A loud knock drowned out even the party noise from the next room. Samanael looked up from her computer, where she had just drawn up a schedule for the university's next events. Who was visiting her at two o'clock in the morning? Her roommate was grounded. Had Jane forgotten something? Her father had already collected her school things. And the shadow golem was gone too. Not that she would miss him. Once those who had returned had a good night's sleep, she would finally get the full story.
She saved the file, walked across the small room and opened the door: "What can I..."
The words died on her lips as an icy shock exploded in her chest and all her muscles tensed on the spot. She stood completely frozen in the half-open doorway. Her head slowly sank down without her consciously doing anything. Confused, she looked down at her fist, which was pressed against her diaphragm with the side of her thumb facing forward. Her eyes wouldn't focus properly, but it seemed to her that the fist was holding something. Then it was slowly pulled back, revealing a long, narrow blade with a faint orange-gold glow. Where had it come from? Was it still in her body? Shouldn't that hurt? Samanael's usually clear thinking became blurred, she could hardly concentrate. She didn't understand. What was going on here? Why was she getting weaker and weaker?
As the tip of the dagger became visible, it drew glowing lightning from Sam's body in all colors of the spectrum. An almost palpably dense, golden-orange aura around the blade absorbed the energy and drew it into the metal. With the last spark drawn into the weapon, Samanael's consciousness also faded. The now brightly glowing dagger was placed in a sheath that completely blocked out the light. Samanael's frozen, lifeless body was given a small shove, causing her to fall over backwards. Then the door was closed again and footsteps moved away without haste.
*
On the beach in Hawaii, the sun was shining as usual, it was warm and the waves were playing merrily against the sand. A light breeze carried the smell of the sea and provided just the right amount of refreshment. Eli, the archangel of creation, enjoyed his well-deserved vacation and sipped a piña colada with relish. He lazily followed the formation of the surf waves and made small changes to the structure of the seabed. Enlarging a reef here, removing a few rocks there and then redirecting the global ocean currents by a tiny amount. He waited patiently for the next wave to form. It curved higher and higher until it formed an almost perfect surf wave. Not quite yet. Maybe when he...
He scratched his diaphragm absently. Had he been stung by an insect? Suddenly alarmed, he looked around. Nothing had changed. The other vacationers were having fun and enjoying the glorious weather. Had he just heard a scream? A cry for help that suddenly broke off? A part of him that had been asleep for a long time was laboriously pushing itself to the surface of his consciousness. Memories surfaced that he had long since suppressed. He remembered, of course, that he was Eli. An archangel who had experienced the beginning of creation. But now he also remembered that this was not actually true. Of course he was part of creation, but he was also part of... something else. Something bigger. Something more powerful. If only he could fully remember that...
The spicy smell of incense and the light iron aroma of blood sacrifices... The sound of prayer wheels, chants and prayers... Sunlight shining through stained glass windows onto magnificent altars... The warmth of hundreds of candles on the skin...
Ra, Baal, Enki, Brahma, Zeus... so many names. So many perspectives from which he could observe and control the world, people's desires and ideas. And then it all got a bit out of hand when he began to divide himself into whole families of gods, each with different personalities...
At some point, it was no longer one being that saw the world through many eyes, but dozens of independent beings, each with their own perspective, their own desires, their own ideas...
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
He remembered that he had tried to reunite. To establish a common consciousness again. The humans had helped him when many of the religions fell into oblivion. Orphaned gods listened from decaying altars to the missing prayers. At some point, they dissolved and returned to the consciousness of the whole. The consciousness of Pantheon.
Pantheon! That was it! That was his name! That was... Eli's memory slipped away again. The name and the associated memory of the Primordial God he was vanished into the mists of oblivion.
He had changed something... His rules? The rules he had set for himself to limit his limitless power. To endure the endless boredom of omnipotence. He only allowed himself the smallest interventions. The most subtle coincidences. Small sparks of hope or remorse that he planted in the hearts of his followers. Small coincidences that added up to big events.
No. That wasn't it. He hadn't changed that. That had always been his method. But then what... He had concentrated on the great new religions. Not so much personified as a concept again. As a consciousness that waited and listened in the buildings of worship, the churches... But it had not satisfied him so much. He had forbidden himself to change or found religions. He became the gods that people thought up, that they wished for... But the wishes were too complex, too multi-layered, too different. Perhaps it was time for a new deluge to make life simpler again and limit it to the essentials. Food, security, survival. Simple needs and simple wishes and prayers. Nothing as complex as self-realization, social status or the desire for more Facebook likes...
Then this young man had stepped into one of his churches. He had gazed wide-eyed at the murals and mosaic windows. He had soaked up the atmosphere... and then had seemed somehow disappointed. In his hand he held a book that he had borrowed and read countless times from others. Now he had bought it himself. Large-format, but not particularly thick. Blue, with a burning feather on the cover. The book was about angels and demons, archangels and demon princes who fought for the good of the world, the souls and the fate of people. He was particularly taken with the idea of angels who walked the earth in human form, helping people to become better people and live a fulfilled life.
The teenager knew that the stories in it were not true. It was just a set of rules for a game. A tabletop role-playing game. But he wished the world was that simple. So structured. With beings who cared about his fate, who cared about him. He wished so much that Pantheon's consciousness could recognize it as a prayer.
If a formless consciousness could have smiled, he would have done so. Humanity didn't need demons. It had enough problems and a talent for making each other's lives hell on earth. But angels... They could use angels. One archangel would have to do, though. If he took on the concept with a dozen archangels, each with their own goals and perspectives, it wouldn't work.
A being for whom eons were the blink of an eye could make many things come true in the blink of an eye. The universe held its breath for an unknown period of time, time paused in its course. Before the young man drew his next breath, dozens of figures stepped out of alleyways and shadows all over the world. Appearing out of nowhere in unseen places. Each with a personality, a mission and artificial memories that gave their personality the necessary context. From their subjective point of view, they had been traveling for centuries, just carrying on their work. Helping people. One of them was him, Eli, archangel of creation and the voice of the one God on earth.
His memories began to contradict each other more and more. Had he been steering creation in the right direction for thousands of years? Or had he been created not quite twenty years ago by an unimaginable being? Created and yet part of this being? Had everything he had ever done been invented? His life a lie?
He pushed back the part of his consciousness that questioned everything he believed in. He literally beat it back into the deepest dungeons of his subconscious and imprisoned it there. A short time later, he had forgotten all about it again and was relaxedly tinkering with the perfect wave.
*
All over the world, dozens of angels looked up from their work. Each one experienced a brief feeling of unease. And the strange awareness of being connected to something. But the moment passed again, and the shards of the Primordial God Pantheon went on with their usual lives. Until the next one disappeared...