Waking up in his parent’s old house like always, John got out of bed. Yet, today he felt different, like he was missing something. However, that feeling lasted only for a fleeting moment before he was back to his old self again. While doing his daily morning routine like always, he looked in the mirror and saw his crystal blue eyes and disheveled dark brown hair. Whatever, I’m not the one missing out on this handsome stud he thought. John took a cursory glans at his pillbox but decided against it today, since they always made him feel bad.
After getting done with his morning routine, he sat down in his father’s old la-z boy chair, turned on the news and eat breakfast like he always does. Watching the news was one of the only things that gave some measure of excitement to his life. Without it his days would simply be dreadful and zombie like. On the news, he saw the same thing he saw everyday, sensational news about riots, civil unrest, terrorist acts and more about suicide rates. Even though the news brought him some excitement, even that was becoming predictable and boring. John lamented over the fact that there was never anything good on the news, only reports about catastrophes and how the world was going to end any day now.
After some time, John went to his car, getting ready for work. The weather was overcast and there was some light drizzle, he thought he had seen this weather all to often lately. John did not look forward to his 10-hour shift at the steel mill, one of the only places left in the small town that still hired and paid people. If one wanted to live in this town then, there was a good chance you would have to work at the steel mill to survive, or you would have to create your own work. John would have probably left this dreaded place already if not for the fact that this was his childhood home and where his parents lived and died. His job at the mill was to simply pull a lever at a set time and move some dials, it was so simple, that if not for the cost of robotics he would have been replaced long ago. Despite his job being simple, exhausting and unchallenging, he still did it diligently, he still needed money to survive after all.
Coming home after a long day, John was exhausted and only wanted to relax. He sat down in his comfy, old chair, turned on the news and started munching on a sandwich he bought on the way home. Even though John was tired, what he saw one the news dissolved all his exhaustion. “…For those just tuned in, we have reports from the middle-east that large parts of it seems to be engulfed in fire” a male reporter chimed in. At first John’s exhaustion made him mishear, since he was only half listening, and even then, he though it was just a mispronunciation on the reporter’s part. Surely the whole middle-east couldn’t be set a blaze, right? “hold on … it seems we have live footage from one of our correspondents from the region”.
“Oh my god!” the female reporter screamed out, before anyone had time to process what they were looking at. In a small window the on the TV, footage of a 300-feet-high wall of blood red flames rising into the air was shown live, inside the fire, some might see wailing faces filled with pain and suffering. A fuzzy voice comes in from the background of the live footage, “Can you hear me Mark?”. At first the male reporter seems to stunned to talk, after a second or two, he responds “yes we can hear you Tom, what in god’s name is going on over there!?”. “Well Mark I’m not really sure either, but from where I’m sitting it looks like large parts of this region is covered in some kind of hellfire”.
John simply sits in his chair dazed and lost. After what seems like an eternity he finally snaps out out if it. Bewildered and scared, he just sits in his chair not know exactly what to do with himself. After a few more seconds, he starts switching channels, what he sees almost scares his soul out of him. In hundreds of places around the world there there are reports of hellfire, sporadic lightning and death. Suddenly John notices something in the corner of his eye, turning his head and looking outside his window, he sees massive banks of rolling black clouds covering the entire sky. Coiling through the clouds he sees massive tendrils of red lightning lashing out and hitting houses, buildings and the ground. If he wasn’t already scared, he definitely was now. John couldn’t keep himself from thinking this was the foretold apocalypse coming to cleanse the earth, and he would soon come to know that he almost guessed correctly.
John was just sitting in his chair waiting for the nightmare to end, when suddenly the sky turned blood red, the light was so strong it even overpowered the almost pitch black clouds and turned the sky a very ominous dark red. Out of the clouds, from the epicenter of the light, came a blood red beam of light streaming down and hitting the ground a couple miles away from John’s house, the ground shook violently. John couldn’t keep his eyes away from that beam of red light that seemed to pulsate with raw power, making his skin crawl. However, suddenly as if someone flipped a switch the beam grew smaller and disappeared in seconds, and the black clouds disappeared like nothing had ever happened.
