Forever Alone: The True Fate of Cassandra Alexandra (Complete)

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ONE

It was late Spring. The morning dew glistened on the hills of Thessaly as Cassandra Alexandra and her Sister rounded off their daylight christening jog. The sisters had made a daily routine of running in ever increasing distances, in effort to curb the winter pounds and the extra weight that still plagued Sophitia after the birth of her child, Patroklos.

Falling briefly behind, Sophitia panted to a halt.

"Cassy, I love you more than I loved Rothion himself, and so I have chosen to tell you first..."

"What is it?" Cassandra asked, as she lovingly backtracked to her worried sister and softly pecked her on the cheek, as she was wont to do toward the end of and after their sweaty runs.

"I...I...I am pregnant again. I don't even," whispered Sophitia.

Jealous, and overflowing with angst for the fate of her sister, "Shhhhh. Spare your breath, my sweet." Cassandra delivered another, longer kiss that silently said, "I understand."

Cassandra knew that the birth of Patroklos had been disastrous. Not only had her precious sister almost lost her life in birth, but it spelled an immediate termination of Sophitia's marriage to her first husband, Zasalamel, and it left her alone and dejected for months until Rothion stepped in to raise his illegitimate child. When Rothion, in turn, left Sophitia as well, it had nearly killed her. Cassandra knew that Sophitia would likely not survive another childbirth, and she was in no great hurry to discover who had sired the child.

She knew that they were going to have to handle the pregnancy. She knew the risks of the operation, but did she have any other choice?

With one gentle word, "tomorrow," Cassandra softly caressed her sister with her knuckles, starting at her earlobe and gliding down to her chin. She then quickly turned on her heel and headed, resolutely, to Dr. Olcadan's Cottage to procure the anesthetic tonic, cauterizing plug and sharpened stick that she would need the following day.
 
TWO

The roosters announced the rise of Apollo, and Cassandra carefully and silently arose with conviction. She got dressed, gathered her knapsack of feticide tools and a light lunch for two of bread, hummus and dolma. Content with her packing, she cheerfully returned to her bed to awaken her sister. She was no longer plagued by the anxiety and fear that had kept her up most of the night. She knew what had to be done, and while she didn't know how to do it, she had the courage to try. They had a big day ahead of them.

As they hurriedly finished their morning breakfast of natural yeast and kykeos, the sisters set off to a small cave on the bank of the Pineios.

Upon their arrival at the cave, Sophitia began to have second thoughts. She rambled about the loss of her son, Patroklos, to his father. She rambled about the loss of her first husband because of Patroklos' pail flesh. She rambled about the dangers of fetus stick jabbing and cauterization plugging. She rambled about the conditions of their environment, and the risk of complications.

"Who will you go to for help if something goes wrong?" she asked her sister.

"Trust in me, my love," replied Cassandra.

Gently, Cassandra put her finger over Sophitia's lips. She extended her left arm across her sister's shoulder blades and leaned her backward, over the cold, hard slab that she had prepared as a table. She slowly slipped her fingers through the weaving knot of Sophitia's toga, and then as quickly and suddenly as she had previously been gentle, ripped the garment off and threw it to the floor. She stood staring wantingly at her sister's frail, nude body while it trembled and sweat with fear and excitement.

Leaving Sophitia temporarily alone, Cassandra headed out of the small cave to retrieve two forked tree branches. When she found them, she returned to her eager sister and, one by one, lifted her legs up and propped them into the forks of the branches. Pleased with her ingenuity, Cassandra stood at the foot of the rock slab, carefully probing and examining the oh-so familiar crevasses and imperfections of Sophitias womanhood.

"It is time, my sweet Sophie," whispered Cassandra, as lowered the bottle of tonic to Sophitia's lips. She drank without hesitation. Cassandra licked her hand before slowly and thoroughly massaging natural moisture from the delicate flower that was so soon to be so violently invaded. "Trust in me."

With a whimper of consent and pleasure, Sophitia closed her eyes forever.
 
THREE

Cassandra was in a panic. How could this happen? She examined her tools and took note that in the future, bark should be removed from the jabbing stick. She stood forlornly over her naked, expired sister and lover. The ground made soft slapping noises as she paced back and forth, through the fresh carpet of feces, blood and afterbirth. It was too late for Sophitia. However, Cassandra was still not alone. Over the roar of dripping blood and scurrying creatures at the mouth of the cave, waiting to come raid the hard floor for a free meal, something else made a noise. The noise, though faint and barely escaping from the tiny lungs of its creator, was deafening. The child. The child had survived.

It was hideous. The child was only partially formed. Its face had been stretched, cut and contorted by missed blows from the poking stick. Its eyes were pulled back out of place, the result of Cassandra reaching inside her sister, to her elbows, to get a grip on the tiny abomination. It was a disgusting and vile spawn of the Stygian depths of hell, but it was alive, and it was her niece. Unsure what to do, Cassandra dropped the child to the puddle below, wiped her hands off on the cold, rock wall, and decided to sit down for lunch to asses her situation.

