gone girl.
━━━ chapter one

❀

Amaryllis Kalomiri spent her entire life on an island.

She was born in Thassos, a small quite insignificant Greek island. Not many people lived there all year round, most of them owned holiday houses or visited the grandparents during the summer holidays. Elderly people usually lived in the less populated villages, like the one where Amaryllis lived in with her mother and aunt Evaggelia. The neighbourhood in which she grew up in was deadly quiet during the winter and the only place where she'd see any children her age was school.

She never had many friends and although her mother insisted that nothing was wrong with her, sometimes Amaryllis would compare herself with the other kids and see how different she was. She didn't fit in, she never did. She spent most of her time having conversations with the older people, that ironically enough seemed to quite like her. Most of them missed their grandchildren, so when they had the opportunity to be around little Amaryllis, they spoiled her like they wanted to spoil their own blood. Cooking her favourite recipes and inviting the Kalomiri family for dinner, baking her cookies, listening to her rant about her favourite boy bands. Amaryllis was quite popular with the elderly, until, of course, the Great Incident.

She doesn't like to talk or think about it.

After the Great Incident, Amaryllis and her mother left Thassos. They sold their house back there and using the entirety of grandfather Stavros' fortune, they travelled to the United States to live with Mr Orfanidis, childhood best friend of Amaryllis' mother and her daughter's godfather. He owned a big apartment in Manhattan Island, where they'd live for a while, at least until they had enough money to find their own place. He was a nice man and a relatively good father figure to Amaryllis, even though he spent most of his day at his job and basically only interacted with her during the weekend. And her mother was happy when he was around, which was always a bonus. The young girl couldn't recall the last time her mother seemed genuinely happy, especially after they left Greece.

Strange incidents kept happening and it wasn't until Grover and Brett found Amaryllis and explained everything to her and her mother that she realised why they were happening in the first place. They took her to Camp Half Blood and her life took a drastic turn – from struggling to do math homework to learning how to fight monsters with a bow and an arrow.

She did miss the Camp a lot, but she missed her mother so much more.

Amaryllis knew time worked differently in Ogygia. One day there could be one week in the actual world and the mere thought of that was frightening. She wasn't sure for how long she had been missing, but it certainly was a year. She saw herself growing into a teenager and reach the same height as Calypso, which seemed to be an adult when Amaryllis first got to the island, but now it was obvious that she had always been a teenage girl.

Ogygia wasn't that bad. She repeated it like a mantra every single day, because her mother used to tell her to always be grateful for what she had or worse things would come. It truly wasn't that bad – it was the most beautiful place a mortal could ever see. It was a tropical heaven decorated with every possible kind of tree and plant that grows on Earth. Calypso's garden was breathtaking and just smelling all the different types of flowers could make a person feel happy and comforted. The weather was always nice, it seemed to be summer all year round. There weren't many things the two girls could do on the island, but both of them were used to their daily routine.

Amaryllis never understood how Calypso was still sane if she was being honest. She admired her a lot, in a sense she looked up to her like a younger kid would look up to their older sister. It was difficult not to see each other like siblings when they had spent the last year(s) only having each other. Once in a while they'd have the short company of gods or other men, but they never stayed. Besides, the gods seemed to barely acknowledge Amaryllis and the heroes that ended up on the island only had eyes for Calypso (not that she really minded. If anything, she was grateful that she didn't have to deal with them. She wasn't that grateful for having to comfort a heartbroken Calypso when the heroes ended up leaving her behind though). 

Still, Calypso was always there for her and Amaryllis was genuinely grateful that she had been stranded with her, even if it was for the rest of eternity. 

"Hey, are you okay?" she felt an elbow gently pushing her and interrupting her thoughts. 

"Huh? Yes, sorry. I zoned out."

"I'm done with your braids," Calypso said before taking her hands off Amaryllis' blonde head and sitting beside her. "Now they look almost as good as mine," she joked.

"Probably better," the girl replied with a playful tone and got up. "It smells like orange pie in here."

"Because I baked one."

Amaryllis' smile reached her ears. "Really? What are we celebrating?"

"Nothing. I just thought I'd do something nice," the caramel haired girl shrugged and took Amaryllis by the hand, leading her to the small kitchen of their shared cabin.

"You make me feel like an awful person compared to you," Amaryllis joked, although her words did have some truth in them. The older girl always did things for her and sometimes it reminded her of a nurturing mother who was taking care of her kid. That felt incredibly confusing, depressing and also offensive all at the same time.

Calypso chuckled. "Okay, to be perfectly honest I just baked because I was done with gardening and had nothing better to do. Feel a bit more decent now?"

They both sat down in the dinner table, while the servants quickly served the pie. Calypso's servants were invisible and only loyal to her, they were a gift of pity from Hera, the goddess of marriage. That's how the gods acted most of the time, Amaryllis had noticed – they messed things up and destroyed lives, but after that they'd do the tiniest favour and expected wholehearted gratitude.

"Quite a bit, thanks," she said and wasted no second before taking her first bite. "Mhmm, did you actually make this?"

"Is it bad?" Calypso immediately panicked.

Amaryllis nodded, taking a serious expression. "Yeah, awful actually. It tastes like feet. Maybe you should let me have it all for myself-"

"Mar!"

