𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖆𝖎𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖘 𝖒𝖔𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖋𝖆𝖍

Only a fool believes the Gods and if you figure out how to fool the world, you can become one.

That's all there is to religion really, flaunting your power for so long that it begins to speak for itself until you eventually no longer have to prove it because once enough people believe in you, the people that don't will be seen as fools.

It's all about the eyes.

If you can get eyes on you, then you're already half-way there, seeing is believing and once you have people watching you, you just have to find a way to keep it that way because if they like what they're seeing they'll soon start to follow.

Following doesn't always mean literally, you want devotion but not obsession. A good follower is someone who will defend your power in front of people who were not there to see it.

These people are important, you might be loud, but your message cannot be heard by every ear. You need someone who will write what you want to say down and hand it to the deaf.

Second-hand believing.

That's how you know you got them, when people follow you blindly and, in a way, those are the strongest people you'll get. They didn't see it but are willing to trust you, anyway. These will be your favorite fools.

The new God's were impatient, they came from nowhere and instead of making demands, writing books or touching hearts, they simply let us see. Eight displays of unimaginable power in exchange for one ticket to the top of the food chain.

They didn't wait for us to believe in them or love them. Instead of allowing us to show them glory, they built their own. Seven temples for all the Seven Gods that demanded we bowed to them now. Each rising from the ground in strategic places, location's that nobody could ignore.

Ylphine, Goddess of beasts and Witchcraft claimed the Appalachian Mountains.

Tetelus, God of Earth and Nightmares, took the Amazon Rainforest.

Devulla Goddess of War and Wisdom, rose in Alexandria in Egypt.

Oxysus Goddess of Arts and Emotion stole the entire city of Ahmedabad.

Zixaris God of Chaos and Death, built a temple somewhere in the middle of the Russian Tundra.

And Rhimos God of Water and Weather, had an underwater temple at point Nemo.

The last one was a bit harder, after weeks of sinking cities and millions of dead people with buried homes we were sure the dust had settled, that we were all finally safe. Then the last God showed themself.

Everywhere all over the planet, streets were beginning to turn gold. From dust roads to pavements lined in concrete, a metallic shiny substance began to slip through the cracks and create larger ones in its wake.

And it was everywhere.

This was Seotl, Ruler of Justice and Time, and this liquid was their blood—the blood of the Gods. And just as it was everywhere, so were they.

It was comforting almost, in an age of blind faith and a lifetime filled with worshipping the unknown, that we now had Gods we could see, hear, and feel as easily as digging our nails into the dirt and pulling out our fingertips dipped in gold.

The Gods were alive.

Until they weren't.

From a young age, I knew I wanted to be recognized by name alone.

Appearances were cheap, my looks would fade, and my face would be forgotten as the human mind could hardly even remember what the barista who gave you coffee that morning looked like. Fame from looks alone would not last.

But my mind? Even dead, it would live forever.

I had to make my mark, be remembered as one of the greats who would be mentioned in classrooms and studied from years to come. Unfortunately for me, I was too late to discover light and too early to conquer planets, so I was left in a gray area.

And everyone knows, when in doubt, pray.

When the God's died, the earth went black, the shimmer they left on the streets darkened to a color that was no longer mesmerizing and now served as an inconvenience to shoe soles everywhere. It almost became annoying that they were ever there.

Their massive shiny new temples, once revered and visited, started to crumble as if they'd been standing for millennia. Prayers that they'd previously answered, and mysterious miracles dwindled until suddenly, they were just like every other God.

Divine and disappointing.

The hope they'd bloomed began to dwindle, and someone had to act fast. That someone was a man whose name has already been forgotten, but not his idea. He built a temple for Seotl, something to honor them and show them praise.

And as a final offering to the God's on the day of its opening, he split his palm open and let his blood drip into a fountain of theirs.

This became the first blessing.

Now, after almost three decades, a few more people gaining a taste of the power of the Gods and a few thousand people dead, we've finally got the hang of things. It turns out, picking the person who gets blessed is kind of important.

Important enough that you have to sign up, get tested, interviewed and tried before you even have a chance of stepping foot in the temple of Seotl. But I don't blame them, choosing who gets to play God for a couple of years is kinda a big thing and they got it so right the last time they're only more confident they picked even better now.

Cherubim Jawahir.

My closest friend in the world and the girl whose application I filled out after I snuck her birth certificate out of her parents' house. It was kind of hard to stay mad at me after she got invited to the first interview.

But now that all seemed like it happened decades ago because it was the night before her ceremony. A couple of hours before her life changed forever, and 'big deal' was merely an understatement.

I laughed at the look of horror that washed over her face as she was dragged away from me.

Her fingers clung to mine, but I loosened my grip on her hand, allowing the crowd of cheering people to completely take her off. Our classmates were relentless and before she knew it she was at the center being handed a shiny bottle of champagne.

I chanted her name along with the rest of them, my voice getting drowned out by all the others, but it didn't matter. My best friend was getting blessed by the Gods tomorrow.

None of us were meant to be here, curfew had ended about three hours ago, but we were all excited, rich, and fifteen. I'd approached Curtis to help me plan the whole thing, one of the most well-liked people in our year and known to throw the best house parties around.

