2017 Inklings Book Contest finalist: Collin Goel
Today we are featuring Inklings Book Contest 2017 finalist, Collin Goel! Collin finished 5th grade this past school year. The story he submitted is called “Clash Of The Primordials” We hope you enjoy reading it as much as we did!
Leave a comment below on what you thought!
Clash Of The Primordials
by Collin Goel
“Get out of my way loser.”
“Brendan, you know you could have better things to do than bully someone a year younger than you,” I replied. Brendan was a huge jerk, everyone knew that, but I wasn’t going to let him push me around.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for class.” Sprinting, I made it just in time for Mr. Bevan to give a lecture on why saying ‘can’ when you were supposed to say ‘may’ could destroy the universe. Maybe that’s not really what he was talking about, but seriously, an hour long lecture for that? Bored out of my mind, I doodled until the end of class.
“Mr. Rickman, please stay for a few more minutes,” commanded Mr. Bevan as the recess bell rang. “I need to have a word with you.”
“I wasn’t late or anything, so why am I in trouble?” I asked.
“You’re not in trouble,” said Mr. Bevan, in a voice not quite human. “But any son of Pontus is directly against our ancient laws.”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, but sure,” I said.
“I could smell the scent of the sea on you a mile away,” he said.
“Who do you think I am?”
“All will be explained in due time,” he responded.
“Okay,” I said, trying to act calm as I walked out of the room. As soon as I was out, I sprinted. As I ran around a corner, I bumped into someone unknown.
“Hello Ajax,” Brendan said. “Mr. Bevan was right, you do smell like the sea.” Not again, I thought and turned to walk the other way.
“Not so fast,” he growled. I heard a whistling sound, and a long, black spike hit the wall in front of me. I turned to face him and my vision went black.
I awoke to the smell of the woods and strawberries and opened my eyes.
“Shh, it’s ok,” said Mr Bevan, standing over me.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Who are you and why am I here?”
“We are currently in a remote area in New York. I need clearance to bring you in,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘bring me in’?”
“I’m trying to bring you into Camp Half-Blood, a place for demigods like you to train.”
“Demigod?” I asked.
“Someone who is half-god, half-human.”
“Do you seriously expect me to believe that I’m half-god?”
“Never ending questions,” he grumbled. “You’re not exactly a demigod, which is why I need clearance to bring you in. You’re a son of Pontus, who’s literally the sea.”
“Okaaay,” I said, and then I noticed his legs, they weren’t human. They were furry and smelled like a wet animal.
“Please explain to me why you have dog legs,” I asked.
“I’m a satyr, and they’re goat legs.”
“Are goat legs supposed to make me feel better? Plus, satyrs aren’t real, and neither are demigods.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Greek mythology is real. Brendan was a creature called a ‘manticore,’ he was trying to kill you.”
“Manticore?”
“Nasty creatures. They’re lions with the faces of humans and can shoot spikes out of their tail.” That explained the spike.
“Back to Pontus. You said he was the god of the sea?” I asked.
“Poseidon is the god of the sea, Pontus is the primordial god who literally is the sea,” he said. Across the hill, a rustling made me look up. A thin satyr with chestnut fur hobbled over the hill, waving at Mr. Bevan.
“You can bring him in,” he said in a shrill voice.
“Well, we have clearance,” Mr. Bevan said. As I walked up the hill, a large pine tree stood straight in the middle, with a snake coiled around it. The snake turned around, and I got a good look at its face. Wait, that wasn’t a snake.
“Is that seriously a dragon?” I asked.
“Yeah, this is Ladon, he guards the golden fleece,” said the satyr, who still hadn’t identified himself, motioning to what looked like a giant gold blanket.
“Wait, THE golden fleece?” I asked, thinking that it was impossible that they actually had the golden fleece from legend.
“Yeah, a couple years ago, a couple of demigods went on a quest and brought the fleece back.”
“Although,” Mr. Bevan motioned behind the hill, “That’s the main attraction.” The camp was beautiful. Strawberry fields covered the grounds, a circle of odd looking cabins and a giant house overlooked the grounds, but then a thought struck me.
“I can’t stay here, I need to get back to my mom. She’s probably worried sick about me.”
“She asked for you to be here,” Mr. Bevan said.
“Wait, how come she never told me?” I asked.
“She would have told you when you were ready, now can we please stop talking about this?” As we started walking into the camp, a middle-aged guy with curly brown hair and dark glasses in a wheelchair came out of the giant house onto the pavilion.
