bursts through a window into the bedroom and consumes her. In the blink of an eye she is gone. Before he can catch his breath, he hears the same horrifying sound as the fireball rushes into the next room and engulfs his three young children. Out of the silence of his paralyzing anguish and grief, he hears the bloodcurdling cackle of his stepmother Hera. He knows at once that it is she who has destroyed his family and cursed him to a lifetime of loneliness.
Unable to conceive why his father, the great Zeus, has allowed such a thing to happen, Hercules renounces his love for him and sets out on a path of
