Things returned to normal.

Well, some semblance of that in any case. Normal truly wasn’t the right word for what went on in the lives of gods. No, there was far too much celestial nonsense, strange physics and sarcastic compliments to truly be considered a measure of usual nature. Instead, one might endeavor to look at it from the perspective of those outside the confines of the infinite drudgery of the cosmos, to better understand.

A rock for instance. Nothing in the known omniverses, multiverses or manyverses was more usual to see than a rock (though you might think it would be hydrogen, but you’d be dead wrong). Typicality for a stone would be an unending lifetime of shuffling about a bit, settling from here to there like a wondrously, minute-moving nomad. Average, see? Well, to a traveler, or perhaps a curious toddler, lifting up a rock for a necessary--or even mundane--reason, and using it to full recourse would be a very atypical behavior. The rock may not be acting in its own interests, but it is strung through anyway, perhaps as a smooth trophy or part of a collection of others in similar size and then hurled through the air by trebuchet to rain oppression down on a neighboring settlement that has been surrounded.

Normality, much like a rock, is in the eye of the beholder. Though if you’re holding a rock in your eye, you may be about to lose the siege.

Snooze had found that upon arrival back to her plane, things hadn’t changed much. There really wasn’t much to alter in the immediate vicinity, though she thought that perhaps her favorite lounging stool had been pushed a few feet to the left, but had nothing other than her suspicions to go off of.

That is not to say things hadn’t changed in other more profound areas.

She noticed almost immediately (after the whole stool incident) that there were a few more stars in her sky, and the world itself had seen some geographical developments, though, she had other issues at hand before she could address whatever was going on at a macro-level scale. Fresh wounds and all that.

She felt strange being back in her actual body now. Thinking about it, she’d only felt as though she’d been in her world for a few days, but her body had remained a lot longer than that, even if she wasn’t awake for it. It must have been reactive sensations from occupying a foreign form for hundreds to thousands of years, growing connections over the stretches of time to the point that it was a little disorienting to be in her original body.

But, she dismissed it. It reminded her of the old world, and being absorbed in an engrossing movie so much so that when it ends it leaves one feeling strange, as if suddenly coming back to reality. Her world was that movie and now she was learning how to operate in the real world once again.

Snooze might have ruminated on this and its possible ramifications more, but she knew that there was so much to be done, and lots of information to catch up on. She wanted to dive in as quickly as possible, so pesky things like celestial depersonalization might have to take a turn on the back burner.

First, was the matter of sorting out the Meat-Book, or, Book-Meat… Mook?

Well, that would have absolutely been the first focus for her clarification, but, she realized that it was largely inconsequential. She’d been so busy being disoriented by the familiar-yet-distant sights, sounds, and even… smells, that she hadn’t noticed the two friends had separated by the time she’d come to.

The Book was in its usual spot, it’s large shining leaf hovering above the pedestal and Meat was sitting on his haunches patiently not far away. However, as Snooze noticed them, her Archangel launched at her. She was pushed and landed on her back on the solid ground of the plane with Meat nuzzling her mightily while humming and whistling with good cheer as the beast showered her with affection.

“Hey there, Meat,” Snooze said, trying desperately to figure out a way of standing up with dignity. “I missed you!”

Meat responded with a peal of whistles and happily rocked on his paws.

Once she was able to stand again, Snooze smiled, running her hands across Meat’s head.

“It’s good to see you again, I was worried.”

The Book of Leaf’s display lit up and the familiar text populated.

YES, IT WAS QUITE THE HARROWING EXPERIENCE. WE SHOULD DO OUR BEST TO AVOID ANYTHING SIMILAR IN THE FUTURE.

“Agreed,” Snoose said. “So, let’s start with that weird fusion dance you two did. What was that?”

AH, WELL… IT IS NOT EXACTLY THE MOST COMFORTABLE EXPERIENCE, NOR IS IT ENTIRELY ABOVE-BOARD AS FAR AS SANCTIONED ACTIONS GO, BUT IT WAS NECESSARY.

“I can’t wait to find out why,” Snooze said. “Were you guys playing with magnets?”

