Captured (A Modern Medusa Story)

CHAPTER 5: PHOEBE💙

The world was a dark place. Literally. It always had been ever since I could remember, though I couldn't remember a thing.

I was too young to take in what was happening around me, and now I was too old to envision the memories. At a young age, I couldn't pinpoint the time it happened or even how it happened. But Papa said it was Mom who did it. That she was never careful with the chemicals in her lab and she was the reason they spilled onto my face and damaged my eyes.

Papa said Mom was too angsty. Too wild and too selfish. That she cared nothing except herself and she never listened when Papa told her to keep me out of the lab.

He said he regretted marrying such a woman, that he should've seen the red flags sooner, and that I didn't deserve to have a mother like her.

Papa also said I was too precious, but Mom never noticed it. Mom was too busy doing drugs, obsessing over her projects, and sleeping around with random men.

Papa said she even called me an 'accidental birth' and if it wasn't for him, my mother would've aborted me.

It was my father who agreed to raise me. It was my father who stayed with me and took care of me all this time after my mother abandoned me for a better life. And that is why, even though I was passionate about art, I felt the need to follow in my father's footsteps and become a herpetologist. Just like him.

I wanted to make him proud, despite how much he's changed. Despite how he never made time for me anymore. I wanted to make him happy and be the girl he always wanted me to be. Despite that he's very secretive, overprotective, too possessive, over-demanding, and never lets me inside his secret laboratory. In fact, he has never told me about his secret laboratory. It was my job to find out, secretly. I had to know what he was up to. And after seeing everything, I wasn't sure what to think of him.

Was my father a good man, like I believed he was? Or were there shades of darkness that I wasn't enlightened about? Seeing all those creatures in there felt awkwardly uncomfortable.

Chained. Caged. Shackled. I disliked seeing them that way. Like their freedom was taken away from them. Like they were worthless. They were unique species that scientists dreamt of discovering, yet here they were, prisoners of my father's ego. For a herpetologist, he sure was cold-blooded. Sometimes I wonder if my mother really abandoned me or did he chase her away.

They were lab partners. Co-workers with the same dream and visions. They wanted the best for each other and they vowed to spend their lives together. But they didn't even last two years.

Papa said Mom got sick of him. That she wanted a new partner in crime, someone younger and richer.

But wasn't my father the richest man in all of Daresm City?

He was. Yet she wanted more, my father said. More money, more power, and more glory. She was greedy, never satisfied until her cup spilled over the brim and onto the floor. And even when it spilled, she still was 'give me more', 'serve me again', and 'everything is never enough'.

He gave her everything she desired, as Papa said. Like a queen, they served her with no question.

Was she, though? Because the more I grew, the more I realized how much a man can never satisfy a woman in the way she deserves. There's too much hypocrisy, too much misogyny, too much gender roles, and a lot of patriarchy. If what my father was saying was true, then my mother must've surely abhorred me. Because she didn't even leave a speck of memory behind.

Can mother really do that?

Leave nothing behind like she wanted me to forget her for good? Not a photo, not even a gift? Nothing. She seriously wanted me out of her life for good. She has never even called to check up on me. For eighteen years. Can a mother not miss her child?

Yet I had never stopped hoping for the impossible. I never stopped hoping that she would somehow ring my line. I had always fantasized about our first conversation.

The things she would ask. The answers I would give. It was like a script in my head and I revised it more constantly than not.

It was a conversation I had been practicing and preparing for as long as I could remember.

Sometimes I would have dreams about her. I couldn't see her, but I could trace her, like a shadow. She would call my name from the kitchen and I would rush down the countless stairs to get to her. Only to be awarded with a shadow. A shade of darkness. Then she would proceed to let me know that she wanted the best for me.

At least she cared.

But seriously, did she?

Because if she did, she would be here with me right now.