Pit-pat, pit-pat.

Her feet hit the ground quickly as her breathing remains erratic and heavy. Eyes wide, she glances—just for a moment—behind her, but already that has wasted too much time. She turns and continues running, her heart racing a million miles an hour as she struggles to stay ahead of The Thing. Tears streak down her cheeks but she has no time for sadness, no time to get away. She knows it is too late.

The Thing drudges behind her, a mass of darkness and souls consumed by its terror. The Thing brings only gloom, despair, and agony, a trifecta of anguish as each day grows more and more terrible, even after she thinks that the days are as worse as they could be.

She would be wrong.

Life creates only The Trifeta of Anguish, the misery of life, and we must continually run from it, until the day that we are consumed by its damning grasp and released into Eternal Rest.

Voted school sweetheart by her peers, she gleefully roars down the street on her motorcycle, almost as threatening as the glint in her eyes when someone questions her taste in men. She gently strokes the kittens at the local animal shelter, loving on them as a surrogate mother. She roughly shoves someone against a wall and grins maliciously as she pulls out her knife, her foe knowing their mistake as soon as the insult to her husband left her mouth. She did not fear to defy her mother when she insulted her husband. She would defend him and all men who were misunderstood, knowing her sisters would protect the wronged women.

She wears flowers in her hair and slides her biker jacket onto her shoulders, her coiled hair bouncing as she runs toward her opponent in martial arts. She smiles peacefully as she fights, the same smile as when she gardens and kisses her husband sweetly when they part.

Kore. "Maiden." She was beauty and elegance, grace and innocence, light and life. Persephone. "She who destroys the light." Renamed. Reborn. No longer naive, no longer light, no longer life. She heard the cries of the dead and met their god and decided she liked it all. Her wrath was feared and her kindness revered, the Queen of Death and the Bringer of Spring, an enigma to all who do not understand. She understood that balance is key to the world keeping its spin.

Her voice rumbles softly even as the adrenaline speeds through her veins. She ushers in a woman and a babe as a man chases them down the street, shouting insanity and promising pain. Her arms bulge with the muscles that dominate her physique, and the man wisely walks away once she was in her view.

Her strength is controlled, allowing tenderness with those who need it. She finds homes for the homeless and gives love to the misfits, the outcasts, the rejects, the abused. Her fearsome gaze penetrates the hearts of all who look at her, scaring away all men. She doesn't mind.

Medusa. A priestess with a patron goddesses helpless to the violence and lust of a god, but clever with a gift that only men would see as a curse. Monster was her new name, at least to men. Ugly was her curse, never to be viewed by another man if he should live another day. She was not cursed. Her gift allowed her protection, at least for some time. Men with their arrogance and lust for women or glory always ruin what was beautiful, always taint what was pure, always destroy what was good. She mothered creatures to be feared and in awe of. She was a symbol of protection to all who needed it, a ward against all who did not understand. She understood her true purpose.

Most would imagine her as young and white, with blue eyes and blonde hair. Instead, she takes form as old and dark, yet more beautiful than any model. Her smile crinkles her eyes and brings out the wrinkles in her face and inspires happiness in all who witness it. She doles out love by the ton with her words of affection, giving a nickname to each customer as she pats their head lovingly and begins to work on their hair.

She takes in any and all who are seen as ugly and disgraceful, petting their hair and painting their faces to inspire confidence in the broken and weary. She is not the image of a magazine cover, but her heart beats with the rhythm of love and her soul reaches out to each soul in a gesture of comradery.

Aphrodite. Seen as vain and superficial, just as she planned. A heart of gold and a brain of daggers, sharp and ready to give its deadly blow to any who dared to cross her. She held beauty but hid it well, disguising it as attractiveness. Men thought they understood her beauty, creatures of carnal desires who saw nothing more than her figure. Any who looked at her face understood the power behind her eyes. An immortal raised from the Ocean Himself, more ancient than any man could aspire to be. She understood more than any could imagine.

Her heels click on the floor of the courtroom and all stand at her entrance, knowing to disrespect her was to tempt fate's hand. The ground trembles with her footsteps, her aura of power radiating a promise of pain to people who plot against her wishes. Briefcase in hand, she struts before the judge, knowing she has won before the fight even starts. She always wins.

She stands in divorce court, protecting the women whose husbands mistreated them and fighting for their rights. Her voice rings throughout the room, overpowering anything else that people are saying, dominating all. Her foes stand no chance. The judge rules in her favor and she grins ferociously.

Hera. Seen as pitiful and bitter, with a husband busy making love to any woman but her. She knew better. Her fury was feared, her punishments infamous, her rule unparalleled. The God of Gods trembled before her and her cold heart ruled with an iron fist, striking down all that dare challenge her. She understood all.

Bow down to the Queens.