Chapter 1: Chapter 1 – A God’s Reception

A small stone skipped across the sidewalk, taking unexpected bounces as it collided with the occasional crack or pebble in its path. It eventually came to a rest, only to be kicked a moment later to once again begin its erratic journey onward.

                             

Grayson casually kicked the stone, continuing the cycle as he moved away from the bus stop toward his apartment, his shadow stretching long behind him in the light of the setting sun. As he moved to kick the rock once again, his shoe connected with it at an unintended angle, sending the stone off the path and into the gutter at the side of the road. Pausing for a moment, he stared at the stone before shifting his gaze to where the sun had almost completely disappeared behind the horizon, absentmindedly shielding his eyes with one hand as he took in the view.

 

He let out a sigh before squaring his shoulders, adjusting the straps on his backpack and continuing onward, paying little attention to the world around him until he reached the dilapidated apartment complex he called home.

 

Grayson waved to the old security guard manning the gate and got the usual grunt in response as he passed through. Another sigh escaped his lips as he gave a withering look at the stairs leading up to his unit. When Grayson had signed the lease, he had figured it would be good to get some exercise, but on days like this he always found himself wishing he had found a place on the ground floor instead of on the third floor of the building.

 

Several flights of cracked cement stairs and a good deal of grumbling later, Grayson finally stepped through a door with peeling paint and entered his studio apartment. A flip of the light switch illuminated the cramped space. The only thing of real interest was a line of wooden figures on the dresser. Grayson had carved each of them, though they weren’t anything fancy. He simply enjoyed whittling when he had the time.

 

A jingling sound rang out as he tossed his keys onto a nightstand placed next to a twin bed that took up most of the floor-space in the room. Grayson then fished his phone and wallet out of his pockets, setting them on the nightstand next to his keys. He threw himself onto the bed and stretched before snagging a remote off the nightstand and turning on the T.V. There were things he needed to do that night, but he just couldn’t find the motivation to start on them now that he finally had a little time to relax.

 

Grayson spent the next ten minutes or so flipping through channels without settling on anything in particular. Nothing stood out to him, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to get off the bed and cook dinner or do his homework. It had been a long day, and he figured he could get away with his procrastination a little longer.

 

Without any warning, there was a great rushing of air, and Grayson’s world turned black. A yelp escaped his lips as he tried to come to grips with what was happening. Did the power go out? He wondered, but he disregarded the thought even as it registered. There would be some light, even if the power had gone out. It hadn’t been that long since the sun had set. And that didn’t explain what the sound of rushing air had been. His second thought was far more worrying. Did the apartment building collapse? He began to panic, straining to see anything in the darkness.

 

As he stared out, the unsettling sensation came upon him that this wasn’t just darkness, it was deeper. The more he looked, the more he was certain, until that certainty became reality. This was emptiness. The void itself opened up to destroy him. He knew this with every fiber of his being. Some instinct had awoken inside of him, and it was screaming that he needed to run.

 

Grayson tried to move, but when he flailed his limbs, nothing happened. He was simply floating in the darkness, and nothing he did could change that. He cried out in pure terror, but the sound was muted as he seemed to fall deeper into the nothingness. Grayson’s scream came to an end when he sucked in air to fill his lungs, but it wasn’t enough. He was breathing, but it didn’t feel like he was getting any oxygen. Desperate, he began to gulp in massive breaths, but just felt increasingly light headed for his trouble. Grayson strained for air, reaching out a hand in a desperate attempt to do something, anything to get oxygen into his lungs, but he was just met with the same nothingness.

 

A terrible weakness took over Grayson’s body, his hand lowering slowly as he began to lose himself. Just before he lost consciousness, something appeared at the periphery of his senses, a light in the darkness. It was faint, like a single star in an otherwise dark sky, but it was hope. With all his remaining strength, Grayson reached out toward the light before finally succumbing to the void. In the end, he was still uncertain if the light was real, or just some figment of his oxygen starved mind.

 

***

 

“I AM… SORRY.”

 

Grayson became aware, then stumbled and fell to his knees, as those three words had become his entire existence. Each syllable drove into him like a hammer, seeming to break him down and press into him with every beat. Even after the voice finished speaking, it echoed through the space, the reverberations running through his body.

 

He wasn’t sure how long he knelt there, feeling crushed by the sound, but he figured it wasn’t nearly as long as it felt. Fortunately for him, once the echoes of the voice finally faded from existence, the effects diminished quickly. Soon enough, he was able to stand once again, almost like nothing had happened.

 

Grayson looked around for the source of the sound, half afraid the voice would speak again, but all he saw was a plane of strange white light surrounded by darkness. As Grayson inspected the plane more closely, he was surprised to find that even though its light looked white at first glance, it was filled with different shades of blue from the lightest pastel color, to a dark navy that nearly took his breath away. It was beautiful.

 

The more Grayson looked at it, the more layers of the color seemed to appear beneath. Something at the back of his mind told him this wasn’t how light worked, but somehow this felt both right and natural. And in any case, trying to explain any of the things that had happened to him seemed like an exercise in futility.

 

Grayson was standing in the middle of the plane, his body resting on the light as if it were a solid platform beneath him. Focusing, Grayson tried to remember how he had arrived in this place. Nothing came to him. The last thing he remembered was the void. Fear rose up in Grayson’s chest and gripped his rapidly beating heart.

