Pain. The feeling was coming back into his arm as the world around him enclosed completely in darkness. It was a thick and sad sort of darkness, as if he couldn’t comprehend its true nature and simply settled for seeing nothing. It took him a moment to get himself standing, there was nothing to land on but he remained upright. He tried to swim through the thickness but soon realized that even if he was moving he’d have no way to realize it. It was nice to be able to move his hand again, at least, even if he was probably dead now. His arm was no longer swollen but it was still black and tender. At least he could move it again. It was strange, even in the complete dark, he could see himself clearly, a speck of something in the middle of nothing. The center of the world.

“Strange thoughts, you have… They feel so important. For someone like yourself.” He turned in panic, surveying the impossibly large void. Who had said that? Were they the cause of this? Were they going to send him off into the afterlife? The voice only snickered, the noise sounding as if it was spinning around in his ears. She sounded so beautiful. “Again, with those thoughts… You don’t understand what’s happening. Everything is out of your control, stop trying to understand what has no meaning.” Michael laughed, inwardly. He’d probably have made a mess in his pants already if he wasn’t desperately trying to figure everything out.

If there was something he couldn’t afford to do right now, it was to embarrass himself in front of this sexy-sounding, mind-reading goddess. Damn it, this was no time to be creepily complimenting a voice, whoever they were probably wouldn’t- “Enough! My, this was one of the things I remember about human minds, so… smart but fickle. Not like the angel races, they were quite confident about their knowledge. Though, I can’t say they knew how to use it, haha. Oh, I’m sorry! You’re not magically capable right now, my voice should be more gentle… Look at how you ended up.”

Michael wasn’t sure what he meant until he realized his nose was pouring blood, staining his clothes. A dull thud in his head told him it wasn’t good to continue listening to her, and he covered his ears in response. It was surprising when he continued to hear her wonderful, mocking laughter. “Ears… Haha! Did it sound like I was talking outside of your mind? I have no experience with these things. Wait, let me just-” Something shifted in front of him, and all of a sudden there stood a woman. Blonde and short curly hair on a cute, freckled face, smiling at him with all the purity and kindness in the world.

That’s when he realized it was all a sham. She probably didn’t mean it but she just looked like a slightly morphed version of his ex. The voice was probably shifted to match his tastes, too. That was all types of messed up. If this person knew enough about him to match his tastes then they should have known how much of a soft spot it was for him. His heart lurched as he looked away, not able to respond to the image of a beautiful person in front of- “Stop that! I’m Not a bad being. How was I supposed to know this was going to hurt you? I was literally turning into your favorite person!”

Suddenly he was alone again, whoever the girl was disappearing in a shift of light. Before he could sigh in relief she returned, looking a bit older and with black hair. She wasn’t as pretty as the girl before but it felt much more comforting to be around. Besides, she had her own charm, like someone who didn’t have the time to hang out with someone like him. He stepped closer to get a better look, the hair going over one eye and making her that much more allur- “Jesus, stop thinking like a sleaze… I know you can’t help it since it's the first time you’ve met a godly being but at least try to regain some composure.”

The words she spoke actually synced with her mouth, and for once and Michael didn’t feel his head inflate when she did so. He felt like he could finally speak, though a part of him wondered if it was even worth doing so if she could read minds. “Um, goddess. What’s happening?” The voice came out slurred and quiet, a far cry from what he wanted to sound like. Weird, his mind was going at full blast but his body was so sluggish and weak. Why was that? Maybe it was because of his earlier fight against death. Was he sent here to heal, then? That was probably it, maybe also to be told something.

The goddess stood there, with an impatient frown on her face. “You ask me a question and don’t bother waiting for a response before you fill your head with solutions? Are all humans this rude? I shouldn’t bother trying to hide secrets then, since you’ll probably just dig them up out of nowhere. Ugh, how do the other gods do it? They must have so much experience dealing with your kind.” Michael didn’t respond, if what she said had any weight then it meant that he was really here because he was almost dead. But he wasn’t important, many other people have died before him, most of them a better or worse person than him. Why was he chosen to-

The lady clamped her hands on both sides of his head, shaking him violently and bringing him out of his thoughts. “Stop! Stop thinking! I need to gather my thoughts together before I can explain! Why are humans so incessantly loud!? Stop ruining my words!” He knew better than to push her away, and just let her shake him until he became dizzy. “There… I really need to give you magic veins, having to make you dizzy by force is terribly annoying.” He was still woozy, but the idea of magic was too good for him to pass up… or not. Was not having magic veins able to nullify magic on him?

The goddess snickered at his guess. “At least you’re not that smart… You should have guessed by now that any magic done to you will have you burst open like a balloon…” She stared at his arm for a few seconds before continuing. “Now, hold still… I’m just going to...” She leaned close to him, and for a moment he could smell strawberries. She gave him a wry smile before tapping him on the nose gently, like someone would their lover. It was the most terrible experience of his life. A sudden boom reverberated through his heart as if someone had blown a shotgun shell through it.

