Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
“So, you and your… friends,” I said, not knowing how else to put it, “you’re part of the whole Christian religion, right?”
“Up until a few weeks ago, we thought we were part of the only religion. Apparently, that was naive of us. Fuck, for all we know, all the other gods and goddesses exist too.”
I was having a hard enough time wrapping my head around what we knew for sure was happening. I wasn’t sure I had the mental capacity to add any more major players into the whole scenario yet.
“I was looking into all the so-called natural disasters going on. When I called my father, he mentioned them. I don’t watch much TV, so I really didn’t have any idea. It’s like everything I told you is happening. Almost all at once.”
“And we think it is just the beginning,” Bael said, exhaling hard.
“If I know anything from studying the gods most of my life, it’s that you’re right. They won’t stop. Not until they are being worshipped again. And I hate to think the kinds of things that will happen to people over this.”
“That the gods will hurt?” Bael asked.
“Yes. But also no. I think as it starts getting out, and some people start believing and worshiping, it is going to do what religion always does.”
“It’s going to set people against each other,” Bael concluded.
“Exactly.”
Human beings had an almost perfect track record for letting their beliefs come between them. It tore apart families and countries and entire empires. It waged countless, unending wars. It stoked prejudices.
And just when it seemed like society was finally starting to accept that there were other religions and they could coexist pretty harmoniously so long as people weren’t forcibly trying to convert others, they were going to get the old gods thrown into the mix.
“Do you have any faith in your kind?” Bael asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “We don’t have a great track record with this sort of thing. Do you?” I asked, seeing as he’d been alive much longer than I had if he was immortal.
“Not a fucking bit of it,” he said, making my brows raise.
“Some people are smart.”
“Maybe the occasional individual, sure. You, for example. But all of them? No. Not a stitch of fucking faith in them. It’s going to be a nightmare for a couple decades. Maybe even a century.”
And he would be around to see it all.
“I’m sure you have more questions,” Bael said as I sat there, staring at the flames flickering in the fireplace, lost in my own swirling thoughts.
“Do demons… hurt humans?” I asked, not having been conscious of wanting to ask that until the words were out of my mouth.
“Some do, yeah. Can’t really possess them or eat their young if they don’t hurt you.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling my stomach twist.
“Not us,” he clarified. “We weren’t made for that.”
“You literally punish people in Hell,” I said, rolling my eyes.
“We punished bad people. People who hurt other people and shit like that. We would be no better than them if we did the same.”
There was a certain sort of logic there, I guess.
“I saved you, didn’t I?” he asked, his voice soft, making a shiver course through me.
He had.
He’d saved me.
Then carried me. Held me. Taken care of me.
“Doesn’t that go against your nature? To save, to take care of people?”
“Yes.”
Yes?
That was it?
“I need more information than that,” I said.
“You’re asking me about shit that, at the time, I didn’t understand either. You’ve gotta get this. I don’t have any love for humankind. Ace and the others who have been here longer, they’ve developed a sort of fondness, or at least respect for you. Me? Not so much. All I see is the evil shit you all do to each other, and the petty shit. The selfish shit.”
“That’s fair,” I agreed. “But humans do good things too. Sometimes it takes really terrible things to happen for them to remember that is what we’re supposed to do. Like with all these ‘natural disasters’ going on. All you see is people rescuing others, offering services, opening up their homes even to them. There’s good people. People worth saving.”
“Maybe,” he said, shrugging, unconvinced. “But that wasn’t really the point. I didn’t save you because I heard a random woman screaming. I saved you because I heard you screaming.”
“Because you needed me,” I concluded.
“Not in the way you’re thinking. Not to burst your ego, babe, but you’re not the only expert on the myths in the world.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “Then I don’t get it.”
“Alright. To understand it, you have to understand that, fundamentally, we are different creatures.”
A vision of wings flash across my mind.
“Yeah, I think I understand that.”
“I don’t just mean physically. Or our immortality. I mean that we experience things different. We don’t need to eat or rest. We do it, but we don’t have to. We don’t feel shit like your human guilt or empathy. And we sure as fuck don’t feel affection or love like humans do.”