Despite the Goddess herself having claimed that the three prisoners were her disciples, Zerat-Mondul had his doubts. First off, they bared no clothes that were fit for devotion, something that was seen as sacrilegious to anyone who entered the Church- let alone to stand before the Deliverer herself. Secondly, their reactions to the Holy City were very peculiar. The Royal Guard has spent his entire life in the Holy City, the name had been chosen to display its devotion to the Goddess long ago, and the sight of it was not surprising to him. But the three acted as though it was something spectacular to behold, even though the city was constructed out of cheap gold.
“It’s a city… made of gold!” The one in the tattered coat declared.
“I’ve never seen anything like it before!” Said the one with dark skin and a tie.
“I wonder what it is called?” Spoke the one that looked like an inflatable dummy outside of a Hellilift dealership.
“It is the Holy City.” Zerat-Mondul kindly explained as he led the group towards the church. “Everything you see was built in devotion to the Goddess.”
“The Goddess must be very proud.” Alex looked over his shoulder with a smile at the guard. “This is quite the achievement.”
Neil wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation or even the magnificent city of gold; his mind was on other things. He could already feel the sharp blade piercing through his chest, he could hear the ringing in his ears as the last ounces of his blood left out of his body like air leaving a balloon, he could sense his cheek resting on the cold hard ground as his life left his eyes. Of course, this wasn’t happening- well unless you count what happens in someone’s paranoid mind as a thing that actually happened in which case it did but since we’re not crazy we’re sticking with conventional methods here. No, none of that happened- yet. But still, the possibility was very real to the boy in the shaggy coat.
“How long have you been a guard?” Alex remarked, making conversation with his captor. “You look very… professional.”
The alien man stood straighter, as one tends to do under close inspection. “Royal Guard.” He corrected plainly. “I’ve been trained to do this duty all my life.”
“Really now? How incredible, you must be very good at it. Now, forgive me for my ignorance.” Spoke Alex, lowering himself slightly to make himself appear more helpless. “But with a training program that long you surely must be guarding something very valuable! May I ask what it is?”
Zerat-Mondul raised all three of his eyebrows. “Good Disciple, I guard the faith itself!”
“Oh?”
“My purpose is to defend the word of the Goddess herself against all that would appose it! To keep the Holy Places safe and secure from outside influences! To put down all those who threaten the Deliverer!” He said the words as though he had said them a thousand times, like an actor who had only played one part for his entire career.
The words made Neil shiver; I don’t like the sound of that job description.
“Oh dear.” Timothy interjected. “Are there a lot of people who appose the, uh… word of the goddess?”
The guard frowned. “There used to be, but the non-believers and heretics have now mostly left the Holy City, and very few remain.” As the last words left his lips, he couldn’t help but shoot a sideways glance at the ‘disciples’ before him.
Zerat-Mondul led the three to where a large square platform sat just a little ways from the holding room. The guard raised his orange-ish arm and made complex motions in the air, it kind of looked like he was performing sign language. He wasn’t, but if he was, he would have been saying ‘oh figs, my oven is on fire.’ After a pause, the three were surprised when the platform below their feet lurched forward and began to fly.
“What the?” Neil dropped quicker than a sack of bricks made of potatoes and tried desperately to find something to cling onto.
“Did you drop something?” Asked Timothy, looking around for a potential coin or a contact lens.
“No!” Neil screamed. “I don’t want to fall off!”
Zerat-Modul couldn’t help but chuckle. “Good disciple.” He said, voice full of sarcasm. “Have you never taken a Hellilift before?” He reached out his hand and touched outside the platform. A soft glow illuminated around his fingers and around the circumference of the Hellilift itself. “You are in no danger, the forcefield won’t let anything in or out until it’s deactivated.
“The helly- what?”
Giving the guard a look that said, ‘I’m so sorry that my friend is not acting normal right now,’ Alex bent down and dragged Neil to his feet. “Remember when I said play it cool?” He whispered.
“You never actually said that. You only shot me a glance that I interpreted as that.” Neil countered quietly.
