There are things in life you mentally prepare yourself for, whether you realize it or not. Hearing your loved one tell you they’re pregnant. Receiving the news that a family member doesn’t have long to live or has already passed. Being told you’re fired. Having someone profess their love for you, or their undying hatred. Even finding out you won the lottery. We all imagine, dream or dread these things.

“I’m a what?!”

Being told you’re a god isn’t one of them.

In fact, it’s so far out of our realm of understanding that while one may fantasize about having god-like powers like a superhero or Q from Star Trek, we never really imagine ourselves as actually being them. Which is why my mind is currently trying to process what Rhia just told me. As you’d imagine, it’s not accepting the news easily.

“This is a joke, right? Me? God?”

Rhia sighed, as if she expected this.

“As much as it pains me to admit it, yes, you.”

“I think we’re going to have to go with the longer version. Let’s start out with what happened to me first, and then you can fill in the blanks later. What happened the other morning? Who are you? And where are we now?”

She looked down momentarily, checked the time on her watch, and quietly muttered to herself. I thought I heard like a band-aid, but I couldn’t be sure. She then stood up and walked over to the curtains hanging between the large columns lining the side of the room. She beckoned me over, then flung one of the curtains open. Frowning a little at the lack of explanation, I got up and walked to stand next to her. Looking out the indicated window, I felt my jaw drop. Before me was a gray expanse stretching out in front of me. No life could be seen anywhere in my field of view stretching out to the horizon, which was considerably closer than it should’ve been. A dark sky rose above that with a single object floating in it. A blue, green, and white orb that, until this moment, I’d only seen pictures and video of.

“Wait, is that Earth? That’s Earth, right? Are we on the moon?! How the hell?”

I saw Rhia nod out of the corner of my eye. “It is indeed. The last god felt that the best way to keep an eye on Earth was to be far enough away to actually see it. So, he created a home up here. This is now your home, by the way, so you don’t have to worry about that apartment of yours. Speaking of which…” She took a deep breath, then gestured at a telescope I hadn’t noticed before. “This isn’t going to be easy to tell you. North America should be visible now. I need you to take a look at it. I’ll explain afterwards.”

Pushing down the ominous feeling I was getting, I gave her a sidelong glance before stepping up to the telescope. Placing my eye against the monocle, I had to briefly adjust it before everything came into focus.

Rhia took a step back from John. She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he’d have, she just knew it wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. This was the part that truly terrified her. It wasn’t fear for her personal safety. Nothing he did at this point could hurt her anyway. She was afraid for him and his mental state. She had to inform him that millions died just so she could find him. What kind of pressure would that place on him? It wouldn’t be surprising if it broke him. What she feared even more was him having the exact opposite reaction, or at least shrugging it off. While there were other deities out there that would casually wave off the death of millions as a natural course of events, she desperately didn’t want him to be one of those. The planet they call Venus once had one of those, and it was no longer habitable because of it. Earth needed a savior, now more than ever.

“Please,” she thought. “Show me what I need to see. I don’t want to have to take extreme measures if Inton was wrong.”

I saw it immediately. Hell, you could see it without the telescope, though not as clearly. A large, black spot where Texas was supposed to be. I suddenly flashed back to the other morning. Waking up on burnt bedrock, Ryo half toasted to a crisp, nothing to see as far as the horizon. I felt my eyes widen and slowly turned towards Rhia.

“What the fuck AM I LOOKING AT?!” I couldn’t help shouting the last half of my question. I was starting to put some things together, and just like she’d said when we’d met, I wasn’t liking the answers I was coming up with. I also suddenly realized why the maids were so quick to hustle out of the room with Ryo in tow. They knew this was going to happen. None of this was a coincidence. That green lightning storm. Waking up the next morning to a wasteland. Ryo’s injuries. Rhia being right there when I woke up. Her desire to leave the area before anyone could see us there. I slowly started stalking towards her. “You better start talking fast, woman.”

A momentary look of relief crossed her face for some reason, which only pissed me off even more. She quickly realized what she did and assumed a more controlled expression, although a bit of anguish was mixed in.

“We have done something unforgiveable.” She looked at me, tears forming in her eyes, and then dropped to her knees. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead to the floor. “So completely unforgiveable, but I beg you to hear me out before you make any decisions.” To my surprise, she then manifested her wings, spreading them out fully and laying them out to her sides, resting them on the floor. “If, in the end, you find my actions to be that reprehensible, you may take my wings. There is no greater shame for one of my kind to be earthbound forever more. Even death would be preferable.”

We would have made a powerful image if anyone else were to see it. Me, wearing a toga and seething in rage, standing above this raven winged angel as she prostrated herself before me. The image was fleeting, however, as my mind was on more important matters. I took a deep breath, tried to calm myself, and resolved to hear her side of things instead of acting out in a rage and saying or doing something I might regret in the long run.

