Seven hours into a transpacific flight from San Diego California to Osaka Japan, Joshua Baxter—wedged between, on his left, a burgeoning contender for My 600-lb Life and, on his right, a profusely sweating man who was disappearing into the bathroom every few minutes for reasons Joshua couldn’t even begin to guess at—found himself startled out of his insomniac haze as the right-side engine of the American Airlines Boeing 787 burst into a cloud of flames.

The plane lurched, vibrated, made several very unpromising noises, then went eerily quiet, the only sound the hum of the one remaining engine.

Passengers looked around, questioning, seeking reassurance from each other that everything was okay.

From his seat, Joshua saw flashes from his right side and looked past his sweating seatmate and across the aisle to see flames out one of the opposite windows.

“Is the engine on fire?” the woman sitting next to that window asked no one in particular.

Several passengers close enough to hear gasped at the mention of fire, and the quiet was filled with whispers as the message passed from one to the next.

“It’s just excess jet fuel burning off,” the man next to her responded confidently. “Like a car backfire.”

A moment later the pilot’s voice came over the intercom telling the passengers to remain calm, that they had lost an engine, and would be making an emergency landing as soon as possible.

Given that they were over the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Joshua had no idea where the pilots planned to make such a pitstop.

The flight attendants began walking the aisles making sure everyone was buckled in.

Joshua had survived a plane crash once before, and even though he’d been only a baby at the time, some echo of that memory shot through him now. It wasn’t fear, exactly, but neither was it hope: Planes with engines on fire did not tend to make it far.

Before he could dwell on this, a strange sensation overtook him and he noticed an odd purple light drenching him, and him alone.

“Am I about to explode?” he wondered aloud.

Sweaty Guy looked like he was considering leaping out of his seat and perhaps making another bathroom trip, though whether at Joshua’s statement, or the smell of smoke beginning to fill the cabin, Joshua had no way of knowing.

Joshua frowned at the light, then followed its path. It was coming from outside the window to his left, somehow bypassing his obese seatmate to focus only on Joshua.

Said seatmate was pressed firmly against the seatback, legs spread wide enough to push Joshua’s own together, gripping the armrests as though if he could just manage to crush them, he’d survive their ocean landing.

Joshua therefore had to lean forward to see past the man’s bulk and out the window. Which Joshua did just in time to see what appeared to be a giant pigeon with a red mohawk fly directly into the plane’s sole remaining engine.

It exploded in a spectacular and highly improbable burst of fire, shaking the entire aircraft and causing the burgeoning worry to rise several notches toward outright panic as two flight attendants were rocked from their feet, one falling onto the aisle, another into a man loudly talking into a cellphone.

Joshua felt his stomach drop as though they were in freefall, and Sweaty Guy tried to get up, but was oblivious to the fact he was still buckled in, and so only flailed impotently at the air.

A moment later, the pigeon—miraculously unharmed—flew up to the window and stared in at Joshua.

Joshua, too confused to panic, simply stared back at the suspiciously large avian with solid beams of purple light emanating from its eyes and directly onto him as it miraculously kept pace with the doomed aircraft, fire and smoke billowing behind it.

Why does it have a mohawk? he wondered. He also was confused as to why the flames—which seemed much too large—flowing out of the destroyed engine weren’t bothering it.

And then, as the aircraft plunged toward the Pacific in what would be the first 787 hull loss since the model’s introduction and simultaneously the most successful ocean ditching in aviation history, Joshua Baxter, of San Diego, who enjoyed yabusame and rock climbing, vanished, thus becoming the flight’s only casualty.

For some definition of ‘casualty’.

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Joshua Baxter was not dead, so far as he could tell.

Though, he was in a garden.

Which did slightly worry him.

It was like something out of myth. Silken grass underfoot, stretching out in all directions, the greenest and softest looking he’d ever seen. Giant marble pillars erupting from the very ground itself. Trees laden with obscene amounts of fruit in blindingly bright colors he had previously not known existed. Even more-flagrantly plumed birds of massive proportions happily chirping as they flitted from tree to pillar to tree. Giant frolicking butterflies just as colorful as the rest.