He looked down at his chest and could see his heart glowing, through both flesh and cloth. In the second most painful second of his life, he screamed as his heart started beating again. Pressure started filling his veins as viscous, light blue fluid entered his body. It was like when the book had ruined his arm, but this time there was nothing he could do to stop it. He couldn’t just plug up his heart for fuck’s sake… in the pain, his eyes went a light blue, all his senses in the back thought to the searing feeling of his veins morphing into something else entirely.

This was punishment, damn it. He shouldn’t have left his friends behind for a better life. It could have worked out, he was sure of it. His sister would have gone to a fancy college and have taken mom and dad away, away from him and the rest of their family. They could have lived a cushy life without him, without his stupid decisions. ...At least his death would give them a way to really cut themselves off from the rest of the family… The goddess didn’t look impressed. “What a baby. I wouldn’t kill you, silly. I’m a god, and gods are benevolent beings in your universe, right?” She held him up by his head, gently comforting his pale body as the last bits of life left it.

She pouted as she saw his horrified, lifeless eyes. He didn’t go peacefully. “You still didn’t believe me till the very end, huh?” She wryly asked. With a small flick of her wrist, she pulled the soul out of Michael's body. The process made the corpse shake and twitch like mad, but she knew it didn’t matter anymore. After excruciating minutes of slow extraction, she managed to pull it out, the corpse seizing up completely before lying flatly on the floor. The blue soul bounced and shivered in her hand, a small flame still vibrant with the will to live. She clipped it’s flames with a finger and it died down, set in the middle of the black void. “I’ll have to keep you here for a while, hope you don’t mind. It’s my first time making a living… anything.”

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Black, vibrant, living, beautiful, powerful. Everything moved so simply yet in a way he could never truly understand. There was nothing except for her. No, not her, it. A disgusting mass of power, measly contained in the form of a human body. It was a soul just like his own, the difference being his was tainted and feeble, small from years of neglect and abuse. As she hollowed out what he assumed was his body and rearranged it to be more like hers, he watched the ways mana seeped in and out of her. He had no senses anymore, so watching the concept of magic flow was the only thing he could do to pass the time.

It filled her like an engine, forming explosions that constantly brought mana through her. Her soul was the catalyst and it burned brightly as she used monumental amounts of magic for every tiny detail in his body. Was this how magic was meant to be used? He had to take notes, if she was making his body ready for magic then he wouldn’t want to miss this moment. He watched the way she literally burned mana like fuel, burning it to fill the rest of her body in compressed packages of magic. No flow, no grace. Just pure and absolute power.

He saw her look at him with annoyance, probably hinting at him to shut his thoughts up. He couldn’t help it, though. Without his body’s… instincts, he no longer felt so attracted and submissive towards her, which caused his thoughts to race. That along with the raw display of magic in front of him had his brain overloaded with information. With nothing to do but watch, he stayed there, viewing the world basically moving to this terrifying goddess’ will. To believe that gods actually exist… He’d spent his whole life thinking they were just stories to teach people good lessons. He sure was corrected on-

“Of course you didn’t believe in us, your world was one of the abandoned, your humans were too inventive with the magic, it gave them headaches when entire leagues of you would spend decades just to shift a rule that was necessary for your survival. I don’t even know how bad it was since I was asleep for the majority of humanity, but I'm sure just one of you abandoned won’t ruin the world. It’s the other god’s faults for being so stingy with the good ones...” With a flick of her wrist, the magic line between her and the corpse snapped.

Once again, he found himself full of life again. Beautiful, absolutely searingly painful life. Screaming in agony, Michael opened his bloodshot eyes to the world around him. His ears reeled at the sound of his own screaming and his lungs burned at the slightest breath so he forced himself to just a silent whimper, tears pouring from his eyes. Desperately keeping thoughts of murder out of his head, he just waited for it to stop, staring daggers at the only other thing there. The goddess. She just watched him, eyes unblinking and analyzing, and eventually the sensation faded away. He was left with a functioning, normal body again… all except for his arm. The thing was still black and now even had more of a jagged look to it, as if it was intentional.

He turned to the Goddess, who looked down on her creation with smug satisfaction. “Hey, What’s up with the arm? I thought you were going to fix it.” He asked, with a bit more meekness than he’d like. He stretched it and brought it back to himself. it seemed a bit heavier now if anything. The black mark spread all the way to his chest so he really wanted it gone. Her grin went wider and she stepped forward to touch him in the shoulder. He turned away and jumped back, a bit of fire in his eyes. This time he’d had enough of her games.

“Look, you better tell me what’s going on before I start running. I… I can’t fucking deal with this anymore… Please.” His head was low as he kept walking backwards, tears threatening to come out. It was coming, the realization that he had no control in this situation, that she could do what she wanted to him and everyone else and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The goddess had never experienced it before, this was the first created being she’d ever spoke to, let alone created. She didn’t realize what’d happen firsthand.

