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It takes Phil an embarrassingly long time to realise that there is someone else in the room with him, and longer still to regain the ability to form words once he’s done so. Phil clutches his laptop to his body like a shield where he’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, and stares uncomprehendingly at the person – thing – sat on top of his chest of drawers.
It looks vaguely human, sort of, but it’s impossible to tell what they actually look like what with the way their shape shifts every couple of seconds, each form entirely different to the last. Their entire being glows ethereally. Quite frankly, it’s giving Phil a headache.
“What?” Phil squeaks eventually, still not entirely convinced that he isn’t hallucinating.
“You look surprised to see me, Phil Lester,” the being muses with a smile, kicking their legs back and forth lazily. “And yet it is you who summoned me, was it not?”
“Did I?” Phil says carefully, and then adds, “sorry?” because being polite is always helpful in difficult situations.
“We’d destroy the world, and make new worlds together,” says the being with emphasis, and the words sound familiar to Phil even if he can’t quite place them. “I have been waiting for this day for the entirety of your existence. All these years, and finally you utter the one word I have been longing to hear: Phod. Phil and God. I am God, Phil, and our love will last an eternity.”
Phil stares at the being who calls themselves God and carefully sets his laptop to one side.
“Oh, wow,” Phil breathes, feeling a bit dizzy all of a sudden. “That was actually a joke? Sorry. It was just a joke for a video and I’m very very sorry if you were upset. I mean, you are upset. That’s very valid. Please don’t be angry, I promise I won’t say that stuff again.”
God looks disappointed. God is disappointed in Phil, and Phil is going to be smote down right here in his bedroom, and Dan’s going to be so upset and so many people out there are going to have to get refunds on their Interactive Introverts tickets.
“Do you mean to say,” God says softly, “that you were not confessing our love for one another in that moment? And that you don’t intend to come away with me so that we may wreak glorious havoc upon the universe?”
God actually looks a bit sad now. Phil reaches for the packet on his bedside table and offers it without thinking. “Would you like a mini marshmallow?”
“Yes please,” God says primly, taking one from the bag and placing it into the ever-changing mouth within their ever-changing face.
Phil grabs a handful for himself, too, and realises with a mouth full of marshmallow that he never actually answered the question.
“Sorry,” he says, for what feels like the hundredth time. “Like I said, it was just a joke. I’m a bit confused though. If you don’t mind me asking – why are you here? Not that I mind or anything.”
There’s a stretch of silence before God sighs.
“Did you never realise, Phil, that you are special? That you’re different?”
Phil contemplates the eating of fish food and the licking of marker pens and thinks that that’s probably not what they’re getting at, but nevertheless he gives a half-hearted nod of agreement just to be nice.
“You are my chosen one,” God continues. “My love, first and foremost. When the time is right, we will join together as an unstoppable force, destroying and creating worlds as we see fit.”
“Um,” Phil says. “All right?”
“Did you not realise the depths of my affections for you?” God says incredulously. “How could you not, when I gave you the greatest gift of all?”
“Uhh… do you mean life?” Phil hazards a guess.
“Dan,” God says. “I gave you Dan. I brought you together and gave you a best friend, perfectly matched to you in every way. The other half to your divine soul, the source of so much joy in your life. Of course, I realised after some time that perhaps I had made a mistake, and your close friendship with Dan would keep you from realising with whom you should truly be spending your life: me. I attempted to drive a wedge between you, but I failed.”
“What?” Phil says, baffled.
“I bestowed upon you,” God begins, and pauses here for dramatic effect, “an insatiable appetite for stealing Dan’s cereal. Surely, I thought, this would drive the two of you apart and I could finally take you for myself. But it’s been years and still nothing.”
Suddenly things are making a lot more sense, at least insofar as cereal is concerned. Sometimes Phil just can’t help himself, as though driven to devour Crunchy Nut by some invisible force. He’s tried buying cereal for himself but it’s just not the same.
“Dan’s just really nice like that,” Phil says weakly. “Like, he complains a bit, but – yeah.”
“Dan is more patient and kind than he is ever given credit for, I suppose,” God says resignedly, and then gives him an imploring look. “Will you not come away with me, Phil? Leave all of this behind so we can join together, physically, emotionally, spiritually?”
