Have you ever thought about how everything began? How we came to be? How existence started?
Well in the beginning there was nothing. No god, no universe just nothing, not even time. In this nothing there was an impossibly low probability of something happening and because time didn’t exist and as a result everything happend simultanously, causing something to inevitably happen.
This something was the beginning of existence and consequently time.
At least that’s what I think.
My name is Florian and I‘m dead. At the moment this story begins I was dieing, courtesy of a boulder lying on the mass of flesh and bones that once was my lower body. It was’t my fault at all, how was I supposed to know that I’d be hit by a landside while I was out hiking? Lying there at the end of my short 19 years of life, wimpering in pain, I thought back.
I was born into a normal german family, father engineer, mother nanny, as the youngest of three siblings.
A normal life in a normal family, maybe being a little smarter than average and with a talent for music, about to enter university, all in all nothing special.
My life wasn’t bad but I always had the feeling of something missing, a feeling that I don’t belong here.
Harbouring this feeling I often imagined how life would be, had I been born in another world, in other circumstances, as a girl so on and so forth.
As I felt the end aproaching I closed my eyes and waited.
After a few seconds the pain just stopped. It didn’t slowly fade away my body just suddenly stopped hurting. And I could move my legs again.
Confused I opened my eyes to see nothing.
Well nothing but an endless space of white streching in every direction and a blue window conveniently floating right in front of my face proclaiming:
Congratiulations, you are dead!
You have been chosen to participate in a
special tournament as the champion of a single deity.
You may now choose, which deity you wish to compete for. Continue? yes no
I always believed in life after death. It isn’t really logical or explainable, after all humans are just bags of flesh, blood, bones and a few organs with sparks of electricity serving as conciousness and means of communication within the body, but I never wanted to believe that after our life it would just be over. Wiped memory before rebirth maybe or ascending to heaven/descending to hell even. But the continued existence of the soul has always been something I believed in.
Seemed like I had been right and this time I drew the star price. If we were to be champions, our memory wouldn’t be wiped, which, for me, was almost as bad as an absolute end. I mean complete loss of memory and identity or complete loss of existence isn’t that great of a difference.
Without hesitating I clicked yes making another blue screen appear. This time it showed the different deities their domain and the spot for a champion:
Deity Characteristics Champion Thor thunder/lightning/storms/oak trees/strength/protection of mankind/hallowing/fertility Dieter Poseidon ocean/earthquakes/horses Jonathan Luna moon awailable Re sun Lee Epona horses/ponies/donkeys/mules/fertility Daisy ... ... ...
The list contained thousands of names, the names of all deities known on earth and more not limited by just one pantheon or even one version. There were numerous ones of each deity.
‚Seems like the multiverse theorie is hereby confirmed‘ I thought.
I could even set the list in alphabetical order, limit it to one pantheon and by domain.
The list of available deities dwindled fast until at last only one name remained.
Just as I was about to choose it, the blue screen disappeared, just a moment before my finger touched the screen leaving me alone in an empty, white space with nothing to do and nothing to look at. I have to tell you, that’s something really frightening.
Suddenly about two meters in front of me a door appeared. Nothing fancy really just a normal door used commonly in modern buildings, the only difference being the fact it stood freely without anything to open to.
It didn’t really appear that strange to me, after all I was in a, for my human mind, inexplainable space it was only logical for inexplainable things to happen.
Without much thought, wanting to escape this endless white space I rushed forward wanting to push the door open, but just as I touched the handle it was already moving down by itself and the door began to open. Unable to stop I ran right into the door opening it violently and loosing my balance in the process resulting with my body sprawled on the endless grey floor.
While falling I heard a quiet gasp and the thud of another body hitting the floor.
Looking up I saw the form of a woman lying on the floor, facing away from me. Her backside alone was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, what with her light, perfectly smooth skin, the hiplength shining white hair and her slender frame.
My first reaction was being stunned. I mean normally you’d think after dying you would be greeted by some great gates of heaven, an old man, the pits of hell, take your pick. I personally never expected meeting a woman whose appearence alone screamed goddess not mentioning the bright white and silver aura surrounding her.
