Snakes in the Sky: The Prologue

"Come out!" Frustration coated his words as he slashed at the ruined columns that had once rose to the, now rotting, ceiling. Another pillar crumbled and fell from its base, crashing loudly against the stone floor. "Stop hiding, you cowardly serpent!" His voice echoed through the temple and ricocheted off the surrounding walls, a malevolent boomerang.

My home was dark, just dark enough to hide my cowering form. Tears streamed as I coiled this … tail around me. The grey vipers that had long since replaced my hair writhed closer to one another. I wept as I drew my sword closer to my trembling body. It wouldn't be long now. His footsteps drew closer as well as my imminent death, but they sounded odd. The scuff of his sandals... he was walking backwards. I heard his piercing laughter all around me as if it had sucked away every last bit of air. Thickening it. Suffocating me slowly.

My ribcage heaved beneath the weight of my breastplate as I looked toward the source of the sound. I saw him at last. His sword was not drawn, not facing me yet he knew. He had already planned his strike, his hand moving to the hilt.

"P-Perseus, plea-" and that was it. I had no time to scream. I hadn't had the strength in myself to uncoil my terrified body before he had turned and decapitated me. As my soul separated from my corpse, my tail had wildly whipped around as if it still contained life. I saw my face, for the first time since the day I was cursed, I saw my sorrowful face in the reflection of his shield. The tears had been etched into my cheeks even into death. The path from my grey, stone-hued eyes down to my neck... I could still feel the tightness now as I sunk down to Erebus.

I was raised from infancy in the ways of mortality. I was raised to love the Gods. I was fearful of their power, but gracious for their gifts. I vowed celibacy and dedicated my future to Athena, herself, in hopes of being seen in her favor. Bullshit. When Poseidon rose from his watery depths, Athena turned herself from me. I was forsaken. I was cursed. The name 'Medusa' was forgotten among them, and I was left to exist behind scaly skin and slithering locks.

From the day I had been cursed, I knew this day was eminent. When my curled, raven locks were replaced by venomous snakes, I knew that I was no longer a human being, but a monster for a hero to conquer. I waited years, bitterly turning men to stone, but today, that all ended.

As my spirit sunk to the dark and dreary shore of Acheron, I ran my fingers over the powder sand. This is where I would be for the next thousand years. No man would lay coins over my rotting eyes up above, I would be stuck here for all of eternity... wandering.

I turned my head, so I could lay my cheek against the cold sand. It was dark here, far darker than my cascading temple from above. The place I had once called home. I could faintly see the rippling of the dark waves with dense fog settling above it.

I listened to the ebb and flow of the river, thinking how I had finally arrived here. Perseus and every “hero” before him couldn’t be blamed. I searched my mind for memories of Athena and Poseidon, wondering how long they had thought about what they had done to me. A blink of an eye and they had moved on from me, off to change the fate of another lost soul.

Not anymore, I had an eternity to rectify their unjust actions. An eternity to remind them of the girl with the snakes for hair and the eyes cursed, no, sculpted to entomb.