by Elina S.

Hisss. I looked down to see another of my snakes starting to disintegrate before my eyes. This had been happening for weeks and it was really starting to worry me. Just this year I had lost 348 out of the 482 snakes that resided on my head. They kept disintegrating but not coming back like monsters usually do. I had assumed that they would come back from Tartarus and just reattach to my head, but it has been exactly 400 days and I’m down to 134 snakes. Is this what I’ve been degraded to I thought. I was just starting to clean up the ashes of Yale named after my sister, Euryale, when another dropped. “No!” I cried. Enno had fallen, the other named after Sthenno, my other sister. Time to go see someone about this. It took 12 weeks to get from the garden emporium (where I lived as Aunty Em) to Circe’s Island, Aeaea. As soon as I got there her Lions and wolves ran to see who was there. I know Circe pretty well and her lions know me pretty well. One particular Lion, Katastrofí, had grown quite fond of me. She knocked me down and started to lick my face.

“Down Katas!” Circe said. Katas jumped off at the command of her owner. “Thank you, Circe.” I breathed

“Yes, well Katas is quite the animal. She must’ve missed you. As have I.” She practically whispered the last part.

“What happened to your head?” She asked immediately, noticing the lack of snakes. Just as she said that another snake dropped.

“That.” I replied. “Do you know what’s happening?” I asked her,

“Sadly, yes I-I do.” she took a deep breath. “Medusa, you are, um, well here’s the thing…”

She laughed nervously. “You are dying.”