Iridescence

Chapter Twenty-Two (Apollo)

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

APOLLO

Something was wrong. I could feel it in every corner of my being. I searched for the source of my anxiety, but there was no visible trouble. I still couldn't shake the feeling.

"Something's wrong..." I mumbled. "Something's really wrong..."

I headed toward my collection of crystal balls, scrying bowls, scrying mirrors, and scrying stones, and tried to see if anything felt like showing me a vision to help point me in the right direction. My collection has been growing for my whole existence, making it very large. I have an entire building in the Land of the Gods set aside just to house them all.

I wandered for quite a while, stopping at various divination tools, but none of them felt right. I knew I had to keep going. There was a vision waiting for me, but my mind was too stubborn to let it come to me naturally, so I had to scry for answers. It annoyed me that such an important vision was evading me, but it also worried me. My mind only fought visions like this when my subconscious knew they were going to be traumatic.

After almost an hour of searching, a bowl I hadn't used in millennia filled with water and began to hum. I approached the small clay bowl cautiously. It was black and had never been decorated beyond that, but it had once been very reliable. I knew this bowl well. I'd used it often during the battle against Chaos.

The vision it showed me depicted a young woman whose face I couldn't see. She was dancing around a fire with her hands raised toward the sky. They were covered in blood.

As she spun around, she laughed with glee. Thousands of snakes began to slither around her. I could hear screams and sobs of grief.

"Abby!" Krissy shouted. I suddenly saw her on her hands and knees sobbing over her dead aunt. Eliza was also in tears.

Jenna's entire family was scattered in pieces around us. She was fatally wounded and had obviously fought to defend them. I had to look away, because seeing her like that hurt too much.

Vanessa screamed for her mother, whose body was a few feet away. Anger was all I saw in Emily's eyes. She and Faith attacked the girl, who simply laughed.

And then, I saw confirmation of something I already knew, but it still filled me with too many emotions to identify at once.

Altheos walked toward the girl with the smile I knew all too well plastered on his face. He cut off Emily's head effortlessly while the girl stabbed Faith in her back. Both Emily and Faith fell to the ground dead.

The girl hugged Altheos before saying, "Welcome home, Father."

I was screaming when Hermes snapped me out of the vision. "I take it that wasn't a pleasant one," he said gently. "Are you alright, Brother?"

I was trembling. "He's back," I said. "Theos is back."

"Yes," he replied patiently. "We knew this, Apollo."

"I saw him. It's really happening, Hermes."

"Did you have doubts?"

"I lied to myself... I told myself there was hope."

"There is always hope, Apollo. Even if Theos is back, there is still hope. We will stop him. We know the truth this time."

"What if that's not enough? Someone targeted the families of Iridescence. They were broken... Jenna was slaughtered... And Theos killed Emily, and..." I shook my head. "And a girl killed Faith. A girl who called Theos Father."