“Get up,” I commanded. I took a seat in the chair I had vacated a few minutes ago and gestured her to sit down as well. She did so, nervously, still wiping tears out of her eyes. “Alright, let’s start with the more recent events. Judging by your reaction here, you’re not the one who instigated this, are you?”

Sniffing, she shook her head. “No. That was my previous master, Inton.”

“And was he a god, like you claim I am?”

Again, a negative headshake. “No. He was one of the Risen. An angel so powerful they no longer have need of wings to fly.”

“An angel, eh? That looks like a hell of a lot of destruction down there for an angel.”

“Do you not pay attention to your own mythology?” she asked, scornfully. “Your holy books describe numerous events where angels caused widespread destruction in God’s name. Archangels, I believe you called them.”

I shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me. I’m an atheist. Never put much stock in religion nor the stories they told to frighten children to behave.” Yes, the irony of my current position and beliefs was not lost on me, but I chose not to dwell on them for now.

She nodded, as if understanding something I just said. “Anyway, for the last 4,000 years and change, Inton was watching over your world. Ever since the last deity in charge took off into the universe to ‘find something interesting,’ I’m told he said.”

“4000 years? That pre-dates the big three in practice right now, doesn’t it? So, everything people have been fighting over for the last couple thousand years has been total bullshit?”

“You make the mistake of thinking that people were fighting for their religion. They weren’t. They were using it as an excuse. People fought for the same things they always fought for: land, power, a sense of superiority. We’ve watched countless religions rise and fall in our lifetimes, some come close to getting it right. Others couldn’t be further from the truth.”

I scratched my head and frowned. I really couldn’t stand religion. “Get what right? And how does that leave a hole where my home used to be?”

“To eventually join us in the stars. To live in peace and help each other prosper. That’s why Inton decided it was time to find the heir. He’s tried before in the past. Natural disasters you’ve seen on the news and read about in history books, trying to flush out the ones who couldn’t be killed, no matter what was thrown at them. The numbers for that were higher than expected, however. Humans are surprisingly resilient. Hit them with a flood, they’ll float of there on the hood of a car. Drop a building on them with an earthquake, they’ll find that one hole to climb through. I helped investigate a lot of these people over the last few centuries, and while they were lucky, they weren’t what we were looking for. So Inton decided to make one last attempt. Before you fly off the handle again, let me assure you that he’s paid for his deeds. This last attempt cost him his life.” The look of pure grief on her face as she stated this last sentence left me anything but assured. She apparently cared very deeply for this Inton, and while I can’t forgive the atrocities he’s apparently committed, I certainly wasn’t naïve enough to remark on it right here, in front of her. There was much more to her association with him than she’s telling me right now, but I didn’t see how it would affect the narrative of events leading up to now, so I let her have a moment before prompting her to go on.

She sniffed, shook her head to clear it, then continued. “Inton knew he wasn’t capable of generating the change your world needed to move on from its current stagnation. If things continue as they are, we’ll have another Venus on our hands.”

I held up my hand to stop her. “Wait, what? Another Venus? You mean, like, the planet?” I asked, dumbfounded.

She nodded. “Exactly like the planet. Your kind hasn’t seen it yet, because we’ve made it so you can’t, but Venus is a dead world thanks to that world’s deity not caring what happened to it. He watched its civilizations destroy it through war and pollution on a scale no one on Earth can even imagine. He may have even helped by causing a few natural disasters beyond your biblical scale. Hurricanes that covered an entire hemisphere. Earthquakes that wiped entire continents from the map. It was all one big game to him, and when the planet was wrecked beyond saving, he took off further into the galaxy.”

I briefly recalled many hours in my youth building simulated cities in one video game or another, only to destroy them in the manners she just described. I started to feel bad for all the digital residents during my destructive youth. I’m sure she was reading my mind again, because a small smile played across her lips in spite of herself. Then she confirmed it.

“It’s one thing to do it in a video game. It’s something else to do it to actual living beings. I don’t believe you have anything to worry about.”

“Well, that’s reassuring. So more about this heir, and why they were worth the lives of millions. You’re not going to give me some Spock shit about the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, are you? Because that’s at least three or four states y’all literally wiped off the map to find me, and I can’t imagine anyone would value my life that highly.”

She grimaced. “Actually, we do. The Heir of Gaia is the one person who can reshape the world. Both literally and figuratively. At its current rate Earth won’t be as bad as Venus got, but it will eventually find itself as uninhabitable as Mars.”

“You’re not going to tell me Mars used to be populated too, are you?”

