“Apparently Christianity is back.” Said Maria. I was back at the tavern with the revolutionaries, and in the corner too. Hiding in plain sight was apparently more effective than I thought. These people discussed all their plans, lives, and personal information in a public tavern, and it felt like nobody outside their group had heard a single thing. Was I the only one listening in to other groups during the busy hours of the day?

“Yeah, it’s really hard to notice.” He said, presumably sarcastically. “That woman just won’t shut up. She keeps droning on and on and on with her shitty British accent. I really can’t listen to her anymore, she’s obnoxious, and her supporters are even more so. How can anyone look at what happened, and blame humanity instead of God.” It was true, but people were stupid. Life got a lot easier when I realised that. Populism always worked because people want the policies that make sense for them. Populism could be used for good too, but it was a hammer in a world full of nails. It could be used to elevate any belief.

“Yea, why are they listening to her? Every preacher I’ve seen trying to bring it back got ignored.” Said Maria. I guess it was time for me to say something so I got to stay in this group.

“They’ve got a new doctrine. An offshoot of Orthodox Christianity instead of Protestantism, which is probably why it was more palatable to the people here. Oh, and they’re incorporating the Goddess’s message into it, which just shows how dumb people are. She’s the one that invaded earth in the first place, and now you wanna worship her?” Bogdan rubbed his chin, took a swig, and interrupted an unintelligible ramble from Stephan that followed my whole explanation.

“Doesn’t that make sense though? She’s real. Like an actual real god. We know who she is. We know she has the power. Why wouldn’t you worship her?” See? This is why I was the one that wrote the bible instead of Eva. I elevated the goddess from a boogie man to the preferable god.

“Does she deserve our worship though?” Said Stephan.

“Why does that matter? If there’s a guy who can kill you instantly, you worship him so he doesn’t do that. If he made someone else explode, that’s just proof you chose right, not a reason you should stand up to them.” That… yea, but the Revifier doesn’t care if you worship her or not.

“Do you actually believe that?” Said Stephan, and Bogdan shrugged before taking another swig. I couldn’t actually back up Stephan. If I did, I would undermine the church’s project. The first day had been surprisingly good, but I had been slated to speak tomorrow, and I really couldn’t be bothered. I was coping better than I expected, but that was just because I did not cross the red line of actually drinking. There was no need to drown my sorrows in temporary pleasure.

“How are you going to shrug about that? It’s a yes or no question. Hey, new guy, what do you think? You told us all about this, but not about what you thought about it.” Said Maria. I was so tempted to shrug, but sure, I’ll bite.

“If it gives people hope, it’s fine. What’s the worst it can do?” It was the best position I could take. If I went too hard against the church, the people around the tavern who were pretending to not hear us would spill the info to Alex, and I’d have to pretend to be broken mentally for a couple weeks to satiate Liz. If I went too far for the church, I’d be kicked out of this group and probably die from crippling depression in five minutes.

“What a way to not pick a side.” Said Maria before slumping back into the wall. “At least our contact with the Russian warlord was good. Apparently it reunified right before the death of the King. The actual warlord died in the reunification war, so his daughter has taken over.” Since when was she the one delivering news? I thought that was Stephan’s job.

“Well, it’s not really good news. They’re social democrats, you people are communists. The two group’s haven’t gotten along too well in the past.” It was crazy how it was the Russians that were social democrats this time. Especially after all they went through. I guess the endless progress of the universe towards goodness finally got to Russia.

“So you’re going to war with them too?” I asked, since that would drive desperation up higher, and increase the power of the church. People tended to take drugs during periods of darkness, and religion was opium.

“What? No! Haven’t you heard, they’re doing the… fifth? No, sixth international. It’s just that they’ll have a power struggle, and someone will have to be left unsatisfied. Whoever will be left holding the bag will likely go to war with the other side once the reactionaries are dealt with.” Of course. A united front stayed intact just long enough to kill the fascists, or get destroyed by them.

“What have you three even been doing, outside of keeping up with the news?”

“It’ll be fine. You’re an incredible orator, Mariel. You will handle a little speech just fine.” I would not, no matter how many times she repeated that. I had to defeat the current, small orthodox faction of the city in a theological debate, and was given no preparation for it! I was under the impression this was a speech, and to Liz, it was just that, but she must’ve had an incredibly different definition of speech. Oh, and to top that off, if I lost this, our version of orthodoxy might as well have been gone. Nobody would listen to the people who lost a debate against the least trusted religion in town.

“You should’ve told me in advance this was a debate, and not a run of the mill speech. I was not prepared for this.” Let me guess, this was the whole point?

