Mia had never been in trouble. No school had ever expelled, suspended, nor put her in detention. She was the goody two shoes of her family who could do no wrong.

Now here she was, in the headteacher's office of the school she'd snuck into, nearly crapping her pants to avoid being caught. Mrs. Crowe sat with her body pressed firmly against the desk, hands clasped together atop it.

The older woman's gaze bore into Mia's with suspicion, almost as if she was trying to read her thoughts. Mia gulped nervously, her eyes looking anywhere but at the scrupulous adult in front of her, hoping she wouldn't catch on to the fact that she wasn't really whatever creature was on top of her head and that she forged her way into the school to get in.

Mia thought she was a Gorgon, a creature from Greek mythology, but from the suspense of it all, she was starting to believe othereise.

Mrs. Crowe then glanced up at the hissing snakes on top of her head, observing them with careful eyes. She leaned back into her chair, crossed her arms, and said "Those are some really fancy snakes you've got on your head there, Miss Howard, is it?" Mia nodded, not feeling the sweat that was forming on her forehead from nervousness.

Mrs. Crowe coughed dryly. "Perhaps you're unaware, and I am as shocked as everyone else, but no one has seen a hybrid of your kind in over five centuries."

Mia's mouth gaped slightly open at the woman's words. "Wait, five hundred years? how is that possible?" Mia thought having snakes on her head was freaky, but to actually be a real mythological creature, let alone a fake hybrid one, was beyond more than she could comprehend.

"People believed that Gorgolemías, or more specifically Lamias, were extinct following an act of revenge by a ship called The Black Swan. Because the Lamias had eaten their children, the crewmen committed a massacre of an entire population just west of the Libyan and Mediterranean Seas."

Well, damn. Remind me to keep my diet in check.

"But to get straight to the point, Lamias and male Gorgons sometimes interbred, producing hybrids, if conspecifics were unavailable. Hence, the given name. However, due to the Lamias genetic makeup, their snakes didn't have the ability to turn people into stone like they're known to do," she added. Mia leaned in closely, eager to hear more.

"Male gorgons were prolific breeders, constantly searching the seas for partners to create children, even with humans. However, the killings of the Lamias forced them to relocate to North America," Mia pondered on that last sentence for a moment, thinking that was enough to make the act more accurate.

"Judging by appearances, perhaps some did survive," she stated. Her gaze was drawn to the door, where a curious Ellie was peeking through the glass.

"Well, I will not take up much of your time. You have classes to get back to. You're dismissed," Mia nodded in response and stood up, heading out the door.

She jumped up, startled at the sight of her friend. A hand over her heart, she said, "You scared me! What are you doing out here? Were you spying?"

Ellie laughed nervously. "What? No! Why would I do that?" she lied, still laughing nervously. Mia gave her a 'Are you kidding me?' look, but brushed it off and began walking away with her.

"So, what did she say?" Ellie questioned eagerly, wanting to know what all the dramatic fuss had been about.

"Well, apparently the potion you gave me didn't just turn me into a gorgon, but a Lamia, too. That's why the snakes didn't turn anyone into stone," Mia explained, getting to her locker and opening it.

"Lamias are those children eating snake women, right?" Ellie recalled, leaning her back against a random locker, crossing her arms.

Mia nodded, grabbing her notebook and textbook for Alchemy before closing it. She turned around, closed her eyes, exhaled, then opened them again.

"I'm so screwed," she mumbled, leaning her head against the locker. Turning to Ellie, she saw a look of agreement on her face and rolled her eyes in response.

____

"The nerve of him. I save his ass one time and he decides to steal my girlfriend. Fucking asshole," Erik rambled on, munching excessively on his fourth bag of pretzels.

He and River have been sitting in his dorm room for the past hour as he babbled on about his interaction with Nate and Drew this morning. His roommates had to leave the room because they didn't want to keep hearing him whine like a little bitch over a girl.

"Erik, I love you, you're a great big brother, but respectfully, are you done?" River desperately asked, his elbows pressed on his knee and hands on his cheek as he sat in annoyance on the couch listening to said whining.

Erik rolled his eyes, getting up off the bed and began slowly pacing while eating his last bag of pretzels. "You're not a good listener, you know that, right?" He tells his brother, reaching for another pretzel but not feeling one. He threw the bag onto the floor and began stomping on it angrily.

River, startled, just shook his head and said, "You should probably just sleep. It's getting late and we're already past our bedtime."

"I don't feel tired. Not yet anyway. Might stay up a little longer," he replied, and River nodded in response before leaving, closing the door behind him.

Erik glanced down at the bag on the floor and sighed, knowing he had to pick it up. He did, putting it in the trashcan. A minute passes by, him just standing there and staring at the trash can. He came back to once the door opened up again and his roommates walked back in.

"You done crying like a little girl, yet?" Gio questioned, hopping on his bed, feeling relieved to be back in it. Erik laughed, throwing his head back. "That's funny, good one," he laughed louder, almost erratically, and climbed onto his bed while his roommates looked on in confusion.

"Since when do you laugh at my jokes?" Gio asked, glancing at the two other boys to make sure he wasn't losing it.

"I don't know, I guess you've always been funny and I just didn't notice," he replied in a short laugher, closing his eyes slowly and drifting off.

Gio just shook his head, knowing he was being sarcastic, and got comfortable and drifted off as well. Later that night, as everyone slept, only one person was awake.

Azzie, restless, flipped through the pages of every book she found in the library to learn more about the necklace and its history. She was exhausted, yawning every few seconds, her eyes droopy and back hurting from sitting in the same position against the pillow for hours, but she was too determined to stop. Only two books so far seemed to have all the information and history of the necklace.

"The necklace was never reliably proven to be able to grant wishes, but people who used it had said it granted them what they've always wanted," she read aloud quietly.

Careful not to wake anyone up, she yawned again silently, rubbing her eyes and then continued. "One townsmen said the necklace granted him $1,000 Krona and that he used it to buy bread for his family."

As she read on, suddenly she froze. "Wait, what?" She said, something unusual catching her eye, but before she could read further, the text disappeared.

She gasped softly, her eyebrows creasing in confusion. "What the fuck? Where did it go?" skimming her eyes through the page and flicking through the rest of the book, the text was nowhere to be find.

"What the hell?" she muttered in defeat, closing the book and staring at the blank cover, wondering what just happened.

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After 2 months, finally an update! I'm so sorry for the long wait you guys. I experienced my first ever fandom loss back in October and couldn't drive myself to continue writing. But I felt like I was ready to continue on now. If anyone forgot anything, feel free to read over again. I made some changes and this will no longer be just a regular book series, but what I had planned for it from the start, which is a fantasy drama with Volumes. The plot regarding the necklace is still a thing tho and has not changed. I did however, remove the prologue, but not for that reason. I did it to create more suspense and mystery with the plot.

And that's all, for now! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Next will be longer🤗
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