Phil frowns, not entirely sure whether that’s a euphemism for something. He decides then and there that he’d rather not know.
“It’s not really a good time for me?” he responds tentatively. “I kind of have a tour thing that I’m doing next year, plus my family would be sad. Dan would be really unhappy. Sooo… no, if that’s okay?”
God laughs, then, and it’s terrifying.
“Dan will not notice, I have already taken care of that,” God says, a bit too smugly for Phil’s liking.
Phil gives God a horrified look. “What do you mean?”
“Ah,” God says, “for this one I really had to think outside the box. I chose to instil within him a daddy kink so powerful that soon it will be all he can think about.”
Phil almost chokes on his own spit. “I thought he was kidding with that stuff,” Phil says in a strangled voice.
“Phil,” God says patiently, “he called Santa Claus Christmas Daddy and asked that he be punished for being a naughty boy. He called the Cocoa Pops monkey a cheeky daddy. Even members of the royal family, even inanimate objects aren’t safe. He won’t notice you are gone because soon his obsession will consume him entirely.”
“Uhhh could you please just, like, not? Do that?” Phil says incredulously. “That’s really mean. I don’t want that to happen to him, please.”
God mulls it over for some time, while Phil watches nervously.
“All right,” God says. “I’ll stop it from getting any worse. I can’t guarantee it’ll get any better though. It’s a part of him now.”
“Okay,” Phil says, because he’s not sure what else you can say to that. “Even if I don’t go with you now, you could maybe come back in, like, sixty or seventy years? And check in with me then?”
“I shall wait for as long as you need. A special place in heaven is waiting for you, Phil.”
Phil hesitates. “Dan too?”
“I’m not entirely sure I want to allow him into heaven at all,” God says haughtily.
Phil doesn’t think he’s ever felt such righteous, over-protective fury within himself. He’s about to kick off and inform God that Dan is a perfect human being who has never done anything wrong in his life, ever, but manages to control his temper enough to simply ask “why?”
“His hair is distressingly lovely when curly, it shouldn’t be allowed. It makes other people feel bad,” says God, like it’s obvious. “Oh, and there was that time when he made that festive tweet where his latop showed that he had searched Google for Bee Movie yaoi.”
“Again, I think that was another joke,” Phil says, addressing the latter point. The first statement was just factual. “It was funny.”
“Bee movie yaoi is never funny, Phil,” God says.
Phil nods seriously, starting to feel slightly panicked. “But neither of those things seem like they’d be worth sending someone to hell for?”
God narrows their eyes and regards him thoughtfully. “Hm,” God murmurs, “perhaps you’re right. Still, though; I’m watching him.”
“I’m not going to any part of heaven if Dan isn’t there. That’d just be stupid,” Phil says, feeling a bit reckless in his annoyance.
“Fine,” God replies, rolling their eyes. “If that is what it takes for me to have you by my side, then fine. You have my word.”
There’s a full thirty seconds of silence after that. Phil shifts uncomfortably, picking at a loose thread on his duvet cover.
“Was there… anything else?”
God sighs. “No, that is all for now, Phil. I had… misunderstood the situation. We will discuss this further when you are ready, but for now I will leave you be. Just remember: Phod is real.”
“Oh,” Phil says quickly, since their conversation appears to be ending imminently. “Before you go – just thought I should mention, sorry about the Dan and Phil Crafts videos. All the Satan references and stuff.”
God, to Phil’s surprise, smiles fondly. “I enjoyed those. Very amusing. You looked beautiful in every one.”
“Um, thanks?” Phil says, suddenly self-conscious. He quickly neatens his fringe with his fingers, avoiding God’s gaze.
God smiles again, beatific. “Farewell, Phil Lester. My chosen one. We will meet again in due course.”
God is there one moment and gone the next, leaving no sign that they had ever appeared in the first place.
“Okay, byeeee,” Phil says softly, blinking in surprise, and shoves seven marshmallows into his mouth at once so he can concentrate on something other than freaking out all over again.
It’s a lot to take in. The weirdest event of Phil’s life to date, which is really saying something. Phil decides that he can think about it properly later, though. For now, he has an overwhelming urge for some stolen Crunchy Nut cereal he needs to satisfy.