The Curse

Zarios is perhaps the shyest person mankind had ever seen when it comes to ladies. He had not spoken to a single lady ever since he was born. His only method of communication with them was with hand and face gestures, period. This had put him under much trouble throughout his school life. However, now that he entered college, his life had become much more relaxed beside the tough calculus exams.

However, Zarios was awoken that morning to find an enigmatic being that looked like it came from hell standing in front of his bed.

"Greetings pitiful mortal," said this hellish being with a smile. It had a humanoid like a body but with a tiger-like face, two horns and four hands.

"W-Who are you? What do you want from me?" said Zarios.

"I am what you humans call Tartarus, the god of torture. I assume you can expect what I want from you now? Yes, I want to torture you, rare being. You never spoke to a lady your whole life. I do not care what your reasons for this are, but it would bring me great pleasure to torture this special feature of yours. It would be an interesting sight to behold and a good warm up after spending three thousand years in a disgusting jail."

"Can't we discuss this somehow? Do you want me to worship you in return for not putting a curse on me?"

"That does not work with me, kid. What will I benefit from a weakling like you worshiping me? Listen up; you will have to speak to a lady every single day. Otherwise, you will die."

Tartarus casted a spell that glued a timer on the left arm of Zarious, It read 24:00.

"Your timer will zero at exactly 12:00 at midnight. But since it is 7:00 now I will reduce the timer for today from 24:00 to 17:00, make sure you entertain me well mortal."

The god Tartarus disappeared, and Zarios was left alone in his own room.

"What the heck did just happen?" thought Zarios as he looked at the timer at his left arm.

This whole story can't be a joke, otherwise, why does he have a ticking timer on his arm? And even if it were a joke, who would risk doing nothing and put himself at the risk of death? Zarios tried rubbing the alarm with his fingers, removing it with his nails but it didn't work. Frustrated, Zarios went to the kitchen for a knife and tried scrapping the alarm with it, but the knife could not penetrate the skin glued with the alarm. Zarios gave up on trying further attempts for now, he had to head to the college.

When Zarios left his house, the timer was 16:00.

Zarios entered the class, and because of the curse, his eyes were unconsciously scanning the classroom for a lady he may talk to. His mother died a few months after he was born, and he had no siblings, so it was hard for him to speak to any female. Back in school the girls at his age tried to talk to him but got bored with his shyness and left him alone. The female teachers sometimes shouted at him to speak up and reply to them, but he answered them only with gestures.

It is not like he hated ladies, his browsing history was full of them. He spoke to males normally, but whenever a lady speaks to him, his heart beats fast, and his head reclines downward, and his foot wants to sprint away. Even if he spent months with a lady and had known her well, his body still reacted the same.

Zarios decided he had to do something about his shyness this time. He can't obviously let himself get killed just because he was anxious with ladies. Zarios knew he had to speak to the other gender at some point. But even if he did talk to a lady today, can he do it every day? It is quite the torture for Zarios. He must have a female friend willing to talk to him daily.

After scanning the classroom, Zarios found three potential ladies he may be able to talk to. Flora was the first, shy and calm and looked pretty. She seemed relaxed enough as a person that Zarios felt he may not be as shy with her. The second candidate was Fauna, outgoing, but always kind to everyone she speaks with. The third candidate was Lona, quite the introvert for he never seen her talking to anyone. This also made her the riskiest out of the three ladies, but Zarios felt she was worth a shot.

Zarios decided to talk to the first person he had set his eyes on, that is Flora. Getting rid of this curse soon would be best so he immediately stood up from his seat. But his legs were shaking, even his hands were trembling. So once his shy body knew that he would speak to a girl, it failed him.

This is not good, he thought. By the time he reached Flora's seat Zarios may fall on the floor, which is not a good story to spread throughout the college, he had enough rumors about him. Zarios decided that if he can't stand up properly, he will use his friend sitting beside him for help.

"Romeo, help," said Zarios. "I can't stand up for some reason. Could you help me reach the doctor?"

"What happened?" Romeo asked as he helped Zarios walk.

