Chapter Text
Eyes That Bind - Part One
Many, many years ago, before the events of this tale truly began, in cities that now only exist in myths and legends, the gods and goddesses of the old- powerful beings who longed for blood, dwelt amongst their human subjects in elaborate castles and temples and palaces.
Everyone worshipped these beings, but the vestal order was reserved for the purest, untainted souls, who had the privilege to directly serve the gods and goddesses, and the stronger the celestial, the more highly regarded their vestal servers were. One of such more powerful celestials was the goddess Pandora.
The goddess Pandora kept an iron clad grasp over all machinations of evil, ensuring that all who dwelt in her city never had to suffer wicked acts fashioned against them by their fellow people. All greater evil that could be committed within the city borders were locked away in the Pandora box. There was no fear within her city, and as such, she was beloved by all her people and those beyond her city who had heard of her. Natives of neighboring cities came to her, seeking shelter from their peaceless homes, which she more often than not granted.
Her temple and her vestal servers were of the same ethereal quality. They were the most beautiful sights to see, sights that drew even more people to the temple bearing gifts.
The goddess loved her power and her influence, but she still longed for a companion, someone worthy of her station, to share a fraction of her bed and life with. But she did not bother holding her breath. All the good ones were taken or inclined in a different direction. That is, until the demi god Marius came around.
He was powerful, old. Had connections to the goddess of all celestials, Akasha herself. He carried himself with the grace of someone who was aware of his... well, everything, and Pandora was instantly smitten. She hung on to his every word, smiled and flitted around him like the dance of a butterfly to entice her prospective mate. But it was clear in a breath that Marius did not have eyes for her. He had eyes for the one everyone who visited the temple looked upon. Her beloved Amadeo.
His beauty was a marvel even among most celestials— curls like chocolate ambrosia, skin like polished bronzite, and eyes the colour of amber through a looking glass. He was kind, and sweet, and had the loveliest singing voice. He was adored by all who visited the temple. Pilgrims spoke of his kindness; nobles left offerings in his name. The goddess was cold, but her pride in Amadeo’s perfection was evident as she flaunted him before her celestial peers during the festivals of the gods.
From the moment his gaze fell upon Amadeo, Marius was enthralled, as many were who looked upon the boy. But unlike them, Marius was not a man who stopped at looking. His hungry eyes followed the young vestal relentlessly. He began visiting the temple frequently, under the guise of conversing with Pandora, but his attention always returned to Amadeo. The young vestal tried to remain distant, wary of the storm he saw behind Marius’s charm. Of what it would mean to his sworn purity.
Pandora’s initial pride in Marius’s admiration for her servant turned sour when it became clear to everyone who could see, that Marius only had eyes for Amadeo. Her smiles became brittle, her compliments barbed with sarcasm. “Careful, Amadeo,” she murmured one evening, after Amadeo had smiled politely at the litany of praises Marius had showered upon him. “Your beauty may draw admiration, but it is a fickle shield. Remember you're to be untouched, and to serve me that way for the rest of your mortal life.”
Amadeo knew better than to argue that it wasn't his fault, that he could not disrespect the demi god. He withdrew further, avoiding Marius whenever possible. Yet, Marius persisted. He sought him in quiet corridors, on temple terraces, and even during sacred rituals. His words of persuasion grew more insistent, his touches less and less innocent. Amadeo’s refusals only seemed to fan the flames of his twisted obsession.
One fateful evening, the temple was uncharacteristically silent. Most of the servers had accompanied Pandora to a nearby festival. Amadeo had stayed behind, returning from an errand later than their departure, and, tired, decided to enjoy a quantum of solace in the rarely empty temple. But he was not alone for long.
Two of Amadeo’s envious fellow servers, tired of Pandora’s favoritism, had come in, attacked him, chasing him into the sacred altar room, where they locked him in, and from the shadows, Marius appeared, his eyes burning with dark intent. His promises of divine favor coupled with their prior dislike for him were enough to tempt them. Amadeo's blood ran cold as he looked into the face of the demi god, his intent spelled out clearly on his face.
Amadeo tried to flee, his heart pounding with terror, but the only way out was blocked by the servers. Pleas fell on deaf ears as Marius easily overpowered him, tore his clothes off his body. What followed was a violent nightmare. Marius fucked and drank from the boy, clawing him hungrily, leaving his marks everywhere, so he could never forget that Marius had had him. The boy cried, and begged for a respite, but no one was coming. No one was there to save him.
