The Cult of Venoms and Foresight

The lake was sublime and clear—men and women made love through a percussion of intensity and heat. Moans reached the heavens, and their wails echoed through the vast plains of their sacred forest. 

Nude bodies sprawled on the waters and the quayside as lust reigned supreme on that very night. There was even a song amongst the noise of passion—a hymn dedicated to Medusa and the tale of her return to end the goddess who wronged her. 

Praises of the heathens, they say, but praises from their tongues were as real as the sun, moon, and stars. They all called her name. They all prayed for her coming as manhood thrust pleasurably into their femininity. Snakes were present as their familiar—the representation of true divine wisdom and phallic. Crawling beasts slithered far and wide, calmed only by their satisfied hunger. 

But who cares about it?

Who would mind now that their cult had reached the crowning point? 

As the sex came to a crescendo, so did their prophecy—

Or so they thought. 

Blood—

Red and thick. Deep and suffocating. 

The lake had lost its visibility as water became blood. The smell reeked into the nostrils, causing everyone to vomit and lose their heads. Consent turned assault, and sweet moans turned sour cries for help. Men became hunters, and women became prey. 

As the full moon above grew a horrifying face—on its eyes were tears of blood that flooded down onto the earth. The whole scenario was chaotic as the orgy ritual turned into a battlefield. A fire then sparked along with the currents, burning everyone and everything on its way. 

Medusa's glorified effigy cracked down on the middle, revealing battered muscles and brains. The high priestess bellowed like a siren, screeching her voice until her throat bleeds. 

Water and fire had turned against them. 

And on the ground, where the spilled remains of the cracked Medusa head, was a moving thing that the priestess could not identify. It squirmed under the pool of blood and wriggled like a salted snail when touched. Studying a little closer, it suddenly morphed into a fetus that screamed the loudest scream that deafened everyone—burying those cries for help into nothingness. 

The fetus screamed and screamed until the lake's bloody water made a towering wave, and fire raged all around. The cult members burned in agony with the petrified priestess, who could not do anything but stare in horror—slowly sinking herself into the mayhem. 

"Oh, Zeus in heavens!" She yelled before fire finally caught her—engulfing her in its blazing wings until her skin turned to a crisp.

And that was what her vision dictated—

A prophecy of misfortune and inescapable doom. 

"Fire! Blood, water—fire! Oh, heavens. The gods were dead, but the force still reached for us." The priestess wailed once she opened her eyes. "Why must you punish us so?" She raised her hands upwards, shouting to some unseen power above. "We are not the villains! She was the villain! She deserved all doom, not us. We were just victims of her power! My soul—oh, my poor soul shall soon witness the coming of his return—the soter.

Doom—

Doom, I say! And doom shall soon the whole cradle will feel." The cries of the old woman echoed throughout the corners of her room. 

Every nook and cranny channeled her riddled wails throughout the hallway. Servants who passed by shivered, soldiers on guard were distracted, and her cult members, who luckily escaped from the wrath, trembled in their respective rooms—not wanting to go closer to her and console her of such an aggressive gift. 

It was factual that the priestess's words were a revelation that could make the bravest soul fumble in fear. Her current vision that haunted her were sharp as knives, a bat out of Hades, and ominous as the wolves' howls at midnight. She knew of its coming. She knew that another bloodbath would take after the fall of Hellas. 

 "Many more lives will sure to surrender under the madness." She said as her eyes slowly turned red. 

After what seemed to be an hour that passed, concentrating on feeding the fire of the hearth, the old woman bitterly sobbed. She then covered her face with both hands and knelt in front of the blaze. "Oh, do tell me why it must happen. How can one prevent such a phenomenon?"

Once she looked down at her hands—every finger twitched and veins wrinkled on her skin. She cried louder, professing innocence towards the heavens, and finally gave in to her wilted strength. 

Sitting flatly on the floor, the poor priestess lay, reflecting on her past decisions. 

"I, Tanis of Sarpedon, a former apprentice to the high priestess of Apollo. Motherless since birth and in later years, finally awoke from the lies of the gods—enlightened under the blood of Medusa. I see visions that all came true—the good and the bad, the merciful and the merciless. 