“Gather round, we have a new camper!” he yelled. “Hello Ajax, my name is Chiron, I trained your namesake back in the day,” he said, wheeling up to me.
“My namesake?”
“Yes, Ajax, grandson of Zeus, cousin of Achilles, an extremely powerful warrior,” he said.
“Anyhow, we were able to discern that your father was Pontus, the sea and a primordial god. Primordial gods are extremely powerful, and we have never had the demigod child of one in our camp,” he stated.
“Most people here are the children of normal gods then?” I asked.
“Yes, the Olympians, composing of Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Hermes, Hestia, and Dionysus, our camp director.”
“Whoa, hold up, you have a god as your camp director?”
“Yes, he was punished by Zeus to serve as our director, and, yes, here they come,” he said as campers started pouring in.
Chiron turned to address the campers. “As you know, Gaia, the primordial god of the earth awoke and attempted to destroy Olympus to avenge her fallen children, the Titans. Now, another primordial god has awakened, Pontus, the sea. Due to the strong scent of the sea on him, we were able to discern that Ajax is the son of Pontus,” he declared to the camp. Mumbles erupted as soon as he finished. From what I could hear, there was a war a while ago, and Gaia attacked the camp. I gazed out at the camp. How could Gaia, a primordial god, not instantly destroy this camp? The camp looked peaceful, yet poorly defended. They must have managed somehow, so I decided not to question it.
“What happens if I’m the son of Pontus?” I decided to ask.
“We had a son of Poseidon that could control water and create hurricanes, but we have no idea what kinds of powers a son of Pontus could have.”
“Seriously, controlling water and creating hurricanes?”
“Demigods have powers based on their godly parent. Poseidon is the god of the sea, thus his children can control water,” he said.
“On another note, we have Capture the Flag tonight,” Chiron said. Everyone started cheering.
“Come on Ajax, we must pick out a weapon for you,” Chiron said, guiding me to a large shed. The walls were covered with racks filled with weapons. Swords of all shapes and sizes, daggers, bows, axes and even guns, all made out of some kind of bronze or iron.
“Wouldn’t it be better just to make the weapons out of steel?” I asked.
“Celestial Bronze causes monsters to vaporize on impact,” he simply stated. Seriously, he expected me to fight monsters. Then again apparently demigods could control water and create hurricanes.
“What kinds of monsters?” I wondered.
“Cyclops, hellhounds and the occasional drakon.”
“You mean dragon?” I asked.
“You’d wish I meant dragon! Drakons are more like snakes and 20 times more dangerous.”
“Also, how do humans not realize that monsters are real?”
“A substance called the mist created by the goddess Hecate shields the eyes of mortals from seeing monsters. Some weapons are also covered by the mist, for example, some can appear as a pen to humans when in actuality they’re a sword. Now, which sword do you want?” While he was talking, I had made up my mind. I took out a pair of short, straight blades.
“I want these ones,” I said. They were perfectly balanced in my hand and felt more like an extension of my arm. I walked out of the shed without a second thought.
“Do you know why Pontus has awakened?” I asked, hoping to get answers.
“I think that the primordial gods are coming out of their slumber. This could be either very good or very bad for the world; it depends on what the primordial gods choose.” A bell started to ring as soon as he finished talking.
“Dinnertime, Ajax,” he said.
Capture the Flag started in the woods as soon as the sun set. All of the cabins, which were composed of the people who shared your godly parent, were split up into two teams. Since I didn’t have a cabin, I decided to take the red team with the Ares, Apollo, Nemesis, Hypnos, and Hephaestus cabins.
“We made some sweet traps for wherever we’re going to hide our flag,” said Nyssa from the Hephaestus cabin, explaining the rules to me.
We chose to hide our flag at the top of the rubble of an area called Zeus’s Fist that had collapsed in a battle a couple of years ago. It was the perfect location. You could see it from all around, but it was almost impossible to get to.
“Are you ready, campers?” Someone who I assumed was Dionysus yelled, “START!” raising his glass of Coca Cola.
I ran, unsheathing my dual blades, the sound of metal clashing echoed throughout the empty forest I ran to the edge of our territory, trying to locate the other team’s flag. A blue camper by a tree heard me and looked my direction. Spotting me, he started to run towards me. My first opponent. As soon as he came in reach, I instinctively rolled to the left, parried his blade and twisted it out of his hands. How the heck did I just do that? I asked myself quietly as I ran past.
Aha. There was their flag, on a cliff above the river. I spotted two more blue people using a passage, then appearing on the cliff.