NO.

“Glue?”

NO, THAT WAS NO—

“Were you rough housin’ and got stuck? Maybe practicing ninja moves you saw on tv?”

SNOOZE, I’M NOT EXACTLY CERTAIN WHAT YOU THINK WE GET UP TO WHEN YOU’RE NOT AROUND, BUT I ASSURE YOU THAT WE WERE NOT ENGAGING IN HORSEPLAY OR REENACTING SCENES FROM A CARTOON.

“You sound awfully guilty is all I’m saying,” Snooze said, and then looked over at Meat. The Archangel was grinning happily her way.

“So what was it, then?”

YOU WERE MISSING FOR QUITE SOME TIME.

“So I heard,” Snooze explained, stretching her regular old blobby limbs.

WE--ER--MEAT BECAME CONCERNED THAT THERE WAS SOMETHING AMISS. OBVIOUSLY, THAT WAS INDEED THE CASE, HOWEVER, IT SEEMED PRUDENT TO LOCATE YOU.

“Wait, Book,” Snooze interrupted. “How come you didn’t know where I was? I thought you were all-knowing?”

THAT IS INACCURATE. THE KNOWLEDGE CONTAINED WITHIN ME IS TRULY NEAR-INFINITE, BUT IT IS NOT 100-PERCENT. THOUGH, I DO APPRECIATE THE CONFIDENCE YOU HAVE IN MY ARCHIVES.

“Don’t mention it,” Snooze said, then had a thought.

“Well, Meat was there when I passed out. How did I go missing from then on? Something really screwy went on after I took my twenty thousand winks next to the sea.”

The Book of Leaf did not repopulate its display at first, and Snooze had the impression that it was working through something, as it did when she had a more difficult question--or more often-- a series of strung-together inquiries that bordered on maniacal. After a moment, rather than the usual text, a single, colorless circle appeared dead center on the Book’s display. It was perhaps the size of a quarter, or an increasingly worrisome mole on the underside of the arm, and Snooze could see that it slowly rotated in place.

“Uh, Book?” Snooze asked, waving her hand in front of the display. “What’s going on? Did someone trip over your power cable and unplug you?”

She received no answer, and glanced over at Meat. The Archangel was resting calmly, head lolled to the side and breathing deeply as if in the final throes of wakefulness before sleeping.

Well, if Meat isn’t concerned…

Snooze cautiously approached the pedestal, keeping an eye on the display as if expecting it to suddenly leap out at her with a jump scare or ask her to join it’s multi-level marketing team. But, there was no reaction as she got closer.

She wasn’t sure what to do, really, considering this had never happened to her once before in thousands of years, and she was positive this was one of those things that she should have known about beforehand.

I’m going to put a stop to that as soon as possible, she thought to herself. I’m going to learn as much as I can, and then I’ll be the one dangling precious nuggets of partial information over others! New personal character arc, new me.

What a delightfully strange thing to say to one’s self, don’t you think? Snooze had such a way with words.

The pedestal containing the Book of Leaf, if you’d forgotten, rested at the top of a three-stair dais, and Snooze had to climb up the steps to get all-up in the display’s grill. As her foot touched the top of the platform, she heard a gentle buzz emit from within the pedestal, and watched as the circle on the display began its revolutions in a much faster pace. Snooze considered leaping away, as when things in movies did identical actions it was typically the preamble to a massive and expensive CGI explosion.

However, Snooze reckoned that if the Book of Leaf were going to kill her, it could have done so numerous times over the aeons rather than lie in wait until it had helped her find her way back home after thousands of years and springing a surprise attack.

Then again, that could have been the perfect plan.

Instead, however, Snooze walked up and touched the circle.

Instantly, the little god, with nary a word of warning (that she had paid attention to, anyway) was bathed in a soft blue light that came from the active display. She watched as it shifted and the light dimmed, as if degraded photolytically and becoming more substantial . Suddenly, Snooze was viewing a... scene.

