built up and relief shuddered through her as two giant bat wings burst from her. They ripped her clothes to shreds and left her naked. She didn't bother to cover herself.
She was too frightened to move, but scared she'd harden in place from the tightening of her skin. Scales crawled up her once silky flesh. Her smooth hands darkened and grew hard as metal. Her hair swirled around her head as if it was alive. In fact, the strands had grown fangs and were biting her repeatedly. They tickled her skin with their tongues and when she saw they were snakes, she expected to swell and die. Fortunately, she was immune to the poison.
That wasn't the worst part, though. The worst thing was when she met the gaze of Bartholomew. He didn't run like everyone else. He watched as her eyeballs fell from her face and red irises grew in their place. She should have been blind, but she had never been able to see the colors of the world more deeply.
He screamed, horrified by her ugliness. He turned to run, but his body grayed and froze. His death and the moment Medy hurt her friend Cithara worse than anyone else could was immortalized in an eerie statue, twisting and running from her presence.
She wanted to beg for Athena to make it stop, but she had disappeared and been replaced by her beautiful marble statue. Her judgment was finished.
Everyone else screamed along with Medy. Some of them grayed and others escaped. She wondered how many had families.
Soon nothing moved.
Medusa collapsed as the world turned black.
That was the day the monster Medusa was born.
Chapter 3
Medusa woke several hours later. She was naked and covered in a thick gray fog. She struggled to flap her wings because her feet weren't touching the ground, but she couldn't move. Invisible ropes and the scaly bodies of four other monsters of various sizes pressed up against her. She fought, even though each movement caused angry red gashes to erupt across her skin.
The fog beneath her parted and she saw the green grasses of her homeland thousands of feet below her. The air was thin here and her heart beat quickly. She was flying through the clouds, but certain she would fall.
A ray of sunshine fell on her and she saw a white line sparkling in the light. A net as fine as a spider's web, didn't budge as she fought it, but cut into her. The web was as strong as the invisible net that Hephaestus had used to capture Aphrodite and Ares when they were having an affair.
She glanced up. Sure enough, she saw Hermes flapping the wings of his sandals and helmet, lugging the five of them effortlessly through the sky. Hairless in the places Medusa was able to glance at between his armor, his lanky frame was topped with a full head of curls.
She resigned herself to her fate. The thin atmosphere and her adrenaline were making her dizzy.
She scanned her snoozing companions. Two were creatures similar to herself with scaly skin, wings, and writhing snakes on the top of their heads. A muscular merman with lobster claws instead of hands lay next to them. Largest of all was a serpent whose body wrapped around the rest of the creatures and squeezed them tightly.
They must have once been people who had fallen into disfavor with the gods like Medusa had. She squinted. Something was familiar about their features, such as the human shape of the merman's nose or the soft sighs that emerged from the sleeping lips of the large serpent. She could almost see their human forms, like ghosts that followed them. She gasped as realization hit her. Tears filled her eyes. This was what remained of her family.
The giant sea monster was her mother, the merman her dad, and the two like her were her sisters: Euryale and Stheno. Punishing Medusa hadn't been enough. Athena had taken her whole family down. The one who was supposed to be the most level headed and merciful of the gods had tormented these innocent people.
The snakes that had previously squirmed calmly on top of her head sensed her agitation and