The Royal Guard was angry, not only had the heretics got away with their lives they had also managed to sway the crowd with their deceptions. If it was up to him, he would have cut down the false God and her disciples right now but doing so now could convict him of heresy as well. No, he was now forced to wait until they saw it with their own eyes, which was thankfully coming very soon.

The Hellilift carriage was rising slowly above the Holy City, but this time it wasn’t alone. By the evening, all the inhabitants had heard the news that the Goddess had finally arrived, and everyone was clambering to have just a peek at her. Many more Hellilifts and other flying machines were slowly following behind the carriage, because after all, who would want to miss the completion of the prophecy?

While the world outside rejoiced and became giddy with the prospect, the Goddess herself wasn’t too thrilled. Inside the carriage, the four friends sat and awaited their fate, needless to say, the atmosphere wasn’t too great. Sophia was cracking her knuckles, something she did whenever she knew stuff was about to go down. Alex desperately wanted to start pacing but he didn’t feel like now would be a good time. Timothy sat next to Neil and was looking at his neck wound up and down, face full of worry.

“Oh, Neil, are you okay?” He wanted to reach out and feel the bandage, but he felt that wouldn’t be a good idea. “I heard you had an accident.”

Neil let out a pained chuckle. “Yeah, sure, an accident.” He gingerly reached up and pressed his hand on his neck. After a moment he realized that Timothy hadn’t caught his drift and clarified, “it was the guard, Timothy, he cut me.”

His eyes widened. “What? Why?”

Neil shrugged. “He wanted me to tell him the truth about us, he said he’d…” He stammered. He didn’t want to think about the second he thought for sure he was going to die, and he certainly didn’t want to think about the seconds he spent wondering if he should give up his friends and save his skin. He was disgusted with himself that he even thought about it, and he broke their gaze. “But I didn’t.” He reminded himself. “I guess he didn’t like that answer much.”

Sophia said nothing as she got up from her seat and moved over to her wounded friend. She gently reached out and moved Neil’s head to the side, getting a better look at the bandage. If you know anything about bulls, you’ll probably know that they tend to get very mad at the color red. It is from this fact that the saying ‘seeing red,’ comes into being. Let’s just say, the sight of her friend in pain was enough to make Sophia very bull-like.

“I’m going to kill him.” She said, disturbingly matter-of-factly.

“Not if he kills us first.” Alex countered.

“And whose fault is that, huh?”

“Guys, stop!” Neil interjected himself. “This isn’t anybody’s fault, and we all know that!”

Sophia breathed deeply and put her hands on her face, sometimes her rage was so much that it boiled over and leaked onto her friends. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to…”

Alex raised a hand and stopped her, “don’t apologize, it’s fine.” Deep down the words stung, he had tried so hard to keep up the ruse and knowing that something he did had caused it to collapse stung worse than anything. “I messed up, this is my fault.”

A gasp came from Timothy’s mouth as he sat upright in his seat. “No, it’s not!” He declared, upset. “If it wasn’t for you, we’d all be in the same position but a whole lot sooner! You bought us all the time you could have!”

Something about the way Timothy spoke so honestly was soothing, it was the freedom of knowing that everything he said he truly did believe. Alex smiled, “I guess that’s true.”

“And speaking of buying us time,” Neil added. “Sophia, I didn’t know you had that voice in ya. If I didn’t know you, I’d probably would’ve started praying to you back there.”

She blushed. “I didn’t know either, I just said the first things that came to mind.” Sophia leaned and looked out the window, the top of Tallizumdul was getting anxiously close. “Does anyone have any tips on how to become a god in under five-minutes? Cause right now they’d be pretty useful.”

Neil would chuckle but it would hurt his throat. “Hey, maybe you are a god! Wouldn’t that be helpful?”

“It would explain all the paintings and windows.” Alex added with a sad smile.

“This might be a silly question, but could that actually be possible?” Timothy asked, looking at his friends like a lost puppy dog. “I mean, if you were a god how would you know?”

