A Dark Dream and Flying Beasts

Hazy as the morning fog and blinding as the sun's burning rays. The heat was a pestilence, burning anything under its wing into a scorched and meaningless coal. 

The desert was wide. The desert was empty. The desert sand was a blistering ember that slow wounds would surely appear when the skin kissed every particle. 

Athena was at the centre of the vast range of emptiness as she pondered her predicament. Silver eyes darted at the sky, torturing her sight as the sun's rays ferally stroked directly on her face. 

The heat rose with every passing second. The smell of burning flesh slowly merged with the air's scent. With cold rolling tears, that soothed her hot face, Athena then realized that she could no longer command her body to move as if some weight was pinning her down. 

"Wha—what is—is ha—happe—ppening?" She struggled—forcing her swelling throat to let out even a slight word. 

Gradually, like a haunted hand that reached forth for her—her body collapsed, surrendering to the punishment the fate had given. Skin now bore the scratches, matched with boils that screamed under the painful sunrays. 

Her body disobeyed her. Every limb was sturdy and petrified like the rock pillar on a mountain cliff. Sadly, Athena was left to her own devices with no one and nothing to reach out to. 

She was a butchered lamb only waiting for the expected death to crawl over her.

But death was the salvation, a better ending than the prolonged agony that nagged on every small fibre of her bones. 

As she remained in the same vulnerable position, Athena's tears flowed with no restrain—overwhelmed to such torture that all battles she had won morphed into nothing but a blighted legend told by fools and the unwanted. 

Her mouth then released a muffled scream. It was no battle cry to succeed but a desperate hope to end the suffering. It was her bitter prayer, hoping that someone or something would cease her misery. 

"Oh, mortal life—why must you be so cruel to me?" She lowly moaned, humbling herself as a montage of her glory slowly faded in her head. 

In time, an ecstatic imagination formed in her head once she accepted her defeat: a lance through her heart where blood and grandeur would finally leave her ailing body. However, despite such a notion, fate's tenacity ruled above all else as the heavens blew a mad breeze that carried the monstrous warmth of the heatwave. 

Bolted from the blue, without any comprehension involved, the piteous lady could feel her stomach swelling into a ball. The touch of her belly was hard—bloated as if she had devoured a large rock that was never absorbed. 

Athena did not understand what was happening to her. She even felt something inside of her—latching on her insides like its life depended on her. 

Her body was a cornucopia of madness where answers to her baffling views were invisible. Her chest could not prevail against her vile sentence with labouring inhales that her lungs were about to crash. 

Indeed, her judgment was correct. 

 She was a human chamber where the most brutal of all tortures were compiled. She screamed and screamed only to become deaf as a pillar—feeling her throat grounded into pieces while her soul sang hymns to find salvation among nuisance and pain. 

Yet it was like a second nature without even knowing—

Her body responded to the swell, pushing something out of her as she, once more, let out a scream. Athena then heard herself, concluding with shame that she sounded like a howling wolf that rumbled both the desert plains and sky. 

Legs spread wide, mirroring the bored mountains with its peak reluctantly praising the harsh sun. From her womanhood, came out something she could not comprehend. Unfortunate and grotesque, Athena only understood that she could feel what seemed to be a rock coming out of her like a revelation that gave no signal beforehand. 

The pain was more unbearable compared to the blows she received in every war she participated in. Her body was numbed yet forcefully fighting an intense sensation. 

Athena huffed and puffed until she could no longer bear to do it. Every part of her was striving for release. When she could feel her inside wavering in brutal agony—wanting to be free from a possession that ate her—Athena fell in and out of consciousness, slowly letting go of her sanity until what was left was desperation. 

No sooner, as the sun's blaze burned everything, Athena's skin sizzled while imprinting wounds on every inch.

Everything became groggy—a moment she would not forget nor understand why it happened to her. She remained still like a rock, unmoved for years. And when her final wail echoed through the vastness, Athena could feel her lower regions break along with the final push her body orchestrated. 

Steadying her breath, Athena no longer knew anything. The final string of her strong-willed mind was broken. Her most sacred part was shattering—a catastrophe as the feeling was beyond comprehension even for the wisest.

How can one survive such punishment?

A wailing lamb to be left by maniacal scavengers who could only think nothing but their lust and gluttony.

Once her sentence was over, Athena croaked a broken cry and let all her pearly tears trickle down until she was left with the same drought as the dust clouds around her. Her nether region was throbbing, only to have the comfort of the burning sun with its rays dancing like the furious smoke of the volcano ring. 