“No. Too cold. It was never a seed world candidate. Getting back to the point, Gaia was the deity who seeded life on Earth. Naturally she played around a bit first. Everyone does. That’s where the dinosaurs came from. Eventually she got bored with them and whipped an asteroid at the planet, just to see what would happen. She then started the process of planning her next big achievement: humans. You see, the deities’ main goal is to have company out among the stars. Some of our races managed to make it, like us angels. We surpassed our planetary limitations and rose to explore the universe with them. Long before Earth had even formed, in fact. Yet compared to the deities, we’re still a young race. Gaia wanted her creations to make it out there as well. She wasn’t as shy as the last deity watching Earth, however. She was down there, in the thick of it, I’d guess you’d say. She helped evolution in her own particular way.” Rhia blushed slightly at this, an odd look on her face.

“By ‘her own particular way’ you mean…?” I had a feeling I knew the answer but seeing Rhia squirm at having to say it couldn’t be passed up.

Sensing my intentions, she glared at me. “She mated with them. By combining her DNA with theirs, she was able to speed along the evolutionary path of humans. Not all of them. Some branches of the tree have died out over the millennia. In fact, most have. Those that haven’t are too diluted to be of any use. You’re an enigma. To the best of my research, your family line doesn’t show any of the characteristic markers of Gaia’s line, yet you do. We’re not sure how that happened. For it to suddenly generate so strongly after two million years-”

“Two million!” I said in surprise. “We weren’t even walking upright then! THAT’S when she was speeding evolution by spreading her legs?!”

“I’ve seen inside your head, remember? Monster girls aren’t generally considered a healthy fetish, you know!” she snapped at me, clearly offended. “You have no place to judge anyone else’s choices in that regard! And why do you think you started walking upright after that anyway?! Can I finish the story or what?”

Holding up my hands in surrender, I leaned back in the chair, ashamed that my dirty secret was thrown out there so easily. Her golden eyes drilled into mine for a second, then she looked away.

“Sorry about that. I shouldn’t be raising my voice to you like that. It’s above my station.”

“No, no. I spoke out of line. I was caught off guard, but it’s not an excuse to insult the one who helped my species along. Please, continue as you were. I can almost guarantee that this won’t be the last time I put my foot in my mouth.”

Once again, a small smile crossed those luscious lips of hers, and she nodded. “Alright, I’ll keep that in mind. Now, where was I?”

“I believe you were about to reveal how you discovered some extinct genetic marker in me, or something like that. I’m still a little rattled by the whole monkey fucking thing, so I could be wrong.” The smile disappeared, and her eyes narrowed at me again. Oops, I thought. Note to self, no more commenting on Gaia’s sex life.

“That would probably be wise,” she said. “Back on topic, we didn’t find anything regarding you. Inton did. As I told you, he was one of the Risen. In fact, he was actually the strongest being in the Solar System until The Event.”

“The Event? You’ve mentioned that before.”

“Yes. That’s what the media labelled it around the world. What happened to your region of the world was so far beyond the human realm of understanding that they didn’t even have a way to describe it. To their knowledge, one night everything was there, the next morning nothing remained. They tried calling it a terrorist attack, and many groups tried to claim responsibility, but no one believed that. A Risen angel’s magic would never be confused for anything human made. There’s no crater, no debris, and normally, no survivors. Just an area without life. Inton told me he sensed a trickle of higher power in your region. Unawakened, dormant. I figured he was going to repeat the Vesuvius incident, or St Helen’s. In the 600 years I served him, I never saw him attempt anything on a scale. When he released me from his service, I understood. He meant for an attack on a grander scale than he’d ever accomplished before. He meant to leave no doubt about the survivor this time. No rubble to hide behind. No debris to float out from a flood on. He meant unleash power your strongest nuclear weapons weren’t capable of reproducing, and he did. The only reason you survived was because of Gaia’s blessing in your genes. They protected you, deflecting the energy wave around you as it vaporized everything in its path. And everyone.”

“And Ryo?” I asked.

“Blind luck on her part. Because she was cuddled up so close to you, you blocked nearly all of the energy that would’ve consumed her. Her injuries were a result of the heat that accompanied the energy wave. Incidentally, she won’t ever face an injury like that again.”

My eyebrows rose at this. “Oh? How’s that?”

“As I was healing her, I borrowed some of your untapped energy to aid the process. As a result, she’s now protected by the same energy that protects you. It’s also considerably lengthened her lifespan.”

“How much longer? She’s only 3 years old, you know. She still has plenty of life left.”

“Well, she probably won’t live as long as you, considering you’ll be near immortal once we’ve unlocked your power fully, but I’d guess maybe another thousand years? Maybe two? It’s hard to tell because I personally have never heard of this happening before. Then again, I’m still young myself, and there’s plenty I have left to learn.”

I gaped. A thousand years?! Maybe two thousand? She’ll be a doggy deity in her own right! And did Rhia just say I’d be near immortal? Just how near are we talking here? I also clicked in on something else she just said.

