APOLLO

  ‘’Inside Python’s cave. That’s where you will find Leto and her flock of golden sheep.’’

  How should I talk to her? To the woman who left me, to the woman who hated me? Now, I need her help to live a few more days. However, she did help my sister. Maybe she changed. The entire thought of her helping me made me sick to my stomach.

  Finding Hermes all coughing on his knees was not something I expected to see inside the forest. I did give him what he wanted. A day of pretending to be me. I honestly waited for him to be in bliss and started to mock me, but instead, he looked so pathetic.

  ‘’What happened?’’I asked him, and he kept coughing.

  ‘’Ashes on my…’’He inhaled.’’Throat.’’

  After he cleared up his voice, he stood up and let out a pout. Then, he turned his gaze away from me.

  ‘’She went to the cave.’’He spat once more and insisted on looking away. Why was he so upset? Why wasn’t he all excited and deceiving like usual? Why did he give me information without payment?

  The cave.

  That was where I was headed, too.

  I saw her all passed out now in a beautiful crimson chiton, her face powdered all so delicate, and her lips were painted in a mix of red and purple. She was getting even worse.

  But the one who was surprised to see me was Leto, her eyes snapped wide open.

  ‘’My beautiful boy’’She let the woman down, and her hands embraced me tightly, pulling me closer to her. Such a sudden warmth coming from her. I could listen to her voice weeping, whispering of how glad she was that I was alright.

  ‘’Let…’’I tried to speak, but her eyes fell to mine and cupped my face.’’It will be alright.’’ There was one of her smiles. It almost made me think why was I so mad at her? Maybe it was never her fault.

  ‘’You look so thin, my child’’

  I nodded. SO many times, I was avoiding her; I had built a wall to stay away from her. But at that moment, I simply wanted to crawl onto her lap. I felt like a little child again.

  ‘’You look so much like a fox now, I remember you forming into a deer.’’She whispered.

  ‘’It was a long time ago, Leto.’’I had to keep myself cold and distant, even if that made her upset.

  My eyes returned back to the woman who was tied up. Thankfully, she was long passed out as she would be in shock if she could see the way that I am now. My skin turned brighter and wilder while I began to obtain the legs of a fox. I still had my antlers and tail, but I could feel myself turning weaker, too.

  ‘’What did you do?’’ I asked her.

  ‘’The ‘king’ and I made a deal.’’She announced as she made the woman stand on her own two feet.’’If I take her life, you will be free.’’

  ‘’ My ‘father’ Would never agree to…’’

  But her fingers revealed that underneath her chiton, there was a necklace painted in gold with my ‘Father’s’ symbol encrypted on it.

  Thai was supposed to be my job, and he offered it to her as if it were nothing. Did he believe that I wouldn’t succeed?

  ‘’I can do it’’I admitted, but Leto rolled her eyes.

  ‘’I am sure you can.’’

  ‘’I have a plan.’’

  ‘’You don’t have time.’’She spat at me and tossed me over as she began ranting beneath her teeth. I held her over to my arms, and I could listen to her slow heart beating like a soft drum. Her ankles and wrists were too tight , making even her skin turn red.

  ‘’You can do it, you know’’Leto spoke over and over again.’’You know nothing’’

  ‘’You lost the opportunity to get to know me.’’I replied dryly. ‘’When I am telling you I can do it, I can.’’

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  Her brow arched and she nodded.’’Alright. Do it then.’’

  What? I turned down the woman’s almost dead body. The fates were about to take her away, send her to the underworld.

  ‘’Kill her’’Leto whispered like a command.’’And your father might reconsider all this’’

  My hands slid up to her throat. I never realized how small she was against me. She looked all weak and pathetic. This is what I wanted. Right? Her to be dead and gone, her to cry and plead for mercy…was this what I wanted?

  ‘’I told you’’I cleared my throat.’’I have a plan.’’ But Leto did not seem to believe me.

  ‘’So I will take her and…’’

  ‘’Your sister was right’’sighed Leto.