She started laughing, ignoring Calypso's horrified expression. Sometimes messing with her was simply too funny, the girl was so pure that she rarely expected others to be sarcastic towards her. "I'm just kidding, sorry. It's very easy to mess with you."

"Thanks," she replied sarcastically and rolled her eyes before starting to eat as well.

"So," Amaryllis started and it seemed like the other girl already knew where the conversation would go. "Hermes came last night."

"He did."

"What did he say?"

Calypso sighed. She didn't like discussing what her and the gods talked about, she thought it was bad luck or something like that. "Nothing that I didn't know already. My request has been denied again and he actually advised me to stop trying. So... that was great."

"Seriously?" Amaryllis got increasingly frustrated as Calypso was talking, to the point of letting go of her perfectly tasty slice of orange pie. "He told you to stop trying? He's such a-"

"Don't."

Calypso didn't need to say anything more than that, her word cutting off Amaryllis like a knife. Both of them were aware that calling gods names was the least smart thing to do, especially when you're already suffering a lifelong punishment or... doing whatever Amaryllis was doing in Ogygia.

"I know you're mad but I am not. I've accepted my fate."

I haven't accepted mine, she wanted to scream but she closed her mouth before she could talk. "There must be something that can be done."

"I am seriously very tired of discussing this, Amaryllis," Calypso said, avoiding the other girl's gaze. Something was off, she could tell but didn't want to pressure her further. It was obvious that if she kept pressing the matter, they'd end up arguing. They did see each other like sisters so they also fought like sisters. Only difference was that in the real world, you could actually avoid the other person for a bit. In Ogygia it was just the two of them.

"Fine. I'm going to go for a walk."

She got up and made her way out of the cabin and towards the beach. She never particularly enjoyed swimming, she was actually a bit scared of the ocean and what hid underneath. It was very ironic, considering throughout her life she always was close to the sea. She did however enjoy the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, the smell of the sea and she believed that there was nothing more beautiful than watching the sunset while sitting in the shore, legs and waist inside the water.

She kicked off her shoes, wanting to feel the cold sand, to feel as close to the earth as possible. Ogygia was a phantom island, it existed everywhere and nowhere at the same time so there was no reason for Amaryllis to believe that perhaps she wasn't too far away from her home. Still, she hadn't completely lost her faith.

Perhaps she should have.

Sometimes the memories came flooding back, taking over her entire brain. Memories of her mother chasing her in the beach while she was younger, of aunt Evaggelia buying her those huge loukoumades that were dripped in honey, of their neighbour's granddaughter that only visited Thassos during the summer but was the most beautiful girl Amaryllis had ever seen. Memories of holding her mother tight and crying, because there was something wrong about herself but she couldn't figure out what.

Her childhood memories were the most painful ones, but she felt incredibly nostalgic over her time in Camp Half-Blood as well. The nights she spent awake, gossiping with Will, her favourite half-brother. The Capture the Flag games, where the Apollo cabin was in the same team as the Athena cabin and Amaryllis could kick ass with Annabeth. The bonfires, taking care of the Pegasi, pushing each other into the Canoe Lake and those extremely competitive but fun volleyball matches.

She missed her old life more than anything.

She felt tears forming in her eyes, blurring her vision but she didn't feel like breaking down at that moment. She didn't like crying, it made her feel weak, but sometimes even the strongest people couldn't help but cry their eyes out, sitting alone in the beach while the sun was slowly disappearing.

When she looked to the sky, she saw a hole.

A hole.

A hole?

Someone was falling from the freaking sky and into the sea.

Amaryllis quickly wiped her eyes and yelled Calypso's name, not sure about what she could do to prevent the fatal fall. When the man finally hit the water, there was a loud noise but after that, dead silence. Feeling her heart racing like crazy, she ran towards the place where the probably dead man was hopefully floating. She couldn't wait for Calypso, she had to do something.

So Amaryllis swam.

Thankfully, it wasn't too deep inside the sea and she could easily reach him, but that only made it more possible that he was dead. She felt the weight of her dress pulling her down but she gritted her teeth and refused to let her discomfort stop her. She grabbed the body, pulling the young man next to her and realised he was fully unconscious. Great, I'm carrying a dead fucking body, she thought, even though she could somehow tell he wasn't actually dead. She managed to drag both of them to the shore and only when she felt her legs touch the sand and let out a breath of relief that she didn't drown did she hear Calypso's panicked voice.

"Is he dead?!"

"No, he can't be," Amaryllis stated. "I'm pretty sure he's still breathing."

"He fell from the sky, Mar!"

That was indeed very strange. Normally when men drifted to the island, they came through the sea and most of them were survivors of shipwrecks. Judging from Calypso's face, it was probably the first time someone fell through a hole in the sky.

By the time Amaryllis snapped out of her thoughts, Calypso had already checked the stranger's heartbeat. "He's still alive somehow. I think the water cushioned his fall."

"Is that possible?"

She hesitated. She definitely knew something Amaryllis didn't, but Calypso quickly changed the subject. "Bring me the nectar. I'm not sure he'll survive for much longer if we don't help him."

"He won't die. Whatever you know, you have to tell me. Now," Amaryllis insisted. She was getting pretty tired of not knowing things.

"It's obviously not the best-"

"Now, C."

Once again, Calypso fell quiet from a moment. This time however, she answered.

"This is a son of Poseidon."

❛ gone girl. ❜
( part 𝒐𝒏𝒆 of gone girl series )
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