Sophia raised an eyebrow along with a cheesy grin. “If I was a God, I would’ve stricken you all down months ago.”

They laughed, but then the room went quiet.

“Guys, are we going to die?” Timothy asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

“Yeah, probably.” Neil responded blankly. “So, let’s just enjoy this ride.”

As the group silently took their carriage up to where their friend would play God for the final time, they could barely make out the sound of clanging. It was a sound that was piercing through the two Great Caves as they passed above them. Now if they had been paying attention, they would have noticed that with an entire city made out of Gold the material would have to come from somewhere. On this planet gold was one of the most common elements, that’s why the finest things in the world were made out of bronze instead- the rarer the material the more valued it is. They had no idea that at this very moment, the Quiludians were about to strike something else down in the mines, and it certainly was gold.

…

The carriage arrived at the top of Tallizumdul and the four stepped out onto the cliffside. The sun was setting far in the distance and clouds covered the hazy green sky. The top of the mountain was large, like any good mountaintop is. It had been converted into another bronze altar, surely due to the number of paintings depicting this moment.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The sight was beautiful enough to make Timothy forget what was happening. From up here, he had the best view of the Holy City. It went on and on, he could barely even see spots of land or any sort of water source. Facing north he could see Vendulla and Aendulla, stretching far apart from each other on either side. Flipping around to the south he could see the colosseum of Mendulla, from this vantage point it wasn’t any less disappointing. The breeze felt good on his skin, he just wanted to take it all in but he was quickly snapped back to reality as Zerat-Mondul grabbed him by the collar and pushed him forward.

“Move!” He demanded.

The group were led over to the Alter, if this was another situation, they would’ve been worried that they were about to be sacrificed. It sat dangerously close to the edge of the platform that had been constructed to even out the mountaintop, probably for dramatic effect. By this time a crowd was already forming around them all, soon the entire mountain was crowded with eager spectators just trying to get a glimpse with at least one of their three eyes. The Royal Guard gestured to his men, and they all bent down and retrieved something from their belts. In their hands, they held what looked like small globes made out of a strange white metal. As they were placed on the ground a light shot from each of them and formed a bubble around the main group- keeping the spectators at a distance.

“Now, Goddess.” Spoke Xulut-Indula, approaching Sophia with a posture that could only be saying ‘I can’t wait for you to mess this up.’ “Where do you need to stand? Hmm? At what spot will you complete this miracle?”

Sophia walked over to a spot and pointed at it, then made a show of herself disagreeing with the option. She walked over to another spot and did it again, she was very pleased to see that it was annoying everyone there. “Perhaps you need something to help with your choice?” Said Zerat-Mondul drawing his sword and placing the blunt end on Timothy’s shoulder.

She glared at him, her blood pumping through her veins. “Fine.” Slowly she decided that there was only one proper place to do it, while she may not be a God, she knew what was cinematically appropriate. Over at the altar, she raised a foot and climbed on top of it, accidentally knocking over something that looked important in the process.

Looking down at her friends she saw their scared expressions, she wished in her heart that she could save them. She wished that she could just run over and punch out every guard and every Priestess that dared to lay a finger on her friends, but she knew that she couldn’t. But what she could do was give them more time for… for time? It would seem that it was the only thing they had left to gain.

“My people,” she began, her arms outstretched once again. “I come to you now as your Goddess in Green! Today is the day I deliver this world from slumber… I guess that’s why you call be the ‘Deliverer’ so much, huh?”

The crowd knew that they couldn’t break through the forcefield- but that didn’t stop them from trying. Sophia saw all the people that were gathered there, So many. She thought, Like ants on a hill.

As she cleared her throat to speak again, Neil was looking all around him. He was looking for some way out- maybe if they could break the forcefield there was a chance they could book it through the crow and pray they make it to the ship. But even he knew that was impossible, there was no way out of this one.