"No idea will have to check with the doctor."

Zarios planned that while Romeo was walking him outside the classroom, at least one lady would ask what is wrong with him, and he would exploit that to reply to her, thus resetting the curse back to 24:00 for the day. This will only work once, but he would think of another way to reset the curse tomorrow.

"Hey, Romeo, what is wrong with Zarios?" the outgoing Fauna was the first to ask. She did not ask Zarios because she knew he would not answer her.

Perfect, it is now or nothing, Zarios thought. He tried to reply to Fauna, but his voice did not come out. He tried to shout, no use.

"He cannot walk for some reason, so I am helping him to the doctor," replied Romeo to Fauna.

"I see, keep it up, Zarios," replied Fauna with a smile.

Zarios did not know that his shyness towards girls was this extreme. All these years he thought he could speak to them normally if he tried, but to believe that his voice does not come out is something else. Once Romeo brought Zarios to the doctor, which was also a female, Zarios tried to speak to her, but again his voice did not come out. This put Zarios in a dilemma.

I can't die like this, he thought. In an enraged fashion, he ignored the doctor, pushed Romeo aside, and sprinted outside the college. He had to do something otherwise he will die. Zarios tried to speak to the female waitresses at cafes and he even brought up enough courage to try speaking with a few ladies on the street, but in all these cases his voice still did not come out. Weary and depressed, Zarios went to his house to recuperate.

"You look dead," his father Normav said once Zarios entered the house, then Normav returned his eyes back to reading the newspaper.

"I will soon be dead," Zarios replied as he went to his room.

Zarios father was not the kind who cared about his single son. A typical father would force his son to speak freely to ladies long ago, but not Normav. He once told him his son that must solve all his issues by himself.

However, Zarios looked at the alarm which read 6:10. There is little time left before he dies, and there is not much he can do to stop it. He browsed the internet as his last resort to find anything that may help bring his voice back when he talks to females. Perhaps there were people with the exact same issue and somehow fixed it. But while searching the internet for three hours without a single clue, he fell asleep from fatigue.

Zarios woke up after 2 hours from extreme body pain. He kept coughing until blood came out of his mouth. What is happening to my body, he wondered. He looked at his arm alarm, which read 00:49. Shit, he slept a lot. His whole body was in pain, and he felt weak.

Perhaps these are the side-effects of my approaching death, he thought. This proved that the curse was not a joke. He had no time to waste, so he left the house and try to talk to any lady outside. His father was asleep at this hour, and after relying on the walls and handles and falling on the floor a few times, Zarios spent 15 minutes to leave his house. His vision was getting blurry that it was getting difficult for him to differentiate the gender of the person in front of him.

The alarm read 0:34.

There was not a single person outside his house. A bad timing, he thought, dammit what have I done to suffer through this? While he had 34 minutes left before his death, Zarios instinctively felt he had 15 more minutes at most before he could no longer move an inch of his body.

So after resting for five minutes outside his house, coughing more blood and thinking about what he should do next, Zarios had no other option but to ring the doorbell of his neighbor Odessa and hope he can speak to her. Odessa is a middle-aged divorced lady who got engaged a few months ago as far as Zarios could remember. Zarios hammered her doorbell and she opened the door after a minute.

"Zarios what had happened to you?" Her eyes grew large. "You can barely stand."

Zarios couldn't see her face nor hear her properly. All he could do was grab her arm and say, "I need… to talk to you."

And after that sentence, Zarios fell on the ground unconscious, and the alarm went back to 24:00.

The great god Zeus was awakened by a servant to tell him that the god of torture Tartarus had left his cage.

"How did this happen?" Zeus exclaimed in extreme rage. He had never been this angry for a thousand years.

"We do not know my liege," replied a lady more gorgeous than any human. "But the guard chef Hermes is searching for him as we speak."

"Set this in top priority," Replied Zeus. "The last time he was left alone, he had destroyed a whole nation from his evil ploys. God knows what he is planning to do this time. Also, put the goddess of Love Aphrodite involved in the search."