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Out of nowhere a booming voice came, it was so loud John was wondering if his whole house might get blown away. “PEOPLE OF EARTH, I AM THE NEW SOVEREIGN OF THIS WORLD, THE NEW GOD”. “I have removed the most corrupt and deplorable humans among you, do not feel pity for them, for they do not deserve it. In two years, I will remake the earth, and recreate humanity. I will do what the false gods before me could not, I will give humans the chance to to embark on greatness or ruin. If you want to witness me, then come to Mount Olympus in a year and experience my greatness”.
This small speech left billions of people stunned, everywhere around the world, not a single person did not hear this speech. Even if you were deaf this voice would still be heard inside your head. At this moment, all kinds of different emotions could be seen, some where overjoyed that their life might come to have some meaning now, others were feeling despair, and some were feeling sorrow for their loved ones that died, despite what “god” had said.
On the TV, the reporters had left long ago, presumably to be with their family. While “god's” speech might not have turned the most god-fearing Christians and Muslims, but what can be said for sure, is that there is probably no more atheist left in the world. John had already turned off the TV so he could gather his thoughts for a moment.
For the next few months there was extensive coverage of all the death. The hellfire was very selective off who it killed, if an entire household was deemed unworthy of living then there would be nothing left but scorched earth. For some reason though, even if just one person was worthy of living, then only the unworthy would be burnt and the worthy would be left behind in the house. There were extensive rescue service gathering up all the children and toddlers left behind. the EU was also left with several hundred thousand children and toddlers from the different regions of Europe and parts of Asia, appearing out of thin air. South Africa and Egypt was also given a sizeable amount of children, as central Africa had been hit by a large amount of hellfire. People were having a hard time responding to the catastrophe. As they were told not to grieve the dead, but many have it in their nature to grieve such an event. All the larger countries, such as USA, China, Brazil, Germany, India and other were hit the hardest, although the “western” countries were hit the least. The estimated death toll was in excess of one billion for Asia and Australia, and another billion in the rest of the world. Who was actually killed seemed very sporadic and random, with only the key word being “bad people”. Yet people like, organized crime syndicates and drug dealers survived so people were puzzled and scared since the deaths seemed extremely illogical.
After about half a year things got pretty much back to normal, or, as normal as it can get. Many stout believers in their religion of choice believed this was a test by their god, to see who would defect to the new god. So even though the amount of atheist in the world probably has reach 0, there are still many who hold on to their old religion. However even more have converted and are now believers of what has been coined the New age faith. It is not just scientist who are bad at naming new things. While John had not joined this new religion in any official capacity, he did believe this deity is truly a god. He would certainly believe beams of death and hellfire over old dusty books.
John continued to work is normal job after a week or so, even if the apocalypse had just come to earth, people still need steel for pots and pans. Over the next few months several hundred million religious followers of the New Age faith, went on pilgrimages to Mount Olympus. They considered it the holy ground that would be the new seat of power. What some might find amusing was that all these people going to Greece meant that the tourism was booming, and Greece was steadily climbing out of its pit of debts. Unbeknownst to Greece, at some point, a flat plateau had been made on Mount Olympus. This was of course considered the place where god would appear, it was so large that the area could fit several million people if they squeezed tight together
On that faithful day, exactly two years later, John was sitting in his chair watching the news. It didn’t matter which channel you were watching they all showed the same plateau on Mount Olympus. Suddenly you could see black clouds starting to collect overhead. From the almost black clouds a face appeared. It was hard to make out any defining characteristics as the clouds were rolling and constantly moving, like paint on water. “GREETINGS” That same booming voice could be heard like last time. “It would seem most of you have moved on and gotten used to my presence, good. Now before I start I want to ask you, do you find this world boring? Lackluster?” Something about his words really resonated with John, like they were speaking directly to his heart. “I have looked at all of humanities aspirations and dreams. Tell me do you live because you have a meaning, a pourpose in your life? Does it matter if you live or die? Or do you simply live to live, to not die, because your mind tells you, you should not die? Well now I am giving you the chance to give your life meaning. Because of how meaningless your lives are I have decided I am updating earth, this realm, this whole reality. Do you want to become an immortal who can fly through the sky? Do you want magic that can destroy cities with a thought? Do you want to borrow the power of nature and become a ferocious beast? Do you desire power? Now you can do all of that. It’s all out there, you just have to find it. Now go, find your destiny, and RISE TO GODHOOD”