Perhaps I should go back a few months, and explain how things got to this point. Believe me, that is a tale worth telling. There were plenty of names for it, the Super Eclipse, the Return, the Cataclysm, the End of the Age, the Broken Rapture, or The Turning of the Divine Heavenly Wheel, it all depended on the language. But in my part of the world, it was called The Black Sun. It didn’t really matter, it was the single most momentous event in human history since . . . well, ever really. Nothing had gone so far toward overturning the established structure of civilization. Nothing had proven so starkly just how little we knew about how the world worked.
The whole thing had begun back in late February, with an eclipse of all things. Of course, this hadn’t been any sort of normal eclipse, not at all! No matter where you were in the world the sun had been blotted out, nothing but a pure black circle ringed with a faint burnished copper-coloured corona. If it was night, then against all logic and rationality it was the moon that seemed to have been swallowed by darkness. It lasted for seven days and seven nights, and the world had slowly gone crazy as it went on.
Around the world, there were calls not to panic, and assurances that it was all just natural phenomena. That would have been more reassuring if there had been some sort of consistency to it all. But in the mess of different official and unofficial announcements it seemed as though everyone was saying something different.
One expert would go on screen saying that it was due to some sort of solar particle cloud passing between the sun and the earth, then someone else would say that it was actually the earth that was in the particle cloud. Then some other expert would publish an article on the net saying that it was actually the result of some new pollution in the atmosphere, and so it went on.
Nobody knew what to believe, there was no sense of security, no feeling that anyone knew what was going on. It didn’t help that there were other things about the seemingly endless eclipse that didn’t make sense.
Everyone was sure that after it went on for more than three days that the globe would start to see the start of an early worldwide winter. That made sense, which was supported by basic physics and astronomy. The sun was that major source of energy for most of the Earth’s surface, cut that off things would get colder, that was common sense. In England, we were certainly getting ready for even harsher winter conditions, mass snowfall, floods, the works.
The thing was . . . it didn’t happen. Against all logic and science, the world just kept on going as normal, at least temperature-wise. Sure, February in Britain wasn’t a picnic, but it was no colder than it should have been. Other parts of the world that had been experiencing summer stayed just as warm as ever, even without the sun shining down on them.
You’d have thought that not having to worry about an oncoming ice age would have been cause for celebration, but humanity just couldn’t do things the easy way. Seeing things not working as they should simply caused a greater tension to form. Scientists who’d had the metaphorical rug pulled out from them struggled to find an explanation, leading to more wild debates on every form of media. It was almost as pervasive as the Black Sun itself, the knowledge that what we had thought was true was proving false. It led to uncertainty, which led to confusion and then inevitably, to fear. Fear about the Black Sun, fear about what we didn’t know, fear about what tomorrow would bring.
Of course, it didn’t take much more than a few hours for fear to start to turn into anger. There were protests outside all major centres of government all across the world, seemingly in every country. But even that had no order to it. The protests were for just about everything you could imagine, reduced carbon emissions, dependency on fossil fuel, the use of the giant hadron’s collider, or the use of nuclear power. Some descended into riots, some stayed peaceful, it just seemed that no matter where you turned there was someone starting something that would find its way into the media.
In those seven days, there was a growing fear of whether or not we’d see the sun again. If it didn’t then how could we survive? No sun meant no crops, no plant life, and no wildlife. There was speculation about how humanity could survive in an endless night. Crops being grown under electric lamps, foods like mushrooms that didn’t need light, farming breeds of insects, mammals and fish that thrived in the dark. Our species could survive, but there was no hiding that it would only be a small fraction that would make it. Starvation would take billions, that was a simple truth, and that fear was gnawing away at everyone as they looked up at the darkened sky.
And as it all went on the crazies came out in force.
