Villain Loved: A Lover’s Tragedy
I’m about to die for killing the love of my life, and this is my story.
I was young and beautiful once. I was adored by the masses and respected by the town’s men. I had two sisters I adored, and my life was nice. Boring. Normal. Until I met him.
He was stormy as the sea and mighty as the waves that crashed on the shore. He was all I’d dreamed of and more. In all of Greece, there wasn’t a man so ruggedly handsome. I was sure that I had lucked out, that I had found the ultimate happiness. We would meet all over town at night, and every day my certainty grew. Until we were found in a sacred place, a place for the gods.
I was cursed, banished. My sisters, who tried to stand up for me, suffered the same fate. He abandoned me. We were tossed out like garbage, fear, and revulsion chasing us out.
I cannot tell how long the three of us suffered, or how long it took until my sisters faded away, unable to bear the cruel fate we were subjected to. Many came after us, seeking to destroy us, but something in my eyes stopped them. And once it was just me, that number grew.
I was lonely, all alone in my garden full of sculptures. I had no one to talk to, and no one who sought me came after me for words. Except one.
When she arrived, it was because her brother had come after me, and had been stopped. Furious at her brother’s disappearance, she charged into my garden, not even looking at me, determined to kill me. I could’ve stopped her. But something in me felt for her pain, and I merely restrained her, placated her with my words.
At first, she was angry, furious at the world, and at me. I couldn’t look in her eyes, the rage and disgust written all over her face were enough. And she couldn’t look me in the eyes, because underneath all that rage….was fear.
But as the days passed, she warmed towards me. And I, I was happy that what seemed an eternity alone had been brightened by one soul. I sang to her, talked with her, walked with her, held her when she missed her brother and her family. My arms comforted her, and eventually my lips as well.
She grew to love me, this young woman who had come to me with hatred and rage. We shared a passion, a life, and, I hoped, an eternity. But-
“Don’t look,” I pleaded.
I didn’t want her to see me, as I really was. Cursed, banished, lonely, forgotten. She was better off not seeing me as I was. She nodded. She understood.
We were happy. As happy as we could be without ever truly looking at each other. It was a strange passion we shared, with glimpses stolen on the clear crystal of the lake water, but no more meeting of eyes than of mouth and bodies.
She understood me, and stood by me, even though she blamed me for her brother never returning. Her heart of gold was mine, and I, poor creature, didn’t deserve it.
The first time another came to end me after she arrived in my garden, I forgot myself. I leveled a steely glare on the intruder, my face warning him to never come again. She shook with terror, watching him, but not watching me. For days after, she was terrified, until I coaxed her and told her I would never hurt her. And I held true to that promise.
But she wanted to see.
I shook my head “don’t look.”
I was not ready to see the condemnation or fear in her eyes. Worse than that, I was not ready to see the blankness in them.
We had an eternity to figure this out, I silently promised.
And it would’ve held true, if not for the next man who charged into my garden, fearing the unknown, the banished, the cursed. Fearing the sculptures, and the human girl who lived among them without fear.
In the resulting battle, he got his hands around her neck.
Both of us, fearing for her life, looked for each other. Our eyes met, just for an instant.
And she was gone. My heart splintered into a thousand little pieces. I tore the man apart in vengeance, ripping him into a hundred little pieces and throwing them to the sea, to the tide, in defiance.
My cry of despair echoed off the cliff faces, off the waves, off the sculptures, off her body, now hard and still. I cried for days. My world had ended, and I was once again doomed to face eternity alone, and I hated it. I stayed near her constantly, afraid to leave her side even in stillness. My existence no longer held any meaning.
“I said don’t look,” I whispered to her brokenly, over and over again.
But she had looked. And I had looked. And in that moment of weakness, she had been lost to me forever. I couldn’t pray, but I begged the heavens for forgiveness, for salvation. I begged them to end my doomed existence of misery, so that I may join her in the afterlife. Join her, and truly look into her eyes and rejoice, for even hell loses its heat if I was with her.
I was cursed, and it was far more than a cursed and shamed woman deserved, but I begged nonetheless.
And the winds, taking pity on me, brought me hope.
The winds whispered of a man coming with fire in his heart and ice in his veins, a hero who pursued love itself. They whispered that he was no avenger, but a slayer. They whispered of his might, so very like the sea itself. They whispered of his next destination, my garden.
And I waited at the edge of my cliff, pacing through my garden, surrounded by statues, waiting for my death bringer, my slayer, my hope, my salvation.
My name is Medusa, and this is my story.
