The Last Ballad of Olympus: The Waltz of the Vulture and Owl

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.