Mythology, Drama, Romance, Fiction
4 min
Bleed me a River
Hazel Janeth
"Wouldn't it be fascinating if we were up there, some day?" She whispers, her damp curls tickling the side of Acis's neck. Her pale, shivering finger points at Sirius, "I'd like to meet him when I die, I think."
He scoffs, pulling his cloak around Galatea, "You would like to be a hole in the universe, love? Alone, devoid, lost? Why, you'd be better down in the underworld, among the flowers and fields of grass."
"Humor me for a bit," she mumbles, pausing to look up at his eyes, piercing through the wall he'd so carefully built, "Though if you were to go to the underworld, I would follow you."
Ever the wiser, he smiles deprecatingly, "You would forget me."
"I don't think that would be possible. Although, would you forget me?"
"I hope not," he answers, honestly, praying for it to stay the truth. For the last thing he would want to forget would be the young goddess before him, so impossibly beautiful that only the gods could have created her.
He leans over and brushes the hair from her eyes, marvelling at how perfectly blue they were in the dim light of the riverside. This, he thinks, was quite the irony. They were the connectors, the sharers, the merging of the river and sea- so similar, yet so far apart, forever doomed to live in the shadows of this quiet cave.
She seems to sense his forthcoming doubt, resting her hand upon his in an attempt to make him smile, "He cannot find us here, Acis. Let us be at love for once without worrying ourselves of his terrible misdeamoners." she laughs, reading his mind.
"I am not worrying!" He protests, "I am powerful enough to protect you from that sorry excuse of a cyclops."
"I know, dear," she shakes her head, "But we should not let him get inbetween us when he is gone, no? . He can't get to me here. Tonight, it is just us."
Her assurance gives him little comfort, but he forces himself to nod for her. "It's just us."
–
The salty shores of Sicily were brown under the full moon that night, something that caused Acis to frown. A voice whispered to him from the crevices of his mind, telling him that something was terribly wrong- but he pushed it as fas as he possibly could.
"Acis," Galatea's sing-song voice drifted down, "Are you here?"
"I am here," he calls, waiting for her bright smile and hopeful face to greet him as he ascended the hill, "Galatea?"
"Acis?" He hears her call again, shrill and different, somehow further than where she was before.
He follows the voice, slowly but surely, only stopping when he reaches the cliff edge. "Galatea?" He tries again, desperation edging into his tired call, "Are you here?"
"I'm afraid she is."
Bile raises into his throat, as fear seizes him like a dying nympth. For that voice was one that he knew all to well, one that meant destruction and pain and end.
And from the shadows, Polyphemus emerged, with a cold wicked grin that Acis had come to know meant only the worst.
"Where is she?" He demands, pointing a finger at the obsessive monster who had all-but-kidnapped his love.
"Where she should be," He looks down upon the mortal, "With me." He says it as if it's obvious, like as if Galatea would want anything to do with him. The giant who had tried to court her, and in failing to do so, vowed to do anything to make her his own.
"She is not yours," He manages, forcing his voice to remain steady and strong.
The giant stomps, sending a series of vibrations across the ground on which they stood, "She would be!" He bellows, "If you were to never have been born! Wretched curseling!"
"Give her back," he tries again, "She does not want to be with you." The daises by his hip droop, and he spares a single glance to them before facing Polyphemus.
"She will, some day," he grins, and Acis has to fight the urge to not channel his demigod gifts right there and then to fight the vile monster in front of him.
"That day will be when I am dead," He replies, confidently, "I will not give her up, Polyphemus. Give her back."
"Is that a challenge, young one?" He cackles, "You fail to realize the power I have."
And because Acis is quite an idiot, he thinks, or maybe because he just never fathomed the lengths Polyphemus would go to for Galatea, he did not do anything.
He simply watches.
He watches as the giant snapped a boulder from the nearest mountain. He watches as it flew. He watches the triumphant face of the giant morph into one of confusion as Acis just watched.
He feels it collide into him, sending his body into unbearable pain and overdrive. Because it's just too much for him to bear, too much from him to understand and comprehend.
The rock rolls over, leaving him bleeding on the ground. And in his haze, he sees his blood flow down the cliff, down, down, down.
"Acis!" he hears a shrill scream, one his fogged brain can still recognize as Galatea. Who is safe, who is real. His fear is replaced by acceptance, because Galatea is safe, and Polyphemus couldn't take her.
"Polyphemus, what have you done?"
He hears running, panting, yelling. He feels a hand in his hair, a teardrop not is own roll down his face.
"Acis," he hears, one last time.
"I love you," he says, one last time.
His eyes are shut before she can say it back.
–
And as Ovid says,
"His bulk augmented, and his beauty more,
His colour blue; for Acis he might pass:
And Acis chang'd into a stream he was,
But mine no more; he rowls along the plains
With rapid motion, and his name retains."
This was an entry for a writing contest held in conjunction with Center for Fiction and The Decameron Project
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