“The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.”

Henry Ford

Bethany awoke in the passenger seat of her Civic, her blanket tucked tightly under her chin. The morning sun was warm against her skin, and her knees popped as she stretched to banish the stiffness in her limbs. She could feel the tangles in her unkempt hair and remembered that she had not brushed it the previous night. Why hadn’t she…

The memories flooded back to her.

The plaques only she could see.

The creature in the library.

The dream on the hill.

The God Contest.

Bethany’s eyes shot open. And she saw another eye staring back at her. A monstrous eye the size of a basketball with black leather wings, floating outside her Civic’s windshield. Watching her. Waiting for her to awaken.

Bethany screamed, the sound escaping her lips unbidden. She had never screamed, even on the worst of nights. She had never wanted to give him the satisfaction. Yet in these first moments, when her world turned upside down, it was drawn from her with such ease.

Fear, anger, confusion, and revulsion surged within her. A tangled mess of every emotion that her teenage mind could conjure up, all warring within her to decide her response to this impossibility.

Somehow, when war was won a moment later, it was her bravery that emerged victorious.

Bethany reached for her ball-peen hammer, tucked between the passenger seat and the center console. Her hands wrapped around the grip, and she drew it from its resting place She felt constrained by the tight space within her Civic, and raised the hammer in front of her, nearly striking the windshield glass.

“Stay…stay back! I’m not afraid to use this!” she shouted, knowing she was lying. She was being brave. But she was also terrified.

The eye simply floated there, staring at her. Unwavering. Unafraid. Unmoving. Un...anything really. What the hell was going on? Was this still a dream?

Bethany, hammer poised to strike, slowly opened the passenger-side door. Her knees cracked as she shifted in her seat and planted her feet against the hard concrete of the parking lot. The eye’s wings flapped once as it repositioned itself to keep Bethany in its view.

Bethany stood, keeping her back to her Civic. She held the hammer outward, her hands shaking, hoping the eye saw her as threatening.

It did not. Bethany watched as the winged eye bobbed in the air slightly, before growing still again.

It was laughing at her! Anger joined bravery at the top of her emotional mess, and she felt her face grow hot.

“Don't you laugh at me,” she shouted, unburdening her mind. “I was free. Don’t you understand? After everything I had to endure, I was finally free. I had a new life ahead of me. I could build a new me. You're not going to take that away from me.”

She reached into her Civic, never taking her gaze off the eye, searching for… something. Anything. Her hand fell upon the remains of her birthday muffin, rock hard after three days in the hot car. She closed her fist around it and threw it at the eye with anger-fueled strength.

The eye dodged to the left, letting the muffin sail past. The eye turned to watch the muffin bounce off the picnic table, causing chocolate chips to dislodge and scatter where it struck. It rolled to the ground beneath the firebox, and anticlimactically fell apart where it came to rest. A moment later a pair of squirrels climbed down to inspect the unexpected treat and began to nibble at it.

The eye refocused back to Bethany and remained where it was. Watching. Waiting. Then a sparrow landed on the top of the eye and started cleaning its feathers. The eye did not move.

Bethany’s anger was replaced by confusion, with a hint of curiosity beginning to form behind the raw emotions. For the first time, she let herself look beyond the monstrous eye to the world around her. She nearly dropped her hammer in shock at the sight but regained her grip at the last second. This was no time to give in to panic.

There were half a dozen eyes drifting across the park, searching for anything of interest. Another two eyes circled the Science Centre, and a third peered through the building’s big bay windows. She could see an elderly man inside running around frantically, pulling curtains shut and locking every door.

Hundreds of winged eyes filled the sky above the park, flying in formation and diving towards anything that moved. A swan landed on the lake, and a moment later four of the eyes had peeled away from their swarm and were circling it, each at a different angle, until they grew bored and moved on. The swan did not react to the eyes. It was as if they were beneath her notice.

“Why is the swan not flying away?” Bethany lowered her hammer, but continued to watch the winged eye with trepidation. And then she looked beyond the lake, to the edge of the city, and the hammer fell from her hands onto the pavement below.

She knew what she would find – she had seen it in her dream – but it did not make it any less shocking.

The great rainforest spread out south, beyond the great grey wall that rose a hundred feet into the air, as it had in her dream. The towering jungle canopies created a blanket of branches and leaves that stretched as far as she could see, dark storm clouds showering the jungle below. She turned around, away from Wascana Lake, and saw the snowy peaks of the majestic mountains rising above the city. She could not see what lay east and west from where she stood, but she knew what she would find. An ocean archipelago to the east, and the great plains to the west.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The only difference between her dream and her reality was the giant eyeball floating above the centre of the city, scanning the city below.

Bethany felt faint. She grabbed her hammer off the ground and sat down at the picnic table, her mind spinning.

It was real. It was all real.

The God Contest was real.

A three-tone chime rang out across the city, emanating from the giant eye in the sky. The same tone that had sounded in her dream. The sound muted every other sound in the world. The birds grew silent, and breeze stopped blowing, and the noise of distant traffic suddenly stopped. And when the last sound in the world was silenced, the voice began to speak.

"It begins! The God Contest begins!"

The voice echoed across the city, reaching every hidden corner in every neighborhood, to every ear in the city. It emanated from the gigantic eye high above the city and from every winged eye that floated beneath. The city of Regina, and all its people, stood still, silent in their shared shock and fear.

