Ear to the Serpent | ONC 2020 WINNER ✓ [ PUBLISHED ]

chapter I3

MAYBE I SHOULD have embraced him, or yelled at him, or even cried. But all I felt as I looked at my supposed father, was nothing.

I felt absolutely no emotion towards him, because there was no reason to feel anything. He had never been there for me. He had never treated me as his daughter.

If anything, I was a burden.

Be he a god, a higher being or any figure of authority —all I saw was a lousy father, and better yet, a stranger. I had no attachment to him.

"...If I was such a problem for you, why did you come back?" I asked instead.

Quetzalcoatl stared back at me with equal indifference. "You were not a problem...only a mere inconvenience. It wasn't that I did not want to care for you —I just simply wasn't allowed to."

"What do you mean?" I frowned. "And...why are you speaking English? None of the other gods did."

"You are hearing me as you wish to," he explained. That only confused me further. If I was eager to understand him now, why had I not been before?

Did I not want to hear them?

"As for your previous question," he then went on, "when I fell in love with your mother for the first time, I understood that I was being unbelievably selfish. Who was I to court your mother as though I were mortal? As though we had a chance at a life together?"