  And I returned to her confused. But her eyes were honest with me in finding what she meant by her words. I shook my head.’’She is a fool.’’

  Leto narrowed and cupped the woman’s face.’’But you love her, don’t you?’’

  My chest tightens up with the sharp pain returning.

  She was aware of the look. This woman was my mother all, she raised me. And when she grabbed the woman from my arms, I was about to snatch her back. But it was too late as roots covered my limbs and throat, pushing me near the wall. What was that? Why could I not do anything?

  ‘’Let her be, she is a mere mortal.’’I panted while she kept carrying her away from me. Her steps stopped near the tree, with all the sheep now scattering.

  ‘’Then, she will be a fine meal for Python, won’t she?’’ Leto asked with a smile, frowning upon her face.

  A sudden terror struck at my chest, making me remember every detail of what happened between me and the snake. What I did to him. What he did to me.

  ‘’What happened to you?’’I asked her dry.

  Why was she so cruel? And Leto turned to me. Once again, she did not speak. But I could tell. I could tell the answer. It was simply me. My existence hurt her; I wanted her so much that she turned into a cruel old woman.

  ‘’Leto, please, I am sorry’’I panted, feeling the roots getting all tighter.

  ‘’You will find another mortal to fall in love with.’’She explained to me, and I could now see that the old tree had a hollow part right at the center, guiding an eternal darkness.

  No, I do not want to fall in love again. I do not want to feel what I do at this moment. And her anger will not stop even in death. I did not want that. I did not want her to die.

  ‘’Mother, please’’I cried, and she stopped to stare at me back with a soft smile curving on her face. The roots began to relax around me, letting me go free.

  ‘’I once said that you looked like your Father’’She remembered, and I was already about to walk closer to her.

  How short my mother was in front of me. She was a shaken woman who found a night of love and was trapped by it for years. For centuries, she was hiding here, trying to get a glimpse of her daughter and son. How lonely she could have been, and how foolish I was not to go near her.

  ‘’You got your emotions from me.’’

  I tried to smile with her but she spoke first.

  ‘’So you must understand, what I am doing, I am doing it for you.’’

  ‘’Let me handle it mother,’’I whispered at her.’’Your hands do not need to get dirty.’’

  Mother winced with her hand cupping my face.

  ‘’Unlike this woman right here, you are such…’’

  She let out a heavy breath.’’A terrible liar.’’

  After that, Mother tossed the woman’s body into the hole, making her fall. My body broke with my finger taking a few trenches of golden wool, and I was ready to jump into the hole.

  ‘’Apollo wait.’’ Mother screamed, but it was too late as I was already falling into the dark knight.

  The snake that was hiding inside the cave was sent by the queen of the gods to hunt my mother down. After I was born, the snake did not stop after, me, trying to kill me. He decided to weaken me by destroying my temples, eating my people. And then I was once ready to be devoured by him until I managed to…

  Now, Python was crawling to the dark of the cave, awaiting my mother’s feist of thieves and whores and sheep. But maybe, this must end.

  I commanded a bright light near me, just so I could notice the ground was filled with old clothes and bones, either those that belonged to animals or humans. The clothes could be separated into commoners or rich men as the skulls of the mortals were small of children and babies, and others were big enough to belong to old people. Weapons laid down too such as spears, swords, bows, and arrows. But the woman was nowhere to be found.

  I shifted back to the form of Paris, and I began calling the oracle inside the piles of bone and corpses.

  ‘’Where are you, Oracle?’’I shouted, making a loud echo in the dark, wide cave.

  Sudden panic grew all around my body.

  You love her.

  Nonsense. I did not. I cannot do that. Her existence is destroying me, and she despises me. Her heart is filled with fire and hate. I cannot…

  I want her gone. I need her gone. And all I could imagine her now was all eaten up on Python’s stomach, the acid rotting her skin as he tried to spit her bone, leaving just her skull…

  ‘’No, no’’The thoughts rushed out as I fell to my knees.

  ‘’Where are you?’’I screamed at the top of my lungs.’’Lys..’’My teeth chattered.’’Oracle where are you?’’