E) Terrified by the thought of the missing statue, and Athena's wrath, you run out of the house! You know that the gods, if provoked, can become incredibly angry. When the gods pour out their divine wrath the Greeks call it Nemesis. You remember that in a myth, you were told that a titan, or giant, named Prometheus gave humans the gift of fire to cook and keep warm. The king of the gods, Zeus, or so you were told, was so angry that Prometheus would share such a gift with mortals, that he chained the titan to a great rock, where a giant eagle ate his liver every day. "No thanks!", you say to your self. "Why are you running away?!", shouts Saracles, the slave. "I don't want to be around when goddess Athena takes her revenge for allowing her statue to be stooooooooolllleeeeenn!" Just as the last words leave your lips, you trip on the root of an olive tree! You roll and stumble, and "Aaaaahhhh!", fall down the cliff near your home. You land with a thud on the sand of the beach. You try to breath, but cannot take a full breath. You try to move. Crack, pop, snap! You feel your broken bones move. "Ahhh!", you cry. You lay there for hours, unable to move. The tide begins to rise, with the waves of the Aegean Sea splashing around your mouth and nose. You try to call out, but cannot make a sound. "Its strange how the gods take their revenge," you think to yourself, as you descend into Hades, realm of the dead.

THE END

copyright Jay D'Ambrosio 1998