It hadn’t helped that he was unfamiliar with the actions of this particular god and the fact that it was still late afternoon with the sun high in the sky.

He swiftly left the empty classroom and left it to lock behind him as he walked towards a place that would allow him peace while remaining on school premises. There were various prayer rooms distributed throughout the building that houses small altars and offering statues of the various gods. There was even a small room allocated to the side that was used for atheists although it was almost, never used.

How could a person not believe in the power and presence of the gods when their actions could be seen every single day?

For the sake of openness, they had been included in the construction and design plans for most public and private buildings. On occasion, faith was lost before it could be found again.

By now the entire school had settled down and a single priest had moved into a prayer room looking for quiet contemplation. Noticing the various statues of the gods that had been adopted for prayer Priest Atticus noticed that the one god that he had been looking to come into contact with was absent.

The deity was quite notable for its lack of presence, but it was one of the less common ones. Swiftly entering an atheist room he made a quick prayer for forgiveness before locking the floor and slumping down against the wall.

A single ceiling light lit up the room and the shadows around him seemed to flare for a moment before moving into his own as though they were being drawn in by an invisible net.

Priest Atticus removed his purple cloak and robes and dropped them onto the floor in a rough pile to reveal a dark-coloured uniform underneath.

Around his neck hung a symbol of a crow wrapped around in thorns. The eyes of the crow glowed for a moment as a wave of exhaustion and fear ran through the body of the tired school priest.

He spoke aloud to the empty room and shadows.

‘Thank you, Carrier, of the Night, for your benevolence. Actions in your name are to protect those you deem worthy.’

To become a direct priest of a god, you had to satisfy three beings. The first was the god, the second was the High Priest and the third and final one as yourself. Without belief and prayer, a god would never pass power down unless it deliberately chose to do so.

Priest Atticus held the crow symbol around his neck in both hands even though the small thorns hurt his hands. This god that had chosen him as a new priest did not want him to hurt himself, only acknowledging that everything had a cost. The price of power was not through pain or blood but instead the sweat on his brow. The orders of the High Priest had been followed and Atticus in his heart sincerely hoped that the young lady would be able to find her path. Atheism was such a lonely place to stay in. He knew that from personal experience. Belief in the gods wasn’t always the same as faith.

***

Mia'’s home was found on the outskirts of the city. She lived near a mountain range where the air was fresher, but it was a bit of a headache to travel out to. Not many shops around when you were surrounded by greenery and jungle with a road being the main attraction. People could always walk down towards the supermarket and nearby shops but carrying them up was a headache unless you took a bus or a car. Her family had simply ordered home deliveries instead, fresh food and vegetables were delivered directly to the door and then stored away.

Mia felt that she was lucky that they lived in a four-story home. It was more of a semi-rural village that they lived in. Each home formed its complex homes gardens and walls surrounding them. Hers was the first that you saw when you entered through the gatehouse by the walls. A several-storey dwelling with access through a security gate. A security guard sitting by a chair near the entrance just waved Mia in. He looked pretty bored, but Mia thought that there must be a shrine there that he could pray to. Besides, the demi-god competitions were coming up next month. That would make for good entertainment for most people living in the country.

In her home, she had divided the small building for different purposes. The ground floor included the living room and kitchen in separate rooms. They also had a separate deck on the front of the house where you could sit outside with a guest in nicer weather and chat. That was where the outdoor chairs were kept.

Sometimes, when her family had finished with dinner they would sit outside and talk about how the day went before we went their separate ways again, or in the case of the two daughters preparing themselves for bed. Her parents believed that family should communicate and spend time with each other every day regardless of how busy any of them were. The first floor was an office for Mia’s parents where they would work from home. They had their own spaces to themselves and had divided up the entire building into several working spaces.

Mia knew that her Mum created jewellery that had been used to decorate local, regional, and even occasional other countries’ shrines in homage to different gods. She was talented, but her work was demanding of her. The family often had visits from clients who wanted to poach her talents for their respective companies, but she preferred to work freelance and from home.

The life of an artist.

She was able to choose her life and loved her work. Mia’s Mum didn’t allow others to see her workspace, at least not when she had commissions to work on. Even if they were close family she stuck to her standards. She had more than half of the entire first floor dedicated to her work, some of it was on display for potential clients to view and occasionally buy but the really special pieces she refused to sell at any price. I was proud of my Mum. She had taken something that she loved and made it amazing.

The only hard part was that when she was focused on her work she tended to forget about the rest of the family. Everyone else had to stay away from her when she was creating her artwork. Thankfully, although she worked super hard, she still made skillful use of the kitchen and helped Mia's Dad cook family meals and puddings. Sometimes they were lucky to help them make home-made bento boxes.

Family mealtime was a ritual in her house. After that, the whole family would pray to the shrine on the ground floor and make their offerings. Mia had become old enough that to her parents she was fine to make her own decisions about how she wanted to worship the gods and it was considered that she was simply going through a phase of deciding which one, in particular, she preferred to follow. A gradual process in play.

Her Dad worked from home occasionally in his office space on the second floor. His door was always open if anyone wanted to pop in and chat and he always made time for both friends and family. Mia wasn’t quite clear on the work that her Dad did. He told them that it was related to household spirit development. His office space was immaculate. Empty aside from a piece of jewellery that her Mum had made hanging on the wall, a desk, a computer monitor, and a chair. He cleaned up the room every single day when he was at home though.