As the image became more clear, it was as though she were watching an aerial scene from a very high quality camera. In fact, she began to suspect that what she was currently feasting her eyes upon was more than a reproduction, but a glimpse as if by her own eyes. She saw the sea, her sea on her nameless world--something she also had to remedy, but the sea just the same. Off to one side there was a beach, and on the shore, just barely visible—was Snooze.

Her Avatar body.

She was laying prostrate in the sand and watched as a group of Stonies gathered around her, confused and dismayed that she’d suddenly taken her express flight to Unconscious Town. Snooze realized she was staring at the scene of the crime just after she took her nap, director’s cut, extended edition right after the battle with Perth.

The scene paused, and the Book of Leaf’s text appeared just above the monitor.

SNOOZE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO VIEW THIS IN A MORE EXPEDITED FASHION?

“Yes, please,” she said, smiling. This was a wonderful new development. Apparently her world had CCTV! It was very Big Brother, she mused, to be able to glimpse into the past like this. Or was it that simple? Nothing she had learned so far about the new life--well, that wasn’t exactly correct now was it? She had to remind herself that she had spent far longer as a god than she ever had as part of the regular folk. She amended her own mental assessment of her previous thought.

Nothing she had learned so far in this current life had led her to believe that simplicity was typically the case. A veritable Occam’s razor of self-discovery was not in the cards for her. No, she had found that time and again, she was stumbling through the most unsimple challenges she’d ever had the misfortune of facing. Her newly-acquired surveillance system was just the most recent in a long line of bizarre--and often ridiculous-- developments. She thought vaguely about the spiritual and professional implications of this voyeurism she’d accidentally become engaged in, but decided to push that to the back of her mind for now.

She was in charge, and this would only do her favors in the long run. Besides, she reasoned, she had created this world and its delightful specimen whole-cloth, and it was her duty to oversee the plod of their often uneventful journey of existence. She knew she’d have to come to terms with her strange and awkward feelings of imposter syndrome at some point, and it would be best to make headway now. So, she embraced the notion of being all-knowing and insufferable.

Less Big Brother, and more Big Mother, she mused to herself. Mothers really did get a better rap than brothers when it came to lording over others. Mothers were nurturing, kind, stern at times, but on the whole--helpful and vested in the interests of those they warden. Brothers were merciless devils that wrought fire and hellspawn of pain and torment upon those around them. Yes, there were few things more incongruent with harmonious existence than siblings.

Snooze watched as the text disappeared and suddenly, things were moving much more quickly, as if watching a videotape in fast-forward. She saw a gathering storm, and then lightning striking the ground near her. As the bolts hit the sand, they transformed the beach grains into rivulets of colorful glass. A myriad in varieties, she saw the Stonies buzzing around, celebrating before gathering the chunks of lightning-procured glitter and taking them away. Then it happened again. Seven times total lightning struck the beach less than a few feet from her unconscious body, and the Stonies would collect it, shipping it off to some location she couldn’t see.

Curious, Snooze thought to herself. What is that? Was the lightning drawn to me somehow?

Something resonated with her.

Is that… firerock?

She peered suspiciously at the substance, and found that the colors glistened very strongly, and the Stonies had seemed especially eager to snatch it up and hurry away. She’d have to check on their composition once she was done with this menagerie.

It was at this point where she noticed a staggering Meat appear in view.

“Wait, what’s happening here?” she asked.

The display of text appeared again as the images stopped moving.

MEAT WAS LOSING ENERGY, BEING THERE SO LONG. MUCH LIKE YOURSELF, YOUR ARCHANGEL REQUIRES THE NECESSITY OF ACCESS TO THIS PLANE IN ORDER TO CONTINUE DOING SILLY THINGS LIKE MOVING, RUNNING, AND GENERALLY EXISTING.

“Oh, no…” Snooze said, watching the still image of her collapsing companion.

“What happened?”

HE RETURNED. IT WAS DIFFICULT FOR HIM, YOU SEE. FACED WITH THE DANGER OF IMMINENT DEMISE--FOR THE SECOND TIME, MIND YOU--AND ABANDONING YOU, HE WAITED AS LONG AS HE POSSIBLY COULD BEFORE FORCING HIMSELF BACK. I IMAGINE WEIGHING THE OPTIONS AND PERCEIVING THAT HE COULD NOT PROTECT YOU IF HE WERE TO NO LONGER EXIST.