And not for no reason.

He had it all; parents who didn't care about him and a full stacked pantry filled with alcohol we all couldn't pronounce. In fact, I suspect he'd been sober for a total of fifteen minutes in his entire life.

He didn't seem too keen on helping me put together the party but relented after I offered to pay for it all but honestly, I think he only let me do it because he knew if I wasn't coming neither was she.

The reason the party was being thrown in the first place.

Even now, I could see her frantically shaking her head and trying to pass the champagne off to someone else, a wide and nervous smile on her face. I could read her lips from here. 'I don't know how,' she kept trying to explain, but no one seemed to be listening. They kept chanting for her to pop the bottle, and I found myself joining them.

A giggle left her lips as she began to fiddle with the lid, her black hair falling in her face. I'd helped her tie some golden tinsel in it so it caught every bit of light that came from the large orange bonfire in the middle. She pinched me when I made a joke about her going blonde, she still wasn't too keen about the change and believed she wouldn't be able to pull it off.

I thought she'd look good in anything.

"For you," someone pressed a shot glass to my chest, causing my hands to shoot out and catch it before it could be spilled all over me.

"Oh, I don't drink," I laughed, trying to hand it back to them, but when I looked up I frowned, "Hey do I know you?"

"Do I know you?" The tall, tanned girl laughed in my face, "What is that a bad joke V?" I blinked in surprise at her saying my name, "Delilah? I'm in your literature class?" I eyed her up and down, there was absolutely no way this girl was in my English class, much less a chance that she was fifteen.

She pushed the shot back towards me, "Take the shot loser, Curtis asked me to hand this round out for Golden Girl over there's bottle popping," She gestured to her empty tray before jutting her head in the direction of Cher.

I tried to make a genuine laugh rise out of my throat but I couldn't stop my mind from rejecting the idea that I knew her, "Yeah, I understand but you should probably give this to someone else," I argued, "I'm her ride home."

She jutted her hip out and put a sassy hand on it, "What, you can't take one shot for your best friend's special night?" She scoffed and flipped her hair before sauntering away, "Someone's jealous."

The snide accusation struck a nerve in my body and I resisted the urge to follow her to defend myself. Instead, I turned my gaze back to my best friend, who'd finally gotten the grip right and was now pointing the bottle away from her and the crowd.

It's just one shot anyway, right? Cher won't mind.

Without looking, I took a deep breath and brought the small glass to my face before throwing the liquid into my mouth before I could think twice about it. A metallic burned my tongue, and I gagged slightly, okay, that wasn't that bad. "Can we have a countdown for Cher!?" A voice shouted over the crowd.

"Five!"

Is alcohol supposed to taste like that? It almost tastes like that time I wasn't watching where I was going in the third grade and fell down a flight of stairs, breaking my front two teeth.

"Four!"

I brought my hand up to my mouth, another gag rising up my throat. Well, I guess I'm never doing that again.

"Three!"

A dizzy feeling had my vision going blurry and I looked down at the shot glass that was still in my hand, a quiet gasp leaving my throat as I examined the contents.

"Two!"

Not believing what I was seeing, I removed my hands from my lips and examined my fingers and just as I'd seen on the inside of the shot glass, was there too. Gold.

"One!"

A loud pop rang through the air but I wasn't paying attention, I'd hunched over into myself and before I could stop it all the contents of my stomach came rushing out of my mouth. The loud pop that followed left a ringing sound in my ears, only worsening with the loud cheering that had me feeling like my brain was ricocheting around my skull.

I wiped furiously at my mouth, looking around to check if anyone had seen me, but just as I thought they had all rushed to go get a glass of champagne from Cher, who was still grinning from ear to ear. Looking down at the shot glass I'd dropped, my bottom lip quivered at the gold liquid that was now dripping out of it onto the grass.

That is definitely not tequila.

Walking over to the crowd, I put my hand on the first familiar shoulder I saw and Bonnie one of the tallest girls in our grade, smiled back at me, she leaned down to give me her ear and frowned when I asked her the question.

"Delilah? Pretty sure there are no Delilahs in Mr Russo's class," she yelled over the music before giving me a once over, "You look like shit, Mostafah, can't handle your liquor, huh?"

I rolled my eyes, "I only had one drink, that crazy bitch Delilah just gave me a shot."

She shrugged, her shoulder bouncing again as she gravitated towards the party again, "Well, if you find 'Delilah' ask her how she managed to find more drinks," she laughed, "Because the alcohol finished like an hour ago."

I blinked at the revelation, looking around, and sure enough, no one else was holding a shot glass. In fact, everyone else was holding red solo cups, filled with the bubbly champagne that'd just been opened.

My thoughts were cut off by a body knocking into me, Cher was swift to lift me off the ground. She spun me a bit before setting me back on my feet, her hair plastered all over her neck and a cheek-splitting smile on her face.

She shouted something at me and I tried to hear it, but I couldn't over the sound of everyone else at the party screaming along to a song that felt familiar, but the lyrics didn't reach my ears either.

I found myself looking past her head and past the dancing teenagers to the stools I was just sitting on, trying to catch sight of the small glass I'd thrown to the floor, but it was nowhere to be found.