It did not take long for Cassandra to devour both servings of bread, using them to sop up what flavor of her sister she could retrieve from the puddle on the floor. Looking at the extra dolma and hummus, the intended mouth for which they were packed laying lifeless only meters away; Cassandra allowed herself to shed a single tear. "No more," she told herself. "I have to be strong, for myself, for Sophitia, and for this monster."

Thinking of the stories of her childhood, Cassandra remembered Deucalion, son of Prometheus. She thought of how him and his wife were the sole survivors of Zeus' great flood. She thought of how they threw rocks to the ground, which struck it and became babies. Here lay a child that should not have survived. A child that she had dropped to the earth, hoping for an easy solution in the form of a head impact, but ending still with a living child. This survivor reminded her of the tales of Deucalion and his wife, Pyrrha.

"That shall be your name," she announced to the terrifyingly malformed baby. Taking the poking stick that had failed to end the baby's life, she stabbed the placenta up off of the floor and wrote the word "Pyrrha" across the cave wall with it. She then thoughtfully tore a hole into the abdomen of Sophitia's body and placed the child inside the cavity of her organs, so that it would not starve. She could not love this creature, but she could not leave it on the ground with nothing to eat and no chance at life, either. "Someone will find her before she runs out of food," she told herself.

With one final goodbye to her sister, and one final look of horror at the infant already slurping up Sophitia's entrails, Cassandra exited the cave.

Without ever looking back, she followed the river south to the coast, alone.
 
FOUR

Cassandra Alexandra had a hunch. She knew that she should not have spent the night with that wayward traveler on her way to Athens. It was inevitable, though, for she had been tired, famished, and in serious need of the D.

She didn't regret the carnal pleasures of her one night rendezvous with the wondering Hwang, but she was beginning to regret the side effects. She had been living alone in Paleo Faliro, on the coastal outskirts of Athens. It had been nearly a third of a year since she left her deceased sister and malfested niece back in Thessaly, and nearly two months since her night of passion with the mysterious, beautiful Hwang.

She could feel the pangs of sickness overtaking her body. Every morning, she awoke to them. Every night, she went to bed weary of their inevitable return in a few hours. She had noticed something else, though. With the morning sickness, she awoke to other thrills and delights. She could smell things that had always been foreign to her. She could smell the bread baking a mile a way. She could smell the dirty gypsies pandering to the wealthy, sex starved locals. And she could see! She could see the gulls flying miles off of the coast, and the breaking of small waves in the water. She could make out the individual sailors on their ships as they came into harbor. Her heightened senses astonished her.

The true benefit from her new found morning powers came to her not through her senses, though, but through her legs. She could run. She could run like the wind. For miles, she would run every morning, at top speed. She would run backwards sometimes, without missing a step. She recalled, happily, her morning runs with Sophitia in Thessaly. "Oh, how i wish she could see me now," she would say aloud to herself as the wind passed through her hair. She thought of her niece and nephew, and found that she could no longer recall which one was the older of the two. "Oh well," she thought to herself. "Zasalamel is a time traveler."

Before long, Cassandra had taken her new powers to local races. Nobody had a chance. She challenged all of the runners from Paleo Faliro, and then Athens, beating them nonchalantly. Within a month, challengers from all over Greece were arriving to see if they could defeat the new master.

For a while, she dispatched them with ease. As she approached her sixth month of pregnancy, though, she noticed something. Her powers were diminishing. It was not the baby giving her enhanced senses and superb running skills. It was the morning sickness, and it was waning. Cassandra did not want a baby, especially from a mysterious Hwang. She also knew very well that there were a number of suitors to re-impregnate her and restore her powers.

Without hesitation, she did the only thing that made sense to her. She set out to find a cauterization plug and sharpen a stick.

TBC
 
I think she'd need an assistant for the procedure. Maybe Rock could push her down some stairs?
 
FIVE

Years passed. Cassandra had become the most renowned runner in all of Europe. She had also become a master of timing and perfecting her abortions and, needless to say, the stray cats and dogs in her neighborhood were all very well fed.

Then, one day, she came across a strong warrior from the north or across the ocean or something. He introduced himself to her as Rock.

They were instantly in love.

After a brief courtship, Rock revealed that he wanted to have babies...and keep them. Cassandra told him that she was already pregnant, as evidenced by her running skills.

"But alas, my love, the baby is not from you. See, I was beginning gestation cycle when we met. It it how i beat you so easily in our 100 yard dash. This baby belongs to a local boy who's father thought he was gay, so I volunteered to try and work it out of him."

Angrily, Rock pushed her down some stairs. She landed on the baby, and it immediately evacuated her stretched and abused uterus. Then Cassandra bled out and died. Rock, rushing down to check on his love, tripped and rolled down the stairs. When his face hit the bottom, it smashed open on top of the fetus and he died along with the newly smashed premature baby. The three remained there, in their final dance of love, for days.

A gaggle of lizard men that were razing the nearby fields smelled the splattered afterbirth and rotten corpses and came and gobbled the three of them up, along with the mess. Then they morphed into Aeon.

THE END
 
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