That tugged on Snooze’s aortic drawstrings. She turned to look at Meat, and smiled.

Protector, indeed.

“Alright, carry on,” she said to Book, and the motion returned.

She saw Meat suddenly disappear in a flash of light, and felt a little sad. She knew that he likely worried she’d never return. When these images finished, she was going to be sure to give him a massive hug, and then another one for good measure.

Then, the sun came up, and went down, and came up, and went down. It appeared as though time was speeding up, and she saw the Stonies construct a sort of tent around her.

That’s sweet, she thought. My little Meatlings were concerned about me getting blasted to bits by sky fire.

The passage of days happened in seconds now. Again and again the sun rose and then sunk below the horizon, and Snooze watched as the Village of Dela began to expand.

The Stonies began fixing up their village and building new structures with which to house themselves. The shelters grew more sound, and they even replaced her tent with some sort of wooden lodge which she found very quaint.

It was a testament to her godliness to know her people and built a tomb for her that largely resembled an outhouse.

Over time, she watched as they made a larger village. The people multiplied and began to design water crafts, carts, more advanced tools and hunting weapons. The wooden structures began to morph into ones of stone, and so too did her sepulcher.

Visitors began to arrive from neighboring villages, and festivals were held. Snooze noticed she could zoom out and in and focus on different sections of her world, and she played with that for a time, tracing specific Stonies along their paths and they lived out their lives.

The curious thing was, her Book of Leaf: Travel Edition was a central feature of the village. An altar had been raised to it, with villagers and travelers alike coming from all around to approach it, almost… worshipping it. In fact, as time went on, her own resting zone was frequented far less often, falling into disarray. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Book’s monument had amassed such a large following that there was hardly ever a time where there wasn’t anyone near it or attending to it.

“Well that feels like crap,” she stated coldly. Her people had seemed to just forget about her, after all she’d done. They’d found themselves making their own gods after those few generations, abandoning her. It hurt.

However…

She couldn’t fault them. They were more excited about the prospect of an all-knowing object of the gods than interacting with her in the first place. Perhaps that was her fault for not revealing herself to them, instead having chosen to mum around under a pretense of “one of the gang, but special.” She sighed.

“Boy, Snooze, you really know how to muck things up for yourself don’t you?” she said aloud. Meat looked at her quizzically, but she shushed him and he lay his head back down.

She moved through the… footage? Life reel? Planet Playback? Anyway, whatever it was, she cycled it forward so she could get to the good stuff.

After a minute of scrolling she stopped, finding a spot that looked like it might yield something that would answer her questions for her. Something was going on, and it didn’t look good. Stonies that were dressed differently than the ones from Dela were storming the place, she couldn't be sure, but it looked like they were from … Kenk, the village on the other side of the continent.

She had surmised that Kenk was perhaps one of the areas that had become the Village of Gens, but that was a guess for the moment. She could cross reference it once she had an opportunity, but for now, she had something more important to attend to: war.

The Village of Dela, and the warriors from Kenk clashed in a dramatic battle, and during the conflict, Snooze could see a shape slip into the building where Snooze’s body lay. She couldn’t quite make out what it was, because one moment later, everything went dark.

“What in the Herkimer diamond?! Book! Did the tape get stuck in the cassette? You know you have to use a pencil to wind that stuff bac--”

THIS IS WHERE IT STOPS, SNOOZE.

“Where what stops?”

THE MEMORY.

“Ah, so someone swapped it out then, guess we need to go sleuthing!”

THERE IS NOTHING TO SWAP, SNOOZE. THIS IS AN ACTUAL MEMORY OF YOUR PLANET, AND WHAT HAS HAPPENED HERE IS NOTHING SHORT OF PERPLEXING.

“Oh, uh…” Snooze began, looking at the display. “I guess… not sleuthing, then?”