“Gotcha,” I whispered softly to myself. Wait, I was the son of Pontus, the sea, I should be able to control the water. I closed my eyes, imagining that I was pulling the water out of the river. I started to feel a tug in my gut, and the water slowly rose out of the river. Did I seriously just do that? I focused on making the water close around the flag, ignoring the faces of the confused guards, and bringing it to me. Within seconds I had the flag in my grasp, but moments later, three blues cut me off. Throwing the flag onto the ground, I raised my hands, and water shot up from the ground, blasting them away. They were faster than me and probably could outrun me in seconds, so I focused on something different. I imagined that the water got colder, and colder, and colder. Encased in ice, the blues couldn’t do anything to me as I ran to my flag.
“Red has won!” Dionysus announced to the campers.
“That was amazing, the blue team didn’t even have a chance to attack,” said Harley, a little 9-year old from the Hephaestus cabin. I walked over to Chiron, hoping for some answers.
“How did I do that?” I asked.
“What, the sword fighting or the water controlling?”
“Both,” I said, remembering how I beat that blue camper.
“Most demigods have ADHD, which helps them be more alert in battle, and extremely sharp instincts, which allows fighting to come naturally to them.” I did have ADHD.
“The water controlling can be explained by your strong connection to water, since your father is literally the ocean,” he said. It was around midnight and demigods were beginning to go to their cabins.
“Where do I stay?” I asked.
“You’ll stay in the Hermes cabin, where all the newcomers stay before we can identify their parent.” The cabin was CROWDED. Twenty people and 10 bunks, everybody else had to sleep on the floor. I barely had enough room, so I curled up into a ball. Oh boy, this was going to be a fun night.
* * * *
I heard a bell ringing. I had just awoken from a crazy dream about greek mythology. Bells usually didn’t ring though, that definitely wasn’t normal. I opened my eyes, I was still at the Hermes Cabin. Shoot, the dream was real. I got up, strapped my swords to my belt and walked outside. A dozen kids were having breakfast. I decided to try a different table and sat down with some other people.
“You can’t do that, tables are based on godly parent,” said a girl from the table I was sitting at. I blinked. Was everything here based on a godly parent?
“Oh,” I responded and got up and sat back at the table I sat at yesterday, picking at my breakfast.
After breakfast was done, a satyr came and delivered my schedule. It said I had swordfighting up first so I randomly asked someone where it was. They directed me to a small arena filled with sand. A boy was standing there.
“I’ll be fighting against you,” he said. Without saying a word, I unsheathed my two swords. He grabbed the spear lying beside him and ran towards me. I parried his strike and hit his wrist with the hilt of my sword. He dropped his spear. I kicked his spear away and put my swords to his neck.
“I went easy on you!” he yelled, angrily.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I said to him.
“You know what, this time I’ll go hard on you,” he fumed. I got ready. He ran at me again. This time I ducked. I knew he would struggle to change the direction of his spear so I grabbed his wrist and twisted the spear out of his hands. The spear fell to the ground. I again put my swords to his neck.
“Wow,” said Chiron, who I didn’t notice was there.
“I wonder how you’ll do in other subjects.” I checked my schedule. Archery was next. My archery coach was Chiron himself. I did what he did, step by step. Hold the bow. Draw back. Line up. Fire! The arrow impaled one of the strawberries, barely missing the satyr tending them.
“Sorry!” I yelled. So much for that thought.
After a humiliating archery practice, I was supposed to go to the climbing wall. That doesn’t sound so bad, I thought. I was wrong. It would have been a nice climbing wall…if LAVA didn’t pour off of it. I grit my teeth and climbed began to climb. I reached the first platform and immediately dodged a giant spiked log. I crawled until the next handhold. I waited until the giant spiked log had just passed and made it. A demigod behind me grabbed my leg.
“Hey, they didn’t tell me I could do that,” I complained to him.
“Well, too bad,” he said. Too bad for him. I kicked him in the face with my other leg. I raced up the wall. WHOOSH. I barely dodged a column of lava. I looked down to see if the other guy had made it. He was hanging by one hand, struggling to find another handhold. Served him right. Exasperated, I crawled to the top. I started to get up, but, suddenly, there was an earthquake. Storm clouds appeared out of thin air. A lightning bolt hit a forest next to the camp, screams echoed throughout.
“What’s going on?” I panicked.
“I can answer that question,” a deep voice boomed. There was a flash and a bang, suddenly shards started to appear around the camp and fell towards the ground.
“Who are you?” Chiron asked.
“You may know me as Aether,” the deep voice boomed.