To counter this argument Neil received a very firm stomp to the toes. “That’s alright, my fellow disciple!” Alex said as loudly as he could. “That crash really left you with some lasting fears, huh?”
“Ah, yes! So many problems!” Neil turned to Zerat-Mondul and dramatically put a hand on his head. “The height! Oh god, the height! The height is so… high!”
“I’m sorry to hear that!” Timothy said, not catching on one bit. He walked over and gave Neil a big hug. “Don’t worry about the height Neil, I won’t let you fall!”
While Neil wanted to push him off, he couldn’t help but be touched by the naïve sincerity of his new friend. “T-thanks.” He muttered, awkwardly putting his arms around Timothy in return.
The newly identified Hellilift did what its name called for and lifted the group up and away from the city of gold. In the distance they could see that a giant ornate church was approaching slowly, it could be mistaken that the church was coming to them if the perspective were to change. “Wait a second,” Timothy exclaimed. “On the windows! Is that…”
“The Goddess herself!” Zerat-Mondul bowed deeply as the Hellilift placed them neatly at the base of the giant church.
The day had been moving way too fast for Alex to process the fact that his friend, the girl he had spent months trapped with inside a giant ship beneath the sea, was somehow now a god of an alien world. Under the circumstances, I think he can be forgiven for that. But now, with her face plastered over a church that rivaled ones seen in Rome, it was starting to sink in.
“Goddess?” Timothy asked, confused. “But isn’t that just Sophia?”
Neil and Alex both exchanged a glance. “No, no, your eyes must still be tired from your rest,” Alex said as he strong-armed his out-of-the-loop friend to the side. “That clearly is the visage of our good Goddess!”
The confused Disciple did a double take of the church. “I don’t want to be rude or anything, but that clearly is just…”
Acting quickly, Neil reached over and clasped Timothy’s mouth shut. “It’s clearly so beautiful!” He finished. “My, my! What great craftmanship!”
Timothy wanted to protest, but he figured his friends knew better than he did and kept his mouth shut- which was easy considering Neil wouldn’t let go of it as they all entered through the church.
…
“My children, I promise you that I will never, ever, give you up! No, I shall never let you down! Nor will I run around, and desert you! I will never let you cry, never will I say goodbye, and never will I tell a lie and hurt you!” Sophia delivered her impromptu speech to the crowd that had gathered inside the chapel, while she did think she was getting the hang of it she was running out of things to say. “I, uh… how did it go?” Her spirits raised when she saw the doors swing open and her friends walk through led by a guard. They had various bandages and bruises, but nothing that time wouldn’t fix. “My Disciples!”
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Without hesitation, Alex ran to the center of the church and flailed his arms into a reverent fist. He practically slid across the floor as he dropped suddenly to his knees and bowed before Sophia with his face touching the floor. “My Goddess!” He nearly screamed. “My good gracious, Goddess! Your Disciples have come to your call, and with diligence we await your Holy commands as we prostrate ourselves before you!”
Neil caught the cue and quickly dropped to the floor and bowed.
Timothy did not catch the cue and instead, he awkwardly waved at Sophia, relieved to see that she was alright.
As casually as he could, Neil reached out and pulled Timothy’s leg out from under him- he felt a decent amount of guilt at the sound of his friend crashing to the floor.
“Good Goddess!” Alex crawled on his hands and knees over to Sophia, face still to the floor, and gingerly laid a shaking hand on her shoe. “What is it that you request of us, your humblest and loyalist of servants?
Sophia kicked his hand off her foot, even she thought they were overdoing it. “I, uh…” She looked around the room at all the eager and attentive people hanging to her every word. “I would like to speak with you in private!”
Alex nodded deeply, accidentally banged his forehead on the ground, but tried to play it off. “Your word is our command!”
“Xulut-Indula,” she began, surprised she got the name right. “Please have some one show me and my Disciples to a place where we can speak alone.”
The dramatic display from Alex had clearly made the crowd follow in his footsteps. Even now some of them were bowing just like he had done and trying desperately not to complain about their backs. “Yes, you Holiness.” The Priestess responded as she waved over a guard.
