Finding Achilles

i. a father's curse

Lyrnessus burnt in the rage of an accursed hero.

People were left fatherless, devoid of sons and siblings, thrust asunder from the corpses of their husbands. A treacherous tune of tragedy flowed through the roads of Lyrnessus.

Amidst the silent yet flaming chaos stood a cottage against the backdrop of destruction. An old man with beautiful grey eyes was dressed in a priest's serene purple robes, now splattered with spots of blood and maligned with dirt. His house had seen a storm as the vases with its pricking pieces remained on the floor, trampled flowers crying on the ground. Furniture was broken and the bedsheets creased like someone had tried in vain to hold onto it for some help.

The priest's hands were marked with fresh wounds telling their tales of sorrow with open ruby lips.

"My daughter, O my goddess of purity!"

The pride of his life, his lamp in a darkness of the night was snatched away by a so-called hero, a soldier of righteousness.

"Curse you, curse this hero of vice!"

Briseus vowed upon the gods that the  broken pieces of his heart would cast a shadow as deep as the blackness of Tartarus on the life of this man named Achilles. That mortal demigod dared to make his daughter a widow, a slave. Nay, she was born to be the queen of her household, to bear plentiful of healthy children and be loved by her husband. Achilles destroyed all his dreams and crumbled them to dust.

He had nothing left to lose anymore, nothing left to clutch and live. He felt lost and estranged. He had lost all his sons to war and his beautiful daughter to destiny.

"Such a life be doomed."

Flame swayed outside the cottage, smoke fuming and gurgling at the blackened barren sky. Rivers of blood manoeuvred through the streets. Briseus looked at it all, feeling low and hopeless as ever.

"Existence has no meaning now."

And if life has nothing more to offer, I shall give up on it.

A song of tears streamed down his eyes as he recalled the childhood of Briseis– her first little footsteps, then squabbling with her brothers and adored by her mother. She had grown up into a dignified and kind maiden, of bouncy brown locks and amber eyes like her mother's, deep and daunting. She had the privilege of being married to a prince.

And then cursed to be plundered by another.

"He ruined my daughter's life, made her wear a wreath of sadness."

Briseus adjusted the noose and then stood on the stool. Putting his head in the loop, he felt the noose tighten around his neck.

"May you be cursed to forget all–"

He pushed the stool with his feet.

"–until and unless someone is ready to sacrifice themselves for you."

Which, in Briseus thoughts, should never happen, for a hero so vain and self-reverential as him, no one was to come to his aid.

Briseus held onto the noose with all his strength, face turning red and struggling to breath. He swung his legs helplessly as the last urge to live extinguished within with the overbearing amount of pain and melancholia that surged through his body.

At last, his body hanged still, resting midair, his soul escaping the bindings of cruel fate.