I am awake.

I see nothing but darkness, feel nothing but rough hands pressing gently against my cheeks. A noise breaks through the silence, a voice.

“No, that won’t do. A little softer on the lips.”

The voice is soft, angelic. The words have no meaning to me. I only understand one thing: the awareness that I am alive.

Then, the hands move higher, and I feel them press into me, forming holes.

“Make her eyes the color of the ocean on a sparkling summer day,” the angelic voice says.

The hands move away for a moment, then return, placing something glassy and cold into the holes.

“No, wait--make them the color of an almond, soft and unassuming.”

The hands move away again.

“No, wait! The color of a thousand emeralds, glittering in a deep cavern--”

“Aphrodite,” a deeper, gruffer voice says, “I believe she is gaining consciousness, and I think it would do her well to have eyes.”

The angelic voice, Aphrodite, laughs gently.

“Alright, Hephaestus. You choose. Make them...magnificent.”

I hear sounds of shuffling and the soft tink of a hammer, followed by Aphrodite’s gasp of delight. Then I can see.

First, all I see is light. As my eyes adjust, I make out two completely different people. The female, Aphrodite, has some sort of dark brown liquid--I later learn this is hair--floating about her head. Her eyes are round and gentle, their color I cannot place. The other, Hephaestus, is a short, almost stunted man with a whiskery beard and thick muscles. He wears nothing but a leather apron, and smiles when I look at him. Aphrodite pushes him away with her delicate olive-skinned hand.

“Hello,” she says, giving me a mesmerizing smile. “I’m Aphrodite.”

“Hello,” I mimic, my own voice croaky and strange to my new body. Her smile twerks to the left, ever so slightly.

“She’ll do,” she says, stepping away from my face. As she leans back, I see the room is filled with other beautiful people, all sitting on different ornate thrones and couches. Most of their expressions are devoid of emotion. This, I’ll soon find out, is a sign of boredom.

“A true beauty,” one of them says, looking me up and down. He is male, and wears a striking golden hat with two feathery wings attached to it. “But nothing compared to you,” he quickly adds, as Aphrodite flicks around to face him.

“Zeus,” a woman with thundery gray eyes says from a velvet couch, “remind me how she is a curse upon men?”

“Ah, it is not she who is the curse, but what she will do,” a man, Zeus, replies. He must be the leader of these people. He sits on the largest throne, wears the most extravagant toga, and radiates a fearsome kind of dominance. As he turns to me, I find myself recoiling. At this, I hear the gray-eyed woman chuckle quietly.

Zeus ignores her.

“Once we have made her irresistible,” he continues, “we will gift her to Epimetheus, and they will be wed. Then she will follow our plan, and Epimetheus will live forever in suffering, as well as all men on Earth.”

“Oh, yes,” the woman drawls. “As if we haven’t punished Prometheus’s name enough--”

“He stole the eternal flame!” Zeus booms, his voice crackling through the hall. I watch as the others recoil back with fear, just as I did. “He committed an unforgivable crime! He disobeyed my divine rules!” He leans forward to her. “Athena, are you testing me?”

“No, not at all,” Athena answers, but her voice still sounds bored. “Not at all…”

I take the moment to look down at myself. I am naked, my glossy feet rooted on a golden pedestal. My tan skin is dotted with goosebumps, and I wish dearly I had something to cover myself up with.

I stretch out my fingers, my arms, my neck. I run my hands through my hair. It is a rich mahogany. The hair is not long enough to cover all of my body, but I do the best I can to cover at least my chest. I do not notice my creators are watching me, fascinated, as if surprised I can move on my own. Aphrodite even laughs, her soft, jovial laugh, and says,

“My, she means to cover herself up!”

Athena stands from her seat to hand me her sapphire blue cape. “Here,” she smiles kindly, “try this.”

I reach out to take the cape, and as I wrap it around my body, it materializes into an elegant toga. I try to smile back at Athena thankfully.

“Now, what else does she need?” Zeus asks while stroking his dark gray beard. “Her looks are finished, but what else?”

The man with the winged hat steps forward.

“My king, I believe we must focus on her mind.”

“Her mind?”

“Yes, I like that idea,” Athena says, a flash of something lighting in her eyes. “We shall give her a fair amount of cunning and cleverness, with some wisdom in there, too--”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” Winged Hat interjects. “I say we give her a shameless mind, and a deceitful nature, so she says nothing but lies and crafty words.”

Zeus smirks.

“I like that idea. Go ahead.”

“No, no!” Athena yells, but Winged Hat has already lunged at me, and suddenly we are high above the throne room, surrounded by fluffy white clouds. The wings on his hat flutter excitedly. I feel his arms tighten around my back, and I squirm.

“Hello beautiful,” he says, “I am Hermes. I am a god of many things, one of them being language. Come, let me teach you.”

His expression is mischievous and haughty, but his brown eyes are not evil. Even then I know he does not have ill intentions, he is only having a bit of fun. Unfortunately, I am his play thing.

He flies me to the edge of a mountain. Behind us, there is an impressive golden palace built out of the rocks, and I assume we came from there. Still, I pay little attention to it, as I am focused on the sight before me.