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Wait! He thought, a horrible realization coming to him. Did I die? Is this heaven? Desperately, he began to look in all directions for some difference in the darkness, for some clue as to what had happened to him. He certainly didn’t feel dead, but anything else he could think up sounded just as crazy, if not more so.

 

After several minutes of fruitlessly searching the plane with his eyes, Grayson tried to explore.

He took a step, half afraid he would fall through the light, but he was relieved to find stable footing beneath him. Picking a random direction he began to walk, but eventually found himself frustrated. At first, it had been somewhat relaxing. While he walked, Grayson took the time to think about what had happened to him. Being able to mentally process first the void, then the voice, and now this plane as he moved had been good for him, but after a certain point he stopped simply processing what had happened, and now he wanted answers. Unfortunately for him, it appeared simply walking in a random direction wasn’t getting him anywhere. After nearly an hour of walking, nothing had changed. The same endless plane stretched out before him. In the end, Grayson was left standing there, waiting for something to happen.

 

This whole experience was wearing on him, and he needed answers, but the only clue he had, came from that all powerful voice. Grayson let out a sigh and let his mind ponder the words that had brought him to awareness. They were the only thing that hinted at what might have happened to him. The voice had said it was sorry, but who had said it and why? Eventually, he finally worked up the courage to ask the obvious question to the words that had affected him so profoundly.

 

“Why?”

 

More light appeared in the distance, finally changing the uniformity of the space. It had the same look as the light of the plane, but it rose and grew with tremendous speed. It was a wave of light shooting through the darkness, getting closer and larger until it completely swallowed up the darkness.

 

Grayson thought about turning to run from the wave, but he realized immediately that it was moving far too fast. Instead, he braced himself to be swept up by the already impossibly large wave which, moments after its first appearance, surged to engulf him. Just before it crashed into him, he closed his eyes, but instead of the impact he was expecting, he was infused with a warmth that seemed to sooth his very being.

 

Cautiously, Grayson opened his eyes only to find that instead of the plane he had become accustomed to, he was now surrounded by the light. Shades of blue swirled intensely under the surface, far more pronounced than when he had first seen them. Grayson wasn’t sure how long he stared open-mouthed into the mesmerizing display before it began condensing into a mass in front of him. The light from all around seemed to flow into that space, becoming brighter and brighter in the process, but surprisingly enough he didn’t need to shield his eyes, or even squint to inspect it. Once again, he found himself feeling that this was natural, though he couldn’t understand why. Nothing about this should have felt natural. On a mental level he understood that, yet his body seemed to disagree.

 

Not long thereafter, the light began to take shape, and Grayson was shocked to see that it was slowly forming into a humanoid body. The brightness began to fade, and details slowly came into place as the light from the wave dimmed. The figure wore white robes and, to Grayson’s relief, looked like a human being. When Grayson’s eyes eventually made out the being’s features through the light, he recoiled reflexively. Although most of its face wore a gentle smile accentuated by the wrinkles and smile lines of a kindly old man, the top right quarter of the being’s head was marred with gray, lifeless flesh. The eye on the dead part of its face was the same dull gray, but it was rolling around in its socket, snapping from one direction to another as if it had a mind of its own.

 

Grayson took a step away from the creature, not only because of its unnerving face, but because of the feeling of pure power it radiated. He halted mid-step though, when he heard the thing chuckle, an amused smile appearing on the being’s lips.

 

“Is it that bad?” the thing asked, amusement clear in its tone.

 

Grayson wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It seemed like a dangerous topic to tread with such a powerful creature. Instead, he decided to ask some questions for which he desperately needed answers.

 

“I… Who are you? Am I dead?”

 

“I am a great many things, mortal,” The thing said, “but you may call me Velos, god of Selenya. I can reassure you that you are not dead.”

 

Grayson let out a sigh of relief before he swallowed audibly, working up the nerve to speak again. This was so far out of his life experience. How was he supposed to act in front of a god? If he said something wrong, would the god simply destroy him? In the end, he decided that there was no real way of knowing, and that he would only be able to learn more by asking questions and noting how Velos reacted.

 

“Where am I, and why am I here, er, sir?”

 

“Excellent questions. Where you are is somewhat complicated, but in short you are no longer on your world, and are now in a space I created. As to why you are here, child, you are here due to a simple accident. A fortuitous event to be certain, but an accident all the same. My power has been… erratic of late. I no longer have complete control over it and because of that, cracks are beginning to form in this domain. Nothing too serious, mind you. They are mended almost instantly, and normally nothing would come of it; however, a curious interaction happened with one of these cracks. To help you understand, I must tell you that I traveled to your domain once. To do so, I formed something of a bridge between my domain and yours. A fracture formed on the bridge, allowing something or someone to slip through. Normally, the god of your domain would prevent me from doing anything of the sort. However, because I had no intent to bring you here, your god did not notice the disturbance, or if she did, it was too late to act by the time she was aware of what was happening. The fracture sealed while you were on the bridge, which left you in the place between realms. Luckily, noticed your floundering in that space, and I was able to help you fully traverse the gap to arrive in my domain. Truly, all of this was incredibly unlikely, but perhaps the universe is simply telling us that you are meant for great things, child.”

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