“Aether, the primordial god of air and light!” Chiron said, surprised.
“What do you want?” I yelled.
“I want nothing more than my rightful place in the world,” he said. A category five tornado began to tear across the forest. I had an idea. Who could fight a primordial god better than another primordial god?
I ran towards Long Island Sound, struggling against the winds. I dived into the ocean.
“Father, now would be a good time to appear,” I said impatiently. Immediately a tidal wave began to form. No, that wasn’t a tidal wave, a giant head began to rise. Bigger than should have been possible from the size of the sea, a gigantic humanoid made out of water walked to shore, then transformed into a regular human man. Pontus had dark brown hair and was wearing a tuxedo.
“Where’d you get the tux?” I asked, motioning for him to follow me.
“I’m a god,” he said. Running past the torn out tree-stumps and the remains of the cabins, I spotted the tornado. It was right by the tables, or at least where the tables used to be. The tornado suddenly stopped, the tables flew past us and shot into the woods. Another man rose out of it, thankfully not wearing a tux.
“Greetings, Pontus,” Aether said.
“Why are you destroying the camp?” Pontus asked.
“The heroes from this camp are the only people who can possibly stop me.”
“Demigods are more threatening to you than gods?” I asked.
“Gods have always depended on gods for everything, that time ends now.” he said. “Now, enough talking.” Aether started to glow. Looking away, I heard an explosion. It was like the winds erupted from him. I was launched back.
“He’s gone to his true form, if you look at him it could kill you,” said Pontus, struggling against the winds. He too began to glow. This time the air moistened. I ran. A bloodcurdling wail shook the earth. A gigantic cyclops walked over the remains of the camp. The giant had a mace in both hands. I unsheathed my blades. I guess this guy would be my first monster. He charged at me, easily dodging it. I chopped his hand off. He howled with pain, dropping his weapon. He began to charge at me. Dodging again, I stabbed upwards. I prepared for the body to fall, but strangely, it turned to dust. I ran past the camp borders. I had already had enough of this life. I didn’t realize how tired I was. I lay down under the shade of a tree. I closed my eyes.
* * * *
I awoke. Stretching, I looked around. I was still in my room. It was all just a dream. I got up and went to the bathroom. I turned on the tap and imagined myself parting the water. The water sliced into two streams. That didn’t make sense. I walked downstairs. It was completely empty. I checked all the bedrooms in the house. All of them were empty. I looked outside. The usually busy street was absolutely deserted, no one in sight. To think about it, I could hear or smell nothing. What was going on?
“Hello Ajax,” a deep booming voice said.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, turning around to look at Aether.
“Nothing will stop me, my reign has begun,” he said, walking forward.
“Including you.” he grabbed my neck. I twisted and thrashed but his grip held fast. I was running out of air, everything turned black.
I awoke for real this time, with a cold sweat. The night sky was still up and I could still hear fighting in the distance. I couldn’t abandon this life. I needed to help my father. When I reached the camp, I found it to be deserted, but I soon found the fight out in the sea. The fighting had definitely escalated. Cyclops and hellhounds surrounded the water, not really doing anything. They spotted me though, and they charged. I reached out with my hands. A wave formed and destroyed a couple cyclops. The hellhounds jumped at me, parrying their claws, I stabbed one in the chest. It also turned to dust. Within minutes I was ankle-deep in dust and all the monsters were gone. What could I do to help Pontus? I called wave after wave, but since I couldn’t see him, they ended up going all over the place. Not being able to see their fight, I ran, once again, hoping to find survivors. I saw monsters crowding around the big house so I assumed that’s where the survivors were. The monsters were attempting to enter, but it looked as though there was a barrier between them and the pavilion. One of the monsters that I saw appeared to be a scaly humanoid with two snake trunks for legs, who was clutching a spear. It noticed me immediately and charged without support from its comrades. That was a mistake. I parried the initial spear stab, then turned around and stabbed it through the chest. It evaporated into dust on my swords. The rest of the monsters were cyclops. They noticed me almost as soon as I killed the monster with the snake-trunk legs. I tried something different this time. I raised out my hands and the rain coming from the sky stopped. I gathered up all the water then blasted all of the monsters with it. All of them turned to dust.
I guess the force field only worked on monsters since I walked right through it to the front door. I found it unlocked. But as soon as I stepped inside the house I heard a bang coming from the sea. I ran to the battlefield as fast as I could, trying to see what had happened. Aether was holding Pontus up by the throat. Aether had won. Evil had won. Nothing was safe.