The sanctity of the altar was defiled that day,and so was Amadeo.
When he was done, Marius cast one last look at Amadeo, laying naked on the stairs of the altar, now broken, bruised and bloodied, before leaving him there without looking back. The temple was quiet once again, save for Amadeo’s ragged sobs.
That was where Pandora and her servers found him when they returned later that night. The sight of her beloved servant lying battered upon her altar ignited a fury unlike any other. Yet, her wrath was not directed at Marius or the servers who had betrayed him. It turned on Amadeo, the one she deemed responsible for breaking his vows. Amd with a man she had chosen for herself, nonetheless.
“You have defiled this temple,” she hissed, her voice trembling with rage. “You, who I trusted, who I cherished above all others. And with my own beloved, no less. What worth do you think your beauty affords you, you orphaned gutter creature?!” Her words dripped with venom, her gaze cold as stone. “Your beauty, which brought you this admiration, will now be your curse.”
She would not believe Marius took Amadeo by force. Why would he, when he could have anyone?
With a wave of her hand, Pandora’s power surged through the room. Amadeo’s curls twisted into serpents, their scales gleaming with malevolence. His soft skin hardened into a mosaic of shimmering scales.
“A hair full a snakes, a reminder of the snake you are, your skin will no longer be smooth but rougher than rocks. And that gaze of yours, that used to turn the heads of men, will now turn them to stone. Let all who look upon you meet their end,” Pandora declared. "I banish you forever into the darkness, Amadeo. You will suffer there till the end of time."
His dearest friend, Bianca, pled on his behalf, begging until Pandora finally eased the curse. Only the purest love, untainted by fear, will release Amadeo from his curse. But who could love a monster, especially one, who the very sight of him, sends them straight to the arms of Khayman, the god of the underworld?
Pandora banished him to the caves beneath the temple, a prison of eternal darkness. His cries echoed through the stone halls, but no one came to comfort him. To rescue him. The temple moved on, its servants whispering of the fallen vestal turned monster.
Amadeo remained in the shadows, haunted by the memory of what was stolen from him and the curse that now bound him forever in misery. His beauty, once a blessing, had become his damnation.
And so began the legend of the cursed one—Amadeo, the eyes that bind.
Eyes That Bind – Part Two
In the first months of his exile, Amadeo suffered. The silence of the caves below the temple offered nothing but a ample reminder of his loneliness. His serpents were his only companions, and they didn't even seem to like him much. He could not bear to touch his own skin, and the slightest glimpse of his reflection in the waters running in the cave filled him with revulsion and horror.
He tried to avoid his reflection, but the serpents that crowned him had no such qualms. They often coiled close to the water, their forked tongues flicking at their distorted images.
That was not him, a part of himself still firmly believed. He was no monster.
The first visitor came soon after the whispers began to spread beyond the temple. A merchant’s son, arrogant and young, descended into the cave, armed with nothing but his curiosity. Amadeo could smell the sea on him, and it made him whimper in longing. “The monster who once was a man,” the boy taunted into the darkness, his voice laced with disbelief.
Amadeo shrank into the shadows, trembling. “Go back,” he whispered, his voice cracked and weak from the lack of use. “Do not look at me.”
But the boy laughed, stepping closer. “Are you so hideous that you must cower in the dark?”
When the boy’s gaze finally found him, the laughter ceased. His face contorted in terror, his body stiffened, and his life ended before he could utter another word. Amadeo watched in horror as his body turned to pure stone.
For hours, Amadeo wept over the lifeless figure. He tried to carry the body to the cave’s entrance, but he knew it would just make more people come after his head, and either wind up dead, or end up killing him. And inspite of everything, Amadeo did not want to die. Not like this. In the end, all he could do was drag the boy into a deeper recess of the cave, his heart breaking with every step.
The serpents hissed at his efforts, as if mocking him for his guilt.
But the boy was only the first. Some more came out of curiosity. None of them ever made it back home. Amadeo tried to warn them all. He shouted from the shadows, pleaded with them to leave. “Do not come closer! You will not survive!” But they never listened. Each one met the same fate— petrified in death. The cave began to fill with their lifeless forms, their expressions haunting Amadeo’s every waking moment.