All that was missing were cute chubby cherubs flying around with heart bows.

And snakes.

But as insane and awe-inspiring—not to mention worrying—as all that was, what really held his attention was the naked man in front of him.

He was at least twelve-feet tall, which put Joshua’s face at crotch level.

Joshua instinctively staggered back several steps before realizing something even more disturbing: the man was as barren as a Ken doll.

Joshua blinked. “What the… You don’t even have nipples!”

“Ah,” the giant said, his voice unexpectedly normal-sounding for one so large, “pardon my appearance. I forget how some Tellurians can be about such matters.” Suddenly he was dressed in what looked like an ancient Roman toga, the fabric a brilliant cream color with stark red adornments.

Joshua stared, mouth open. “How… What?” One moment, the man had been unclothed, the next he was covered. The toga had simply appeared from nowhere.

That… wasn’t possible.

Of course, neither was being teleported out of a doomed airplane, or a giant pigeon with a red mohawk that could survive the rigors of jet-engine traversal.

“Where am I? What is going on?” Whatever this was, it wasn’t that he’d managed to finally nod off on the plane and this was all some crazy dream. He’d had dreams that had felt real, even lucid ones, but this was an entirely different thing.

“Oh,” Joshua said knowingly, with an odd sense of relief, given that he was about to die. “I’m still on the plane, plunging toward my death, and my mind has created this fantasy for me to live out in my last moments. It’s caused by DMT or something. Supposedly very realistic, and not at all dreamlike.” Though it felt more nightmare than fantasy. The setting was idyllic, but the company was severely lacking. “Where are all the girls?”

The giant frowned. “Girls?” He shook his massive head. “This is not a fantasy. This is real. I am the god of this place, and have plucked you from your world and brought you here. I saved you, Joshua Baxter. I saved you from certain doom.”

It was then Joshua noticed a pigeon roosting on the man’s—the god’s?—shoulder.

A suspiciously familiar pigeon.

“Hey.” He pointed an accusatory finger up at the bird, its red mohawk far less out of place in this vibrant garden than it had been at thirty-five thousand feet outside a commercial airliner’s window. “That’s what took out the engines.”

The man turned his giant head to look at the giant pigeon, which didn’t look so large in comparison. “Ah. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice that.”

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“Well I did!” Joshua’s voice broke, and he tried to get himself under control.

“My apologies. You see, we can’t just pluck anyone we want. There are rules.” He chuckled.

Joshua didn’t see what was funny.

“We can only take those who… hmm… fit certain… criteria,” the giant god explained.

Joshua blinked. “Is that your pigeon?”

The giant looked uncomfortable. “Yes,” he said hesitantly.

“And it blew out the engines?”

“Well, cause and effect is always so murky.”

“No, it’s really not! Your bird flew into the engine. Both of them, I might add. You don’t accidentally fly into two separate engines on opposite sides of the plane.”

“Engines are powerful things. He probably just got sucked in.”

“Sucked in! Yeah, because he flew right at the damn thing. Twice!” Joshua had dropped his accusatory finger, but now raised it again, feeling righteous indignation flowing from it. “That bastard caused my plane to crash!”

“Shh, he’s sensitive about his father. And anyway, the plane has not crashed. Yet. That won’t happen for another…” the giant god-man tilted his head, eyes briefly illuminating with a familiar purple light, “fourteen seconds. Earth time.”

“Why are you so calm! All those people are going to die!”

“They’ll be fine,” the giant said, casually waving a dismissive hand. “Pilots will probably even get awards. Though, I do imagine they’re all going to learn to hate fish.” He chuckled.

Joshua was about to demand to be sent back, then realized how foolish the request was. Even if the god was telling the truth and all the passengers would survive, he didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of the ocean. He amended his mental request, then spoke it. “I want to go back to Earth, but not on the plane. Osaka, preferably.” That was where his parents were expecting him, for his sister’s sixth memorial. Which made this an especially terrible time for him to seemingly die in an airplane crash.