His mind broke.

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A god, a mortal, fixed between a void [space][home][prison] each at a standstill. The brave mortal faces off against the evil and dumb controlling god with a brave smile in his eyes. It goes on and on until eventually, after an extremely long and mind-numbingly long time the two kept staring some more. And then some more. And then some more. Would the cowardly mortal with his expensive eyes ever learn to accept defeat? Would the mortal come back to most of his worthless senses? Killed by the god in a horrible burning end. There was nothing he would be able to do in the first place. Hide in the streets, hide under your bed. I, god, will reap Michael’s soul. The sun-

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He looked at her, new, simple intelligence in his eyes. A calm but unintentionally intense gaze that showed nothing, a blank canvas. The mind was a whole different section entirely, however, spouting off line after line of incoherent text that could only be considered nonsense. Astounded, she watched on as entire hours passed, his long thoughts eventually overlapping into each other until nothing but a discordant cacophony of sound came from his head. She watched on with interest, not once in her life had she seen something like this. The fragility I the human mind that led to a shutdown in order to protect itself, trying to come up with things in its broken brain to fix the unfixable. The human years were something she had yet to experience fully due to her sleep and she was experiencing their actions firsthand.

Time passed as she listened to his discordant ranting, taking in the information as a dry sponge would water. It was fascinating, tales of dragons and fairies, humans and crimes. Madness and killing. None of it made sense, all the strange thoughts of a human brain desperately trying to fit puzzle pieces where they didn’t belong. Eventually, Michael started repeating himself, however, and the magic soon went away. With a wave of her hand, Michael returned from the deep shell of his subconsciousness, completely unaware of what just happened. She had erased his memory, made sure he'd never once see himself in that pitiful state. He looked around for a second, confused, but went back on topic. “...So are you going to tell me what you’re going to do to my arm?”

“I’m going to make you control the magic you refused that was so forcefully kept there by you. I made it tougher so it wouldn’t explode. Now give it to me!” She replied perfectly, as if on cue. That was incredibly suspicious to Michael. They glared at each other for a few seconds, each ready to fight before Michael reluctantly gave in. Something in his brain told him it was best just to follow along. He stepped forward, hesitantly putting out his arm. “This better not hurt- JESUS CHRIST!” He tried pulling back from the singing pain but she held a vice grip on his wrist. It actually wasn’t that bad, like the tattoo his uncle had made him get, and like when his family had spent months removing it by laser. Only a couple times worse.

It was nothing compared to what happened before, though, and he wasn’t so soft that he’d scream over every little thing. With gritted teeth he watched as the color of his skin started showing through the black, the color forming patterns in the flesh. The pain slowly ramped up until he was clenching his fists, ragged gasps coming out of him as he struggled to stay standing. The pain might have been mind-numbing but it wasn’t bad enough that he was too scared to think. Every curse and swear appeared in his mind, all directed towards the goddess until the pain stopped.

The goddess ran her fingers up and down his new arm, undisturbed. She examined every detail with fervent concentration. A minute passed before she stood back, wiping nonexistent sweat from her brow. She looked at him weirdly, as if he was doing something weird. “Haha… you don’t have to hold back for me, you know? It’s good to release your anger. How do you like the new arm?” She smiled at him, and for a second he had to fight the weird magical urge to smile back. The arm was wrapped around by a snake, with an apple on his shoulder, a red gem in the middle. It went up towards the apple, as if it was trying its best to reach it but it was just out of reach. It looked nice but he really didn’t know how to feel about a full arm tattoo…

The goddess gave a pout after reading his thoughts, “Oh, my god… You complain about everything!” Michael gave her a look of disbelief, he’d been thrown in here for no reason while his brain was constantly being suppressed by some weird magic that kept him satisfied… He had a right to complain… maybe. She just sighed, rubbing her temples as if that magic form of hers could ever get a headache. He knew what was in that shell of a body. “Look, you can’t go back to who you were before. Your body would shrivel up and die if you returned to your old world. I made sure of that.” What she said made his blood run cold. There was no way that was true… right?

She came closer, running her hand through his hair. The action made him feel safe and comfortable, and even though he knew it was just magic he still had no choice but to give in to it. He leaned into the arm, a small smile on his face as his eyes glazed over. “ You have one job to do for me. That is to spread my name across the world. You’ll get more powerful the more you spread my word. Spread the name of Origin as far as you can and try to be entertaining, because I’ll be watching.”

As she stopped patting his head, he felt a bit of self-control come back to him. That this was insane. He wanted to complain some more but the moment he blinked he found himself back in the middle of the long and empty field, his mind clear and working once more. The moment he returned, the moment he was back in the right mind, it finally happened. He finally realized how deep in shit he was. “Oh… this is messed up, haha... I'm ruined.” For a second Michael sat there, dumbfounded. Eventually, he picked himself up and started running full speed in one direction, any place from the book that laid haphazardly on the floor. It wasn’t time to think. It was time to run.