~By Adeel Amed

Rated PG-13 for violence and language

Author’s Note: These are excerpts from a series of stories by Adeel Ahmed. The world is an alternative history Earth where Mythology and humans with special abilities existed through human history. It combines fantasy, Wuxia and superhero genres into it.

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       “You’re an interesting child,” remarked the man dragging Zenon down to a large cavern. “My technology can negate your strength, but I can’t break that aura protecting you. I think I’m going to enjoy studying a god.”

       After her mother was shot, the murderer had struck Zenon with a beam of red light. It seemed to take her strength away, and she had yet to recover it.

The room at the end of the cavern was filled with strange objects that reminded her of a pawnshop or a dragon’s hoard of treasure, like in her storybooks. 

   When the invisible shooter finally had made himself visible again, she noticed he was scary looking, with grey skin and no eyes, just a visor implanted into his face. His clothes were like those of the actors in Aladdin.

    He took Zenon to a cage, filled with children of all ages and types. One kid had hands made out of fire, another was a cyclops with an eye in his forehead, glowing as he looked at Zenon.  So many children so odd looking. Around the cage were two scary tiger anthropomorphs glowering at her.

    “In you go, with the other little ones.”

    The man threw Zenon into the cage and skulked away.

    The children whispered to each other, but Zenon could hear everything they would rather she not have heard.

    “What are her powers?”

    “Is she a Myth?”

    “Maybe she’s just a normal girl.”

    “No one here is normal.”

    “At least it’s not a Lamia. Not like that one.”

    Lamia? Zenon searched the cage and saw a girl, separate from the rest, sitting in a corner. From her hips down she had a snake body. She wore nice clothes, a sundress with a long skirt that would have ordinarily gone down to her ankles had she possessed legs. Her body was coiled around something.

    “Hey nothing can hurt you, right?” said the Cyclops boy walking up to Zenon.

    “How do you know that?” responded Zenon dubiously.

    “It’s my eye. I can see things no one else can. I know what things really are.”

    “What’s that?” inquired Zenon pointing to the strange half-snake girl. “Is that some kind of Anthromorph?”

    “Snake Anthromorphs have legs, stupid. That’s a Lamia. A myth.  She hasn’t tried to eat us yet. Maybe she’s scared because we’ve got superpowers. She’s very nice. I can see that, even though the other kids can’t. But she sometimes gets hungry when she looks at us. That’s scary.  I heard Lamia eat kids. I know she eats rats. Big ones, too. So I’d be careful if I were you,” warned the Cyclops. “You may not be able to get hurt. But she could still swallow you. That wouldn’t be fun.”

    Zenon listened carefully as the little snake girl whispered to herself.

    “Mommy is coming for me. Daddy will come for me,” murmured the Lamia.

    Mommy. She wants her mommy too, just like me.

    “I’m gonna talk to her,” decided Zenon, walking toward the girl.

    “Aren’t you scared?” asked the cyclops boy.

    “I can survive being swallowed,” stated Zenon confidently. She was invincible after all, though it didn’t help her much when it really would have counted. She couldn’t save mom.

The girl looked at her with wide, pretty eyes, big, grey, and slanted. Her messy hair was blue and shiny. What kind of girl dyes her hair blue? It looked good though. These days Zenon noticed how boys and girls looked, as her body changed. She didn’t think she could look at a monster the same way, but she did. This little creature was pretty.

    “You’re scared, aren’t you?” surmised Zenon.

“Yeah,” said the little creature softly, looking up with a curious expression.

“I don’t think you’re bad. But listen up. I’m really tough, you know. So if you want to eat the other kids, I’m gonna fight you, okay? You can swallow me, but when I come out the other side, I’m fighting you again. So you better just keep your jaws shut,” signaled Zenon, puffing up her skinny chest. “My daddy was Apollo, you know.”

    “I won’t hurt anyone. I got my lunch right here,” stated the girl. She opened her tail to reveal an enormous rat. It tried to run away, but she clutched it by the tail. It tried to bite her hand, so she wrapped it in her tail again.

    “Thank you,” said the little Lamia smiling.

    “Uh, for what?” queried Zenon dubiously.

    “You talked to me. The other kids just stayed away. I only talked to two other humans before in my whole life. One was silent, and the other was angry all the time, but he was my favorite.”

    “You didn’t, uh, eat them, did you?”

    “No. Only Lamia eat people. I’m a Naga.” The little serpent girl pointed at herself proudly.

    “What’s a Naga?”

    “It’s a Lamia that’s a good girl, silly. I’m a good girl. My mommy says so. I’m a Naga.”

    “You talk like a little kid,” sighed Zenon, shaking her head.

    “I’m only seven years old,” explained the little girl, counting her fingers.

    “You don’t look seven,” remarked Zenon scepticaly.

    “I only look like I’m twelve. I was born a girl, not a baby. I’m a very good girl too.”

     Zenon choked as her mother’s words came back to her.

    You’re a good girl, Zenon. You know that? A very good girl. Mom would always say.

     She felt tears trickle down her face.

    “Did I say something mean? I’m sorry,” apologized the girl. Her little pink lips curved into a frown.

  “My mom. She’s really hurt,” sniffled Zenon.

    “Can…can I hug you?” she asked gently.

     “Uh huh,” sobbed Zenon.

     The girl wrapped her skinny arms around Zenon’s neck as she sobbed into her shoulder. She smelled of sweat mixed with roses. Zenon could hear the other kids whispering. They thought it was weird, scary.

     “Freak lover.”

     “Maybe she’s a Lamia in disguise.”

     “Maybe this girl is a-a dragon! Myth like Myth.”

     “The Myth are even worse than Anthromorphs!”

     “Not Scotty. Scotty is a Myth. He’s kind of nice, and his eye is kind of cool.”

     “Yeah, he’s better than Anthromorphs.”

     “Hey, I’m an Anthromorph. Shut up.”

     “You’re an Anthromorph? No way. You’re not ugly. You don’t even have funny ears.”

     “I have a tail. It’s stuck in my pants.”

     “Cool.”

     “It’s not cool. You don’t like Anthromorphs.”

     “That’s before I knew my best bud was an anthromorph.”

      “Aww.”

       The children quickly became distracted, and Zenon ignored them, continuing to sob in the Naga girl’s arms. Her strange smell made her feel calmer and less hurt.

     “My name is Winona. What’s your name?”

    “Zenon.”

    “That’s a neat name. Do you want to be my friend, Zenon?”

    Zenon continued to cry.

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Image Credit: David Liew