The giant spoke, interrupting Joshua’s racing thoughts. “Joshua Baxter,” he gravely intoned, his voice vibrating the very air, now sounding much more like you’d expect from a giant, “I’ve summoned you here because I believe you have within you what it takes.”

“You just completely ignored my request.”

The giant sighed. “You are supposed to ask, ‘What what takes?’.”

“Huh?”

The man’s massive shoulders slumped. “Saving the world,” he said dully, sounding like someone had vacuumed out all his enthusiasm.

Despite this, a flash of lightning lit up dark storm clouds off in the distance behind the giant—which hadn’t been there a moment before—at the same time as a peal of thunder reverberated through Joshua’s chest.

Personally, Joshua felt it was a bit on the nose. And implausible. Light and sound did not travel at the same speed.

That did not mean it was not effective, however.

“I know you must be wondering what is going on,” the god continued.

“That’s an understatement,” Joshua muttered.

“Do not worry. I will explain all.” The god paused, looking around. “Hmm. Where… Ah, yes.” He focused on Joshua again. “You will know everything you must do to save our worlds from what is to come. The most important thing is that I’ve chosen you because you are the only one who can con—”

There was an abrupt popping sound and Joshua was suddenly sprayed with something wet, obscuring his vision.

As he wiped at his eyes, trying to regain his sight, he heard a soft whisper of metal against metal.

He finally got his vision cleared and found himself staring at a beautiful woman.

A gigantic beautiful woman.

With flaming hair.

Like, literally on fire.

She was nine, perhaps nine and a half feet tall and donned in gleaming golden armor that radiated even brighter than her hair. She held an elegant sword at her side, its blade a liquid red. Above the armor she wore a pendant against her neck that glowed with an almost imperceptible light.

As incredible of a sight as she was, what Joshua saw at her feet was in the same measure disturbing.

It was outright vile, in fact, and he felt his stomach constrict, trying to eject his chicken and noodles airplane meal.

“What— the— crap?!” he got out between retches.

The woman, who hadn’t seemed to notice him up to this point, looked up from the disgusting sight at her feet and focused on him. “Hello,” she said with some surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there. You’re so small.” She squinted. “Ah, a mortal.” She let out a breath of what sounded like relief. “What’s a mortal doing here?”

In Joshua’s opinion, she was far too calm for the situation.

He looked between the mess at her feet—the giant god-man’s corpse, which now had a gaping hole in its torso from where she’d run her sword through him, the ribcage and stomach blown open and intestines spilling out—then back up at her. “You just popped out of nowhere and exploded that dude and you’re asking me what I’m doing here?”

He looked down at himself then back up at her. “You just covered me in his viscera and blood. What are you doing here? Who are you?” Speaking to her like this was probably not the wisest, considering she was half-again his height and held a dripping, blood-drenched sword at her side which she’d just used to slay an apparent god, but he’d reached his limit for the strange and confusing and wanted some answers.

“My apologies. I’m Peace, the god of peace.”

Joshua looked down at the corpse still oozing blood, its spilled guts matting the verdant grass of this place, at the gore covering him, at her blood-drenched sword, then up at her beatific face.

“God of… peace? As in, peace on Earth?” He pointed at the corpse. “You just killed him. Violently. Like, really unnecessarily violently. That does not seem very peaceful to me. More like god of turning things into pieces. And why is your hair on fire? Everything about you gives off very unpeaceful vibes.” Joshua was beginning to lose his temper, and he took several deep breaths to calm himself.

“We’re not on Earth. That explains your confusion.”

“That doesn’t make any sense!”

“Of course it doesn’t. You’re mortal.”

“You’re the goddess of peace and you just killed someone. How does that make sense, Earth or not?”

“You have a saying on Earth I’m fond of: ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.’” She gestured at the corpse with her bloody sword. “That is egg number one. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have egg numbers two and three to attend to.”

With that, she promptly vanished as suddenly as she’d arrived.

Joshua stared at the corpse, then at where the woman had been, back to the corpse, down at his blood- and gut-drenched self, then up at the bucolic garden. “What… the… f—”

The woman suddenly popped back into existence in front of him, startling him so much he cried out and stumbled backwards. “Ahh!”

