Neptune wipes his foamy tears over her thick black brows
as he splashes down onto the torn skin on her stomach.
It drips ichor of liquid gold, staining the ebony volcanic sand with a fine, fine glitter.
Sea water stings her sore arms, pounding them with guttural hatred and infinite power.
Her face wretches into a strained grimace, as she crumples to the ground,
crumples to the ground like a marionette with her strings cut by Fate's scissors.
The sharp, porous stones scratch her smooth skin, an iridescent gleam reflects the dying sun.
Pluto waits in childish excitement, he stands before his River,
waiting for the Fates to drag her in by her matted hair, into the Pit of the Underworld.
Her veins freeze over as the frigid wind sweeps through from above.
Jupiter watches in horror, as his wife is swept up by his poor slaves.
Little nymphs dust her body with blessings of topaz and sapphire jewels,
crushed up into a fine powder and thrown meticulously over her body.
The ichor absorbs their gifts in mere seconds, greedy for regeneration.
Neptune rains down even harder, the bitter taste in his mouth masked by
a thousand regrets and words swept away by the tip of his tongue,
always cursed by finite love and infinite hate.
Perhaps the black hole nearing his unbeaten heart has finally swallowed it whole,
a liter of saliva washes it into darkness, a blackness akin to the bed of the deepest oceans.
It toys with his mind like a puppet balancing on strings of Fate.
Perhaps the black hole nearing Neptune has finally grasped onto his icy, slick surface.
Earth awaits the same fate. Her small figure orbits around the dying star,
in a chase bound to end in loss and disease, death and pain.
The woman with the blood of gods lies on the beach,
the last of her kind,
the last of any kind.
Jupiter watches from the above, witnessing the plunging of his empire.
Poseidon watches from the ground, waiting for the black hole to gulp his heart gone.
Pluto watches from the below, willing for her to finally breathe her last breath.
The woman smiles up, as Jupiter uses his waning energy to push the dying star forward.
The woman thinks she can see the gods from the blackening beach.
The woman smiles, as Poseidon’s last kindness disperses the stormy rain clouds.
The woman thinks she can see the gods from the blackening beach.
The woman smiles down, as Pluto sends his army to collect her soul.
The woman thinks she can see the gods from the blackening beach.
Her beliefs will be crushed,
in the Underworld, where a wandering soul tells her.
the gods are no more.
Cynthia Cai is a Junior in high school from Houston, Texas. She has lived there all her life but has traveled to more countries than she can count on both her fingers and her toes. She loves the food in Houston, especially Tex-Mex, Thai, and Indian food. In her free time, you can find Cynthia reading a good high fantasy or science fiction novel, as well as sketching or painting. She has several golden and silver keys from Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. She was published last year in Hunted, an anthology of micro-fiction stories; her work is also forthcoming in a similar anthology, Trapped.
"A liquid gold sunset" by kuddlyteddybear2004 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
