Athena and Artemis

Here is how the story began………………………………………………….

Athena usually woke up just at the rise of dawn, to see the sunrise. It was the only thing she looked forward to, locked up in this cell tower, at least 75 feet above the ground, she thought.

She huffed in annoyance. Taking her eyes off the sunrise, she looked around her cell or as Lucifer put it, her bedroom. The charcoal bricks circled her “bedroom”, a tiny tray sat afar piled with journals and torn papers that have written dreams and hopes that are broken in her mind. Another tiny tray sat across from her with half-cooked and half-eaten meals from months ago, that she won’t even look at.

Heavy metallic chains hung behind her as they were attached to her body like the strings of a puppet. She sat facing a huge opening in her “bedroom” that allowed her to see the sunrise at dawn, on a twin-size bed that rested upon a rusted metal bed stand. If you were to lay the wrong way at night in bed, you might get poked with the broken coiled ends of the bed’s springs’.

Looking away from the so-called “bedroom” she was given, she looks to the left of her, at the opposite cell tower, which holds her little brother, Artemis. His tower stands 12 feet across from hers.

“How did we get here?” she asks herself.

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Artemis unlike his big sister, Athena, preferred to sleep with the rise of dawn shining on his face. Stirring up from his hopeless dream, of being reunited with his family, he awoke to see his sister staring at him. He smiled sheepishly, as they locked their mocha orbs at one another that turned a bright hazelnut once the sun hit them. Artemis waved at his sister as he began moving about his bed, she returned his wave with her own.

He turned his gaze away from his sister, looking at his “bedroom”, Lucifer gave him. Compared to his sister, his “bedroom was elegant and organized, afar, and diagonal of his bed sat two trays. If you were to peer over them, you would have seen a graphite pencil and quill sitting to the left side of each tray side by side. Then barely an inch away on one is a torn sketchbook with stacks of sketches that sat afloat. Then barely an inch away on another tray sat a ripped journal filled with journal entries of tragic nightmares and forlorn poems about freedom.

Behind him, like his sister were metallic chains that controlled his every movement like a puppet, yet there’s no puppet master pulling the strings. His bed stand stood high up from the silver canvas, his feet could never reach. The griminess of the cot he sat upon and its defective springs that poked him every which way he laid became a numb feeling, after so many years. The murky shadow of bricks became the only color he knew besides the illuminated gold, honey, and rose of the sunrise and sunset he saw every day for the past 10 years now.

He sighed in despair as he shifted his gaze back to the opening in his “bedroom”. Looking to his right, he saw his big sister, Athena, staring out into the opening of Lucifer’s arid terrain.

“Are we ever going to get out of this hell-hole ?” Artemis muttered to himself.

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From Artemis’s perspective, Athena appeared to be quite beautiful as the sun shone on her face. In his eyes, Athena had defined cheekbones, dimples, mocha orbs, thick and dark eyelashes, huge lips, and a sun-kissed gingerbread skin tone like their mother. Her brunette hair cascaded down her back like Rapunzel.

From Athena’s perspective, Artemis appeared to be quite handsome, as streaks of sunlight twinkle from his hickory orbs. In her eyes, Artemis had a sharp jawline that cut you like a knife, his eyelashes were long and pretty. He had a sun-kissed caramel skin tone like their father. His kinky umber hair sat pulled back into a man bun on top of his head.

For sure they inherited their parents’ good looks.

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Despair and anguish were shown across both their faces as they peered at one another from their openings in their cell towers. A tear slipped past Athena’s eyes’ as she stared into his eyes. Athena read her brother’s white flag of surrender as he blinked his eyes to hide his own tears. Artemis through his blurred vision saw his sister’s high wall of pride crumble as she cried.

Turning away from one another, they each looked towards the sun finishing its rise into this dark world. As both Artemis and Athena stared intently at the newly risen sun, in their hearts and minds they knew they were never going to be able to return to their parents and live a normal life, as they wished.