"Fuck you. You hear me? Fuck you.” A man screamed, roared, his words reaching none. “I look around and see a hellhole. How you could have made this, I do not know. Hear me, I could do better.” Two arms flapped into the air, fists raised. “Do you hear me, God? I am challenging you. If you ignore me it is because you are afraid you’ll lose. If you smite me it is because you know you’ll lose. And if you accept, if you give me the ability to create, I will show you I can create a better world.”

The man looked around. He stood atop one of the many hills which riddled the landscape. A river cut through them all and little boats slowly meandered through it. Nobody was there to hear him. He knew not what to do, so he left. And he began to run. Downwards he went. Quicker and quicker, till all he heard was the beating of his heart. Slowly everything left his mind. And right when he entered a soothing state of oblivion, he got jolted out of it. In front of him, on the road he was running on, an old man appeared. With a long white beard, a robe, and wrinkles on his face, he was the epitome of a wise man. God.

“Did you have to be an old man?” God chuckled. “No, I did not, does it bother you?” Saliva dripped down from the corners of the crazy man’s mouth. Here God stood. In the end, it was not for naught, his prayers had been heard. He could not help himself, but to ask. If God was all powerful then God must be able to look like anything he wanted. And yet he looked precisely like his idea of God, a foolish old man. One who no longer had the will to change. One who was content in his ways, how foolish they may be. One who was blind to all the things that could be better. He knew he had to answer, so he said: “It does bother me. Although what does and does not bother me is of no importance to what I said before. Do you accept my challenge? Will you give me the power to create?” He was baffled as to why such flowery language left his mouth. It must have been the work of God, for he was never so eloquent. God answered and said to him: “I accept, Timothy. The ability to create will be yours. In return, the ability to destroy will forever be lost to you.”

Timothy didn’t notice the fact that God knew his name. It wouldn’t have fazed him anyway, he expected miracles and he got them. Timothy only heard the words: ‘I accept’ before he fell on the ground and lost his mind to the ecstasy that coursed through him. Power reverberated through the air. An unseen force bounced around the area on which Timothy lay. Primal forces of the universe weaved a net and slowly pressed onto his forehead, creating an imprint. When Timothy woke up, God was gone, and all he had was a burning headache and some stone tablets on the ground. He knew already what they said. Those were the rules he had to adhere to. The challenge would start when all the souls on Earth got copied to a new realm. All the souls had to be copied at the same time. He had to create a new world to the best of his ability. In the afterlife, every soul would see the life he had in each world, and would then decide which one was better. The world with the most votes would be declared better. If he lost, he would lose his ability to create, damning him to a life without being able to create or destroy. If he won, he would enter the cycle of reincarnation in his own world. Timothy looked around. He tried breaking a twig. No matter how much force he put on the twig, he couldn’t break it. With no trouble however, he materialized another twig. Timothy had to win. His late dad always told him: “Son, two minds are better than one.” So he thought for a second what to do, and then disappeared.