissipated, the veins retreated back into the ground, leaving nothing but a pile of golden dust that was the hell-hound, and some holes on the asphalt.
Slowly Lana picked Bobby's head up and cradled him in her arms.
And she cried, lamenting her lost love and friend.
Author's note: Please don't kill me. I know most people don't like stories with sad endings, and believe me, I am one of those people. And yet this story ended with a very sad note. I don't know why, but it just happened. Please don't burn me at the stake. *runs away screaming, chased by an angry mob bearing pitchforks and torches*