First, he would wipe all the surfaces and then vacuum the floor to keep it clean. When he went out to work, he told his family that he had to check on the development of commercial infrastructure and spirit control. She guessed that meant that her Dad checked out shrines in people’s offices or something. Mia wasn’t clear on the exact details and although her Dad was pretty open and friendly and a great listener, he just didn’t want to discuss his work at all with her. He just had a series of projects to work on and that was that.

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She thought that he worked for the local government, her Dad often said that he had to attend meetings in person, and he didn’t like them very much. Aside from that, Mia considered him as a decent cook as well. Her Dad was the one who didn’t mind so much about her lack of prayer at the family shrine towards their chosen gods. He said that everyone would find their path and she just had to look for mine. Her Mum who was the one who said they all had to pray as a family at the shrine to show respect for the gods.

The third floor of the home was for Mia’s little sister and a play area where she had some of her friends around. She had her room filled with all sorts of cute stuffed animals. Pink unicorns and stuffed demi-god plushies. Mia kind of felt bad for her since she was handed a lot of her old stuff.

Their parents wanted to encourage the pair to be creative, so they built an art and play area. She remembered painting there when younger but had outgrown all that stuff over the last few years, so it was just for her sister and her friends when they came around to use.

The fourth floor included her bedroom as well as a reading room. She had also taken the space to build my chill-out area for when friends came around or I’d just had too much hearing about gods. Sometimes society and the world just felt like far too much for me and she just wanted to be left alone to read some books or do some writing.

Sadly, Mia wasn’t an artist unless you counted doing those colouring books of different holy spirits. The same with cooking food, she could make food to eat but it didn’t work out great, and functionality did not translate into a nice appearance.

The rooftop garden was the most popular place in the family. Her parents had built a greenhouse along with special lights to grow avocados all year round. That was fun.

They had also built a shrine to the god of agriculture Hortius. Not a bad all-powerful being considered. They didn’t ask for much aside from being considerate to plant life and the willingness to grow your vegetables where you could. Mia thought it was her Mum who had set up the shrine. She remembered that her father said that she was an artist at heart. Some of her best work had gone into it, hidden away and only viewable by immediate family.

Sometimes, Mia felt that her little sister had picked up her Mum’s creative ability as she had spent the most time building the roof shrine. She was more like her Dad, friendly but enjoying his personal space sometimes. He also really was into music like her, surprisingly he was also willing to listen to the same stuff that she did. The eclectic taste he called it.Whatever she liked to listen to sounds good to him. That reminds her to buy that Believer-JaJa Swag song. The taster for it was great.

Note to self: Spend money on good music. Maybe try sharing it with Dad to see his impression.

She felt nice to take some time to just look at her house and appreciate it. Be thankful for her great and supportive family. A young girl’s voice shouted out.

‘Mia!’

What? Who called me?

‘MIA!’

The voice shrilled even louder as though trying to raise the volume to a whole new level.

‘Your big sister is so annoying.’ Said another young girl.

‘You can’t call her that. Only I’m allowed to call her that.’

‘Yeah, but she is annoying right?’

‘Sometimes, she is. But she’s getting old now.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, I heard that when you start getting older as a girl you can’t hear that well.’

‘I don’t believe you!’

'Nah, totally true. You get old and you change. Mum said it's happening with Mia. You know what else?'

'What?'

'She has a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Joking, she prefers her music. I think. I don't like any of the boys in our class. They're so annoying. Or stupid.'

Damn it. So...so.... Just..fine. Deal with it Mia. Deal with it.

Her sister had her friends around.

Mia loved her little sister, she did. Her parents had always encouraged them to be close to each other. She remembered when her younger sibling had just been born her parents had given her a present at the age of five gave and told her that it was a gift from her new baby sister.

That put her in a positive light in my mind. The main difference between us was that although she had a few good friends my little sister was a socialite. She was always having friends around and they were precocious. Ten going on fourteen. Mia was five years older than her sister, but she just wanted to be the bigger sister. Always talking about the latest trends with the gods and which were a favourite and trending at the time.

Mia just appreciated her music rather than random mythical deities who had nothing better to do than protect her country from other gods.

Goddess Speak was a pretty popular social media platform for all that. They showed so many videos and funny images about all the current trending gods in our country. With the demi-god competitions coming up more and more interest was generated. Her sister was in the middle of all that interest, she wasn’t a follower and more of a leader for the kids in her age group.

‘MIA.....MIA..MIAMIAMIAMIA!’

‘She’s not listening!’

‘No, she’s listening to music. Or just staring into space.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means she’s an airhead.’

‘No way you can say about my big sister. She’s smart, beautiful, and capable.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, she and I are super close. We get it from our amazing Mum. Some of Dad too I guess but he’s kinda boring. Sometimes.’

‘You’re right. I’m sorry I called her an airhead.’

‘Nah.’

‘Do you think she heard me?’

‘Well, she is staring at us right now so yeah. I don’t think she’s angry though.’

‘She was rude first though. You called her name, and she didn’t respond.’

‘Yup, she’s listening right now.’

Not going to get annoyed. No way.

If she and her friend were at home, then that meant that either her Dad or Mum would be at home as well.

The gods, mighty beings that were entirely made up would have been useful right now. Making a rainstorm appear above her house would drive her little sister and her friend back inside and she wouldn’t be glaring at them right now. Not that she believed the gods were real. Aliens and Spirits, super-advanced technology. All that stuff made a lot more sense than flying gods.

How did that phrase go? Advanced technology is the same as magic. Or we simple humans just couldn’t tell the difference. Stupid humans. Praying to fake gods.

Mia glared at the sky in mock hatred with a deep scowl on her face.

Yeah? You hear me? After the day I had do something. Show me your real power. Jerks.