The Age of Medusa

How do you kill a god? By taking all they represent and making it your own.
How do you become a god? By killing all the others.

Perseus was a fool. Some smoke and mirrors and he believed he had slain the evil Gorgon Medusa, running to Athena with his tail wagging. But he gave her a gift that she would always be grateful for – the gift of death. His misadventure allowed her to fade away, to vanish into a darkness that even Helios or Selene could not obliviate.
Perseus was a fool, and she thrived because of it.

It is the Year 263 of the Gorgon. Humanity thrives. The average life expectancy has gone from 70 to 125 years through a mix of cryogenics and toxinfusion. The Gorgon Medusa, our one true savior, the Empress Daemon of the New Civilization, rose from the ashes of the Old World and led us from the darkness into the Age of Miracles, the Age of Erudition.

Despite her benevolence, her miracles, her gifts, not all loved her truly. Some bowed only their heads and not their hearts. But dissidence is futile in the face of a deity so omnipresent.

He awoke disoriented. He couldn’t move his hands. Or his feet. He lay spreadeagled on a soft, plush surface, surrounded by impenetrable darkness. 

How did I get here? Where are the others? Such thoughts and worse raced through his mind. He remembered little of what had happened before he was knocked out, and even that was hazy.

His group, the four of them, had successfully made it past the sensors and drones scattered all over Mount Taipan. They were in spitting distance of the Gorgon’s temple. Jaq was in charge of dismantling the final layers of security – the cams on the outer walls, the underground pressure sensors surrounding the temple. Mik would get them past the biometric protocols on the gate. Raz would create a diversion big enough to draw out the remaining drones. That would leave only the Gorgon’s personal guard, the Black Mambas. Four viciously trained soldiers each of whom would fight to the death for her Empress Daemon. But Dem had been trained for this since childhood. He had dreamt of the moment he would beat down the four Black Mambas, and drive his TruSylver ax through the Gorgon’s neck. But something had gone wrong.

He tried pinging the others over the telepathic commlink, tried to pinpoint their latest coordinates. But even the act of opening a channel on his commlink sent his head throbbing.

He kept trying to work through the pain, to piece together just what had happened when the curtain of black that surrounded him succumbed to blinding light. When his eyes adjusted, he saw the most exquisite woman standing across the room, clad in a sheer white gown. It was hard to look at her but even harder to look away – like a pyromaniac staring at the Sun.

She began walking towards him and he tried to fight the undercurrent of unease that rippled through his body. Something wasn’t okay here. She shed her gown, revealing glinting emerald skin. No, that can’t be right. She climbed the bed, crawled over his legs, straddled him. And only then did his brain wake up long enough to realize who she was. No, no, no!  Her hair slithered about her head, hissing, biting. She bent forward, kissed his cheek, his neck. Her fingers teased his hair, matted with sweat. Her hair moved about his face, a gentle caress of reptilian bodies moving about his shoulders, his face. He wanted to scream, he really did.

In his fear, he hadn’t realized the shackles on his hands had loosened. She took hold of his wrists, crossed them on his chest, holding him down with one hand. With the other, she took off her blindfold revealing milky pupils. The last sensation he felt on his skin was her hand traveling down his torso, between his legs, guiding him. The last pain he would ever know was the pinpricks of needly teeth on his neck.

Humanity forgot its gods and built new ones, but gave them up too. It was like a child always craving shiny new things, disillusioned the instant the shine was sullied by its own hands.

Humanity fought wars, annihilated civilization, destroyed the planet, and eventually destroyed itself. The handful of Survivors would’ve killed each other, extinguishing the human flame altogether, had it not been for Medusa. She rose from the ashes of a world forsaken, took them by the hand and led them into a new age. She provided them Athena’s lost knowledge to rebuild their cities, she harnessed Zeus’s thunder to help light their lives, she glamoured Poseidon’s oceans to bring them sustenance.

The Survivors, their children, their children’s grandchildren – all bowed before her, worshipped her, requested blessings, begged miracles. They saw her as their True Savior, the Light in the Darkness, the Emerald Goddess.

Little did they know her humility was an act perfected over millennia, her benevolence a means to shackle them to her. Her miracles, her blessings came with an expiration date to keep them coming back to her.

There were few who saw through the beauty that threatened Athena to the malice hidden beneath. And with each new generation, a new Perseus was born.

But Perseus was a fool. And so were they.

“Should we put him with the others?” the Black Mamba stationed outside her bedchamber asked as she exited in the morning, her blindfold back in place.
“No, leave him be,” Medusa instructed as she headed to her sunroom for breakfast. “Might as well have fun with him while he’s still intact.” She would’ve winked had it not been for the blindfold.

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