Evolutionary Darkness

  By the time Hercules reached the other shore of the river, the water that coated his body had been literally evaporated. Without casting a look at Deianira, he extracted the arrow from the dying body of the centaur Nessus. Nessus, could have put in motion the first scheme of revenge, but at the last moment changed his mind. His blood was too pure to bath the body of a simple, anthropomorphic being. His last words fallowed very close the blood pouring through his mouth:

  —Hercules —he said— I know very well that the Oracle of Delphic ordered you to complete another labor, the number thirteen, to expiate the killing of your own children and the pain in which that action threw Megara. King Eurystheus couldn't have given you a harder task; for not even the Olympians gods can fathom the riddle of this new creature which, from the darkness of the forest, deliver death throughout Greece under the dim and ghostly look of Hecate. A creature that's not a fix hybrid like the sirens or my own species, the centaurs —but keeps itself flouting between human and animal form; a creature that really belongs to a coming time, to a coming mythology... Darker than ours. Here this mirror. The next time Hecate cast her round look upon the earth, behold it under her pale light... for on its shining crystal you'll see reflected the real identity of the mysterious creature.

  Since the moon goddess reached the zenith cladded in a perfect roundness, Hercules unfolded the mirror to her light. He wanted to complete this damn labour, to which he have so far devoted more time and energy than any other. Neither the Nemean Lion nor the Lernaean Hydra, were to him difficult endeavor. But this damn creature...

  Hercules turned pale when he saw what the mirror reflected. While each atoms of his body were an anarchy of electrons, protons and neutrons, he saw how it was changing into a hideous werewolf. Of course, he already have felt this sensation before, but only the magic of this mirror could revealed the cause. A furious howl and a well-aimed blow with his paw, silenced the shriek Deianira was near to utter. As the legend goes, that night, after the slaughter, a weird creature, which seemed a mix of man and wolf, lighted a funeral pyre and threw itself alive into it; and lie there till his physical body burned to ashes. That way, Hercules completed successfully his thirteenth labour.