(5:31)

Today’s subject was the crusades, and like usual, the lesson was continually being interrupted by this one guy who didn’t have questions but just wanted to get those ten percent of participation by repeatedly blurting out useless trivia in the form of questions and theories.

Adam tried his best to pay attention, but he couldn’t help but notice a weird silence behind him and a lack of eraser bits being thrown at him. He discreetly glanced at the kid a few seats behind him. Mark was looking at his manual, but it was obvious his mind wasn’t there at all. He had been in that state since yesterday morning, and while it felt nice to have a break, Adam still couldn’t shake the feeling that a big storm was coming.

Spice forced him to turn his head back to the board and forced him to discreetly pinch his own ear.

“Pay attention.” She ordered.

“Sorry,” he wrote in his notebook.

They heard David clicking his mechanical pencil three times, and Adam had to stop himself from turning his head.

“I’ll be back soon.” Spice said before leaving Adam’s head and floating near the boy’s best friend “What can I help you with?” she asked, looking at his notebook, expecting a question about the lesson as usual “Is God real?” she read and looked at him “Well, yes and no. There was a god that looked over the earth, but they didn’t create the universe or humans; they were just a part of the universe that became conscious and decided to use their powers to protect life on earth. Actually, you can pretty much scrap the whole bible and the majority of other holy books too, since the god shown on them is just a revamped or outdated version of this god.” she summed up, crossing her arms and legs and sitting mid-air in front of the boy.

“What’s their name?” he wrote, curious about this god she was talking about.

“Well… My people call them ‘Thy gotrel angel’ which basically translates to ‘the rebel angel’ in English. But some books refer to them as ‘Thy hoteng’ which means ‘the grandparent’”

“They don’t have an actual name? Just titles? What do you mean by ‘angel’? I thought we were talking about a god here.” He felt confused. Maybe he misheard something? Or perhaps she mistranslated this god’s title?

“Well… I remember once reading in this book that they went by Gonflion… But it was a translation of a restoration of a book written in Greek so...” she confessed, “And ‘angel’ is just a word we use to refer to a type of god; it has nothing to do with those little people with wings that appear in the bible and stuff.”

“You guys don’t actually know the name of your god? And if they don’t have anything to do with the angels in the bible, then why are they called ‘angels’?” He was feeling lost and frustrated now.

Spice closed her eyes and rubbed her temples for a few seconds.

“Ok, let’s back track a bit.” She said, opening her eyes and crossing her arms “Do you remember what Adam told you when you started asking questions about me?”

David rummaged through his memories, and a metaphorical lamp lit inside his head.

“That you’re from another planet?” he remembered.

“Yes, and the people of my planet only found out about earth millennia after they started calling the angels 'angels' at the angels' request.” she clarified “The most accepted theory historians have is that when Thy gotrel angel began talking with humans,  they must have identified themselves as an 'angel', and these humans must have misunderstood them as an entity working under 'God', rather than a god themself. Understood?”

He nodded.

“Ok. That out of the way, my people don’t venerate them; we venerate the overseers. Six gods Thy gotrel angel created when the ice age made Thy gotrel angel realize how fragile life was. They were originally designed to protect life on Earth, but now they protect life in the whole universe.” Or at least were supposed to... 

“Why? Couldn’t they have done that themselves? Why did they have to create the overseers?”

“They weren’t all-powerful, David. Or omnipresent, for that matter. They had the power to copy and paste, and that was it. So they had to create other gods to do what they couldn’t do, from stuff that already existed, like metal and science.”

“Why do you follow the overseers but not the god who created them?” he wrote.

“Simple, because Fauna, one of the overseers, created my people. He also created all the fantastical creatures in the world, like werewolves, vampires, etc.,” she said, bright-eyed and a little excited.

“Does that mean that he also created people like me? What about dragons? Did he also create dragons? Are dragons real?” he scribbled excitedly. God… He could believe it. Werewolves were real. Vampires were real. And now that he thought about it, he was talking to the ghost of an alien from a species of humans with wings and horns… Why wouldn’t werewolves and vampires be real?

“Yes, he created 'dragons'.” She half-joked, with an amused smile, seeing the light in his eyes “But he didn’t make soul tamers. If I remember correctly, you guys are just the result of a genetic mutation that happened around 2 million years ago. Basically, this mutation triggers a slow metamorphosis of sorts in your bodies and causes them to adapt to see ghosts and stuff.”

“Ok. But that still doesn’t explain why you don’t follow the god that created the overseers. Is it because they didn’t create you? By that logic, you should only follow Fauna and not the rest of them.”

“Well, Fauna was indeed the one to create us, but the other overseers also help keep the universe up and running, so they also deserve to be venerated.”

“You make it sound as if their creator doesn’t do anything.”

“And they kinda don’t, actually, no one has heard from them since… well…” She pointed at the board behind her “That.”

“Why?” David wrote.

“I’m not a historian, but as far as I know, Thy gotrel angel tried to replace the gods humans created to make their world easier to understand, and tried to use their influence to end wars and conflicts of all kinds. But only a handful of humans could see them without losing their minds, even when they took a physical form, so they had to depend on them to spread their message. This, plus their limited power set, prevented them from putting a stop to people who picked their message apart for selfish gain, and they also found themselves unable to protect those who believed in them. So, Thy gotrel angel fled in shame and heartbreak, never to be seen again. Some even think that they might have killed themselves...”

David didn’t say a word and blinked while letting go of his pencil. He took a deep breath and put his head between his hands. Was this what Friedrich Nietzsche meant when he said that God was dead and they had killed them? What the fuck, man... God was fucking dead, and they drove them into suicide...