“Hygo! Oh, Hygo! Are you there?” Helianthus, or rather Helia for short, was looking for her brother and getting more worried by the minute. It was his idea to go out and look for some food in that side of town. The dark forest side, where all things lurked and none could be hunted for Kamares didn’t have the hunters to do it, at least the experienced ones. It was foolish of Hygo to go, but was there any other choice when the crops were not growing, Kamares’s only source of income and food to trade. Slowly the town was dying, and everyone knew it as last years’ produce was getting scarcer and scarcer.
Now Helia finally saw something moving in the bush, and it did turn out to be her brother. As she ran towards him she realized something was wrong. He was lying face down in an awkward position, and there was a scarlet sort of colour all over his back, blood. His spear was nowhere to be seen, but no animals either who could have done this. She knelt in front of him and raised his head too her eye level. He felt sweltering, and managed to mutter out, “It came from behind me, im-impossible to see, a big deer on a rampage, like it was.. blinded”.
Then, as he relaxed and took his last breath, she carried him over to the nearby river, rested his body in it and tied a large rock to him with some rope from his own backpack, while sobbing to herself. Finally, she watched him sink to the bottom and stay down there, the rock now stained red.
Back at her home, she ran to the bedroom where her father slept and told him the story, though throughout it all he lay staring up at the ceiling with no response as he had done for the past few weeks, rarely moving. The doctor said it was an effect from not being on his usual diet, as all of us have had to adapt to. At that moment, he turned his head toward Helia and said “Talk to your father about this”, then turned back and lay there, but big tears were flowing down his bearded face, for the loss of his son and older child. 

The roof was dangerously creaking under her weight, but Helia knew this was the only good place to contact her father Helios, the god of the sun. She still remembered what her other father had said about talking to him, he had only once before mentioned her real father so it must be a real emergency. The fiery sun shone in her eyes at this angle, but somehow it had never affected her, being that she had to have some sort of demigod powers as she was one. She called out Helios’s name, and tried to without sounding angry he hadn’t helped the other hundred times the villagers asked for help.
This time he answered, as a golden figure descending down from the sky, but when he got closer he became almost human size so as not to be seen by the other villagers. Just a short hunched old man with a robe of yellow and glowing eyes. “Hello there, Helianthus” he boomed, “such a pleasure, my little daughter all grown up”. His eyes, although burning, didn’t have warmth in them. Seeing as she had no choice, Helia simply pointed at the dead crop fields far off to the right, and waited.
“You think I will help so easily just because I am your father, well then you are mistaken. I need to see how much you want this all back to normal, so how about you find my temple at Korinthos where citizens live to obey me and try again. I will be off now, got to keep moving, the sun got to move too you know”. And with that, he disappeared into the sun.

With no time for grief, she set off back down into the hut so she could pack right away. It’s the only way, she kept telling herself. But seeing her father sleeping, so vulnerable, she had to tell him first, in case she didn’t make it back home and he was left alone without a family in a fast diminishing village. Helia gently tapped him on the side, and surprisingly her father moved. He turned towards her and said, “I heard everything. You are not going anywhere. I am not to lose my daughter too, you will not make it alone. I got these-” He reached over to a small compartment for his medicine and pulled out a little bottle of leaves that looked like vitamins. “From one of the doctors who passed through, but I never planned to use them, only pass them off to you on my deathbed so you could last a few extra days, things have definetely changed now. Taking one, he lay there for a few minutes.   
All of a sudden, a glowing aura appeared around him and he stood up in a flash. Helia watched in awe at this as he went over to the window and looked towards the crop fields, shaking his head in pain for his village. Then, he looked back over at her and grabbed her bag along with the magical leaves, and left out the door. Helia sighed then went after him.
Outside, she caught up with him, but wondered how she would get to this Korinthos. When she asked her father, he pulled out a piece of parchment from his pocket and said “This appeared in my pocket the second I went out the door just now. Looks like he really wants me to go with you”. As they trudged along to the outskirts, he showed her where they were on this paper, as it was a map. “Now, we must get to the harbourfront somewhere out west, then travel across the sea of Crete, last travel a bit on foot to the temple, but fast. My leaves won’t last me long, and-” “The village definitely won’t last as long” Helia finished for him.

Roughly six hours had passed, and they had to make a stop. There was a town called Fourfouras that seemed safe, and wasn’t suffering the way Kamares was. But something was wrong, no one was in the outdoors, taking care of the outside or the crops. Almost like the villagers were hiding. Then came the growling, a hoot, the clicking. Was this one animal, or was it three?
Out came a creature from behind one of the huts, almost like from a hole in the ground. Helia and her father glanced at each other, Helia taking out the only weapon she thought to bring, her spear Hygo had made for her one time. At that moment it was like the monster had split into three, yet it was the head of a fierce owl, body of a jumping animal with a pouch on it’s stomach, and the tail of a scorpion. She had never come across such mutated animals before, she had rarely come across any animals at all. Now, she thought about some of the hunting advice Hygo had talked about, step and jab, step and jab.
It got even closer, and noticed us moving away, it’s owl head moving completely around it’s head. Then it began to gallop. Helia told her father to hide and she went on to fight, circling it and hatching a plan. That little pouch held something in it, and as the monster moved, the head popped out for Helia to see. There it was, the weakness. She rolled between its legs, then as it turned slowly around, she took a stab at it’s pouch, skewering what little monster was inside.
Immediately, it froze, and fell over dead. Helia’s father crept back out and he hugged her, saying how much of a genius she was going for what controlled it. The villagers, who had been watching out their windows, offered their gratitude and gave them a ride on a chariot to the harbor they needed to go to, in a town called Rethymno.

