hyacinth

4. The Fear

That night, I dreamt I was standing on a battlefield. All around me, as far as I could see, bodies dyed in red lay sprawled, arrows and swords sticking haphazardly from their rancid flesh. Vultures circled, and wild dogs skittered about, the fur around their jaws soaked with blood.

I was holding a bow, staring straight ahead out at the many ships docked along the coast line. I couldn't move- each time I tried to so much as flit my gaze to the side, my body froze up. Panic shuddered through me, and if I had had control of my body, I was sure that I would've been hyperventilating.

After a long, tense moment, my head, of its own volition, slowly turned to the right. There, maybe fifteen feet away, was the corpse of a young man. He was short and lithe, his blue eyes staring unseeingly ahead. A thin line of blood trailed down from his parted lips, dripping in even increments to the skin of his upper arm. Embedded deep in his heel was an arrow, and blood slowly oozed from the wound, cutting down his ankle to the dusty earth beneath him.

"Why?"

My body turned faster than I thought possible. One of my hands tensed against my bow, and I reached swiftly back with the other to draw an arrow from my quiver, notching and aiming it straight at whoever was behind me. The tension in my arms, however, faded the second my eyes locked onto the person- the shade- stood a few feet away.

I shivered- or, at least, I tried to- I'd never seen a shade in person before, but I'd heard tales from my father. Ghostly figures, shimmering in and out of existence until their body was properly burned. Sad, lost things, not capable of speech or thought. So what-

"You know why," I replied in a voice that wasn't my own. "I was never on your side, Achilles, so why are you surprised?"

The shade- Achilles- drifted forward a bit. I imagined that if he had still been alive, his steps would've been unsteady, tripping and stumbling over the red, red earth.

"Paris was a coward and your dumb blessing was a mistake," Achilles spat out, waving his hand across the battlefield with an annoyed look on his face. "The killing's already said and done. Why wait so long to stop me, Apollo, if you were going to do it at all?"

My- no, Apollo's face creased into a frown. "I didn't know you'd do this much damage so quickly," he admitted. "I'm impressed, honestly. It's too bad you weren't a Trojan."

Achilles' teeth clenched together, and his throat worked, his hands balled into fists at his sides. The breeze picked up, carrying with it the scent of salt water and blood. From the shoreline, faint shouting carried up along the dunes, and a group of people slowly came into view, rushing towards Achilles' corpse. He and Apollo watched on despondently, Apollo disquietingly plucking at his bowstring like he needed something to do with his hands.

"I never cared that they were Trojans," Achilles finally said. "I only cared that they killed Patroclus. That's... Why." He shrugged, gesturing around at all the bodies, all the death, all the carnage. "I never cared. Paris could keep Helen, it didn't matter." He squinted up at me. "You never cared that they were Trojans, either." His tone was soft, like he was quietly approaching some wounded beast. "It never mattered that they worshiped you, did it? So why are you really here?"

"You have a lot of nerve," Apollo said faintly.

The group of men had arrived at Achilles' body, one of them scooping the bloodied corpse into his arms and carrying him back to what I could now see was a half-burned camp, its tattered tents flapping in the dry wind. Achilles' shade was tugged along after his corpse, and he turned as he was led away, maintaining firm eye contact with Apollo. "One day," he called, his voice incandescent with rage. "One day, I pray that you experience loss like I have. I pray that somebody guides the device that breaks you, Apollo. I pray to the pantheon that it will be so."