Cabin and Team: Zeus, Blue Team

Prompts Used: (emotion) exhaustion, (character) Jaz Anderson

Summary: Jaz makes her way to safety, trying to return a book she found to the god it belongs to.

Word Count: 1021

Task: Use the first prophecy's line, "You will find what was stolen and see it safely returned."

As Jaz peeked carefully around a corner of a building, she could hear her heart pounding in her chest. She didn't know what it was that was chasing her. From Sadie and Carter's recording of the Red Pyramid events, she thought they seemed like demons, but she couldn't be sure. She felt close to burnout, ready to make it to her destination. Unfortunately, she still had quite a ways to go.

In her hands, she held an ancient book. She didn't have enough experience with hieroglyphs to know what it said, but in her meeting with the god Thoth at his complex in Memphis, he'd given her some clues.

"It's very ancient," Thoth had said. "These hieroglyphs are so old, even I don't fully understand them."

"What help can you give me?" Jaz had asked, slightly worried. She knew enough from the Red Pyramid recordings to know that Thoth's help rarely came without strings attached. She was already starting to tire of her journey. Was this all real? She hadn't really believed it until she'd arrived at Thoth's pyramid. Something had pulled her to make this journey, but she didn't know where it would lead.

Thoth caught her tone. "I realize you don't have time to haggle around, but knowledge that comes free isn't really knowledge at all. Now is it? No, I can't just tell you what this is, but I can tell you that it belongs to a forgotten god. Find him, and you'll be able to return it to him. He might offer you safety for the rest of your trip if you do."

And so Jaz was now in Roanoke, Virginia, trying to make it the final stretch towards the forgotten god that Thoth had mentioned. Through other research (done in an exhausting marathon search at the Cincinnati Library) she had found out that the forgotten god was Aten. His memory had essentially been erased from existence after Akenaten, the pharaoh who worshipped him, had died. The information made it pretty clear that they had wanted to completely forget this version of the sun god.

At first, she'd had no idea where to even look for Aten, but in her research, she found that he often resided in the Eastern parts of Egypt. Narrowing the possibilities down to the East Coast had been a big step, but she hadn't been able to narrow it down to Roanoke until she met with Nut.

"He often likes places that are warm," she had said. "You were correct in narrowing it down to the East, but there is a place I know that he often frequents. Do you know of Roanoke?"

Jaz did a double take. "Roanoke? I lived there for several years! Do you know where?"

Nut gave a smile as she said, "No, but I believe that you might have an idea."

Nut's words had caused Jaz many sleepless hours, but she had come up with one likely location in Roanoke that a god might like to live in: there was a small astronomical research facility on the outskirts of the city. Where else would a sun god end up in Virginia? So she was now extremely close to the endgame, but these demons were now chasing her.

She didn't know what else to do except evade them. She didn't think she could keep going for much longer. The only defense she had was a knife, and she knew from the Kanes' recordings that demons weren't really affected by any kind of mortal weapon. What could she use to distract the monsters in order to make it to Aten?

Staring across the street, she saw something that gave her an idea: it was a fire hydrant. If she could break the water seal on it, she could afford herself some kind of protection. It would at least give her enough time to make it the block or so to the research facility. But what could she use to smash the knob off?

Her knife! The end was quite blunt, it could hopefully do the trick. Watching around her warily, Jaz quickly made her way over to the hydrant and pulled the knife from the strap on her thigh. Looking up, she saw several flying demons circling lower and lower. She heard others, unable to fly, approaching from the sides. She wondered what the mortals were seeing them as. Maybe a protest, or a regular overcrowded evening in the city? Whatever it was, there would be no interference.

Bashing the knife's handle over the hydrant's knob, Jaz had to hit it several times before it came off. Her arms were growing tired, until whoosh! A gigantic torrent of water gushed from the hydrant. As the demons came around the corner, they were washed back and down into the other side streets.

Knowing she would have only seconds, Jaz quickly broke out into a run. Not for the first time on this journey, she was grateful for her time as a cheerleader. It had gotten her into decent shape, and so she could run pretty far- when she was in top form.

Scanning the buildings she passed, her eyes finally landed on the sign she was looking for. Roanoke Astronomical Laboratory and Research Facility. With a final push that her tired legs did not appreciate, she crossed the threshold and entered the building.

Panting heavily, Jaz looked around to see where exactly she was. The place was mostly dark, except for a pane of light coming from a room across the main hall. Sensing that was where she needed to go, she approached the room and peeked in.

The man within didn't seem like an Egyptian deity. Jaz guessed that gods could probably look however they wanted, but both Nut and Thoth, while not completely outlandish (if you could call skin like the night sky normal) seemed definitively godly. This man… did not.

Nevertheless, Jaz had learned to underestimate no one by now. She took the book out of her pack and said to him, "Are you Aten? I have this scroll, and I have reason to believe it's yours."