Sophia struggled to find the right words to speak, she felt the preverbal noose tightening around her neck, keeping the lies from coming out. Finally, she had enough. “Alright, it’s over! I admit it!” She shouted; Alex winced as he saw the last straw of the charade fall into ashes in front of him. “I am not you Goddess; my name is Sophia and I’m sick and tired of this shit! I’m sorry, I really am, for leading you guys along- but what else was I supposed to do, hmm?”

The crowd gasped and looked at each other in disbelief, surely this was a test? The Royal Guard and Priestess exchanged pleased looks; it was finally over.

“But please! Listen to me!” Sophia shouted. “We never wanted this to happen, I don’t think we could have planned this with a million years’ time, I swear! When our ship crashed landed here, it was on mistake! We never wanted to hurt anybody, and now that I’m thinking about it, we didn’t hurt a fly! So, what’s the harm, huh? We were scared, we were confused, and we just wanted to be safe- that’s all!”

Xulut-Indula scoffed, “begging for your life? How far this ‘god’ has fallen!”

Sophia felt the pressure rising, the guards were getting antsy with their swords. “Please, just let us go!” She muttered. “We’ll just wander down this mountain, we’ll get in our ship and just leave no harm no foul!”

The Royal Guard laughed as he drew his sword and turned to the crowd behind the force field. “Now you see! Now you see the truth of these defilers!” He shouted, a voice of pride and victory. “They beg for forgiveness, but the word of the Goddess has been broken too many times already! There will be no mercy for these cretins, what say you- the true followers of the Deliverer?”

The crowd began to mumble with quickly turned into a roar of indignance and hatred. Soon a chant began to start, its rhythmic melody turning the group that was first here for a spectacle into a mob ready for a hanging. “Death to the False Goddess! Death to the liars! Death to them all!”

Alex felt himself slammed to his knees, he thought quickly but there was truly no way out. The only thing he could notice was a rumbling in the ground beneath him- but he failed to see why that was important.

Neil and Timothy quickly followed him to the ground, they still hadn’t gotten used to the stinging pain it caused them in their knees. It wasn’t until now that Timothy thought about death, like, really thought about it. He had never questioned where one goes when they die, people always described it to him as a ‘quiet journey.’ He looked around him, at all the sneering angry faces and swords raised above their heads, this was anything but a pleasant dip into the afterlife. He just wished it would’ve been nicer.

Sophia realized that she was about to watch her friends die, if her heart could sink any lower it would have. There was nothing she could do, nothing at all. She was powerless. But when one is powerless, they turn to something to give them strength. In a silent moment of pure and unadulterated desperation, Sophia looked to the sky and wished for a miracle. “Awaken.” She said, softly uttering what she thought would be her last words- which she was about to be proven wrong about.

Deep down, through swirling tunnels and creaking caverns, in one of the Great Caves of Tallizumdul- a mining machine struck something. It wasn’t gold, bronze, or any other sort of alien metal that was floating about down there. No, what the machine struck wasn’t material, but rather a nerve.

Far, far away in the Colosseum of Vendulla, a maid was just going about her duties. That’s when the entire planet started shaking and all the precious vases and statues she had cleaned began to shake, fall, and then crack on the floor like rotten eggs. She clung to something to steady herself, but as she looked out a nearby window, she realized that what she was holding onto wasn’t going to cut it. That is because outside, where the mound of boring ground had been, something had opened up.

It happened at Aendulla, too, the same exact thing. Both mounds of dirt slid back showing something that caused everyone who saw it to scream- it revealed two, massive and glaring eyes.

Down at Mendulla, the same thing happened as well, only this time the slit down the middle of the ground peeled away at different angles. Instead of a pair of eyes, a pair of teeth became visible along with a long dark cavern that only could be a throat. And at that moment- the throat began screaming.

The sound was so loud that everyone on the planet, every Quiludian and every human felt the numbing pain shoot through their ears in a sonic wave. Those inside the two Great Caves would be sucked deeper in as a massive wind, stronger than any wind known to man, inhaled them- the planet taking it’s first breath.

“Holy shit!” Sophia screamed. “The planet is fucking breathing!”