“Hello again,” she greeted cheerily. “I forgot to find out what you were doing here.” She stared at him expectantly.

“I have no idea,” Joshua finally managed. He remembered the god saying something about saving the world, but wasn’t going to bring that up. He just wanted to go home.

“I’m assuming he summoned you here for some grand purpose, yes?” She tapped her sword on the giant’s head to indicate who she was talking about.

In response, Joshua could only stare at her.

But she wasn’t looking at him anymore. She was looking down at the corpse thoughtfully, tapping her still-bloody sword against the man’s head. It made a ticking sound, like a clock with rocks for gears.

“Yes,” she said finally. “He must have summoned you here to save some far-off kingdom or other such nonsense.” She focused her gaze back on Joshua. “I don’t know what he had planned for you, but as you’re from Earth, I can only surmise he was going to give you an interface and send you on a grand quest. Would that be acceptable?”

“I just— I just want to go home.”

“Hmm. Earth.” She shook her head, flaming hair bobbing. “Unfortunately, I can’t send you back there. But I can give you an interface and grand quest.” She tapped her bottom lip with one finger, which left a spot of blood, as her hands were still covered in the stuff. She didn’t seem to notice or mind. “Hmm. Grand quest, grand quest… What can I send you to do?”

After several long moments she let out an exasperated sigh and shook her head, then looked down at Joshua and shrugged. “Sorry. I don’t have anything I need a mortal to do for me. It’s always struck me as rather inefficient. I’m a god. Why would I need a mortal to do anything? You’re all so… mortal.” She said this with no small measure of disapproval, as though Joshua had any control over the matter. “But I can give you an interface. It would be a shame if you got summoned here to our beautiful world only to be killed on your first day.” She chuckled.

“Killed?”

“Actually,” she said, ignoring Joshua, “let’s see what he had planned for you.” She held her palm over the god's body and something Joshua couldn’t focus on shot from it into her. “Yes, as expected. A grand quest.” She shook her head sadly. “Can’t say what it is, with this new edition of the Guide.” She shrugged. “Ah well, I’m sure it’s nothing too dangerous. But you’ll have to figure that out for yourself. You might even become a hero one day. Wouldn’t that be interesting?”

“I don’t want to be a hero. I want to go home.” Though he had to admit, if only to himself, the idea of becoming a hero was compelling.

But Peace wasn’t listening to him either way.

With one bloody finger, she booped him on the nose as though he were a puppy.

Before he could protest this humiliating treatment, his vision suddenly flashed with a wall of text that sped by far faster than he could possibly read.

He cursed and stumbled back. The text had finished scrolling by, and now there was only a group of lines remaining, the rest having disappeared.

You have been bestowed the divine gift [Divine Guide]

You have no Divine Aspect

Divine Aspect created

[Divine Guide] has bonded to your Divine Aspect

You have gained the Talent ⧼Divine Guide⧽

“There we are. All done.”

“Divine Guide?”

“It used to be this lovely, elegant book, full of maps and spells and incantations and the history of all worlds.” She let out a sigh. “But that’s fallen out of favor. Wrath convinced the others we needed to keep up with the times and got it changed. It’s made for Tellurians, after all, he said. And no one else really cared to argue.” She sighed wistfully. “He could be so charming. And so domineering. Always getting his way.” Now she looked truly sad. “But not this time.” She wiped at her eye, leaving a streak of blood, then she shook herself out of her gloom. “Where was I?” She looked at Joshua expectantly.

“Uh, the Divine Guide you just forced on me.” He waved at the screen in front of him. To his surprise, it vanished.

“Ah yes. As I said, it used to be a beautiful book. Now it’s an interface that lets you interact with the world and gives you several utility spells. I must say, it does seem like an unfair advantage.” She thought about this a moment, then shrugged. “Oh well. I’m Peace, not Equality. Good luck.” She popped out of existence.

Joshua, with nothing but confusion, a blood-soaked t-shirt and shorts, and a pair of Crocs filled with god-gore, was once again left standing there, this time with even more to try to process.