“I’m sorry, I know this is rude, but how old are you?”

She raised an eyebrow at me. “If there’s one constant in the galaxy that even Earth knows, it’s that it’s rude to ask a woman’s age.”

“Humor me, please? I’m new to this whole higher being thing. You said you worked for… Inton, was it? For 600 years, give or take a decade, I guess. Yet you also said that you’re ‘still young.’ In my personal experience, these two things aren’t adding up.”

“Your personal experiences are pretty much worthless in this regard, if you’ll forgive my rudeness. The age difference between us is considerable. My race has been known to live up into the six digit range. If you really must know, however, next month I’ll turn 823 Earth years old. Compared to my own parents, I’m still an infant. Compared to you, I’m ancient.” She shrugged at this last bit before falling silent.

I sat there and pondered what she’d told me. We’d gone off on a few tangents, but I think I had a grasp of the overall picture now. Earth was a planet seeded with life by some higher being, extraterrestrial, alien, whatever, because their race eventually wanted company out among the stars. Sounds like a poorly written episode of Star Trek, if you ask me, but no one had, so moving on. This higher being, Gaia, helped speed along the evolution of mankind in her own unique way, then… what? She disappeared? Died? I guess it’s not important if Rhia didn’t bring it up. Another being then took over watching over Earth, but didn’t interfere, instead building a home on the moon to, ostensibly, keep an eye on things from here until he took off four thousand years ago. Without guidance from on high, so to speak, humans developed their own civilizations, cultures, ideas, and religions. Instead of practicing the tenants of these religious ideals they’ve laid down, they instead used them as excuses for centuries of war, bloodshed, and oppression. Rhia’s old boss decided this was a dangerous path for the planet and began a campaign to find a new deity, or a descendent of the first deity, to take over and guide humanity back on the path to the cosmos. This eventually led to Inton deciding wide scale destruction was the best option, as only one with divine protection would survive it. Which brings us to now, with me drinking coffee on the moon and millions dead on Earth. It was a lot to adjust to in one morning.

*

Rhia watched John process everything she’d just told him. She tried to respect his privacy in this instance and not read his thoughts, but some of them were unavoidable. As she expected, he was still having issues with the death toll. To find out your life is valued so much higher than so many others by complete strangers can’t possibly be an easy thing to fathom. Laying everything out for him hadn’t been easy. She’d had to relive Inton’s sacrifice again, only this time she had to make it seem necessary and justified, along with the millions that were lost. It wasn’t something she personally believed, but now that they’d found Gaia’s Heir, she had to make the idea stick. If she hadn’t discovered John after The Event, then Inton’s sacrifice would’ve been senseless slaughter. She could only hope that so many lives lost in this one instance paved the way for a brighter future for the planet and humanity as a whole.

As much as John didn’t want to hear it, this truly was a case of the good of the many, all of humanity, outweighing the needs of the few. Thirty million lives to save seven billion. Thinking smaller, that’s three lives lost to save seven hundred. Put in those terms, it seems like a much more logical approach. However, she doubted that he’d want it broken down as such, knowing he’d see it as her cheapening the cost or demeaning the loss of life on a scale never before seen on the planet. He didn’t yet know that such numbers were barely a drop in the bucket compared to the overall population of just this corner of the galaxy, but it would hardly matter to him at any rate.

She looked up from her musings to see him staring at her. His hazel eyes examining her golden ones intensely. She did her best to keep from looking away. Despite her age, experience, and power, she understood that she was on the wrong side of right in this situation. At least as far as he was concerned. She was complicit in mass murder.

“Did you try to stop him?”

The question caught her off guard. She hadn’t expected anything beyond rage while telling the tale.

“Um, not as hard as I should have, I’ll admit. Once I learned the scale of what he was planning, I begged him not to. Not that it would have made a difference in the end. Once he made up his mind, there was no stopping him. Even if I had the power to stop him, he would’ve pressed forward. In truth, the only reason I made the attempt that I did wasn’t to save everyone’s lives, but to save him.”

“Because you loved him.” It wasn’t a question.

She nodded. “Yes. It’s still painful to think about, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try to dig too deep into my feelings about this.”

“I have no intention of doing so. Just clarifying some things in my head. Moving on, did he understand the consequences of his actions?”

“He did. He said he’s played the villain role before when it was needed, and that he’d accept that burden once again.”

John nodded, looking off into the distance. Occasionally he glanced out the massive floor to ceiling window at his home planet, hanging in the sky, until finally he closed his eyes and leaned back in the chair. He was silent for so long that Rhia thought he’d actually fallen back asleep. He startled her when he finally spoke.

“This is going to take some time for me to process. First thing’s first though. Where’s the bathroom around here?”