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Immediatly after that I was scared, the penalty of running into a goddess and knocking her over must be quite high indeed. Hoping her to be of forgiving temper, I jumped up and ran over to offer the goddess my help. Offering my hand though it was of course unworthy of touching such a divine being I bowed stuttering: „I-I’m so sorry, m-my lady, I-I wasn’t watching m-my steps please let me help you up.“
Looking up again this time into her face I was again stunned since this time I got a good look on her face and despite my believe of nothing being perfect in existence there is no other word to describe her face than perfect.
She looked at me with her intense eyes of silver and extended her hand to touch mine sending shivers down my back while opening her smooth, light pink lips to answer: „Why thank you, though it was my fault for making the door appear in front of you. I could have just appeared but I don’t like too flashy entrances.“
Her voice was quiet and melodic, tingling through my whole body making me feel like never before making me feel alive, ironic considering I was dead. That’s when I realized I was in love. This new feeling, something I never felt before, I decided that I like it. Very much.
After helping her up I tried not to stare too much at her absolutely perfect appearence while asking quietly: „May I know why I was bestowed the honor of being in your presence, my lady?“
Holding my breath not wanting anything to diminish the beauty of her voice I waited for her answer, receiving it in the form of a small pretty giggle which upturned her lips slightly followed by her answering my question with one of her own: „Didn’t you read the message screen about the tournament?“
Remembering said screen I explained: „I did indeed read the screen, but I thought since I didn’t choose a ‚patron deity‘ I wouldn’t be participating.“
With a gentle smile, ‚a gorgeous gentle smile‘ I thought, she replied: „Some people who did something special, like waiting until everyone else had chosen their patron deity or being lucky enough to be the first participant are entrusted to a special deity. It is nice to meet you. My name is Luna and you are my champion in this divine tournament.“
Smiling at my luck I too introduced myself: „My name is Florian and it is my absolute pleasure to be lucky enough to meet you, my lady. If your name is Luna, are you by any chance the Luna, the Roman goddess of the moon?“
She once again smiled one of those smiles responding: „Quite the charmer aren’t you? You are only half correct, I am not the roman moon goddess, she was named after me. I am the goddess of moons, the night sky, stars, light, arts and purity. Little Luna, as I like to call her is one of my subordinates.“
„So you are like a chief goddess or queen goddess then, I am going to call you queen goddess Luna.“
Laughing a silvery laugh she returns: „That is quite nice of you but I would much prefer you just calling me Luna if you don’t mind, I am not one for titles.“
„If it is really allright it would be an honor to me.“
Giving me another bright smile she nodded and gave me the following explanation: „Now that introductions are done I will explain the divine tournament to you.
We deities have our own society, built in a hierarchical structure, at the bottom being demigods, spirits, monsters and a few other creatures ruled by gods, chief gods and primordials of their own panthenon. Beyond them are the ten so called royal gods to which as you so brightly discovered I belong. Our responsibility is to rule over the deities belonging to our aspects and regulate them. The second highest rank belongs to the conciousness of aspects themselves, meaning for example light, darkness, matter, energy, time and others. The highest position is held by the conciousness of existence itself, who is more or less like that one true god from the monotheistic religions of your world meaning it is allmighty, omnipresent, the incarnation of existence itself.
There are rumors of there being a conciousness of non-existence too but I don’t know if those are true.
Now the reason for the divine tournament is that one of the aspects, time to be precise, has decided that its existence has lasted long enough. It declared its successor to be chosen by a tournament between all deities of the rank god and above, of course excluding the aspects and existence.
Since it would be totally unfair for the lower ranked deities it was decided to let each deity have a champion to fight for them. The champions have a certain amount of time to prepare for the tournament. We are not allowed to tell you the amount of time you have, but it will be longer then a lifetime meaning you will be reincarnated into a different world in the event of your death. You will have the assistance of a gamer system, that doesn’t accelerate your growth too much but keeps a record of your stats and levels.
In the end of the preperation time all of your stats and abilities from all of your lifes will be added together in order to fight in the tournament.
The winner of the tournament will be rewarded with the position of his or her patron deity, the top ten champions each get a reward that will be decided then and there.“
I was silent for a little. It was hard to imagine being part of something so big and listening to her voice for so long kind of resulted in a trance on my side. After getting myself together I asked the most important question I could think of first: „Will I be able to see you?“
She looked at me for a moment, dumbfounded and broke into a giggle: „That’s the first question you have? You must really like me if you can’t take it not to see me after such a short time of knowing me.“ She ended with an enchanting, teasing smile that broke some kind of dam inside me.