Everywhere there was someone preaching something. Some saying that the sin of modern society had brought this about, and only they had the answer to how the end could be forestalled. Others claiming that the end was inevitable and that all you could do was try and do something to ensure that you wouldn’t be among those that would have their souls sent into the fiery abyss. Scam artists came out by the hundreds, uncountable desperate victims being fleeced for all they had. Cults sprang up like mushrooms, leading to everything from mass suicides to public orgies. Survivalist groups forted up with massive amounts of food and prepared to see the end of civilization. Every religion on earth saw a massive uptick in attendance, and not all religious leaders were rational in what they preached to their flock. Crusades, jihads, holy wars of all sorts, started being called for. Every continent in the world saw them all, and the chaos, the fear, the desperation; it all just kept on mounting up.
It was a miracle that nothing actually went off, but somehow the nations of the world kept it together. Sure, there was sabre rattling galore, plenty of threats and posturing, politics taking on the sharp edge of potential combat, but nothing ever boiled over. The cynical part of me was honestly amazed that the leaders of humanity managed to avoid jamming their collective heads into that beartrap, but was thankful that they did.
On a more personal level, things were pretty harsh for everyone as the darkness lasted one day after another. During those seven days, difficult questions ended up being asked. Could we survive without the sun? How long could this darkness last? As time passed the questions had become less abstract as people realized that this wasn’t something happening ‘somewhere in the world’ but was instead something that was happening to THEM.
Then the question became things like; how am I going to survive? How long will I be able to buy food at the local stores? What am I going to do if the sun doesn’t come back? Far too many people asked themselves those questions and didn’t like the answers they came up with adding to the pressure pervading society across the world.
Things had almost reached a boiling point by the end of the seventh day.
Then, the seventh day ended, and the sun came back.
The wave of relief that swept over the world as the darkness passed was almost palpable. For days people had been denied one of the great constants of life, the light of the sun.
At first, things seemed to be going back to normal surprisingly quickly. There was a lot of talk, people saying that there had to be preparations in place in case anything like it happened again. What if next time it lasted longer? What if it ended up rendering the planet uninhabitable? Various news channels, talk shows and online blogs started discussions about how things would change if the Black Sun became something that occurred on a repeating basis. If the periods of darkness grew longer then it would have drastic impacts on the ecosystem of the planet. Just one week of darkness had caused major impacts that would take months or even years to recover from. A longer spell might lead to a situation where the current population could not be sustained.
There were all sorts of ideas, ranging from the practical to the absurd. A realistic one, in my opinion, was the concept of self-sustaining underground complexes. Places that could theoretically last for centuries using geothermal energy to power themselves, to sustain large underground greenhouses for crops using special lights to simulate the sun.
There were other unlikely notions, things like cryogenically stored populations to wait out a longer Black Sun, or even things like generation spaceships or large space stations. They all shared the same problem though, even if they worked, they’d only be able to save a small fraction of the population, so for the likes of me, it wasn’t a reassuring plan.
So, I kept living my life as though the world wasn’t going to end, because, really, what else could I do? I suppose the entire world had become a bit more anxious, but on the whole, I was alright. After a short time, things started to settle down, and I guessed we all thought things might get back to normal.
Then the world started to slowly slip into a new world order.
At first, it was just rumours and whispers on the internet, then there were blurred pictures of impossible figures, or sharper footage showing the aftermath of unexplained events. More and more details were learnt, as more and more incidents happened. There was denial at first, but as more and more sightings and information mounted up there could be no more denying what was happening.
The myths and legends of the past, they were real, and some of them were already in the world with us.
Angels, there were real honest-to-god angels in the sky! Beings of heart-stopping loveliness each with wings, big feathery wings that seemed too pure to be real. And there were demons as well, some monstrous, some seductive, some animal-like, some so far removed from anything humanity had seen that they couldn’t be comprehended. The world seemed to catch fire as words like ‘rapture’ ‘apocalypse’ ‘end of days’ and the like were thrown around, but then it was found that the forces of heaven and hell hadn’t been the only things to return.
