OLYMPUS REBORN — BOOK ONE: ZEUS REINCARNATED AS A TEENAGER
Volume: One — The Awakening
Here's the thing about being the literal King of the 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 own mythology. I lived those stories. I breathed the lightning that inspired the poets. I was there when the foundations of the world were hammered out. And he had the nerve to write "Provide more citations next time" in red ink across the top.
I'm not over it. I might never be over it.
Anyway. Tuesday. Cafeteria. I was staring at a pile of scrambled eggs that I'm fairly certain were neither scrambled nor eggs. I was poking at them with a flimsy plastic fork—because apparently, the Ruler of the Heavens doesn't merit stainless steel—when the world decided to break.
The wall didn't just crack. It didn't "buckle." It exploded.
One second: beige cinderblock. Next second: a vacuum of dust, flying concrete, and the fire alarm screaming like a banshee with a stubbed toe. Every kid in the room started shrieking as if they'd never seen structural failure before.
I moved before the first scream finished.
It was an old instinct. The kind that doesn't care that I'm currently wearing a faded Jefferson High hoodie and have a geometry test fourth period. I grabbed the girl sitting next to me—Demi, my lab partner, who had been mid-sentence about something I was definitely not listening to—and hauled her under the heavy oak table just as a chunk of the ceiling pancaked onto our lunch trays.
"What—" she started, her voice tight with panic.
"Don't move," I snapped.
She didn't argue. Smart girl.
I squinted through the gray haze of pulverized drywall, trying to categorize the threat. Gas leak? Seismic shift? Some boring, mundane, non-divine explanation?
Then I saw the crack in the floor.
It wasn't a normal fissure. It didn't follow the lines of the tile. This one glowed at the edges with a color that doesn't have a name in any language invented after the gods retreated. It was the color of deep-sea trenches and the space between stars. It was the color of the Void—the place that existed before Light decided to be an overachiever.
Oh, I thought. Fantastic. Just perfect.
"Jason." Demi's fingers dug into my arm. "Jason, there's something... moving in the crack."
"I know."
"What do you mean you know? We need to go!"
"I need you to stay here," I said, my voice dropping an octave.
"Absolutely not—"
I looked at her. I wasn't trying to use the "Divine Command" voice. I didn't have the lungs for it in this body. I was just... looking at her.
She went quiet instantly. Her eyes went wide, reflecting the eerie glow from the floor. That moment of silence was a little satisfying, I won't lie. A king is still a king, even in a foster kid's sneakers.
I crawled out from under the table and walked toward the rift. Because apparently, this is my life now: walking toward glowing floor-mouths in a high school cafeteria on a Tuesday. This was not what I'd pictured for my "Return to Glory." To be fair, sixteen years of being Jason-No-Middle-Name from Columbus, Ohio, has a way of grinding the epic right out of you.
The crack was wider now, pulsing with a slow, rhythmic heat. It felt like something was breathing down there. Something that had been sleeping for an eternity, had just woken up, and was currently in the middle of a very violent morning stretch.
I knelt and pressed two fingers to the linoleum.
Even in this inconvenient, still-growing, eight-hours-of-sleep-requiring body, I can feel the divine current if I reach for it. It's like trying to fill a swimming pool through a cocktail straw. Possible, but deeply annoying.
I reached. I felt along the jagged edge of the rift.
And the rift felt back.
Something on the other side recognized my touch.
Something on the other side laughed.
I yanked my hand back so fast I nearly tripped over a discarded backpack. I stood up, heart hammering against my ribs.
Okay. Okay, Jason. Deep breaths.
Current status: I'm Zeus. King of Gods. Lord of the Sky. Master of the Storm. Current reality: Sixteen-year-old ward of the state with a B-minus average, no driver's license, no Thunderbolt, and zero plan.
And something from the age before the gods—something that should be so deep in the dark it never saw the sun—just punched a hole in my school. And it knows I'm here.
"Jason!"
I turned. Demi had ignored my order (obviously) and was standing up. She was staring at the crack with a look I hadn't seen on her before. It wasn't just fear. It was... recognition. The look you give a song you haven't heard in ten years but still know the lyrics to.
She looked at me, and for a split second—a heartbeat, a blink—her eyes shifted.
They weren't her usual deep brown. They were silver. A cold, ancient, metallic silver that looked like moonlight reflected on a blade.
Then it was gone. Just Demi again. Dusty blazer, messy ponytail, scared teenager.
The fire alarm was still howling. A trash can was on fire. People were pouring out the emergency exits. I stood there, staring at my lab partner, wondering if the Fates were finally finished playing jokes on me or if the punchline was just getting started.
I really should have stayed in bed today.