The Raft of The Medusa

Aidan 6th/7th grade

The small raft floated away from the red-tinged sand.  Loaded with people, it bobbed up and down, its red sail slowly growing smaller as it was swept into the distance.  Its passengers looked backwards, to the beach with a look of fear.  They could see a lone figure, wreathed in shadow, standing on the shore, surrounded with small army of stone figures.  She held a spear in her hand, and red pinpricks glared out from her eyes.  Slowly, mist began to obscure their vision.  Soon, the island was wreathed in mist.  They each turned inwards, and thought of the events of the past twenty-four hours.  One man, his body netted with bandages, started to speak in a horse whisper. 

“Once, there was a mighty army.  They were clothed in golden armor and red capes, and those who resisted them were swept aside like leaves in a summer storm.  After many years of fighting, their homeland lay before them, kneeling to their might.  But their lust for battle was too great.  Their hunger for blood and conquest was not sated.  They wanted new lands to explore.  They were blinded by their bloodlust, they couldn’t see they wonderful land they already had a wonderful land to populate.  But they needed new lands to conquer.  There was a great land, wreathed in mist, not thirty miles from where they stood.  They saw it and wanted it for themselves.

“So they built a great ship, like no other, unmatched in size and speed.  They loaded themselves in and headed for this new misty land.  They sailed for days and then they came to a bay.  They anchored themselves there, and set out to pillage and conquer.  They had barely marched a hundred strides when three women, all garbed in animal skins and rags. They each had a spear, rusting and ancient.  Their hair was green and iridescent, like the finest emeralds.  It hissed and moved of its own accord, for their hair was hundreds of swaying snakes.  They lifted their heads, and the first of the army to see their red eyes went still and silent, turned into the hardest stone.  Then the three women fell onto the army with the fierceness of wild beasts.  They slaughtered them, but two of the she-beasts were killed in the fierce combat.  In the end, there was only one of the snake women and ten remaining of the great army.  She sent them away on a small raft, with a warning ‘Tell your masters,’ she had hissed ‘Tell them, the Last of the Gorgons, The Medusa, waits to tear their flesh and shred their lifeless carcasses. ‘ She sent them away, to float for all eternity on the water.  She left them to Death, the merciless witch!”

He cursed and shook his fist at the retreating island.  “We, the remnant of the mightiest of armies, rid ourselves of the Island of Gorgons, and its accursed inhabitant!”   

For many months the raft drifted, floating in the ocean.  One day, it drifted into the port that the army had left from.  A small boy ran to the edge of the bay and peered into the morning mist.  “Hey, there’s something out there!”  Then, with a bump, the raft hit the shore.  The boy dropped to his feet and screamed.   On the raft, there stood a woman with rags for clothes, snakes for hair, and carried a rusty spear.  Surrounding her were ten corpses, their bodies covered in stab wounds, and dried blood coating the wood.  

She hissed, and stepped onto the beach.  The boy cowered before her, shaking uncontrollably.   A single tear rolled down his cheek as the woman bent down.  She touched the boy’s cheek and looked into his eyes.  “Quiet.” She hissed.  Her eyes flashed red for a second, and she stood up again.  Where the boy had sat, there was a stone statue.  It was a perfect semblance of the boy, down to the single tear quivering on his stone cheek. 

              She strode towards the village as the village, unawares, ran straight to her.  They only noticed her when she appeared in their midst, clutching her spear, and ran it through a farmer clutching his pitchfork.  He screamed, and the crowd stopped in its tracks and turned to stare at this fierce warrior woman.  She twisted around, letting go of her spear, and grabbed a knife off of a startled butcher, still wearing his bloody apron.  She slashed at his neck, leaving a long scar.  He howled and clutched at his neck, and promptly fainted. 

              The villagers, clutching their pitchforks and knives, slowly spread out to make a circle around this fierce stranger.  One stepped forward and jabbed at her with his pitchfork, making her hiss with anger.  She lashed out with the knife, cutting his arm.  He let out an oop of surprise and stepped back into the crowd, glaring daggers at her.  She hissed at him again, and then yelped in pain as someone jabbed her in the rear.  She quickly turned and stabbed the man in the chest.  He screamed in pain and crumpled to his knees.  She proceeded to kick him in the head and grabbed the makeshift spear he clutched.  She whirled and ran a man through.  He stumbled backwards, said something like “Grrphflgm” and collapsed, a trickle of blood running down his chin.  She took one step backwards, and drew a knife.  What came next was a whirlwind of slaughter, with the demon girl at its centre, cutting down the villagers before they had time to respond.  But one man, perhaps a soldier who stayed back, or who was simply lucky, gave her a gash on her side, running from her stomach to her elbow.  She promptly killed him, and then collapsed.  She had killed every single one of the villagers, the people of the army she and her sisters had decimated.  Or so she thought.  One man, who sported a long slice on his forehead, got unsteadily to his feet.  He clutched in his left hand a long dagger, and stumbled over to the warrior woman.  He raised his hand, and drove the knife into her back.  She screamed once, and then fell silent.  But then her head turned.  Her head turned, the spark fading from her eyes, and, with her right hand, sliced his arm off.  He howled in pain and dropped into a faint.  But the job was done.  With her lifeblood dripping out of her, the strange woman turned to face the blue sky.  She said, “Fare well, you cruel, cruel, world.”  And so Medusa, the last of the three Gorgon sisters, died.