Monsters, fairies, giants, dragons, titans, gods, everything that had ever existed in human mythology or legend began to trickle back into the world. In Norway, some of the old gods were seen again, battling against a massive giant of ice, then were gone the next day. In Egypt, there were whispers of the likes of Horus and Ra descending to Cairo and establishing cults of worshipers from the descendants of those that once revered them. Great reptilian forms were spied flying over the skies of Greece. In America, there were sporadic reports of faeries and imps dancing in gardens.
Had it all come in one great rush then I dread to think what could have been. However, the return of the Legends was still gathering momentum, giving the world time to roll with the impact, rather than being brought down. Yes, there were tragedies and disasters, conflicts and losses, but somehow things managed to keep on spinning along.
The world seemed to be settling down into a very uneasy new equilibrium. The gods and other powerful forces were laying claim to cities and territories all over the world. The Greek, Roman and Scandinavian pantheons had claimed large portions of Europe, even if they weren’t issuing any official orders or messing with the governments. The same was true of the rest of the world, but there was chaos even in that.
Some of the gods didn’t return to the countries that had worshipped them, instead choosing to find new lands. Northern Russia found itself as the new home of the ice giantess Skadi, while Yellowstone Park was claimed by Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess. There seemed to be some reason to it, but it was an alien reason that we didn’t understand. Some of them settled into the cities they inhabited, some of them changed the cities, driving out those that lived there or even changing them.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
There were more than just the gods, demons and angels though, as if that weren’t enough. Monsters had also returned, and in some ways, they were even worse than the gods.
The gods were at least something that could be understood, related to, and bargained with. The monsters though were creatures and predators that didn’t fit in, nor did they try. Harpies nesting in the heights of skyscrapers was bad enough, but it was worse when they came to regard the residents of such buildings as conveniently placed food. Misshapen hulking figures were seen in eastern Europe, hunting cattle and stealing food wherever they could. Then there were the major cities, where skinwalkers and other such creatures found fertile hunting grounds in which to thrive.
Some of the monsters were little more than dangerous pests, animals that could be killed with guns and caution. Others were more dangerous, predators of mankind that picked off the lost and destitute like lions catching a wounded gazelle. Those required greater care, larger groups, and heavier weapons to bring down. The real monsters, the sort that could attack and seriously damage whole towns or even small cities, were mercifully rare, only a handful appearing around the whole world. Such beings were beyond mortal weapons though, requiring those with divine power to fight them.
The simple fact was that the world had changed.
Many of the returned gods were less than pleased with what had happened to the world in their absence. You know all of those environmental groups that would get laughed at because they talked about ‘Mother Earth’ and ‘the Sacred Sea’? Well, as it turned out they had a point.
It wasn’t a uniform thing, it didn’t happen the same all across the globe, but nature began to fight back, empowered by the gods reclaiming what had been theirs. In South America, the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest halted and began to reverse as the jungle grew back at absurd speeds. In Africa, North America, Europe and Russia various villages and small towns found themselves overrun as old woodland resurged to reclaim the land where they had been cut down. Countless unfortunates found their homes either trapped in dense woodland or simply destroyed by the returning trees. The loss of livelihoods and property was significant.
Along the coasts, the situation was arguably worse. Titans, gods, nymphs, spirits, the sea had as many legends as the land. Now those that had returned were no more pleased than deities of the land had been. Decades of pollution, careless dumping, overfishing, and ruthless hunting, all of it had left the seas in a mess, and returning divine powers were not happy about it.
Every whaling ship unfortunate enough to encounter them had been destroyed, the crews fed to the teeming fish as a warning to others. Huge masses of condensed pollution and contaminants were thrown inland as the oceans were purged of refuse. Great mountains of debris and rubbish were hurled inland by massive tidal waves that battered coastal towns and cities mercilessly. Nearby smaller, more traditional, communities that followed the ways of their forbears seemed to have been spared. Across the world, the death toll rose into the hundreds of thousands and a new fear of the ocean’s might was born.
