Chapter Text
The world was a vastly different place 40 years ago.
For humans, technological advancements were the generational forefront of discussion: personalised computers awaiting excitable home husbands, sleek, shallow casings termed CD players being able to fill rooms with music so long as its circular contents spun ceaselessly, and fingers pointed at the atmosphere as the first space shuttles rose to the blue skies. The common man gathered with his friends outside of diners, spitting news and gossip, often interchangeably and conflated, as they shuffled boisterously with their cardigans and striped ties. Flattered by their own vanity, they would speak loud in slangs and curls once foreign to you, but the sounds would linger in the space even long after sunset, and the wind would parrot their voices in whispers whenever it brushed across open fields and unexplored glades.
It was how you came to learn of their history, four decades in the past, knowledge fed through arbitrary means. A family picnic broaching on plans for moving into the city for opportunities, and from their difficulties you envisioned the lands which once revered your presence segregated into a hive of intersecting stalks and sky-piercers [skyscrapers, that was what they called], buttons for windows, and mercury tight in the yarn of mandmade veins [roads] that replaced rivers of blood. For these were the new arteries of the modern Body of God, and its promise, deemed far more enticing, weaved a concrete canopy over the old world.
With this vision, you had known then, distinctly, that the era when the otherworldly thrived soon crumbled along with their temples. Humans only ever dared to venture along the borders of Reality when circumstances were dire, bleak. You witnessed as customs and rituals sustaining the power of Others became abandoned as mortals relocated their focus on civil affairs, culture distilled to tradition, tradition dispersed to the far corners of the Body, until the fear of invoking divine wrath diluted into esoteric fascination over candlelight. Even as Gods cannot truly die, instead diminished to a static state of an idea sentient and nurtured by the Universe contained in their realms, you naturally felt uneasy that little to no presence echoed back from the void beyond. At the height of human ignorance, which appeared more and more apparent with their contentment with newer idols, the easy-going alcohol and dollar bills, your own worshippers disappeared altogether, the forests' liveliness played up only by your angels.
Indeed, at the start of the 1980s, you became aware of time due to the implications of the era, especially what it also meant for the pantheon of the other-worldy. It was foolish to assume they had all sunk into the same, deep coma of inactivity when some of the nameless merely chose to resign their patron status and be sidelined as observers, while another handful shared your desire to slowly but surely regain their footing as tangible forces over humanity.
The only risk aside from being demoted into irrelevance was that one deity had already been accepted as the patron of the mortal world, and from what you had heard, was, "more than willing to fight to keep its position". You had met the thing only once, and it was through a distant vision, much like peering into a tunnel or scope, and never tried to come in contact with them since when a pair of eyes shaped like stars stared back at you. A liquid being poured from the heart of the Universe, melting and reforming as violence incited everywhere it went.
Something different, something ethereal and disgustingly possessive of everyone's main source of sustenance. It was no wonder most had chosen what they perceived to be an ephemeral period of stasis over engaging with them.
Time was plentiful for those without a linear perception of it. You were patient as others slinked into a state of slumber. When the deity of that world closed their eyes at last, your plan was already set into motion. Humans were developing above the need for Gods, but there existed always those that found the new ways of life pernicious, and it was their insecurity of alienation that drove them back to the dark, seeking a saviour that would elevate them from their desperate crises. Through these cracks of humanity you found your footing once more, and you were sickeningly relieved to discover that the quality of envy and quest for happiness had yet to fade.
All you had to do was give mortals a taste of the impossible, to sate their greed for satisfaction. "Exuberance" was the commodity you promised, and it had always been your name. It was generous, you felt, for you to bother committing effort into allowing your subjects to feel euphoric most of the time, but their belief that they were the masters simply for being the ones whom summoned you was nothing short of laughable.
You knew humans were easy to move around. They were, after all, driven by sentiments and desires. When a contender approached at last, a golfer, carrying nothing but a small caddy bag with a simple driver and putter, you paid them little mind. Your employees should have taken care of them, but when they took turns reporting that the intruder was gradually coming closer, you were stunned. Perhaps your worshippers were becoming incompetent, or this inglorious fool was Just That Good at self-preservation. Your suspicions were rooted in the notion that a human was somehow made aware of the cult's deeds and garnered courage to worm their way into your realm and stop you. A hero with a motivation as banal as any classical tale - those, you've seen before. But when your angels started acting strangely restless, singing a different tune despite only needing to confront a human being, you should have listened.
You realised too late what had truly crept into your domain, traveling underneath the layers of tamed flesh and practiced caution. You had only a dream to take this world for your own, a dream that clouded your memory and sight until that starry-eyed monstrosity was standing right in front of you.