The Goddess and her Disciples were led out of the church, the one in the raggedy coat couldn’t help but notice the suspicious glance from the Royal Guard as they left. An eager attended led them all back to where Sophia had first woken up, the bedroom somehow seeming bigger than it was before. With a bow, the attended left to go tell all their friends about their day and finally the group was back together again.
“What the fuck is going on!” Sophia practically burst; she had been holding that question in for an obscene amount of time.
“I was wondering the same thing.” Timothy agreed meekly. “But with slightly different wording.”
Already Neil was looking around the room, not to admire the décor but to search for some hidden bug or wiretap.
“Honestly, I was hoping you could explain that.” Alex put a hand behind his neck.
“This is crazy, this is all absolutely insane!” Exclaimed Neil, agitation with the knowledge that he actually didn’t know what a wiretap or a bug would look like. “We’re on another planet! An alien planet! We’re so lucky that we’re even alive, like, what are the chances? The odds that this world had breathable oxygen and the aliens didn’t kill us instantly is just not real!”
“I’m more concerned that I’m somehow their god!” Sophia shouted. “Like, what the hell is that about?”
“It has to be a coincidence, right?” Alex suggested. “There was some random prophecy or something and you just so happen to fit the description.”
With a huff, Sophia walked over to where she was just now noticing a giant mural on the wall behind the bed. With a pointed gesture, she waved her arms to the image of herself- plain as can be painted on the wall in vibrate ink. “Then how did they get my ears right!” She exclaimed. “No one ever gets my ears right!”
“Well, I don’t know!” Alex crossed his arms and began walking up and down. “I don’t have an explanation for everything, I’m in the same boat as you are!”
“What are we going to do?” Neil added to the discourse. “Like, what do we even do now?”
“I don’t know!” Alex put his hands over his head, his brain running out of ideas. “I don’t know!”
The group all suddenly stopped as they heard an unexpected sound. From over at a window, they all could hear the sound of Timothy laughing as he peered through it with the widest of smiles. “Wow!” He exclaimed, pushing his face to the glass. “Just look at that! It’s a city made of gold!”
“Yeah, we know that already.” Sophia murmured.
“I know, but just look at it!” He replied, eyes wide with excitement. “There’s a sky that’s green instead of blue out there and planet full of people that we had no idea existed! Just a day ago I had just lost my home and I had no place to go, but now look where I ended up instead! A place where there’s things like Helilifts and spaceships, and an entire religion somehow based around one of my best friends!” He looked back at the group with giddy excitement. “Isn’t that just amazing?”
“No, it’s…” The girl in green started to argue but stopped herself. She had spent the last day in a whirlwind of confusion and anxiety, it never even dawned on her that what she was doing was far beyond her wildest imagination. Looking over she saw her two friends were also coming to the same epiphany.
They all chuckled.
“Oh my god,” Neil breathed, this time his voice full of wonder instead of paranoia “We’re on an alien planet!”
“I keep thinking I’m going to wake up any second now, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.” Alex pinched his arm, nope he was wide awake.
“Me too!” Agreed Timothy with a smile. “I keep thinking that any second now, this wonderful dream is going to be over and I’m going to wake up in my attic again, but this is real! This is really, actually real!”
Try as she might to resist the feeling, Sophia couldn’t help but feel a bit of giddiness as she watched her blond friend look out the window with such enthusiasm. She tried to play off the good vibes as just a fluke, “well, amazing as this all is.” She started. “We have to do something; we can’t just stay here and pretend we’re their lord and saviors.”
“Can’t we?” Alex heard himself say, almost as a reflex.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we could just stay here. They treat you like you’re their god, I’m sure you’ll be living pretty well here- I mean just look at the size of this bedroom!” He spun around with his arms out; you could fit at least two hundred of him from wall to wall. “All you would have to do is give some speeches, make them happy. You can be their alien space Pope!”
“There’s not a chance in hell that I’m doing that!” Sophia boomed. “You don’t know what it’s like! It makes my skin crawl, the way they look at me like their waiting for me to bless them with some divine wisdom! Well, news flash Alex, I ain’t got no divine wisdom to give! I’ve been quoting song lyrics for the past two hours!”