And it didn’t end there. A few old and dormant volcanoes sprang back into life and deities took them as homes. Deities of the forge, deities of fire, deities of lava, deities of destruction, all of them rekindled the burning hearts of the mountains of fire and claimed them as their own. Surprisingly there was little actual destruction since the gods in question merely wanted the volcanoes active, not erupting. As such only a few towns and communities that lived close to such mountains had to be abandoned.
Then there were the gods, giants, and the spirits of ice and snow that returned and found that the polar ice caps had begun to shrink. Global warming might have reduced the great arctic lands, but the returned rulers of winter and snow were unwilling to accept such changes. To be honest their actions were among those that had the least negative impact on the world. The ice grew back, the animals that had begun to flounder as it retreated found their habitats restored, and the natural order returned.
So, of course, not all the changes were for the worse, if that had been the case then civilization might have come crashing down.
Gods and goddesses of the fields and farms blessed the farmlands that had remained, their benedictions vastly increasing their bounty. Much farmland had been lost to the returned woods in many countries, but it was balanced by the remaining farms suddenly putting out loads more food. Entire crops would be sown, would grow and ripen to be harvestable in just a few weeks. Not only that, the earth from which they grew would remain rich and ready, rather than growing exhausted as it was used again and again.
And it was not only the crops that were so rich. The farm animals and cattle were also blessed, hens producing larger clutches of eggs, cows producing more milk, sheep more wool. The animals grew larger, matured faster, and were generally healthier. Farms were able to produce far greater numbers of eggs, meat and other resources than had previously been thought possible.
Additionally, the gods of craft and art that returned were not idle either. In a world of mass media attention with hundreds of new ways to gain fame and attention a surprising number of the returned deities chose not to simply return to the old ways but instead opted to give these new opportunities a chance.
Many of the returning Legends felt the same when they looked upon the world that had sprung in their absence, they liked what they saw. They liked cars, they liked mansions, they liked plumbing, they liked mass media. They saw a world that could be more entertaining and exciting than in the past where the best entertainment had been the likes of theatre and storytellers. They saw a world both larger and smaller than the small countries they had once been tied to. They saw all these things, and they didn’t want to destroy them.
Quite simply, the gods and legends were back, and they looked like they were here to stay.
When I heard about it, when it was confirmed that gods and the like were returning, I expected to see huge changes. Countries falling, gods throwing their weight about, monsters causing slaughter, anything and everything as bits of the world fell apart.
But somehow life just kept on going.
Perhaps I was most surprised because I’d grown accustomed to the idea of civilization as such a fragile thing. I mean, on paper there are so many things that can go wrong; loss of power, loss of water, loss of communications, lack of food, there were just so many weak points in the chain. If you look at it like that then civilization seems to be made almost solely of points of failure that will crack under the slightest pressure.
However, despite isolated riots, rebellions, and general chaos in places, most of the world managed to keep on going like normal. To a given value of normal anyway. Many areas that were claimed by gods or other supernatural beings were caught in a sort of middle stage. Areas were claimed, but the beings involved were unwilling to bother themselves with the actual business of ruling, and so left the status quo largely intact.
America was a good example of this. They essentially made it so that the gods could do pretty much whatever they wanted without having to run into any serious obstacles or repercussions. They received preferential treatment in almost all regards, were always treated as top-tier celebrities at the very least. This approach was also used by many other countries.
It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t a system that was happily embraced by everyone. It seemed every day some paper or news show or blog was going on about how the government had sold out. About how weak they were being, and how they were undermining the spirit of fair equality that the country had been built on or something in that vein. I did see reports of protests on the TV and all kinds of wild debates on the internet. There was a lot of anger, and fear in the system, and it had to find some way out.
But for all of its flaws, the approach seemed to be working. With little in the way of resistance the gods that had travelled to America had become far less disruptive. Many of them had focused upon their particular interests and as such tended not to take too much notice of anything else. Some of them went in the other direction, attending parties, and large events, acting more like celebrities than divine beings. Some of them even sided with the government, or at least made deals with them.