The price of hubris when you were a God was condemning.
Forty years ago, you were a deity on the rise with power. In the present moment, you were a small sapling sitting in an orange clay pot, ego crushed after defeated embarrassingly by an aeon-old threat you had been confident you could circumvent. Your aplomb had failed to account for their abilities, that vines and trees were only a band-aid solution in the face of death.
But this is worse than death, you bemoaned, and if you had hands you would have sunk your nails to claw your face off. Dying by the golfer pelting souls at you would have been more desirable than being left alive in a humiliating form. Your origins, a humble broadleaved scion with only a few leaves in sprout, and yet the humiliation was made worse given the deity that made you explode decided to take you with them, no doubt to keep an eye on you and trim you down to prevent your return as an actual God.
But did it have to come to this? To strapping you with a seatbelt across the pot on the seat as the car rumbled onward? The absurdity of the situation intensified your feelings of frustration and urge to strangle the individual responsible for this. Did they really have to put you in the front passenger seat as well, so that every other driver stopping alongside the car during a red light would only need to lift their heads and see a lunatic taking a plant out for a drive? For a being said to be omniscient and beyond comprehension, they certainly weren't shy to demonstrate the extent of their very much comprehended stupidity.
You hoped they heard that. You hoped that despite being in the state that you were reduced to, their sensitivity allowed the misfortune of hearing you broadcast your contempt.
The golfer only occasionally glanced at you, their accursed gaze strained against the bright, morning glare on the road. Save for the untimely rattle of their sports equipment against the window glass, the trip thus far had proven uneventful and uncomfortably silent.
This, you thought, was fitting behaviour expected from a God like them. Though you had threatened the golfer, they remained unfazed, unwavering. They seem to be so well-adjusted to their chosen body, yet they only ever use their hands to be washed in blood, their feet for charging at the enemy. The face, the expressor, was a blank slate of indifference, if only ever creased upwards in a show of noncommittal melancholy not dissimilar to a mother's frown. Disappointment, perhaps, but even that was a shallow, if not outright vapid guess.
Patronising feels much more accurate an offense to justify your ineffable rage.
All deities carried a sense of collected facade with themselves, you included, given control and authority over the world was part of the package, but this asshole did not even seem as though they thought of anyone else but themselves a God. Down this line of thought, you were increasingly agitated. There was nothing you could realistically do about it, however, so your leaves droop, wishing you would shrivel up before they reached whatever destination they were driving towards.
Are you even listening to me? Have I been talking to myself this entire time? Hello? You fool!
As expected, there was no verbal response graced from the golfer. This was starting to feel like a recreation of a secret, untold circle of Hell. You had exhausted every ad hominem in your arsenal, every eloquent phrase that spelled doom and promise of bloodshed if you ever got your old self back. This thing was about as considerate as a rock, not once reacting to anything you've said for the last thirty minutes of the trip. You had been screaming furiously when they first loaded you onto the vehicle, but yelling had gotten you nowhere.
You cannot expect to keep this up. Say something. Do something with that suit of flesh of yours. Anything. Your idiosyncrasy is irritating.
The car slowly rolled to a halt as the traffic at the intersection ahead shifted to red, watching as they mechanically jerked the handbrake up after setting the gear to neutral. It occured to you that they likely had possessed multiple, different bodies in the past for them to have been familiar with the mere act of driving. For every moment you had been scheming and planning your next step to take the world, this creature had been moving around right above you in a borrowed vessel, performing their little, showy march. You looked at them, really taking in their appearance instead of mentally scribbling their face out bloody, and if you had been a human, like all of those lesser minds you relied on, you would have believed they were fully human too.
None the wiser - you couldn't have known.
The slightest fault would be that their eyes were far too distant and odd to be viewed as ordinary. Eyes. The hammer to the illusionary wall they had constructed upon themselves. Human eyes did not rest their sights at anything with a twinkle, a shine like that in them. Like two stars shining in the abyss, pristine with a quiet, pulsating ferocity.
Right. There was a myth you heard once, a long time ago [well, many events did happen along that timeline, a murky blur of words and visions], that this particular creature swallowed the furthest star with the prickliest points. You wondered briefly if that was their rite of passage to the gifts of Godhood, a personal journey that fundamentally enabled every God to be unique from each other. Some were spat into the world, sure, while others like you were birthed to answer the desires accumulating on the living shore. Still, there were statements that contradicted the story, suggesting quite the opposite: that they were born into existence from a collapsed star. Either possibility was intriguing. You looked at them, and saw that those eyes were now set on you.
If eyes were the windows to the soul, this creature must have embodied heaven.
