King Sinios

Down the twisting path of time, stood a small town, next to this town the Aegean Sea tumbled around on the golden sand. However, along with the sea’s beauty, a terrible creature lived within the depths of the deep waters, whoever fought against it would die and the monster would feast on their body and wait for its next victim.

In the town, a small fishing group would meet everyday and sail their wooden boats across the tranquil sea. One of the members of this fishing group was an extremely skilled fisherman, and without him the town could not survive, this man’s name was Sinios.

Unfortunately, one windy day he fell ill and could not attend to his daily fishing routine. As the sky grew dark, a blood curdling scream filled Sinios’s ears as he lay in bed. The next moment there was a bang on his door, Sinios quickly slipped out of bed and walk across the room to find a terrified looking women standing outside.

‘What happened? ‘Asked Sinios, in a worried tone.

‘The fishing group…The sea monster…Their…Their dead.’ Cried the women. Sinios could not believe his ears; he rushed past the women to face the little town. It was chaos.

He slipped down a back passage and found the sea shore covered in bits of wood that once belonged to a few simple fishing boats.

As Sinios scanned the area, he gasped as his eyes fell upon the once glistening water, for it was now a great sea of blood. His eyes widened with fear, he took a step backwards, shaking his head.

‘No, it can’t be, not now.’ He whispered.

He lowered his head, and headed back the way he came.

As he skidded to a halt in front of the town, he found a small tree stump and clambered onto it, clearing his throat.

‘It is back.’ Sinios’s voice boomed through the town. They all stopped and stared, but that was all Sinios had to say.

He trudged back to his cottage and prayed, he prayed to the mighty god Poseidon, and soon fell into a deep slumber.

He woke abruptly the next morning and found a beautiful trident, it had elegant carvings of pure white horses, with wild manes that twisted and turned. Poseidon had listened.

He stepped forward to receive the trident; it felt smooth, like trickling water, running

through his hands.

However, he couldn’t get distracted; last night he had promised himself that he wouldn’t let anyone or anything get in his way of killing the sea monster.

He sprinted out his front door, clutching Poseidon’s trident, as he approached the beach, he found the terrible beast snoozing on his back, creeping up behind it, he tripped over a sharp rock and cut his foot, blood spattered around on the sand, he rolled around in pain. To his horror, his blood had attracted the sea monster and it was on its arms and legs. Sinios stared up at the heavens, hoping against all hope that he would survive, but he couldn’t contain the fear that was over coming him.

As his eyes focused on the real world, the monster had opened its jaws, revealing pointed teeth that could kill a dozen people with one bite. Coming to his senses, he noticed the trident that was glinting in the early morning rays of the sunshine.

He raised the arm that was limply holding Poseidon’s trident, and stabbed the inside of the beasts mouth, the beast fell back and let out a terrible shriek of agony.  Sinios yelled in triumph and punched the air with a bony fist.

He marched, shoulder high back towards his home town with pride and clambered upon the small tree once again.

‘Do not fear, I have slain the mighty sea beast and we will feast on the meat that he has provided us with!’ He roared in triumph again, and imagined what it would be like if he was king.

The next day, he made another announcement.

‘I will protect you from any beast that walks upon us and i will be your king!’ He claimed.

There was a murmur amongst the crowd at this sudden remark, but they went along with it, not wanting to ruin this precious moment.

As the days went by, Sinios had not been praying to the gods, but they were watching him, and they did not like the way he had been acting lately: walking around like he owned the world, keeping fish to himself and not even sharing with the mighty god Poseidon and he had even ordered the citizens to build him a palace. The citizens did not like this either, but if they spoke out, they would be executed.

Weeks went by now, and as Sinios sat on his golden throne with his leg propped on the arm rest, a maiden came bustling through the door and claimed  she was tidying up his room, even though it was already spotless, she kept glancing nervously over at Sinios.

Sinios noticed this and was slightly annoyed.

‘Explain why you keep glancing at me like that, pheasant?’ He asked.

The maiden stopped what she was doing and walked slowly towards him.

‘Your majesty, maybe you should rethink your plans and decisions and try something else, go back to your old self?’ Said the maiden, uncomfortably.

‘Are you saying I step down from the throne?’ He asked, his voice booming though the room.

‘No your majesty.’

‘Get back to work!’ He shrieked.

‘Of course.’ Said the maiden, bustling out again.

Sinios sat and pondered this for a while but soon forgot about it as the evening events rushed in.

The next day, he ordered that he have Poseidon’s shrine removed and replaced with a shrine of himself, and what was said, was done.

When Poseidon heard about this, he was furious. He descended down from mount Olympus, as he past the sea; it created an enormous wall of water and stayed behind Poseidon as he came to shore, he headed straight for Sinios’s town, not bothering to take disguise, he sent the looming wall of water to go crashing down onto the little town, destroying it and crushing all the wooden huts and drowning the people inside.

The water was very slowly making its way towards Sinios’s palace, burning everything in its path like acid. Sinios had seen it coming and fled from his town.

From then on, Sinios spent the rest of his life alone, hiding from anyone that came along, but the thing that upset him the most was that he would never be able to fish again as the water would dry up at his touch.