Artemis and Herne the Hunter were the most famous examples of this. Both deities of the hunt had taken up residence in America, though on opposite sides of the continent. Each of them had regrown massive forests where they hunted all sorts of wild game, but on occasion, they grew bored with this and sought fresher entertainment. Someone in the Divinity Monitoring and Intervention Division, or DMID, who was regarded as one of the bravest and most reckless people alive, had managed to get both of the deities to listen to them when they had been battling somewhere in central America. Though the agent’s identity had been classified for security reasons they had been able to broker a deal between the government and the gods of the Hunt.
Essentially the government would employ them as bounty hunters and send them after the most challenging targets to be had. In return, the hunters would operate within certain ‘rules’ of the hunt, namely not harming or endangering civilians, doing the minimum property damage possible, things like that. It was acknowledged that there wasn’t much that mortal agency could do to curtail the activities of the gods, but by posing it as a challenge to deities that were naturally competitive . . . well, the approach worked surprisingly well. It was also to the benefit of the government because it gave them a metaphorical Big Hammer to bring down upon the demigods and magic users that were acting as criminals. Though more conventional forces were outmatched by them, a deity was another matter entirely. Granted, they weren’t true agents of the country, they were only doing these hunts because it played to their desires, but simply being able to aim them before they charged off was a boon in and of itself. It was enough to ensure that rogue demigods were if not rarer in America, then at least more restrained in their activities.
Unfortunately, many areas didn’t fare as well due to all sorts of factors. Africa was a good example and not a happy one. The north of Africa had managed to remain stable, mostly because many of the Egyptian gods had shared a desire to reclaim their old lands and had been willing to cooperate to do so. Then they had begun to expand their new kingdom westward due to several factors, and before long they had claimed almost the entire north coast of the continent.
Further south things grew worse though. With the emergence of competing divine influences the stability of the various countries had fallen apart. Many of the governments had fallen into anarchy, and various petty kingdoms set up by warlords and dictators rose and fell like the waves on a beach. The death toll was horrifying, easily in the hundreds of thousands, but as terrible as it was it should have been worse. Somehow things were kept to a relatively low level, the superpowered would-be conquerors more eager to face each other than to pit their armies in all-out war. That approach seemed to be keeping the body count down from holocaust level to simply horrific.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspects of this new world order were all the things that weren’t so obvious. The gods, the angels, even the demons, all of them were big, flashy, huge in the way they loomed over us, but other things were more hidden, things that stayed in the shadows. Death cults, terrorist cells, fanatics, plunderers, all sorts were looking to try anything. From trying to reap some sort of profit from the upheaval, to launching a crusade against the returned divinities. Most of them self-destructed after a while, but sadly not before there were several tragedies. A library being bombed for ‘having texts promoting the worship of foreign deities’, or poisonous gas being released into a nightclub to kill people in the name of one god or another were tragic examples.
Those weren’t the ones to be worried about though; those were the ones that made waves and then drowned. The more concerning ones were the quiet ones, the ones that started slowly and then started to make themselves a part of people’s daily lives.
Take the Church of Vesta; they’d started as a small religion that had sprung up in the wake of the realization that the gods were back. It had quickly managed to gain considerable traction in both Europe and America. They worshipped the roman goddess of hearth and home and rather than glorifying the more overtly powerful deities, such as Zeus or Shiva, they venerated her nature as a simple keeper of the fires of home. There wasn’t anything overtly threatening about them, but it was . . . disturbing to see the speed at which they grew. It seemed like only days from when I read about them on the internet to when I saw a small sign announcing the opening of one of their modest temples not half an hour’s drive from where I lived.
There were other things too, preachers turning up to your door had become far more common, and practically every other person had some way of displaying to which god or being they had pledged their allegiance. I suppose that, on its own, was weird enough to show me how much the world had changed. Before the Black Sun people might have worn things like crosses or Celtic knots, but it never really got that much notice. Now everything from stylised lightning bolts to major corporation logos could be used to denote which god a person had chosen to worship, follow, or just admire.
This was everyday life now.