Prologue - A Game of Gods
“No, no, no! We don’t need to create more! We can just use what we already have.”
There was a symphony of groans and the sound of faces hitting palms. The dim hum of a fluorescent light with its electric shrill hovered overhead. This was a standard office room, not any dissimilar to that of something you would find in the big city. Panels of drop ceiling, aligned in rows all along the top, and drab grey carpet, with splashes of spilt coffee in various places. Just like something you would see in a small office, well, except for the walls. There were none of those, instead it was an endless expanse of purple swirling nebula and stars twinkling. Occasionally a comet or asteroid would fly by, or a sun would explode in the distance. None of those things seemed to be of concern to the four people currently having a meeting here. A large man paced back and forth in front of a whiteboard. He wore a white shirt with the top button undone, and his tie hung loose around his neck as if he pulled it down to help him breathe. His hair crackled with flames, and his skin was unnaturally black, like the starless night sky. His eyes glowed red. With a deep breath, he ran his hand over his flaming hair.
“Look, we already have what? 8.2 billion people? We can just use them—”
He was cut off by a sultry voice. The woman behind it leaned back in her chair with one leg over the other. She tapped her nails on the desk, two arms crossed over her perky breasts, while the other two adjusted her glasses.
“We could, but that would mean we’d need to alter the memories of those 8.2 billion people to get this to work, Jafir. There are bound to be some mistakes. And what about families?”
Jafir glanced at the woman and her four arms. Yvlis had a point. He tapped his finger to his chin in contemplation, his glowing eyes looking back at the board.
“So what, a few hundred thousand remember the past. It would just make things more interesting!” piped in another voice, deep and rich, like a smooth cup of black coffee. The voice came from a mountain of a man, his almond skin, green eyes, and luscious brown hair speckled with green leaves swept back atop his head.
“Varoth has a point, Yvlis!” spouted Jafir, rapidly waving a finger at Varoth, the hulking man seated in the back of the room on an impossibly small office chair. Jafir continued, his pacing stopped.
“We will wipe the memories of those we can. The ones we can’t, well, we give them a consolation prize, an ‘Oopsie,’ as it were.”
He waved his hand dismissively. Yvlis sighed and shook her head. She didn’t like the solution, but Jafir did have a point. Why create the population again when they could just use the current one? She did, however, feel a knot in her stomach at the thought of separating families, one that caused her to nibble her bottom lip in regret. She was outnumbered on this decision after all. A small, for lack of a better term, girl peeked around Varoth. She wore a black hoodie and was dressed in black jeans and a white shirt. Bags under her eyes hinted at tireless nights working and staring at a computer screen.
“And how will we assign jobs? We have 8.2 billion. We can’t just handpick positions,” she said, brushing her white and purple hair from her face. Her purple eyes, though tired, seemed to be calculating solutions even as she spoke.
“We can have them pick before the wipe, maybe? During a dream?” she continued, her voice dainty, tired, but refined. She looked to the ‘leader,’ Jafir, for a response.
“I like that solution, Talis. One last choice they get to make before the reset. A parting gift, as it were.”
Jafir thought to himself, then spun on his heels to face Talis. A wide smile grew across his lips.
“Split the population. Give half a choice and the other half assign. We need NPCs, after all. Strictly random, split it right down the middle.”
He waved his hand dismissively again, as if making a final point to end this branch of the conversation. He had more important topics to discuss, or at least he thought they were more important.
“Now, onto creatures...”