"Players, you have been selected to take part in the most momentous event in the history of your species. An event that will change the very nature of what it means to be human. An event that will be marked forever in the annals of history. A chance for glory! A chance for salvation or eternal damnation!"

The voice alternated between young and old, male, and female, and shifted through dozens of distinct accents from around the world, yet somehow Bethany could understand it with perfect clarity. It bellowed as if it were an announcer standing in the middle of a stadium, speaking to a sold-out crowd.

"The God Contest is a test of strength and speed, of wit and wisdom, of intelligence and ingenuity. It will push you to your limits, and then push you over their edge. Many of you will fall in the days ahead, forgotten and lost to time. Some shall be betrayed, and some will beg for death before the end. But those who succeed – those who rise above the masses and claim victory – will find their wildest dreams come to life!"

The voice paused, and the sky above Regina erupted into the fanatical applause of an unseen audience. It sounded like a thousand bolts of lightning striking the earth at once, causing the ground to shake beneath. Bethany covered her ears, trying to block the deafening thunder.

“An audience,” mumbled Bethany as the cheers faded away. “Of course there's an audience. It's a contest. What contest is complete without an audience?”

"But what, you may ask, is the point of all this? The objective of the God Contest is simple, my naïve players. You must survive. You must learn and grow. You must discover this world and all it has to offer. A world of my own design. A world teeming with fantastical dangers, hidden treasures, and rewards the likes of which you cannot imagine."

"But when will this nightmare be over, you might ask. The God Contest ends when you escape this world. How you escape it is for you to discover. There are clues hidden throughout these lands. Find them and learn what the God Contest truly is."

Golden flashes exploded around the giant eye, beautiful fireworks lighting up the morning sky. They glittered and spiraled, and then gathered until thousands of tiny fairy lights formed a number in the sky.

231,901

"There are two hundred thirty-one thousand nine hundred and one players remaining in the God Contest. Two hundred thirty-one thousand nine hundred and one competitors. Which of you will rise victorious?"

Bethany heard herself give an involuntary whimper, then tightened her grip on her ball-peen hammer. “Be brave, Bethany,” she told herself, keeping her gaze fixed on the winged eye. “You didn’t come all this way just to get locked in another prison."

The giant eye drifted closer to the earth, and its voice took on a low, hushed tone as if it were imparting knowledge forbidden to the listeners.

"Players, the Gods of your world are watching you. All of them. A reward for guiding your self-destructive race for so many millennia. Though personally, I’m not sure they did a very good job. But know this. Entertainment is not the only purpose of the God Contest. Live long enough, and you may discover its true purpose."

The hush dropped to the faintest whisper.

"Now, as a gift, I will impart this knowledge upon all of you. The God Contest rewards bravery and success."

Its lens shifted to the upper right corner of its vision. A moment later, a translucent blue box appeared, filled with words and numbers.

Name: The Builder

Job: Ambassador of Eternity

Attributes:

Strength: 999

Agility: 6

Toughness: 999

Magic: 999

Talents:

The All-Seeing (legendary)

Mother of Monsters (legendary)

Father of Chaos (legendary)

The Hundred Thousand Children (legendary)

[…]

Bethany read the words in the giant box in the sky. It resembled a computer screen. The list of the Builder’s talents was truncated, and Bethany wondered how many more lay beyond sight.

"This is your player screen. It will track your progress throughout the Contest. You can earn your own talents and unlock additional screens, if you can survive the God Arenas spread throughout this world."

A dozen more screens appeared around the Builder for the briefest of moments. Bethany thought she saw one labelled ‘Inventory’ before they all vanished.

Bethany looked to the upper right of her vision, and her own player screen appeared directly in front of her. It was the same semi-translucent blue that had appeared in the sky.

Name: Bethany Fox

Job: Player

Attributes:

Strength: 3

Agility: 3

Toughness: 6

Magic: 5

Talents:

Oracle Eye (#error#)

Bethany stared at her screen, trying to parse out what they meant. Her attention was drawn to her toughness attribute, and was started as a second, smaller screen appeared beside the first.

Toughness: The attribute that governs a player’s physical resilience, mental resilience, and overall health. The higher a player’s toughness, the more damage their body can take and the greater the player’s ability to remain calm in times of crisis. Your toughness attribute is higher than the average player’s toughness of 4.

Bethany was fascinated, but before she could explore further the Builder’s screen in the sky above closed with a sharp and definitive crack, drawing her attention.

"Achieve victory, and you shall find yourself bestowed with gifts that will aid you in the road ahead. Fail, and you will quickly find yourself in Xibalba. Trust me when I say that Xibalba is not a place you want to end up. Al Puch and his fellow death gods are not magnanimous deities. So fight well, players. Your lives depend on it."

The Builder returned to its position in the sky, its unblinking eye capturing the entire city in its gaze. It regained its bellowing announcer voice.

"It is time! The moment you have all been waiting for! Players, may you find victory and enlightenment in the months to come."

The Builder's voice hit a crescendo, bellowing to the invisible audience that broke into thunderous cheers.

"This marks the official beginning of the God Contest. May it be a Contest to remember!"

Those final words reverberated off every building in the city, chilling Bethany to her core. The cheers of the unseen Gods slowly faded away, until all that was left in the world was silence.

Bethany simply stood there, in the empty parking lot, as the city around her erupted into chaos.