The Deep Inside Him

The screams came softly, curling like smoke through the water.

Erebus hovered in a blackened trench far from the reach of sunlight, where the sea turned cold and quiet and pressure whispered secrets in your bones. He had not meant to hurt them.

Not really.

They had come too close to the wrong cave. Pirates, maybe. Or relic hunters. One of them had insulted his mother, laughing about witches and monsters.

He had warned them.

But the shadows had come anyway—rising out of him like smoke drawn from a cracked lantern. They slipped from his fingertips before he could hold them back. His heart raced as he watched the last man swim away, clutching his own mind like it was breaking.

Erebus floated still now, arms limp at his sides, hair drifting like ink. The trench echoed with silence.

Why do I feel better afterward?

He hated that part the most.

Something inside him uncoiled when people screamed. Not joy. Not hunger. Just... relief.

The sea was always louder inside his head than outside. He felt the current’s pull like emotion. He saw flickers of things that hadn’t happened yet—glimpses of what could be. When he got angry, water darkened. Creatures fled. And when he was sad, the sea around him dimmed, as if trying to mourn with him.

His mother said it was just magic. That it came from the Gorgon blood.

But Erebus had seen magic. He had felt his father’s magic—brutal, crushing, designed to dominate.

This was different.

This was alive.

He raised his hand slowly and watched the shadow curl around his wrist, like a snake that loved him. It obeyed him now, mostly. But sometimes... it moved before he asked.

What are you? he thought, staring into the gloom beyond.

Suddenly, something changed.

The current thinned—just slightly. The water warmed by a fraction. And he felt her.

“Mother,” he murmured aloud.

She was close. Swimming fast. Afraid.

His jaw tightened. Not at her, never at her—but at whatever chased her. Whatever made her heart race in the water. She had told him once that fear was a thing she learned to swallow. That if you let it see your eyes, it never left.

Erebus closed his fist. The shadow hissed and vanished into his skin.

He turned and rose through the dark like an arrow.

If something was coming for her, it would meet him first.

She found him above the trench, where the water throbbed with the echo of something wrong.

“Erebus,” she called before she even saw him, her voice tight, sharp with panic.

He was already there, rising from the gloom like a shadow given form. His dark eyes locked on hers instantly. No one ever said his name like she did—not even his father. When she spoke, it was half-command, half-prayer.

“Mother,” he said, still and hovering, watching her approach.

She stopped a few paces away, scanning his face, his body, his aura. “What did you do?”

“Defended myself,” he said quietly. “They came too close.”

“To you, or to me?”

His jaw clenched. “Does it matter?”

“Yes,” she said, moving closer now, her voice low. “Because you’re not just defending yourself anymore. You’re feeding it.”

Erebus’s hands curled into fists. A flicker of shadow pulsed along his forearms, then faded.

“I didn’t ask to be born with this,” he said.

“And I didn’t ask to fall in love with a man who would give me a child cursed by both bloodlines.” The words left her too fast, sharper than she meant.

He flinched, but he didn’t move.

Medusa closed her eyes, took a breath, steadied herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re not a curse, Erebus. But the power inside you—that is dangerous. And if you let it write your story for you, it will make you into what they say I am.”

He looked away, into the darkness below them. “Maybe I already am.”

“No,” she said firmly, grabbing his wrist. “You are mine. And I have fought every tide and every lie to raise you better than this. You feel things, Erebus. You carry guilt. That’s not weakness—it’s proof you haven’t lost yourself.”

He looked at her hand on his, then up at her face. There were questions behind his eyes—too many, too old for his age.

“What if I don’t want to feel guilty?” he asked.

Her heart cracked, but she didn’t let it show. “Then I will feel it for you. Until you’re ready.”

They hovered there, suspended in the water, tethered only by the silence between them. For a moment, Erebus didn’t look like a weapon or a warning—just a boy trying not to drown in himself.

Then his brow furrowed. “You saw him, didn’t you?”

Medusa blinked. “What?”

“Triton. I felt the shift. Your heart changed.”

She let go of his wrist.

“Yes,” she said. “I saw him.”

Erebus looked away again. “And did he still see you as you want to be seen?”

She didn’t answer.

Not with words.

They found a place to rest—a hollowed-out arch of coral where the current was still. Medusa sat on a ledge, arms around her knees, while Erebus hovered just below, his tail curled slightly like a resting serpent.

For a long time, they said nothing.

Finally, Medusa spoke, voice distant. “He still has the same eyes. But they’re tired now. Like something inside him broke and never quite healed.”

Erebus didn’t respond, just watched her. She rarely talked about Triton. When she did, it was always with an edge. But not tonight. Tonight it sounded like memory.

“I used to wonder if he ever thought of me,” she went on. “If he remembered the girl with the cursed name. The one he swam with when no one was looking.”

“Did he?” Erebus asked.

She gave a ghost of a smile. “Yes.”

Erebus’s eyes narrowed, unreadable. “And do you still love him?”

Medusa didn’t look at him. She stared at the pale glow above. “You never stop loving the one who saw you before the world told him not to.”

A silence passed between them, denser than before.

“Is that why you kept me away from the palace?” Erebus asked, finally.

She turned her head toward him, surprised.

“You said it was to protect me,” he continued. “From what I might become. But maybe... it was to protect him.”

Medusa’s breath caught. “I was afraid of what he’d see. Of what you’d become if they tried to use you. Or destroy you.”

“They still might.”

“I know.”

He rose to her level now, their faces inches apart. “Then why go to him now? After all this time?”

“Because,” she said, “I saw the same pain in him that I’ve been carrying alone. And I was tired of drowning in it.”

Erebus’s gaze softened—not with forgiveness, but understanding. He didn’t speak, but for the first time in years, he reached out and gently took her hand.

It startled her more than any burst of shadow ever could.

She clutched it back, fierce and trembling.

“I don’t know what’s coming, Erebus,” she whispered. “But something’s shifting in the sea. I feel it in my bones. We’re not just watching anymore. We’re in it.”

“I know,” he said. “And whatever it is... I’ll protect you.”

Medusa looked into her son’s eyes—so much like hers, but colder around the edges—and wondered, not for the first time, who will protect you from yourself?

Just as their hands parted, the current shifted.

It was subtle, like a ripple from a leviathan's tail far, far below. But both of them felt it instantly. A vibration in the bones. A pressure behind the eyes.

Erebus turned his head sharply toward the trench.

“What is it?” Medusa asked, already reaching for the dagger hidden in her sash.

He didn’t answer.

His eyes had gone glassy, pupils dilated wide. The darkness within him stirred again—but this time, it didn’t rise with rage.

It rose with recognition.

He opened his mouth, but it wasn’t his voice that came out.

It was something ancient and low, a whisper that scraped across the inside of their skulls:

“She wakes.”

Medusa’s blood ran cold.

Erebus’s body jolted—once—then he gasped, stumbling backward as if something had let go of him.

“I didn’t summon that,” he breathed. “I didn’t—Mother, I swear—”

“I know,” she said quickly, grabbing his shoulders.