Elsewhere… a naked woman stirred on the top of a luxurious four-post canopy bed. Opening her eyes, she searched about the room with uncertainty.
“Eímai xýpnios. Eímai zontanós. Allá poú? Pos?” she whispered.
From the other side of the room, a man emerged from a gold-tiled bathroom, an 800 GSM sea cotton towel wrapped around his waist. A cloud of steam followed in his wake. He jammed a fat finger in his ear, swirling it around in an attempt to remove the moisture left over from his shower.
He went to a side table where an expensive bottle of single malt Scotch waited beside a platter of chilled oysters and caviar. Pouring himself two fingers, he raised the glass to his lips and glanced out the large windows overlooking the towering cityscape of the business district.
“Finally stopped raining. Good,” he muttered into his glass.
There was a rustle on the covers of the bed, which briefly startled the man.
“Woah!”
He lowered the glass and took a step deeper into the room. Eyes still adjusting from the steam and on his third Scotch of the morning, he squinted at the unexpected sight. The unmistakable silhouette of a woman, laying on her side, facing away from him. The room was dark save for the light coming through the windows, and the wispy canopy obscured the details of her features.
“What have we here?” he asked, trying not to slur his speech too obviously.
A beautiful maiden, by the look of her. With long braided hair. Nude, nubile, and waiting just for him. Like a gift wrapped present sans the gift wrap.
“Did the boys in Sales send you? Ha! They did, didn’t they! But how’d you get in here? Not that I’m complaining. It’s a nice surprise…”
The man walked further into the middle of the suite, eagerly trying to peer through the sheer fabric encasing the bed. The woman stirred, but gave no answer.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“But tell me, they already paid, right? This room’s on the company account. I can’t have any escorts charged to my room, you know what I mean? Got in some hot water last time that happened. What’s wrong? You the shy type? That’s okay, I like it better when they don’t–”
The woman abruptly sat up on the bed, turning to face the man just as he began to part the fabric.
“Wa… Gah!” he stuttered, backing away.
The woman rose and stepped toward him, the fabric rippling over her exposed flesh until her full figure loomed before him. The glass tumbled from the man’s hand, bounced once on the plush carpet, then shattered.
She was beautiful, in a way. And horrifying. The braids on her head were not braids at all, but snakes. Writhing, impossibly alive snakes sprouting from her skull.
“Poios eísai?” the woman hissed in an acid voice.
“Wh-what? I don’t understand!” the man stuttered fearfully, scrambling backwards.
The woman fixed her gaze on him, and his retreat stopped dead. From the top of his head and working downwards, the man’s body slowly turned to gray stone: first his forehead, eyes, and ears; down his neck, an embryonic scream petrifying in his throat; hands and arms raised pitifully in defense; and down the top of his damp, pink torso.
The feminine creature blinked, her large eyes studying this foreign man with great curiosity. He was now encased in stone down to his solar plexus, his lower half left weak and exposed. She reached out her hand, each finger now displaying a wicked talon. With her forefinger, she drew a slit across the man’s abdomen. His serpentine entrails spilled out in an eager gush of blood.
Ignoring the gruesome unfinished statue, the creature stalked to the large windows. She looked out upon a massive city abuzz with flashing lights and swarming movement. A place totally unfamiliar. Alien. Her head of snakes tasted the strange air with their darting tongues.
Then she noticed something else. She reached out her deadly hand to touch the space where the wall met the bank of windows.
“Ti ágnosti mageía eínai aftí?”
Peering beyond the visible solid construction, she perceived whirring numbers, flying bits of code, churning algorithms. Concentrating, she deftly slipped her fingers into this space between spaces, feeling a surge of energy flowing into her in response. Her eyes flashed a shade of radium green, ones and zeroes streaming across her sclera.
“Écho xanagennitheí. Poioi theoí mou édosan aftí ti défteri efkairía? 01100110 01110101 01101110 01100011 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 // def translate_sentence // I… I cannot forget what they did to me. Poseidon, who raped me! Athena… who cursed me! Perseus… who killed me! I will have my revenge. // ”
The creature bared her fangs, seething with rekindled fury, and plunged her arm deep into the Stygian codestream. More and more power coursed into her veins and nerves.
“ // Come to me, my sisters! Gather to me, even if in Hades or Tartarus thou now lie! For we shall take our vengeance upon every unjust god and man! // ”