Diversions: Book 1, Start: Chapter 1 out of 22, Lightning

"So, dad, did you really open a crack in the ground? That's hard to believe." I gave my dad a skeptical look as he told me about his adventures at his old camp. My dad had never been the most calming of people. Most kids thought their parents were gentle and warm, my dad was sort of... detached and cold, except to me. Instead of bright T-shirts and jeans, dad wore skeleton shirts, black leather jackets, and black and dark blue jeans, which went perfectly with his shaggy dark hair and pale olive-ish skin. He always wore a dark-silver skull ring that was dull in sunlight and glistened eerily in the night. Katrina, my sister walked in. "Oh, Dad, stop yammering about those old adventures at Half-Blood Hill," Then she turned to me, and as my dad left, she said: "They're true, you know." I opened my eyes to only see her dark hair leaving the room. I woke up that night, around 12:00. I looked at my small, black-marble statue of Hades sat on my nightstand, with Hades' left ear chipped off. I walked to dad's room, and quickly picked up a picture, then ran to my room. I carefully touched the edges of the picture. A (I'd guess,) 12-year-old, and a few 15-year olds sat near a tree that had a glimmering golden fleece. There was a centaur, and five kids. The first was a boy wearing a bright, pearl-teethed smile, had bright green eyes, an orange T-shirt, and chocolate-brown hair. The second was a pretty girl with golden hair, stormy grey eyes, an orange T-shirt, and a Navy Yankee's cap. The third and fourth looked identical, both with stringy brown hair, blue eyes, orange T-shirts, and mischevious smiles that said, Ha, you'll never know what I stole! The fifth had dark brown-black hair, mysterious and lethal black eyes, a black aviator jacket, black jeans, a silver skull ring, a shortish black sword, and a forced smiled that obviously intended to say: I didn't want to do this. Dad. The fifth person was dad. He was four feet from the others, looking like he just saw Medusa without turning into stone. He fingered the sword like he wanted to use it there and then, and he wasn't wearing the T-shirt. I suddenly felt like someone had slapped me between the eyes. "Dad. Why did you never tell me?" He always said that he wished he could change what he had done so long ago, but I didn't get what that meant until know. I did a face-palm. How did I not realize? Son of Hades. Obviously, he was the fifth wheel! And that brown-haired boy with the sea-green eyes- he just radiated with an aura of Poseidon! How come the Poseidon's and Zeus's were always the golden ones? Hades was the oldest of the Olympian sons! I slowly went back to my bed and pulled up my black covers  a bit wistful for a dad who wasn't so secluded.