The burden of guilt consumed him. He stopped eating, stopped drinking, hoping that perhaps starvation could end his torment. But Pandora’s curse had made him immortal. Days stretched into weeks, then into months, each one marked by the arrival of another visitor, another death.
Soon, as stories turned to legends that lost the core of the true story and painted him instead as a blood thirsty monster, the nature of the visits began to change. No longer were they curious wanderers or naive treasure-seekers. Now they came with weapons, armor, and grim determination. They shouted threats into the cavern, their voices dripping with venom.
“Face me, you vile beast!” one called, his sword gleaming in the faint light of a torch. “Let me be the one to end your reign of terror!”
Amadeo no longer pleaded. He stayed in the shadows, waiting till the right moment to drop right into their face and turn them to stone. He began to wonder if this was what Pandora wanted—not just to curse him with never ending solitude but to strip him of his humanity, piece by piece.
He stared at his reflection more often as the time went by, and accepted that he was a monster. The blood of his victims kept him fed, and he was a killer, a beast. And nothing would change that.
His only sense of time came from the new inventions he could pluck off the petrified statues all around him. He could tell what was new, what was borne of the necessity of a new century. He gathered the shiny ones, even though he didn't know what most of them were, and used them to decorate his nest.
Sometimes, in the quiet years when no one came, Amadeo allowed himself to imagine life outside the cave, where he could walk among people again. Where he could dance and sing and eat dal with his friends and laugh again. He dreamed of someone who could love him despite the serpents, the scales, and the death in his gaze.
But the dream always ended the same way—with despair. No one could love him. Not as he was. The curse ensured it.
Centuries passed, and the pile of bodies grew, a morbid monument to his curse. He no longer felt the need to look at them, to mourn their fates. Instead, he sat in the darkest corner of the cavern, his serpents coiled around him like a living crown, and waited.
He had nothing but time.
Eyes That Bind – Part Three
The ship rocked gently, guided by the waves, as one Daniel Molloy leaned against the railing, staring out blankly at the endless stretch of water. The salty breeze stung his face, but he didn’t mind. It gave him something to focus on besides...well, everything. The members of the exploration crew he was shadowing were busy swapping stories, laughing, and passing around bottles of rum as they sailed toward the island.
Daniel wasn’t sure why he’d agreed to this assignment. He was a journalist, not an adventurer. But when his editor mentioned explorers going to fact check the legend of a 500-year-old Gorgon hidden in the caves off the coast of Greece, his curiosity had gotten the better of him. Sure, it sounded like nonsense, but a good story was a good story. And if there was one thing Daniel needed right now, it was a break.
Life hadn’t exactly been kind to him lately. His last big article had flopped, his rent was overdue, and his girlfriend had walked out on him a month ago. “You care more about chasing stories than living in the real world,” she’d said. Maybe she was right, and he probably should have begged her to stay, tried a little harder, but truthfully, Daniel was tired. And he had no particular interest in appealing to a woman who didn't even know how to be with someone of his situation.
Behind him, one of the younger explorers, a wiry guy named Sam, was spinning the tale of the Gorgon. He had a way of talking that made people listen, even if every single thing Daniel had heard the man say sounded ridiculous.
“They say he used to be the most beautiful man alive,” Sam was saying as he tuned into the conversation. “Chocolate curls, perfect skin, eyes that could make anyone fall in love. But he got cursed by some goddess. Turned him into a monster with snakes for hair and scales all over his body.”
“Snakes for hair?” someone laughed. “What, did she run out of regular curses?”
Sam shrugged. “That’s what they say. Anyone who looks him in the eyes turns to stone. He’s been hiding in those caves ever since, waiting for someone to break the curse.”
“And how’s that supposed to happen?” another voice piped up.
“True love,” Sam said dramatically, throwing his arms out like a stage actor. “Someone has to love him for who he is, not what he looks like. But, you know… good luck with that.”
The crew burst into laughter. Even Daniel couldn’t help but smirk. The whole thing was absurd. A cursed Gorgon living in a cave for 500 years? Who apparently needed someone to love him, but coincidentally, turned everyone he looked at to stone? How was the love even supposed to blossom, blind dates? Grindr? Daniel chuckled to himself. It sounded like the plot of a bad fantasy novel.
But still…
What if it were true? What would it be like to lose everything—your beauty, your freedom, your life—and be trapped in a nightmare for centuries? He couldn’t imagine it.
