PROLOGUE
“Hide, honey. It’s time to sleep, and the nights are dangerous.”
Those were the last words his mother had spoken to him that fateful night.
He remembered lying down in one of the hollows in the cave wall, out of sight of any unexpected and unwanted visitors. His mother snuggled up to him, holding him close as the snakes on her head, mimicking what had once been her beautiful hair, hissed a strange lullaby that he always found comforting.
He remembered his mother’s warmth, hearing her heartbeat, her arms around his body as the hisses of the snakes on his head (the cause of the curse they both shared) gently intertwined with hers.
She didn’t sleep with him, as it would be quite dangerous if someone discovered him while they was searching for her. So, when he awoke that night, he wasn’t surprised to find his beloved mother no longer beside him.
The sound of flapping wings, so out of place in that cave, was what had awakened him. It hadn't been a loud sound, but his heart felt uneasy. The only flying creatures in that cave were bats, but they didn't flap like that.
It wouldn't be the first time some warrior had ventured himself into his home trying to kill his mother; all the statues at the entrance had once been organic, they too had tried to kill his mother, but a single glance had been enough to turn them to stone. Not out of malice, but for the survival of her and him, her son.
Worried, he had peered over the edge of the wall, just to check if his mother was alright. And for a moment everything seemed fine; she had been asleep, there was no one else in the cave, and he had thought that perhaps it had all been his imagination.
It was then that, without warning, a sharp sound echoed in the silence of the night.
ZAS!
In the flash of a sword's movement, which he couldn't see, his mother's head was severed from her body. And Philos watched, his eyes wide with horror, as blood gushed like a fountain from his mother's severed neck.
A warrior appeared out of nowhere, right beside his mother's body. He carried a bronze shield so polished it was like a mirror [perfect for avoiding looking directly at his mother], and the sword wasn't a sword at all, but a diamond sickle [strong enough to sever his mother's hard neck with a single blow]. In one hand he held a helmet, while with the other he lifted his mother's head as if it were a mere piece of fruit that had fallen to the ground.
The stranger smiled. The wretch smiled with smugness and pride! Then he put the head in a bag as if it were just any object and even patted the bag as if it contained a treasure and not his mother's severed head.
The strange warrior seemed to rise into the air, and it was then that Phílos noticed the strange winged sandals he wore, making that flapping sound he had heard before. Phílos understood with horror that this sound had been the assassin approaching to kill his mother.
Before he could fully process this realization, the man put his helmet back on and disappeared from sight. It was then that he understood how the man had approached without him seeing him; somehow, that helmet made him invisible. [He wouldn't have been able to see him until it was too late.]
The flapping sound returned, now loud and careless, as if he knew there was no longer any danger in making noise, and he flew away quickly until the sound disappeared into the distance.
He couldn't do anything. He couldn't move; he just stood there, motionless, staring wide-eyed at his mother's headless, lifeless body, thick tears streaming down his face and his heart pounding uncontrollably.
He didn't know how long he remained like that, as still as the statues that decorated the cave, but when he finally reacted, he simply screamed.
He screamed and screamed and screamed.
He wept and wept and wept.
He ran and hugged his mother's cold, lifeless body, calling out to her and pleading, but she no longer had a mouth or the life to answer him. So he kept screaming and crying, begging for help, but his voice only echoed in that dark and gloomy cave that now felt colder and lonelier than ever.
Meanwhile, outside, both gods and mortals celebrated the death of the monster that had petrified so many: Medusa.
