Prologue - Part 1
Masterful, prideful, gracious, kind, and rich. These are all things I am - so I’d like to say. In reality, I’m merely an average guy living a mediocre life doing, well, mediocre things.
I left my home when I was sixteen in search of something better as all I had growing up was a father who tried his damnedest to provide, but fell short due to drug addiction. He was hurt when I left, but I didn’t have much of a choice. I spent the following years searching for and going from job to job making the barest of ends meet.
Nothing ever went well for me, no matter how much I tried. The first job I got was working for a carpenter. I made sense of the basics of what they needed me to do quite quickly, but the company went bankrupt less than a month after I was hired.
My next job found me working in a fast-food restaurant as a janitor. My employment lasted barely more than a month as the place burned to the ground due to faulty wiring. I escaped unscathed, albeit jobless once more.
Several days later, I made my way to yet another job interview. I stood at the corner of a quiet intersection waiting for the crosswalk sign to give me the go-ahead.
A crappy sedan, probably older than I was, screeched around the corner just as I stepped out to cross the street. I made it about a third of the way across when I was struck.
Time slowed to a near halt as my mind tried to process the situation. The light was red. The crosswalk sign was lit for pedestrian crossing. A woman was behind the wheel of the crappy sedan that was now pushing me down the street.
Pain rocketed through my body, searing my mind with its intensity. Then, my world went black as the last breath left my body. That was probably the moment I died.
When I next opened my eyes, I beheld a strange sight. I was standing on a glowing, iridescent green pathway. In front of me was a long line of people. None of them appeared to be paying attention to their surroundings, merely staring straight ahead. I looked beyond them to see a woman sitting on a resplendent chair. It had a weird oscillation of colors that made it hard to look at, almost as if wasn’t real.
The first thing I noticed about the woman in the chair was a golden halo floating above Her head. I figured I definitely died by that point and maybe She was God. I couldn’t really see Her face as there was this strange mirage-like motion that blurred Her features. She wore this elegant gown that flowed down and moved like a feather in a gentle breeze.
The gown, like the chair oscillated into a multitude of colors. There wasn’t anything else around the pathway. It was just blackness.
I followed the line, slowly moving closer to the front. I almost forgot to mention, there wasn’t any sound, and I couldn’t see what was happening to the people in front of me, at least, until I was close enough to God. I peeked around those few people only to see the girl standing directly in front of God vanish. There was no sound, no special effects, she just . . . blipped into nothingness.
I was extremely nervous at this point. I was about to come face-to-face with God. The God. Who’d of known God was a woman? I surely didn’t, then again, I wasn’t a religious person.
An indiscernible amount of time passed until I was in the spotlight. I scratched at the back of my head and chuckled audibly. God moved at my gesture, wrapping one leg over the other and leaning Her head against Her hand. She looked down at me, but I couldn’t determine Her expression.
“You are self-aware, I see,” She softly spoke.
I shied away quite visibly. It wasn’t that She actually spoke at all. Her voice was in my head. In some weird instinctual reaction, I got down on one knee and lowered my head as far as it could go. Silence ensued. That is, with the exception of my heavy breathing.
I began to sweat as the silence continued. But then I heard – again in my head -- a gentle laugh. It was a kind laugh, maybe pitying. It made sense if it was the latter. I mean, my life up to this point wasn’t very impressive, and my accomplishments were few. I was unable to accomplish much of anything, and my father was probably dead from overdose.
“Please, raise your head,” God said.
I did so, hesitantly, and found She was no longer cloaked in an oscillating haziness. Her gown had settled on a pinkish hue. As my gaze moved up Her form to Her face, I discovered what I had already guessed was true: She was beyond stunning. Her breathtaking green eyes, above beautifully sculpted cheekbones, looked into mine.
I knew She was peering into my life when Her eyes met mine. Looking into my very being. Her pretty nose, and small, but full lips completed the picture. Her visage would have most any man reeling with temptation. She was the perfect woman. Or rather, the perfect God.
“You are indeed correct. Many mortals that come before me feel temptation. I had to create a barrier to mitigate all emotions. Rarely do some mortals exceed it, such as you have. You are most certainly a unique individual amongst your people, Xavier. I do not mean that in the sense that you persevered as best you could, given your situation.”
I wasn’t sure of the emotions stirring within at Her words.
“Many men before you have done better and many after you will do better. I do not intend to be rude, but you really fell through the cracks in life. I know you have many questions, most do, and I can hear them running through your mind right now. Before I answer them, I want to ask you a few of my own,” She said in my mind.
I thought, ask away. You are God after all. It got another soft laugh from her.
“What is it that you cared most for in your short life?”
I rummaged through my mind, picking through all the different memories trying to search for an answer. I guess... I didn’t have anything, I thought.
I mostly meandered through life trying to survive. As much as I wished for things to get better, they never did. Eventually I gave up and became content with the status quo.
God sighed softly. She’d likely heard those exact words thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times or more.
“You are correct. My next is this: If you could do anything what would you do?” She questioned with a bit more intensity.
Even before I could begin to muster my thoughts, I realized She already knew the answer. She had to, I mean, God is all-knowing, right? Her lips curled in a gentle smile.
I always did enjoy fantasy novels... You know, the high fantasy ones with all sorts of magic and demons and heroes. I guess if I could do anything, I’d want to be the hero of a world.
“You are true to your soul, Xavier. Then, my final question to you is this: Would you like to live out a life like that?” She asked, rising from Her chair.
God moved down the stairs toward me, Her gown flowing gracefully behind Her creating a whirl of colors in Her wake. Each step She took produced a silent explosion of purple beneath Her bare feet. She stopped a few feet in front of me. I shivered as I felt some instinctual urge from deep within my core try to surface.
Of course, I would... But that isn’t real.
“You forget I am God. I can make anything real. There are millions like you that live in their very own world where they live content lives. Well, maybe not all of them,” She mused while looking away from me with a mischievous smile.
Oh yea, haha, you are God. I mean, if this new life is going to be better than my current one, then I guess I have no reason to turn down your offer... Out of curiosity, though, what would happen if I rejected?
“Mm, you’d likely just be reborn in your current universe as someone else, with no recollection of your previous life, mostly, and then you’d just live again. The odds of you getting a good life are one in two-billion-eight-hundred-and-eighty-seven, oh wait, eighty-three,” She explained casually.
I knew immediately that I’d rather get a guaranteed life of adventure and uniqueness. I watched as God smiled ever so gently and whispered a farewell. As everything slowly stretched out and started to fade, I felt an intense pang of loneliness.
Wait! Will you accompany me? Like, with an avatar of yourself or something?
“Sorry, I cannot do that. You will definitely meet a good woman and marry her, so do not stress about companionship too much! I will be watching over you, along with your new Gods!”
I felt some unexplained and alien instinct explode from inside me, different from before. I reached out as God looked impossibly far away, and grabbed Her wrist. Surprise spread across Her face as She was pulled with me into the ever-far stretching blackness.
I felt extremely nauseous as I spun around in the nothingness. Next to me God shrieked as She hung on for dear life. A massive shiver ran down my spine and the contents of my stomach decided to come forth. It wasn’t vomit as I expected, it was a scenic view that erupted from my mouth. There were cottages and fields of flowers in view, and when I finished vomiting it all up, I felt myself pulled into it.