You were hopeful for a second that they would, at last, give you a response. Even a one-worded acknowledgement would suffice, would be showing mercy. The golfer reached out a hand, and twisted the knob on the car's radio. A song from the station began to softly play.
They said nothing.
"-In my vision, it's escaping and it's flowing all away...why is it going all away?"
They put both hands back on the steering wheel. One of their hands quietly drummed to the rhythm of the song. That....was the first time you felt surprise while observing a random gesture from them. It seemed a universally human trait to be swayed by music. You just didn't think they were the type of deity that enjoyed this aspect of human culture.
"It's all I know, my memories, it's all I have, if anything-"
The light ahead blinked green, and the trip continued. Only five minutes later, rows of houses started to line the sides of the vehicle. Under the warm, golden yolk of sun, the white suburban neighbourhood pleasantly distracted you from the shenanigans of the being that grossly inhabited your headspace. The cult had started small by visiting places like this, going door to door in offer of their lawn-care services. One of their recruitment advertisements was even shot in these neighbourhoods, and you basked in the pride of that memory as neat barricades of white-picket fences came into view.
Your minute of reminiscence was disrupted as the God stopped it in front of one of the houses labelled with a number 18 postal, and you were almost baffled as they reversed to park the car. With no struggle at all, the vehicle was returned to its rightful spot, the engine plunged with a snap of the keys.
They slowly exited the car, and you could hear them ambling to first retrieve their caddy bag from the back. Slinging it over a side of their shoulder, they then opened the door to your side, and paused.
For a long minute, they just stared. Thinking.
What do you think you're doing? Do not even think about leaving me in this place! You are wasting both of our time.
Much to your chagrin, the cloud-cuckoo-lander of a sorry deity only tilted their head to the side, amused. This was not the reaction you expected to receive after an hour of expending the natural sucrose in your sopping, miserable state. Did they think this was funny? Were they genuinely considering letting you bake under the the sun? Being the twisted, turbulent fiend that they were, you would be damned if they weren't.
But a second later, they bent down, and held up your pot with both hands, not unlike an awkward parent scrutinising their firstborn. Remaining quiet, they shifted to hold you in one arm, leaning you on the crook of their arm as they calmly opened the door to the house.
The external appearance of the house was nothing admirable to you, of course; a flawless stamp of every other pink edged gable and orange veranda bungalow in the surroundings. The only features which turned heads on its deviancy was the lack of any plants in the vicinity of its porch. Or any features, really. The weirdo's neighbours all had some apple-of-their-eye addition to their otherwise bland houses. A new slather of paint half-coated onto the exterior, still in the middle of being fully refurbished, wooden, antique chairs out for display, ornate hearts furled inwards like teeth on the front doors...but whoever lived in this house they were about to enter possessed nothing of that variety. No new coats of paint, no collector's joy, no visible interest in artistic conservation.
It was a painfully normal house, to the point you suspected if it had been newly purchased, thus having retained most of its commercialised identity.
Crack. The golfer pushed the door open as you lamented the last stringent of distaste towards their void of passion, and you peered within. It was pitch black, the insides of the building not remotely grazed by the morning blades of sunlight, shut out by wooden binders which had been let loose in cascades. The light from the veranda carved its way in from the door, an incandescent block jutting into the dark expanse. As a being accustomed to the abyss, though, you could clearly trace the silhouettes of furniture in the close radius. A television in the living room. A vacant kitchen. A few portraits up on the wall. Standard, run of the mill living quarters.
So...plain. So boring.
The God slipped off their shoes, leaving them at the rack on the side. They were wearing a pair of ridiculous blue-black striped socks that touched down onto the tufted mat. WELCOME, it read in a bold serif font, accompanied by the sewn pattern of an olive-eyed black cat pawing at it. You toyed idly with the idea that the deity had indeed been welcome into the home of an innocent mortal, and spun them into a flesh puppet to inherit their will. Phantom hands ironing the eternal drone of the alien tongue down into the feeble, susceptible brain matter. The logistics of it were lost on you - you never had to physically come into the body of a pawn to carry out your deeds. Did they think themselves more benevolent simply because they personally descended from the stars? Because they were willing to lower themselves into a mortal body, a fragile vessel, all to see to it that you would suffer?
Were they laughing at your subordinates' failure despite also being a greater force over the Body?
You and I are two sides of the same coin, you projected, your compassion, if any, is not greater than my own.
No response. Of course. Perhaps the bastard was not as compassionate, but their patience was seemingly boundless. It revolted you, even as your captor set you down carefully, and gingerly fingered their hands along the side of the wall for a switch.
Warm lights flicked on, flooding the living room.
You supposed this was just your new life now, for Gods know how long to come.