Happy Ever After

Melinoe stared at the last word on the yellowed page of the eons old book.

Fire.

It was odd, perhaps coincidential, that a lifeline was most often destroyed by fire.

But unlike Frank Zhang's, the book cost the whole human civilization. The truth, as it often is, was only revealed through one individual.

None other than the goddess of nightmares and ghosts.

A minor goddess like she is was doing such a job. A goddess like her... One born of treachery and suffering, of hate and darkness.

Of course, she had every right to write down fate. But often, it was gruesome and twisted. That was part of the curse. Everytime a happy ending graces its delicate pages, those pages burn into the void, wasting the world's remaining life as it nears the end.

And the end was not something she wished.

It was a myth untold to anybody, not a god, demigod or mortal. Not a forgotten one, as it had never been spoken or written down.

Only she knows.

Every night, as she haunts sleepy towns, the previous sacrifice relives itself to remind her of her cold-heartedness.

This shouldn't be so, she often told herself, I'm the daughter of the goddess of seasons and the god of the skies!

But she ended up worse than a child of death and evil.

And as she stood there regally in the middle of the battlefield, she stared down at the dying hero with sympathy.

"You have done well, Perseus. But I'm afraid that your previous efforts will go to waste. The world is nearing its end. I emit suffering, yes, but your life, everybody's life, has an end. I'm sorry that I have not been able to grant you your happy ever after, which you have worked long and hard for, but one must learn the unjust issues of life. This sacrifice will be done for good. A new life will be born from the ashes of our victory. Goodbye and thank you, Perseus Jackson." She said as she gave one final glance at the last sentence she wrote:

The world dissolved from a single touch of fire.

And dissolve it did as a torch that Melinoe summoned caused the book of fate to burst into flames.

Even though the happy ever after she promised did not take place as planned.