the other Son

1999

Power was addicting.

She imagined it to taste like one's favourite meal combined with the sweetest fruit of Garden Eden.

For her, his power tasted like dirt and soil and decay.

The scrawny red-head was hungry, ravenous, and in contrast to Creon he didn't have any restraint. Where Creon was content to observe like a cold-blooded python, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike, the red-head was blinded by his hunger. He saw a chance and took it, no matter what, no matter the outcome. Maybe if he had waited his victory could've tasted so much better but he wasn't a clever one. He was a pale, insufficient copy of Creon, the great Creon.

Reluctantly, she had to admit to Creon's cleverness.

The red-head cackled madly as he kicked another batch of gravel at her face. She turned her head, squeezed her eyes shut and ground her teeth in red-hot anger, dirt crunching somewhere between her molars. His strategy was always the same – get her on the ground and make her eat dirt. Easy enough, he'd hit a growth-spurt and towered over her by now, still lanky and ungainly nevertheless taller than her, more ruthless as well.

She had thought about striking back, of course.

This wasn't a fair game though. She was outnumbered, not only by Creon's pack of friends but also by her peers' loyalty. As long as she was picked on the boys' attention wouldn't shift to another easy victim. They sacrificed her without a second of regret.

She understood how ancient nations found it perfectly normal to sacrifice one of their own to the Gods – it benefited them, a single life for the well-being of thousands, millions.

His heaving breaths were deafening in the late afternoon air. The sun was about to set and his breaths were a plume of yellow-orange smoke – under other circumstances it could've been pretty but here and now it resembled a toxic cloud, sulphuric, acidic.

"Had enough?" he inquired with a wide grin, chest heaving with excitement and the rush of power. Somewhere in the past weeks he'd shed any child-like qualities – a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, finally showing its true, ugly colours.

Gravel flew at her face once more.

She spat out anything that had found its way into her mouth and wiped off her lips with the back of her hand.

Watching him carefully she first came to her knees and then slowly pushed herself up onto her feet.

He allowed it, allowed her to rise from the dirt.

She hated him with every fibre of her being.

"You're pathetic," she hissed and cursed the tears of anger and helplessness pricking at her eyes.

At first, he looked confused and then merely smiled. "Look at yourself. Who's the pathetic one?"

Her hands curled into fists, palms burning where they were scratched and sore from catching herself when he had pushed her to the ground.

All she wanted was to taste the sweet, sweet nectar of power on her tongue.

She wanted him to suffer, to tremble in helplessness, not for the good of many but for her own satisfaction, her own absolution. Sweet revenge.