Blushing I burst out: „It’s not my fault that you’re so nice and beautiful that I fell in love at first sight with you!“ My voice seemed to bouce around the empty space changing her teasing smile into a surprised expression. ‚Wait did I say that out loud just now? I’m so stupid she’ll never accept me stupid, stupid, stupid‘
Slowly Luna’s face morphed back into her gentle, caring and oh so gorgeous smile sending my mind for a loop as she slowly approached brushing her lips at my cheek before stepping back a little while her face got serious. I on the other side went into a little shock at her show of affection. It’s the first time a girl kissed me, regardless how short and light it was, of course it too was the first time I confessed my love to somebody, not surprising since she was the only one I ever had such an emotion for.
I once again registered her lips parting, stating: „It seems to me you are genuinly feeling that way. To answer your question: Yes you may see me. When you go to sleep the system will give you the option of going to the so called champions lobby where you and other champions have the chance to socialize, brag, duel basically do whatever you like together with the other champions, of course there are a few rules, you will learn those the first time you enter the lobby.
You may also go to your own room in the deities realm where you can do whatever you want to without anybody supervising you. It’s your most private place in existence. The third option is to visit me in my residence. That option is supposed to be used to get advice of your patron, of course it doesn’t hinder us to do other things. To access the system when you are wake, you need to state whatever you want it to do, for example ‚inventory‘ or ‚menu‘.“
All of that was pretty interesting but not what I wanted to know at the moment. Opening my mouth to ask she stopped me by putting her finger on my lips, again sending a shiver through my whole body and continued: „Wether or not I will return your feelings will remain to be seen, I don’t want to make any hasty decisions though for now you are quite high in my regard but if I will love you is something you’ll have to find out in the future. First I want to concentrate on giving you a smooth start into your preperation phase, of course only if you accept participting in the tournament.“
Happiness. That was the emotion ruling my body in that moment. She didn’t reject me. Well she didn’t say she loved me either but there is a chance she will. Beaming I declared: „Of course I will participate, if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to help you or even see you again!“
„That’s good to hear. Now the 10 champions chosen by the royal gods do have some benefits. You will be able to choose a few specifications for your first life, and you will be able to make a few improvements to your soul, you can ask for improvements and I will grant them, but if you ask for too many or too big improvements, your preperation time will be reduced. I am not allowed to tell you, when the limit is reached or if a favor is too big for you to spend.“ She explained smiling.
I contemplated on what would help me in my life regardless of where I would go and presented my choices to her.
When I was finished she turned around and opened a portal of swirling colours spiraling around a softly white glowing core.
„I think it is time for you to go on to your second life. You can come visit me whenever your body is asleep, I will await you. Do your best and good luck with the draw!“ she sung.
I walked into the portal and turned taking her appearance in one last time with my first set of eyes and said: „See you soon“
The next thing I knew was, that I couldn’t see,
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Hello everyone, my name is Pixulior and this is my first fiction ever, hope you like it.
As an avid reader of webfictions, I always hate to read long and drawn out author notes at the beginning and the end of the chapter. Therefore I will label anything important as IMPORTANT and everything not important as NOT IMPORTANT.
IMPORTANT
I will update whenever I feel like a chapter is ready, I can't guarantee a steady update pace and since I just started university I don't know how much I'll be able to write.
I will demand one thing and one thing only from you: If you flame, flame with reason. For example nothing like 'Your story is the worst' , more like 'You're story is the worst because you're characters are too ...'.
I will introduce myself at not important.
NOT IMPORTANT
Well as you already know my name is Pixulior. I am 19 years old and just began studying at a university for music (studying to be a teacher). As my second subject I'm studying english, so this is also a chance to improve myself, construcive criticism is appreciated.
I was born, raised and I still live in Germany so please don't butcher me should my grammar or spelling be incorrect.
My hobbies are playing the violin and the piano, singing, acting, reading, watching any series or movie that interests me at the moment, sometimes gaming and all in all being lazy.
If you have any questions, just write them in the comments. Oh and IMPORTANT if somebody perchance were to come upon a fitting cover art, just send it to me.
Well that's all for now.
Bye!!