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“That’s the whole point. This is a test, you should know that.” She wasn’t even hiding her intentions anymore. She probably knew I could’ve deciphered it anyway, but I still feel kinda… wrong? No, that wasn’t the right word, but it was also not the wrong word. It was good enough to describe my present feelings about her honesty. All I could do was look up from the floor to her face, see her smile, feel the edges of my face come up slightly instinctually and then look at the podium past the open door. Smiles really were infectious. Did something get slid into my hand? I couldn’t notice as I pulled my eyes away and went through the curtain and onto the stage.

“Hello, please take a seat.” The man in front of me had a long beard and glasses, as was typical of priests. His robe was black, and also typical. There was not an original piece of fashion or way of presentation on him or his body. I sat down, and looked onto the fairly large crowd before putting the book in my hand onto the nearby desk. Since when was it in my hand?

“So, what do you disagree with us on?” Oh, that was simple.

“On the existence of the abrahamic god. We, here at the church of change, believe in all the events of the bible and the old testament, except for the actions of god and the interpretation of their causes.” The priest opened his eyes slightly more.

“Excuse me? The actions of god?” He probably thought we were a small splinter faction that could be contained after a couple disagreements got sorted out.

“Yea. Those stories are incorrect retellings and misinterpretations. If they weren’t, then the lessons learned from them would’ve been enough to stave off the rapture.” I was tired already. Not because of the debate, well maybe a little bit because of that, but because of my mind trying to battle a million versions of this guy verbally before he even said a word. If I could just focus on what the best, somewhat obvious action would be, I wouldn’t be feeling dead.

“But… This was not the rapture. Nothing that was said to happen in it actually happened.”

“Because our interpretation was wrong. The men of those times desired power and legacy at all costs. They would hear the words of god and jesus and interpret them to say a completely wrong thing. Jesus did say that he’d have an easier time getting a sinner into heaven than a rich man, yet the bible is used to justify the rich every other day, and its teachings are so easily forgotten because they are not real ones. The true teachings of God will glue themselves onto your mind, and never be forgotten, such is God's mercy.” This whole devoted personality was not doing it for me, but it was the best thing I could’ve come up with in my limited time before the start of this debate.

“That is… do you have proof that your interpretation is more valid?” Yea, it’s called the end of the world.

“The rapture is proof of our beliefs. It happened, yet none of us were dragged to heaven along with it. The world ended in a way completely heretical to your version of Christianity. Yet, instead of blaming yourself, you blame the people for not worshipping hard enough. You want power, while I and the founder want proof. Our proof is in her visions, that indeed God is real, but that he is not Yahweh. He is a god of change, unending and ever reinventing.” I may have misgendered the goddess, but she’d understand, hopefully. A man had to do what he had to do to convince people to worship the goddess that ended the world.

“Let’s… Let’s not jump to conclusions. We have a concrete account of what the rapture will be like, and this was not it. In fact, this was more of just a small disaster compared to the rapture. This was and is a test, a test by god.”

“I will jump to conclusions because the world clearly ended. If you believe otherwise, you are lacking in intellect. You are nothing more than a hack and rube trying to hold onto a sect that has been proven wrong for what? Power? Prestige? Some other frivolous thing like that? We, at the church of change, will always believe in the real message of God, which is reinvention.” I wasn’t even arguing with him, I was just preaching to the literal crowd. I could already sense the few bored journalists in the back stationed here ‘just in case’ finally begin writing notes on this.

“If we were wrong, God would have shown us that sooner. Your beliefs don’t even correspond closely to the original bible. Your claims that ours are not real interpretations falls flat when you consider we must’ve had a common ancestor in terms of claims and or interpretations, which would be damn near impossible given the differences in our beliefs.” Alright, he was decent at debating, but that wouldn’t be a problem.

“We did have a common ancestor, it’s just that your doctoring of the real facts went so incredibly far that it looks like there’s no connection. The people who interpreted your version of God’s words wanted power, not knowledge or wisdom, and God, in his anger, sent us a warning shot. Your people have driven the masses towards atheism or heretical faiths. The church of change is the only one that can guarantee its own growth because we follow the words of the one true god that has revealed themselves.” I spoke with the passions and fire these people hadn’t heard in a long time. Even if they were too loyal to their beliefs to change, the press would spread my speech throughout the city, and populism would probably convince the average joe to at least give the church a try.

“You’re saying this with no proof whatsoever!” Now he was getting fired up, perfect. Oh, and he also ignored how I changed my words from the end of the world being a rapture, to it being a ‘warning shot’.

“And what proof do you really have? A book interpreted by utter fools? Why do you think it doesn’t condone all the evils that have plagued mankind for so long? Because those men twisted the words of the eternally benevolent god. We would’ve never learned without this rapture, and we still wouldn’t have without god contacting our founder.” I went back to being somewhat calm, as his anger would contrast well against my stoicness.

“You come into this chamber, you make a claim, and I am the one that must prove you wrong? What type of…” I could tell he couldn’t contain himself. Good.