Flash Fiction - One
Inspired by this image, the prompt we created to write a 500 word story is:
“Fathers fury was a storm I withstood, time and time again.”
Read Matteo’s excerpt here.
Image Source unknown (please let me know if you know the original artist!)
I, Melinoë
Fathers fury was a storm I withstood, time and time again.
But I promised myself, it would end. That I would end it.
As my eighteenth birthday crept upon me, I always the decision would have to be made tonight. It was written in the conditions of my very birth.
Father’s fiery tongue could wield words sharp enough to slice through steel armor, sending lightning hot pain through every tendon and artery he made of me. Destroying everything in his path, his wrath tore trees from their roots and cracked the earth in two.
I tire of seeing nothing but grey – of thick clouds, heavy as molasses.
For too long, he has tried claiming what has never been fully his, wishing I would do the same.
Yield, he scaled, his voice echoing through the moors. It reverberated in my skull, bouncing between the parts of me that belonged to him, and those that despised him with every tendril that watched him torment and dictate for eighteen years.
Never mind that I am shielded by the full extent of his wrath by the magic of my mother. Her sweetness, as lush as honeysuckle and rich as pine sap, has coated me in the protection promised by our maternal line.
To be born of two of the most powerful gods has proven an agonizing life. Once believed impossible, you may trust two stubborn Gods to procreate an atrocity like me – split in two, light and darkness, existing inside of me an eternal battle. The forces of both unwielding, for one must be slated to win.
You see, both the heavens and the underworld exist in realms as far apart from each other as possible, and yet, I was born. Unlike anything the council of Gods had ever seen.
Once, and only once, would they allow it. On the term that I chose whose power I would fully claim by my eighteenth year, now that I’ve had a taste of both.
As every word spat through my father’s sharpened jaw still bruised, the parts of me meant to stay soft could only withhold such force.
Yield, he scalded again, begging me to choose him, as if the decision hadn’t been made years ago.
As his crashing light hit my skin once more, I felt it rise inside me – the power that both fed and destroyed me. I would give that power my own flesh and blood if it meant being rid of his torment.
“As if I would ever yield to you,” I bellowed, and let every ounce of restraint I’d kept my magic within unbound.
As the words hit the air, the curse of my birth began to untangle in a windstorm of lightning, of thunder, of unearthly horrors, sweeping everything up in its path.
Because despite all the ways I am a child of Zeus, I will first and foremost be a daughter of Persephone.
Thanks for reading this week’s flash fiction! If you’re interested in participating, feel free to comment yours below!