He let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head. “You’re losing it, Molloy,” he muttered to himself. But maybe he could get a good interview out of this, he thought to himself with another chuckle.
The ship’s bell rang, signaling that they were nearing the island. The crew scrambled to get ready, chattering excitedly. Not a single person worried about the potential untimely deaths that they were walking right into. If the creature was real, that is.
“Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” he murmured, his hand tightening around the strap on his shoulder.
The sound of their footsteps echoed through the caves, bouncing off the walls, an unwelcome melody. Amadeo stirred from his perch deep within the darkness, his snakes hissing in irritation. He could hear them—several of them—laughing and cracking jokes, their voices filled with cruelty and arrogance.
“Think it’s true?” one of them said, his voice grating. “The monster lives down here, waiting to snatch us up?”
Another laughed. “Monster or not, it’s just some old story to scare kids. Probably just some cave rat someone thought was a demon.”
“Maybe it’s ugly enough to scare us to death!” another voice chimed in, sending a wave of laughter through the group.
Amadeo didn’t feel anger anymore, not really. That had burned out centuries ago. What was left was something looser, quieter. A kiss of inevitability. They always came, and they always died.
The snakes on his head twitched and coiled in anticipation. They didn’t share his resignation. They were always ready, always eager to act.
He followed the sound of their voices, his body moving silently along the cave ceiling, his scaled hands gripping the jagged stone with ease. They were too busy laughing and shining their lights into the cavern's depths, oblivious to the predator lurking just above them.
One of them stopped suddenly. “Why’s it so quiet?”
“Because it’s a damn cave,” another shot back, rolling his eyes. “What, you scared already? There's nothing to be scared of in here, Jared.”
Amadeo smiled faintly at that, his sharp teeth glinting in the dark. He shifted his weight, crawling into position. The light from their torches barely reached him, but he could see them clearly—nine of them, all armed, all foolish.
With a flick of his hand, he extinguished their torches, plunging the cave into total darkness.
“What the hell?” one of them shouted, his voice tinged with panic. “Who turned out the lights?”
Amadeo moved swiftly. The first man barely had time to scream before Amadeo’s claws sank into his shoulder. He drained the man’s life force in an instant, feeling the rush of warmth that only fed the cold emptiness inside him. He let the lifeless body drop to the ground.
The others shouted in confusion, stumbling over each other in the dark.
“Where is it?!”
“I can’t see a damn thing!”
Amadeo struck again, flashing the light of his gaze into another man's eyes, this time petrifying his prey. The man’s scream cut off as his body turned to stone, his last expression one of sheer terror.
The rest began to run, tripping over the uneven floor. “Get out of here! Move!”
But they didn’t know these caves. They didn’t know the tunnels, the twists and turns, the burrows that Amadeo himself had carved himself over the years. He knew every inch of this place, and while they stumbled about in the dark, he was unstoppable.
One by one, they fell. Some to his claws, others to his gaze, their lifeless bodies and statues littering the cave floor. By the time it was over, the only sound he could hear was the faint satisfied hisses of his serpents.
Amadeo stood in the silence that followed, his chest rising and falling as he surveyed the carnage. Another group gone. Another failed attempt to end the monster.
He turned and began to make his way back to the deeper chambers of the cave, where he kept what little he called his own. But as he moved, a sound caught his attention—a rapid, panicked heartbeat. And sniffling sobs.
He paused, his serpents lifting in curiosity. Someone was still alive.
Following the sound, he crawled back to the center of the cave. There, curled up in a trembling heap against the wall, was a boy. His hair was dark brown and messy, clinging to his sweat-soaked face. His breaths came in hiccuping gasps, and his entire body shook with fear.
He sighs, and started to make his way to the boy, and he could tell the boy felt him approaching, for his trembling got worse, but the boy makes no move to run, just starts hiccuping his breaths.
Strange.
“You are not going to attempt to run?” Amadeo asked quietly, his voice rough from disuse. Futile, Amadeo would catch him anyways, but he wondered.
The boy didn’t respond, only whimpered softly, his head remaining lowered.
Amadeo crouched before him, reaching out with a scaled hand. He would make it quick, at least. An easy death. Cupping the boy’s jaw, resulting in a full body shiver as the boy's sobbing grew even louder, he tilted his face upward, forcing him to meet his gaze.
And then, he froze.
The boy’s eyes were pale, milky white, unseeing.
The boy was blind.