A/N: [7/6/17] Wow! It has been a while, hasn't it? Well, here I am again, back at this Greek Mythology fic and I'm so nervous to do it, for some odd reason. Some of you may recognize this one because, yes, there was a version of it that I started way back last... spring, I think it was? Anyway, don't worry if you have no idea what I'm talking about, because (surprise!) I've decided to re-write basically the whole thing! The old one was sub-par at best so hopefully this little redo will be slightly better. Also, the picture that I'm using as a cover picture is, as you might have guessed, a joke. A while back, someone commented that they imagined the Erik in this fic looking like Gerard Butler from 300 and I laughed so hard that I decided to work a little photoshop magic and make that person's imaginings a reality.
Anyway, more boring notes. As you probably saw, this fic is set in Ancient Greece, specifically near Athens around the 508-ish BC, although the isn't too important to the story so don't worry if you're horrible with the dates, like I am. I don't pretend to be any expert on the culture of the Ancient Greeks, however, so it is likely that there will be historically inaccurate things in here and for that, I apologize. For those of you who know more than me, feel free to correct me and I will change things! But, since I cannot think if anything more to say, I'll stop boring you with these notes. I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own The Phantom of the Opera or any Greek mythology. Those rights belong to the creators, not myself.
Another side note: Because this is a prologue, it'll be taking place way before the rest of the story does. This chapter basically works by itself. What follows will be years and years later, and in a different location, and told by characters who have no knowledge of the character narrating this chapter. Okay, now I am done for real. Enjoy!
A Prologue
Cursed.
The word echoed in his mind—solitary and hopeless. He was cursed. Mutated. Deformed. Wretched. Cursed.
A scream rose in his throat, full of all his angry, pain, rage, and horror, and burned its way up until it reached his mouth, demanding to be heard. Finally, it fell from his lips, burning and horrible, like the screech of a Fury. All of his emotions seemed to channel themselves into the noise, twisting it into something that was not human, nor even the sound of any creature that walked the earth. It was horrible. Gut-wrenching.
He could not seem to stop screaming.
As the air left his lungs, his legs slipped out from under him, making his stance grow less as his anguished cry grew more. He choked some more air into his empty lungs and collapsed on to the ground on all fours, like an animal—a beast, his chest heaving. Even the air tasted bitter in his lungs and, somehow, he knew that he would never again enjoy the taste of living. That every breath he drew until his last would taste like ashes in his mouth.
He gasped in another gulp of air.
Cursed.
He looked at his hands. They still appeared almost the same as they always had, yet there was something on them now, something he knew he would never be rid of, even if he could not see it, or perhaps even explain it. These were the hands of a cursed man. These hands had blood on them—the blood of innocents, whose lives he already had or would, in time, take.
He fell backwards, hardly able to support himself further under the crushing knowledge that he was now a demon. A fiend.
He looked at his feet, now positioned in front of him. These, too, were tainted with some invisible substance, some intangible mark that branded him cursed. These feet would now carry the body of one banished from humanity. These feet would harbor a walking corpse.
And his face.
Managing to stand, he stumbled over to the creek on those cursed feet. The water was so clear, so blue within it, not yet damaged by him. It gurgled happily to the sand banks and mossy rocks around it, whispering beautiful tales that no human could understand. This thing—this river—was happy, uncursed. Unblemished. It floated freely down its path, not thinking about its destination, content to follow the lazy current wherever it should take it. It harbored a bright, busy world within it, full of fish and bugs and crabs. It held life within it.
He, too, had held life once; now he was death.
He dipped one cursed hand into the river, feeling the water run over his damned flesh, and, even as the water began to trickle over his skin, the river seemed to hiss in pain. The current slowed; the fish stopped their happy courses. The water grew murky—the once light blue turned to a rusty brown color. It was as if he had killed the river.
Slowly, hardly daring to look, he bent over the now shadowy stream, desperate to look at his face, and yet horrified to see what it had been transformed in to. He did not want to see what now replaced it—what horrible, cursed thing was now his visage. He had never been in attractive man by any stretch but at least he had been whole. Now, he lacked even that small humanity. Now, he was a broken thing— scarred and lacking.
Taking in a deep, stale breath, he looked down to meet whatever sight would greet him in the water's mirror. This—whatever it would be—would be his countenance from now until his death, showing the world what he was, making it clear he was no longer a whole man. This would be his new face. This would be his curse.
He looked down.
His face. Oh, his face.
Horror above all horrors. He himself could not even stand to look at it. Oh, his face! In his horror, he fell backwards, his head colliding painfully with the ground with a dull thunk. Bile rose in his throat from the sight, and, without warning, he retched. Gasping for air, he managed to drag himself to his feet, his body feeling as stiff and as heavy as a stone.
His face. Oh, gods, his face.
There was never a sight so horrible in all the world, never something so vile and disgusting as this thing that was where his face had once been. This was the face of a cursed man. There was not anything as sure as that. It was beyond describable, beyond any words. It was cursed.
He groaned, as he wiped the bile from his lips.
This thing—this repulsive carcass he had been turned into—did not deserve to be called human. It did not deserve to be called anything. There had never been so horrible a thing in all the world, and to attach a name to it was to disgrace the function of a name forever. Not a human, not even a creature. He could not bear to live the rest of his life as such, enjoying the things of this world that humans were allowed to enjoy. Laughter, happiness, love—he could not have these. Tears, anger, hate, sorrow—he could not have these. He could not. The life he would now live was damned forever to be the life of a creature beyond name or utterance, beyond feeling and emotion, beyond love and hate.
"I am dead, now," he whispered to the stream.
"I am dead," he told the clouds.
"Erik…" he murmured to the ground. Oh, gods, how the name tasted in his lips. It was ashes now—poison on his lips. It could not be his any longer. While he had lived, it had served its purpose well enough but that happy time was up. The creature that would rise and leave this scene was not him. It was not Erik.
"Erik is dead," he cried to the world, willing it to hear him. This was his epitaph, his funeral. Let the earth and the stream and the sky bear witness to it. "Do you hear me? Erik is dead! Dead!"
He fell to the ground and wept.