There is a deep green valley cutting into the land, spotted with countless trees and weaving between other towering mountains. It leads far away to a glittering white city and, eventually, an expansive gray ocean. A flock of birds fly through it, casting shadows against the forest of trees.

“This is our kingdom,” Hermes says, placing me on the ground. As I prop myself up with my palms, he adds quickly, “not your kingdom, I mean. Nothing is made for you. You are made for them.”

“Who’s them?” I ask, the words coming naturally to my tongue.

He lifts his hand to a pair of mortals hiking far down the mountainside, hauling a wagon of goods.

“Them,” he answers. “Men.”

“Am I made to please them?”

Hermes smirks.

“Oh yes, please them so much they hate you for it.” He rests his hand against his chin, a delighted smile growing on his lips. “Yes, be much more curious than them, much more questioning...don’t take anything as it is. Don’t trust a word anyone says.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see, you’ll see,” he grins. He knows something I don’t. I don’t like it.

“Hermes,” I say, tracing my finger along my leg. “Are...are there others like me?”

“Other what? Other women?”

I nod.

“No, you’re the first mortal woman...it’s exciting, isn’t it? Things are changing, Pandora. Can I call you Pandora? It means all the gifts.

I figure I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, so instead I ask,

“Now why would I be all the gifts?”

“Because you’re everything, Pandora, everything a man doesn’t have, everything a man so desperately needs…” he interrupts himself by laughing. I frown.

“Hermes…” I say slowly, making sure I deliver my question correctly, “what if I don’t want to give anything to a man? Why do I have to have anything to do with men?”

The god stops laughing. His eyes widen in surprise. Then, he starts laughing again. It takes him a great while to finish, but when he does, he replies,

“You see this world, Pandora? These valleys, these trees? That ocean, far in the distance?”

I nod again.

“It’s a man’s world, Pandora. There’s no place for you here. Therefore, you must

listen to the men.”

“But Hermes, that doesn’t make any sense. You’re a god, can’t you just give me a

place? Or if you’re not going to, can’t I?”

Hermes gives me a strange, threatening look, and shakes his head.

“Ah, I may have made you too questioning. Come, let’s go inside. I’ve had enough of you.”

So he lifts me off my feet again, and we fly back to the golden palace. When we land on the throne room floor, Zeus raises his eyebrows expectantly.

“So? Is she curious, like we decided?”

“Oh yes,” Hermes says, returning to his seat. I notice Athena, the goddess from before, is gone. Aphrodite is the only other woman in the room, and I realize why: half the men are staring at her lustfully. She’s lapping it up.

“Good. Now, we send her to Epimetheus.” He smiles mischievously, just like Hermes. What was it they said before? Something about a curse?

I sigh, because I do not know what “curse” means.

A day or so later, I find myself on the doorstep of a different palace, one not as extravagant but still impressive. Hermes has dropped me off there, his playful grin still plastered on his face.

“Enjoy your honeymoon!” he says before booming away into the clouds, leaving me, alone, in a strange, marble city by the ocean.

The door opens, and a man appears. He wears nothing but a silky white toga and some leather sandals. His skin is a rich olive, like mine, but his face is older and tireder. When he sees me, the age seems to lift away.

“Who--?” he stammers.

“I am Pandora,” I say, “and I have come to be your wife.”

It’s simple, Zeus had said. Straight to the point.

“What--?”

I place my hand on his cheek, something Aphrodite called “seductive.” It feels awkward, wrong, but the man--Epimetheus, the gods called him--seems to love it. He puts his larger, brittle hand over my soft one, and closes his eyes. As I watch him, I can’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“Then we shall be wed,” he says, and he pulls me inside.

We are married by the ocean, and the whole city comes to see my beauty. I hear them whisper about how they would like “their own”, like I am a seashell they would pick from the shore. Their eyes follow me as I walk down to my new husband. Hermes told me to be more curious than these men, and I wonder how that is possible.

Our marriage is happy, for a time, although I find it hard to know what happiness is when I’m seldom let out of the house.

“It’s for your safety,” Epimetheus says, “away from the other men’s prying eyes.”

One day, a strange box arrives at our door, months past our wedding. It’s marked as a wedding gift. Epimetheus brings it to me as I weave at the loom. He looks suspicious and interested at the same time.

“We shouldn’t open this,” he says quietly.

“Oh? Why not?”

He looks away from me, then whispers,

“No, we should.”

“Alright, open it, then.”

He shakes his head. Suddenly, he faces me again, as if he’s been struck by an idea.

“Pandora, you open it. You’ve always been the braver one.” I’m surprised by this remark, and I know he’s just tempting me, but it works. Especially when he makes sure to add slyly, “Don’t you want to know?”

I do want to know, even if only a little, something I hate to admit.

Epimetheus hands me the box, and I wrap my fingers around its top. I feel his breath on my shoulder. For a moment, I hesitate. This isn’t right. Why am I doing this, if it was Epimetheus’s idea in the first place? He should do it, the coward.

Then I remember Hermes’s words: be much more curious than them, much more questioning.

Maybe this is a test set by the gods, to see how much I listen to them. Well, I’ll prove to them I’m faithful. I’ll prove to them I’m just as capable as any man.

I take a deep breath, then open the box.