This gift I have cherished, I have sharpened, now cuts me deep, for I see the incoming brutal death of many. He is coming. Though his return will be brief, he will sure do smite those who turned their backs behind the deities." 

Looking intensely into the fire, Tanis, the priestess, suddenly collapsed and started to convulse. She was louder, screaming unintelligible cries with sentences that only emphasized words correlating to death. 

Those who heard her ran back in fear. The other members of Medusa's cult wavered as they could not find the courage to comfort her. They all cried in their rooms while some buried their heads under pillows, hoping their priestess's agony would end. 

But their prayer of short tranquility was not meant to be. 

Tanis rolled around like a true madwoman and shouted at the top of her lungs, "I curse this mind and this body! Oh, why? Why, oh, why must I see the inescapable death of many? Blood—water—fire—

Blood—

Water—

Fire!

Must it come? Heaven, speak to me! Spirit of our beloved Medusa, hear this devout disciple of yours and bring us aid.

I cannot fathom the smell of death, the cries of the weak! 

He will come for us—he will come for her!

Death—death will take all our souls to Tartarus!" 

As Tanis curled into a ball, the door to her room busted open as a man and woman entered. 

"Priestess!" The woman called. 

"We are here. Please tell us what you see." The man gently demanded as he rushed to her side.

But Tanis was far from logic. Cradled into his arms, she murmured what sounded like nonsense to normal ears and trembled unceasingly. 

Repeated words of death bubbled in her mouth as her eyes cared not to blink—darting only to the ceiling that was now blurred and faded slowly to black, 

"He comes in the guise of innocence—held on an ivory arm that lulled him to calmness as he shattered the tranquility with his wails. He is our very death."

"What do you mean, our good priestess?" The man wondered, then exchanged a confused look with his partner after he received no confirmation. 

"Death—death, Ikarus! My good follower, it is death!" Tanis emphasized seconds later while raising her hands to the ceiling. 

"What do you mean by 'he' our good priestess?" The woman leaned closer to her as she softly grabbed their priestess's hand. 

Tanis said nothing but mumbled muffled syllables that could never be deciphered even by the wisest of all men. She then gradually tightened her hold on the woman's hand as her vision came in and out. Nothing in her sight was out of the ordinary except for the unexpected distant cries of an infant that slowly and steadily infiltrated the atmosphere—

Coming for her like an unpaid debt. 

"Xanthia—Xanthia?" She called for the woman. "Xanthia?"

"Yes, priestess?" 

"The sound. I hear it! The sound!" 

"What sound?" The woman, Xanthia, was even more dazed by her jumbled statements. She looked around the room, and there was nothing. There was only the crackling of the fire and a simple bed and table for her. As she perked her ears to listen, she could not hear anything except for the labored breaths of Priestess Tanis. "May the spirit of Medusa help us!" She whispered. 

However, instead of receiving answers from the deified gorgon, her small prayer only provoked the priestess as she convulsed with her eyes rolled back, glaring at them in all red. 

Ikarus and Xanthia were both mortified. Her weight, still clinging on to the concerned man, had become heavy—and her grip on Xanthia's turned vicious as if she was about to break every little bone on her hand.

"Ow!" The poor woman squealed in pain. 

"Death! Death!" Tanis screamed as she moved away from Ikarus and held Xanthia by the shoulders. "Death is only our escape, Xanthia! He will come! He will come! A little seed now slowly feeding on the blood of its cradle."

Shaking the previously frightened woman, Tanis had solidified what her fellow occultists secretly dubbed her a lunatic. She continued to resonate about the impending doom only to make Xanthia cry.

"Ikarus," Xanthia looked at her partner as she desperately begged while trying to ease the illogical priestess, "Call for Enyo—please!" 

Although he was unwilling to do her plead, fearing that Tanis might hurt her—yet looking into her eyes, there was a deep begging as she stayed motionless under the manic grips of their mad visionary. 

Finally, the meagered man obliged. 

"Do not let her hurt you, Xanthia." He told her before departing to the goddess of battle's private wing.