This one is from My Maternoween Anthology I figured I’d share this one while I finished up the touches on an edit of one of my older works. Mostly some fine tuning and altering names. Since when I originally wrote it I used real names between myself and my at the time partner. Anyways this was a fun little one to work on and it used an idea I plan to use again hopefully soon.
A young girl awoke bound to chains. A tattered white fabric draped over her like a gown. A singular golden pendant pined near her shoulder holding it all in place. Her ebony black hair was a mess. She was in a skirmish. Surrounded by darkness. She could feel the ground beneath her feet. A stoned uneven terrain. She tried to stand and hit the ceiling. Wherever she was it was a cramped space. Tight and dark. Her breathing was getting heavy. The echo of steps getting closer, chains rustling. Her paranoia overtaking her.
In the darkness, the chains were pulled, forcefully dragging her out. She screamed trying to resist. In an instant, she was pulled out of her tight space. Drowned out by the sound of a waterfall. She was drenched, being led like a dog down a stone path. Dim lights with the sound of rushing water.
“Where am I?” she questioned
The one leading made no attempt to responding to her.
“WHERE AM I?!” she shouted
She could see the dim figure turning to her with a lone finger placed on what once resembled lips. A decrepit corpse rotting away, the skin now tight and deteriorating, one eye missing and one eye nearly gone. With only the faint sound of “Shhh”
It turned around and continued to walk. She was trembling cold and afraid. Forced to follow deeper into the expanding dark. The river was beginning to shine. Being a dim light in the darkness. Her mind raced to one conclusion. “No…” she said with a tremble in her voice
Through the dim caverns, she was led to a gate. The creature placed the chain onto the handle of the gate, the chain being swallowed up, making her get closer. She tripped and the gate opened and she fell right into it. A large round slab of marble was lit up with her in the middle. She could hear the whispers of three voices.
“Alexandrea Daughter of Adrian of Paphos” An aged male voice called out
Another aged male voice spoke up, “we the judges have called you.”
Three wizened men Appeared from the darkness stating their names as they appeared
Together they all spoke, “You shall be judged before us.”
Alexandra looked on at them in terror. “No, I should not be here. I was under the protection of the great goddess.”
“It is the goddess who brought you here,” Aeacus spoke swiftly
“And thus your protection from your fate was removed,” Rhadamanthus spoke softly
Minos asserted “Your tricks shall not save you again.”
“I have made no such tricks against the gods and goddesses.”
“The goddess has given unto us all of your transgressions in life,” Minos spoke
“I have done nothing worth the time of you judges. Tell me why the great Aphrodite has betrayed my trust.”
“Aphrodite?” Rhadamanthus spoke softly, “It is Queen Hera who hands you to us.”
Alexandra’s face filled with dread.
Minos held out a parchment, “Twice you deceived the Goddess Aphrodite. Removing men from their fates. Twice you deceived the God Thanatos, keeping men from their deaths. Thrice you deceived the Goddess Persephone.”
“You played on her whims and kept men from their fates,” Rhadamanthus spoke out “Even Hades the God and ruler of the underworld, was deceived by you.”
Aeacus spoke out “You claimed these men as lovers, how your love was not yet to flourish and these men should not be left to their fates.”
Alexandra spoke out against them “It is Eros! He has cursed me with this love for all of them, Bring such blight against him, not I”
“SILENCE!” Minos spoke stamping his foot
Aeacus listed out “Cicero of Athina, Damen of Paphos, Kyril of Thiva, Ezio of Argos, Faustus of Siracusa, Maximus, Nicos, and Adrain of Sparti”
Rhadamanthus seemed to whisper, “These souls were never fated to betroth you. Eros had no hand in your actions.”
Minos’ brow curled in his anger. His eyes piercing through Alexandra. He spoke “You have used the graces of the gods and goddess to deceive them. You have denied the fate of men, for your vanity and careless whims. We the judges condemn you to Tartarus! Those in favor?”
Minos stomped his foot. The marble slab cracking and breaking apart as black iron chains ensnared her. Ripping her down into the dark. The judges disappear into the darkness. The darkness rushed her flinging her out above crags and boiling rivers of molten earth. Flown several meters before crashing down amongst the hard black stones the chain shattered as she hit the ground. Her one tattered white gown was stained with the charred earth. A burst of molten earth flung her further into the barren soot and ashy field.
Alexandra coughed, feeling like her lungs were being overtaken by ash. A womanly voice mature and dominating flowed on the stagnating air of Tartarus. “For all, you have taken away from fate! Let Fate take back from you! Till the stars cease!”
She felt a pain inside of her stomach. She winced and fell over herself, feeling it swell. Her breath was shortening. Her gown showed a great oblong sphere of a belly. Writhing as it continued to swell. She let out a scream. Pinned down by the weight of her stomach’s growth. She let out a powerful blood-curdling scream echoing amongst the barren wasteland she was now trapped in. Her stomach writhing with life. She could feel the pressure building up within her loins.
A geyser of blood burst out to the ashen ground. Alexandra screamed in pain. As the writhing life within her forced its way out of her. Ripping and tearing its way out of her womanhood. Her screams echoed out from her place in this barren field, her body unable to grasp or brace anything amongst the ash and soot. A small body forcing its way out of her crying out as it was buried in the ashes. Without rest, another was well on its way as if the life in her womb was trying to all burst forth all at once.
One by one these children came out sliding into one another into the ash. Another and another until eight screaming babies were all huddled in the ash. She couldn’t move her body, her tears that did run down her face seared into her skin as if burned into her. Her screams had grown exhausted screaming silently in her horror. She could hear voices calling out to her, so many male voices. All of them calling out “Alexandra,”
She looked over her deflated belly, seeing the boys she gave birth to rapidly aging into men. The first face she recognized was Cicero. She could only bring herself to scream in silent horror. The many faces of the men she saved from fate’s design. All of them called out to her. “Save us…”
They were aging so fast that as Cicero reached for her he was already an old man, crumbling to dust before fading away. Each one after falling to the same fate as those before. Their remains were like ash on the ground. She could feel her stomach swelling up again. Swelling to its previous oblong sphere. The babies writhing within her before their violent biting once again. This time the children all forced out her womanhood feeling like it had gotten smaller even after just birthing eight children moments earlier.
She couldn’t force a scream out of herself, birthing the eight once again in a flurry of blood and pain. Once again the babies aged to men, quickly. “We are all cursed…”
Again aging to severe old age and breaking apart as they finally touched her, once all of them aged again falling to ash. It began once more. life growing in her womb quickly, forcing their birth and crumbling to their demises within mere moments. Again and again without rest she grew and birthed the men she had saved from the fate of death. Being buried in a bed of ash of her former lovers who had died after their birth from her womb.
Like if looking through a mirror the goddesses Persephone, Aphrodite, and Hera watched as Alexandra riled in her birth. Their faces showed their contempt for the mortals' agonizing pain. Hera made a gesture to the other goddesses, they dispersed. With Hera saying clearing, the voice echoed on the stagnate winds of Tartarus, “No mortal can escape the Moirai’s grasp. The gods may turn a blind eye for a moment, but you will never escape them.”
She turned away, the mirror-like image was gone, placed with the glittering marble laced with gold: this lone room of Olympus. She walked out to a great marble hall, a map of the world, littered with golden lights. Zeus argued into the room furious irate if “a missing child”
Athena, who was standing next to Hera, looked at Hera.
With cold callous to her voice, she simply said to her, “Another bastard taken care of,”