"Ho—how ca—can this be?" The sorrowful lady moaned. "I—I do not under—understand. What—what is happening?"

And yet, it was only the consistent bitter silence that answered. A consistent thread of woeful unknowingness left only to be solved in the hands of the invisible puppeteer that now holds the world together. 

"I—I on—once bear the wis—wi—wisdom—but now, I—I di—did not—not understand how this flesh of mine en—endured the agony?" After she let out—when tears began to dry and her body became numb, her ears perked from the echoes of someone's cry that chorused along with her moans. 

Despite all her senses ceased, the sounds presented by circumstance were as vivid as vivid could be. Like a dying star, Athena's silver eyes dwindled—fading like the last hope in chaos. Her head was wishing for death yet both heart and soul only wanted an escape and continued with her new life. 

It was a shameful torture: nude, indisposed, and losing all hope, Athena stayed in her position as she stared up at the sun. An approval was given—unsigned yet solid like the laws imposed by Olympus. The sun illuminated her, blinding her silver orbs until fading to the resonating wails of what she deemed to come from a child. 

"Perhaps the unknown who holds my fate is not done with me yet." She thought mournfully while observing for a few seconds a glimpse of two flying beasts circling above her before everything turned black. 

"Hope is lost—perhaps I am meant to live a life more unfortunate than a pauper." Her mind wandered after unknowingly taking her last soliloquy.

Nevertheless—

"Athena! Athena!" 

The silver-eyed lady bolted from her sleep—concerned by a call that breached through her dark slumber. 

As hazy eyes began to clear, Athena realized two faces were looking at her with eyes all wide like pups in distress. "Phoebus? Helena?" She drowsily asked. 

"I—" The little boy's voice stammered, trying to fight the turmoil his emotions might spit. "I—we are sorry if we woke you up, Lady Athena. But—"

Before he knew it, Athena guessed something was bothering their little heads. "Oh, you poor doves!" She moaned and pouted her lips as she offered her open arms to them. 

Under her warm embrace, the children began to weep. Their eyes cried out what their mouths could not say. They bawled their sorrows that were still unknown to their guest who could only console them through her soothing whispers and a slow tightness of her arms around them. Athena even forgot her disturbance before her eyes opened. 

"Tell me what disturbed you, little ones?" She wondered, gradually rocking them until courage seeped into their spirit. 

"Vultures!" Although muffled, Helena answered. 

"Vultures?" Athena repeated as her mouth did not cease the clear surprise in her tone. "Oh, dearies. It must be a dream."

Freeing mildly from her embrace, Phoebus looked up to her and said anxiously, "It was a dream at first, dear lady. But when I opened my eyes—I looked out the window and I saw two vultures sitting on the branch of our olive tree. 

I woke Helena up because I heard her crying while still asleep. When I asked her what happened, she told me she dreamt of vultures encircling someone lying on the ground. Oh, dear lady—we had the same dream! I know little boys had to be brave but father and mother told me that birds such as the vultures were messengers of death."

Athena brushed their heads while calming them down. Instead of adhering more to their horrific encounter, she told them, "Animals, sometimes, are the epitome of bad omens." She sweetly smiled. "Vultures are indeed scary beasts, but they mattered in our way of life because they were the familiar of—" The thought dawned on her like a scream of eureka from a foolish wise man. "They were his messengers." She unknowingly mumbled in a low voice, enough to pique a little curiosity from the two children. 

As the realization brewed in, she, once more, asked the children where the said birds temporarily resided. 

"They were sitting on our olive tree, Lady Athena!" Helena said. "They are big!"

"Well, I tell you this—one must be brave in the face of an adversary. I know the fear in you is immense but let not those fears haunt you for the rest of your life. Now, let us start, while you two are still young, try to gather the courage little by little. Promise me that." She positively fortified, taking their hands as the two young ones looked at each other before returning their gaze to her. 

"We will try." Phoebus sighed. 

"We promise we will be brave, dear lady." Helena followed although there was still an obvious doubt. 

Athena gave a little chuckle. "That is the spirit I wanted. Now you two behave well and stay here while I shoo those birds." And before Phoebus and Helena protested, the gracious lady followed, "Never fret—I know how to handle them." 

Winking at them improved their sulking souls. As she closed the door, Athena immediately marched to the lone olive tree and saw the two vultures the children told her. 

"I see you are still not done with your games, aren't you, Ares?" She pondered as her knuckles turned blue and red.