Arthur
Arthur's eyelids flickered open, his vision gradually sharpening. He looked around, shut his eyes tight, looked around again, rubbed his eyes as if there were something in them, then looked around again.
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He was in an empty... space. It wasn't a room, at least it wasn't a room whose walls he could see, so 'space' was the only word that came to mind. It was just a blank, white expanse spreading out seemingly for eternity. What really bothered him, though, was the couple standing in front of him. The woman was beautiful if you were into women who looked at you like you were dirt. She had long, raven-black hair framing a pair of vividly green eyes, flowing down to her petite waist. Arthur couldn't even guess her age, but he knew she wasn't young. It was more of a feeling than anything in her looks. His eyes traveled up and down her body, like an artist trying to take in every minute detail.
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Her eyes opened in shock, before narrowing again, now it was like she was looking at scum. She clearly thought he was absolute filth.
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"HA! BWAHAHAHAHAH!", both Arthur and the woman jumped at the insanely loud laughter, coming from the man next to her.
The man was huge, heavily muscled, and had a glorious, gray beard. He was the spitting image of Zeus, from Greek mythology. Unlike the dignified image brought to mind when Arthur thought of Zeus, this guy was down on a knee fighting for breath after his insane bout of laughter, tears forming in his gray eyes.
The woman's face screwed up in anger, her previously porcelain skin flushing red, and she punched "Zeus" in the side of his head. Arthur wasn't able to process what happened. After her fist connected, there was a deafening 'sonic boom', and that hulk of a man flew at least 5 feet, slowly tumbling to a stop. The man laid where he landed, face down, clutching his head and groaning. This small, seemingly delicate, woman was terrifying.
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A few incredibly nerve-wracking minutes later, at least for Arthur, the man struggled to his feet and rejoined them.
“Alright, enough joking around.”, the man said, straightening his toga.
“Arthur. You were pretty close with the ‘Zeus’ guess, I’ve gone by that name before. You can just call me ‘God’ though.”, he motioned to the woman,
“You can call her ‘Goddess’. All of the names we’ve gone by over the centuries carry a lot of baggage, after all.”
“Any questions so far?”, asked God.
“Accepting that you’re actually gods, and I’m not just insane, what is this about? Why am I here?”, Arthur was surprisingly calm, despite knowing-- somehow-- that this wasn’t just a weird dream.
God glanced at the Goddess, but she was inspecting her nails like she wasn’t involved, before continuing.
“Well, you’re dead. You already know that much, though, but I guess starting from the beginning would be best.”, God began explaining.
“You didn’t die in some accident, I killed you, actually. Wait- that sounds bad”, holding his hands in front of him, he appeared to consider something before continuing, “Alright, so you were going to die in an accident a few days from now. I needed someone to help me with something, and you seemed like an alright choice, so I killed you early with an aneurysm. See? I spared you a horrible death, giving you a relatively painless, and instantaneous one instead. So, now it’s your turn to help me!”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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Apparently reading his thoughts, God interrupted, “Sorry, sorry, that might have been insensitive of me. I always forget how touchy people in this world are about things like dying. Look, just listen while I explain everything and I’ll answer any questions you have afterwords.”
“Alright, fine, I’ll try to keep an open mind.”, Arthur motioned for God to continue.
“OK. SO, I killed you with an aneurysm a few days before you were destined to die anyway. It’s because you seemed like a good choice for a little mission I need help on, that for reasons neither I nor the Goddess can do on our own.”, he took a breath before continuing, “To begin with, there are multiple parallel earths, your world’s scientists have guessed as much- I’m sure you’re familiar with the theory. We manage most of these worlds, but can only intervene in small ways- for instance, I could only change your destiny because you were set to die in a few days, by killing you early I was then able to summon you here.”
“’Here’ isn’t one of these parallel worlds?”, Arthur interjected,
“Precisely! Think of this as ‘in-between’.”, God answered, seemingly delighted by Arthur’s understanding. He continued, “So another one of these worlds is in a bit of a pickle, you see there is magic in this world, and other sentient species besides humans. A particularly gifted being in this world has declared war on all of the other species, declaring himself ‘God-King’ and his species as superior to the others. Think your world’s ‘Hitler’, but he’s an elf who considers all of the other species, including dwarfs and humans, to be lesser beings.”, God stared Arthur in the eyes as if waiting for a response.
After a momentary pause, Arthur asked, “So, wait, this elf-hitler is what? Conquering the world and committing genocide?”
“Exactly! I knew you’d get it. Well, he hasn’t started a genocide --yet-- he’s just enslaving them, executing any who are unable to work, and isolating the healthy children for indoctrination.”, God seemed delighted that Arthur understood.
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“Oh, well, I can help there.”, God had a ridiculously sheepish smile on his face.
“We can’t intervene much, but we can have you ‘cross over’ to that world, and give you enough power to help the other species maintain balance, at least. You see, this world is actually one of the earliest worlds we created, so there are a few ‘glitches’, which is one reason why this elf was able to become so powerful in the first place. We can take advantage of those glitches to insert you into that world with enough power to help the others- you see, I feel like it’s partly my fault this all happened, I designed the world after all.”
Arthur stared at God with dead eyes before giving his answer.
“No. Not only ‘No’, but hell no. Just send me to hell or whatever and move on to the next sucker.”
The Goddess, who to this point had been inspecting her nails, replied first, “You don’t have a choice. We’re gods, you fool. He’s just too nice and tried to word it like a choice. It isn’t. You’re going to that world, and you’ll be a different species than that troublesome Elf, so don’t even think about trying to team up with the ‘winning side’”
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“Nothing is fair. You were alive for 3 decades on your world, didn’t you learn that, or are you dumber than you look?”, she said.
“What the hell, lady, it’s not right to go after my looks- you people already killed me, and want me to go fight some fantasy Hitler in another world- why tear me down on top of everything?!”
“Because of that disgusting thought earlier. You’re awful, I don’t know why God chose you. There were literally thousands of other choices in your world alone.”, her expression a mixture of disgust and predatory glee.
Arthur sighed to himself, massaged his temples, then released all of the tension in his body, accepting just how screwed he was.
“Alright, where do we go from here?”, he said.