Cyclopean Destiny

Commission for

It started with a walk on a misty island. At last the ruined temple columns were visible, most had fallen but a few still towered easily twenty feet above. These were some ruins a friend had directed him toward. Often he wondered about his friend’s knowledge, but the promise of rare herbs and possibly treasure was too good to pass up.  The friend had claimed to wander there often and draw, and noticed there were strange plants that would interest him. He didn’t even question his friend’s strange footprints that day, though he could have sworn they looked like goat hooves in the beach gravel.

After an hour of walking the grounds, his patience wore thin, and prepared to leave, the plants were hardly interesting, and no different than anything else he’d seen elsewhere in the isles. He kicked at a large pile of rocks in dismay, when suddenly he heard a sound he wasn’t suspecting. It was a dense, metallic sound, and as he bent down to examine, he discovered something with a copper sheen to it. Retrieving it, he saw it was some sort of bracelet, with a sold band running around it, and when closed it made a seamless circle.

He examined it for a time, it was nearly features, and he couldn’t guess the age of it.

 Finally curiosity got the better of him, and he slipped it over his hand. It was far too large, and the brass-colored artifact was like ice to the touch. As he looked over the object, he saw it had a funny gleam to it, a red glow almost.  A sudden dread gripped him, and he went to move the bracelet off- when he stopped in his tracks, his nails were growing into sharp claws. Rubbing his eyes, he checked again, and not only was he becoming clawed, but he was missing a finger on each hand.

He had to remove the bracelet. As he struggled with it, the difficulty in removing it was becoming more and more apparent, it was as if he was swelling to fit it. Another look down, and he saw that he was. He was growing larger by second, and his skin becoming scaly and discoloring to yellow-brown color.

As he grew, his feet also became clawed, while his normally kept facial hair exploded into beard. His ears pointed, and he felt his teeth become crowded and sharper. As his body morphed and quake, and he rose higher in the sky, a sharp pain ran through his forehead to his nose.  His eyesight suddenly blurred, as a white hot pain ran from his eyes to the back of his head, as his eyeballs combined into a far larger orb. From his head, skull protruded in a sharp horn, as tough as his claws.  The pain and loss of sight enraged him, directing him down a path of fury and wanton destruction.

He forgot that the bracelet wasn’t his, and for now he no longer cared about his predicament. The torn clothing that still clung to his massive body meant nothing, only his rage mattered, until that subsided the human in him was put aside. The Cyclops tore at his surroundings, somehow something would pay, and he was hungry.

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Digital

 2014

Ageaus

Character is copyright :iconluckery