The people of Fourfouras couldn’t afford to give her any other privileges, only gave them some food for the way. To travel across the Sea of Crete, some sort of boat was needed, and they needed money for that. One fisherman was giving his boat away for payment that didn’t have to be money, and so they went over to him. He said that the only thing needed was a valuable, and after offering food and being refused, they realized he wanted the leaves of her dad, as he was clutching onto them through his pocket.
“Not acceptable, we are not trading that, his life hangs on that stuff” Helia said. “Helianthus, you will not leave here otherwise if you don’t take my offer, I am the god of travel and know your journey will be much easier without the burden of him to carry. He only has two leaves remaining anyways and I will only make this deal once. Give them to me!” He shouted, starting to grow in size while the other people didn’t seem to notice. “You are Hermes. the messenger!” Helia’s father remarked, “You planned this all to trick my daughter, and you know what, I will accept your offer. Here” and he handed the leaves to a grinning Hermes.
They shook hands and the boat was theirs, only not much time to get where they need to go, especially due to the fact that the next obstacle was also closer.

After almost arriving at shore, the horizon there, a loud sound was heard. It was coming from overhead, and finally something hit the boat with a loud SMACK! All was seen was a bunch of shimmering rainbow colours and steering became even harder for Helia, a task not so easy to begin with. More and more rainbows crashed into the deck and stars and glitter appeared. All at once, it stopped, as if was never there.
A woman appeared, the same colours as the rainbows before her, this was Isis, goddess of rainbows. Her face shimmered with sparkles and a vision could be seen in her face, some sort of village, Helia’s village. People were collapsing, not taking care of their homes, total destruction. It all disappeared and the woman's face could now be seen. She was staring at Helia with sadness and said “I originally planned to kill you, but now I see you are just a helpless little girl with your poor father who wants to save her village. Typical demigod. Now, I will transport you straight to Helios’s temple, or at least near it, for I know that is where you're headed. One catch… the old man stays with me, he has minutes left and I will not carry this extra burden”.
  Helia couldn’t believe this, her father going to die, her village in ruins, all was going horribly, but she had a chance. Her father said “When I took you in as my own I knew you would make me proud and have a destiny. Now go. Please”. With that, Isis grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled. A bright flashing light emitted in front of her and they were off.

After going through so much, Helia was surprised she hadn’t already collapsed from the stress, she was being strong, something she didn’t know she was. When she went unconscious after Isis dropped her off in front of the temple, she didn’t even bothering gazing at the beauty of the temple ahead of time.
After coming to her senses, she realized she was in the temple at Korinthos and it was awe inspiring. Her village wasn’t as thankful of the gods after all the disasters that had occurred, therefore no temples of the gods were to be found. This one had magical qualities to it that made Helia want to stay there forever. Taking no extra time, she yelled out “I have done what you asked, ‘father’. Please show yourself!”
With that he did, only he looked worried, and a god to be worried was quite surprising. Helios quietly said “I am sorry but I can not help you. I am beyond grief for what has happened to my son Phaeton yesterday, that foolish kid thinking he could drive my chariot. I can’t have all my kids be as foolish as he, so I won’t help you like I tried with him. I will give you a ride back home, but after that is your decision. If you can’t take it anymore, drink this, it will end all.” He pulled out a small flask, implying she use it to poison herself if she can’t take it anymore. She took it from him and they rode back home in silence on his sun chariot.

Going home wasn’t a very good thing to see, the villagers reduced to a small population now many had died from hunger or disease. Helia had expected this, and went to the town centre to try to work something out with the leaders, only there were none left. One man remained there, and he looked at her and said “This was all your fault” Then he collapsed like the rest of them.
Helia couldn’t bear it anymore. She ran to the edge of the village, seeing the same forest her brother had died in, went over to the same river and drank the poison from the flask without a care in the world, saying goodbye. Only it wasn’t goodbye, she felt a tingling in her legs and saw herself growing shorter from her reflection in the water. Her legs got sucked into the ground and she saw herself becoming some sort of plant.
A face appeared in the sky, she already knew who it was and tried to yell at him, however her mouth had vanished, to be replaced with a black face and yellow petals all around. Helios knelt down next to her, now a flower and said “This was your destiny. To make the sacrifice and save the village, I know you would drink the stuff, I could see before you didn’t have any faith left in your eyes. Now, I will send someone over here to look at you from the village, and the village will have something to trade for once. Look, I used all my power to make this happen and you should be thankful for that, goodbye.”
He left without another word, Helianthus’s face still staring at the sky after him. Every day since, she would look up at the sun every day at her father and weep black tears, or seeds, to cry for those that didn’t make it. Her tears would multiply to be her children, little Helianthus’s, or as people call them now, Sunflowers.