THIS IS SHOWING YOU THE ACCOUNT OF WHAT HAPPENED. IN ANY NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCE, YOU WOULD BE ABLE TO VIEW THIS TO A NEAR INFINITE DETAIL. FOR IT TO BE EMPTY WOULD TAKE… SOMETHING INCONCEIVABLE.

“Like what?” Snooze breathed. She wasn’t sure what that would be for something as nearly all-knowing as the Book of Leaf.

I JUST SAID IT WAS INCONCEIVABLE. SHORT OF THE ENTROPIC END TO ALL EXISTENCE, THERE IS NOTHING THAT I AM AWARE OF THAT COULD STOP A PLANET MEMORY. CLEARLY, AS THERE WERE EVENTS THAT TRANSPIRED BEYOND THAT POINT, IT IS SOMETHING ELSE; BUT WHAT, I COULD NOT BEGIN TO ASCERTAIN.

“Maybe the planet just got really drunk and--”

THIS IS NO JOKING MATTER, SNOOZE. WHATEVER DID THIS, DID SO WITH INTENT AND OUTSIDE THE REALM OF NATURAL BEHAVIOR.

“Sorry, when I don’t understand something I tend to do that.”

I KNOW.

“So, how deep of a cut is the… blank space?”

IT LASTS UNTIL YOU EMERGED INTO THE WORLD.

“How long was that, exactly?”

6,477 YEARS, 4 MONTHS, 4 DAYS, 9 HOURS, 53 MINUTES, 11 SECONDS.

“Holy moly!” Snooze exclaimed. “I was out for that long?”

IT APPEARS SO. IT WOULD EXPLAIN SOME OF THE PECULIARITIES YOU HAD ENCOUNTERED.

“Yeah, like the complete annihilation of my poor little Meatlings.”

The Book of Leaf was silent for a moment, something it did with too-alarming regularity lately, as far as Snooze was concerned. But its wonderful little wheels must have been spinning, sputtering and making some modicum of celestial calculation until eventually, it returned with another block of text.

I HAVE FOUND TRACES OF THE STONIE PEOPLE (NGAK) IN NEARLY EVERY SAPIENT LIFE FORM UPON THE SURFACE OF YOUR PLANET, SNOOZE.

“What?!”

I HAVE FOUND TRACES OF THE STONIE PEOPLE (NGAK) IN NEARLY EVERY SAPIENT LIFE FORM UPON THE SURFACE OF YOUR PLANET, SNOOZE. The Book of Leaf repeated.

Snooze frowned.

“I can read, you know,” she said indignantly.

THEN WHY DID YOU ASK ‘WHAT?’ IT SEEMS UNNECESSARY.

“When did you get so literal, eh?”

The Book of Leaf didn’t respond to that, but the true reason was, that after a long time of only having Meat to interact with--six-thousand, four-hundred-and-seventy-seven years, four months, nine hours, fifty-three minutes, and eleven seconds, to be precise-- it had missed being allowed the ability to casually annoy the god that it was tied to.

“My Meatlings are still around?”

IT APPEARS AS THOUGH THEY HAVE… MOVED BEYOND THEIR ORIGINAL FORMS.

“Are they gods now?!”

NOTHING SO QUAINT. NO, THE STONIES WERE ABSORBED INTO THE LINEAGE OF THE OTHER CREATURES LONG AGO. THOSE RACES THAT WALK AROUND, SPEAKING, LIVING, READING, PLAYING AT WAR, ARE THE DESCENDENTS OF THE STONIES AND OTHER RACES.

“But Hal said--”

HAL WAS CORRECT. THERE WERE HOLDOUTS FROM THE EVOLUTIONARY LINE OF THE NGAK. THOSE THAT STAYED ISOLATED, BUT ALMOST ALL OF THEM ARE GONE NOW IN THE ORIGINAL MAKE AND MODEL OF THE STONIE. ALL BUT ONE.

“Wait, so they were, what, bred into the other species?”

FROM AN EVOLUTIONARY STANDPOINT, THAT IS THE BEST WAY FOR A SPECIES TO SURVIVE AND PASS ON ITS GENES.