“I’ll come up with stuff for you to say, don’t worry.” He said with a wave of his hand. “I’m sure we could figure it out, it’s not so bad.”
Though he didn’t want to show it, Neil the prospect of staying here for the rest of his life was enough to make his skin crawl. “Look.” He started, unusually calm. “This place seems like they’ve got their stuff together, you know? City of gold kinda proves that one. But this isn’t our world, this isn’t our home! I don’t think we belong here.”
“Well, what do you think we should do?” Alex posed.
“We fix the ship!” Neil said, matter-of-factly. “How else are we going to get out of here?”
“We can’t even fly the ship; how do you think we’ll know how to fix it?” Alex didn’t want to be augmentative, but he knew someone had to ask these questions.
Timothy had a light-bulb moment, which was something new for him. “Well, when I was in the helmet, I was shouting all sorts of stuff. I can’t really remember most of it, it’s a bit hazy for me.” He reached up and felt his head, thankfully it was still attached to his shoulders. “But what I do recall is me shouting something about locating a mechanic, right? Maybe someone here could fix the Lavender?”
They all exchanged glances. “He’s probably right.” Alex admitted. “With all the technology we’ve seen it’s possible that they have the tools they need to repair the ship.”
“But even if they do, how are we going to fly it out of here?” The memory of a convulsing Timothy was still fresh in Neil’s mind. “Last time we did we nearly lost poor Timothy; I doubt he wants to go through that again.”
Timothy, in fact, did not want to go through that again as the first time was plenty enough for him. However, it wasn’t just the pain that was causing him grief, he could still hear the voice in his head luring him to put the helmet on. Come to think of it, that was the same voice that he had heard escape his own lips in the thick of it. “No, I don’t, I really don’t.” He agreed. “But if it means that you guys can get back home, it would be rude not to do it.”
“But Timbo,” Sophia was surprised by the fact she had just given her new friend a nickname- she didn’t like it. “That thing nearly fried your brain last time, I ain’t letting you get barbequed on us again.”
“But maybe that was just a malfunction?” Alex was pacing up and down again, thinking. “I’m sure who ever built the ship didn’t intend to kill the pilot. Maybe if we repair it, it’ll work properly?”
“Well, that’s all well and good, but even if they can fix the ship, it could take days to repair- maybe even years.” Like always Neil was planning out the worst-case scenario. “In the meantime, we need to keep a low profile.”
“Kinda hard when you’re a god.” Sophia couldn’t help but chuckle nervously. “I don’t even know what religion I’m a part of.”
“The Church of Latter-Day Sophia’s.” Neil chimed.
No one laughed, which was surprising, he thought it was a good one.
Alex stopped his rhythmic pacing on the floor, having come to a conclusion. “Well, I guess there’s only a few things we can really do. I propose that Sophia commands for the Lavender to be repaired, seeing how you’re a god I doubt they’ll have many objections. In the meantime, we should try and figure out just what you’re the god of, and let’s cross our fingers you don’t have to do some human-sacrifices.”
Sophia’s eyes widened. “What?”
“We should do a tour or something!” Timothy said, face still plastered to the window. “I think it would be a great time to get to know the place, we might have to stay here for a long time if they can’t fix the ship after all.”
“Well then, I guess that’s the plan.” Neil clasped his hands together and looked around at all his friends. “Now what do we do, should we do a group hurrah or something?”
“Hurrah,” Sophia said blankly as she wandered back towards the door.
In reality, she was only attempting to hide the fear on her face from her friends, she needed to be strong now. But, as you can probably expect, being a god is sort of a lot of pressure. She hoped it wouldn’t get to her.
Inside the church, Zerat-Mondul observed the crowd of worshippers eagerly awaiting the return of the Goddess. He had longed for her coming for all of his life and he had trained to be her guard and protector. But after all of that, deep down he knew in his orange-ish heart that the outsiders were not who they said there were- and if they aren’t Gods they must be heretics.