The Forgotten One

Her fingertips were coated with ruby blood and Gya could see minuscule traces of flesh beneath her claws. Initially, she had only wanted to scare the guy away; frighten him a bit so that the innocent woman with a rip up the middle of her dress could have a chance of escape. Gya emerged from the shadows and grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt. The woman, although completely petrified, got up from the cold sidewalk and stumbled away as quickly as she could. Tossing the man aside like a piece of rubbish, Gya thought her job was done but the man came at her with a pocket knife. She could've removed her veil and turned him to stone but something sinister stirred within her and her normally placid snaked were becoming more and more vicious. One of them slithered out from beneath her hood and darted for the man's neck. It was enough to paralyze him and, after that, instinct took over as Gya removed her hood and let her snakes and claws rip the man's body to shreds. She couldn't stop until he was beyond unrecognizable and as if awaking from a dream, she looked down at the remains of a man's body and was crushed with guilt.

She inched backwards, away from the bloody scene and pulled her hood back up. It was a dark night on a quiet street but Gya still could not fight the urge to flee. There was only one place she wanted to be after an incident like this. She ran behind buildings and slinked through shadows to get to her destination as quickly as she could. It was late but the large oak doors were unlocked and Gya let herself in. Candles were lit as they always were, sparingly. It would've been welcoming, soothing even, to anyone but Gya knew her kind shouldn't be in such a place. She wanted to feel the warmth and intimacy the candles and stained glass windows offered but that was unlikely to happen anytime soon, especially after what she had just done.

Gya walked silently to the first door on the left. It was a small cubicle with just a single chair but it was all Gya would need. On the wall to her right, she slide open the screen and made sure there was someone on the other side before taking a deep breath.

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost," she said, crossing herself. "Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It has been six days since my last confession."

Something clattered to the floor on the other side of the wall. Gya frowned but continued. "Father, I've just committed the worst sin known to man."

"I'm sorry... this is a little awkward..."

Gya frowned when she didn't recognize the voice as the one of Father Michael. She had to quiet her snakes so that this stranger wouldn't hear them. She tried to peek through the dark screen that they spoke through but that, combined with her veil, made it too difficult. "Who are you? You're not Father Michael."

"No, I'm not." A nervous chuckle escaped the stranger's lips. "My name is Perry. I guess a confessional box isn't the best place to spend the night, huh? Listen, I'm sorry for, uh, you know, listening in. I'll just go somewhere else..."

"Wait!" Gya placed her hand on the screen. Dried blood cracked and flaked on her scaly fingers and she brought her hands down to her lap. "You don't have to go. It's okay if you're not Father Michael. I just need someone to talk to."

"Well, I've got two ears."

One of Gya's snakes peeked out from under her hood and she began to pet it absentmindedly as she recalled that night's events. "I did something bad tonight."

"Yeah, you said that part already. I'm waiting for the details."

"It's really hard to talk about, okay? You know, I try and try every day to fight my fate and be something more than what the stories say. I don't want to be a monster so I do my best as often as I can. I don't know what came over me tonight... What that man was doing was bad but he didn't deserve what I did to him. No one deserves that."

"What'd you do?" Perry's smirk was audible through the screen. "D'ya kill him?"

Gya let out a deep sigh. "What if I did? It's not like I'm going to die anytime soon and my soul is danger of eternal damnation if I don't confess this sin but... how can I live with something like that on my conscience?"

"I've killed someone before too," Perry said quietly.

"Really?"

"In Iraq about four years ago. I took three lives and I think about it every waking moment and I dream about it every night." He chuckled again. "I wonder if saying it aloud in here counts as a confession... Besides my unit, no one knows."

Gya knew the world was imperfect and twisted but this man's torment was almost beautiful. She let down her hood and her snakes silently slithered around each other. "I think you're very strong to have carried that burden alone for so long."

Another smirk. "Strong? Some people would call me a coward for not facing my sins."

"Sounds to me like you have to face them every day and every night. There's nothing cowardly about that. I just don't know why you would bare that burden alone."

"I went AWOL after that so there's really no where I could go without the army finding me. Case in point, me sleeping in a church's confessional."

"I'm sorry."

"Here I am, spilling my deepest, darkest secret and I don't even know your name."

"It's Gya."

"Nice to meet you Gya."

In that instant, Gya knew she was in trouble. It wasn't because she was an immortal Gorgon sister living in the mortal world and it wasn't because she had the ability to turn anyone she'd like into stone with just a single glance; it wasn't because she had just killed a man but because she'd just fallen in love with how Perry said her name.