“So, who is the last one, and how can I comfort them for being alone in the world?”

IRONICALLY, SNOOZE, YOU HAVE MET THE LAST STONIE.

Something clicked into place for her, and she slapped her forehead with exasperation.

“Rekvahn!” she nearly shouted.

CORRECT.

What a remarkably convenient revelation that turned out to be. Some things end up that way, though.

“Aww, poor Rekky. He must have been older than I thought.”

The Book hummed for a moment before responding.

YOU’LL BE INTERESTED TO KNOW THAT REKVAHN IS QUITE OLD INDEED. 6,465 YEARS OLD, IN FACT.

Snooze’s eyes practically bulged out of her blobular head.

“What, but that’s…”

THAT IS EXACTLY ONE YEAR AFTER THE MEMORY GOES DARK. YOU’LL BE INTERESTED TO LEARN THAT HIS PARENTS WERE, IN FACT, FAMILIAR TO YOU. THEIR NAMES WERE ANIK AND PILI.

Snooze felt that there were more important questions to ask at that moment, but her head was spinning.

“So… okay,” Snooze began. “Something happened and shut off the world’s ability to recall anything along that specific timeframe. Whatever that was also happened to coincide with me waking up in my post-battle hangover. Rekvahn was almost born then, and may even have been conceived at that point… So, something seriously screwy is going on.”

DID GO ON, RATHER.

“Ah, yeah, I guess it’s not going on now. Does that mean we stopped it from happening again?”

DO THINGS EVER SEEM TO WORK OUT SO SIMPLY?

“...I’m an optimist.”

WELL PLACED, OFTEN, BUT PERHAPS A DIFFERENT DISPOSITION WOULD BE MORE WISE AT THIS TIME.

“What do you suggest?”

PATIENT SUSPICION. AT LEAST FOR THE MOMENT. WE DON’T REALLY HAVE TIME TO BE HASHING THESE DETAILS OUT.

“What?! Why? What was the point in showing me that if we didn’t have--”

WE HAVE AN INCOMING ARRIVAL.

Snooze jumped and positioned her hands as though she were an expert martial artist capable of leveling ne'er-do-wells with a single chop.

“Enemies?!” She cast a paranoid glance around her plane. Everything seemed relatively placid, and… well, usual. Meat glanced up at her from his repose, but decided that whatever it was that was happening wasn’t interesting enough for him to abandon his relaxation.

NOT AN ENEMY. AN ALLY.

Snooze dropped her arms and gave the display a glare of confusion.

“Explain,” she demanded.

OUR NEW ARRIVAL IS A JOYOUS ONE. ANOTHER ARCHANGEL.

“Another Archangel?!”

OH DEAR, IT APPEARS I HAVE PRODUCED AN ECHO. STRANGE, CONSIDERING I DO NOT COMMUNICATE IN THIS WORLD THROUGH SONOROUS MEANS.

“Alright, smart alec,” Snooze said. “Sorry, I get a little flabbergasted by all the revelations that seem to pile on all at once. There’s a new Archangel, but when do i get to figure out more information? Like, how did you find me, how did the world have an nearly identical Book of Leaf, HOW did you two fuse together, and who the hell is my fourth follower?!”

WE CAN DISCUSS THAT WHILE WE WORK.

“What will we be working on?”

WELL, A NEW ARCHANGEL HAS MEANING. IT SIGNIFIES A NEW PHASE OF YOUR GODHOOD.

“A new planet?!”

NOT QUITE YET. YOU’RE GOING TO BE LEARNING A VERY IMPORTANT ASPECT OF YOUR EXISTENCE, AND IT'S GOING TO TAKE SOME TIME.

“What is this oh-so-crucial new behavior?” Snooze asked, feeling a bit left out of the loop.

YOU’RE GOING TO BE LEVELING-UP YOUR LESSER GODSPELLS, AND…

Snooze’s heart fell. She knew whatever followed that ellipsis was going to annoy the absolute Snooze out of her.

...YOU’RE GOING TO DESIGN AN AFTERLIFE.

Ah, butts.