Chapter Six (Part 1)

cw: mild gore

When the god realm was first created, the light came first. Idris sprung from the soil of paradise as a fully formed dickhead. With him followed the light, and shortly after, the dark.

That’s where I come in. I popped up from the soil of what would eventually come to be known as the venomous forest, also fully formed, and alone. I had a certain amount of knowledge already given to me by the universe, but it wasn’t much. I knew my name, Rook, and that I was the god of darkness and death, neither of which were really seen as bad things at the time. Darkness was the nighttime, the time of rest. Death was the eventual end that came upon all things, as was necessary for the balance of the world. These are the things the wind whispered to me as I dug my way out of the ashy soil like a fucking zombie. It told me that I was beautiful. That I was necessary. That I was loved, so very deeply. And I believed it easily, trusting it completely.

It whispered one other thing to me, before leaving with a cool whisper against my new skin. It told me the name of the only god who’d come before me. Idris. I knew he was the god of light and creation, and I knew he existed somewhere out there.

The only trouble was finding him. When I explored my surroundings, I found enemies in everything. The trees cut me with leaves that made my skin burn. Vines and grass sought out the blood I shed, eating it greedily. The juicy, vibrantly colored fruits made me vomit until I coughed up blood or gave me a fever and hallucinations. One fruit made me slowly sicker and sicker, a horrible pain growing in my abdomen until thin branches tore straight through my gut and out of my skin like it was paper.

That fruit was the worst. Seeing the plant’s spindly green branches, dripping with my blood, emerging from my abdomen was probably one of the most scarring things I experienced in the early days. I lay struggling to breathe on the forest floor for days on end, hoping for the growth inside me to stop on its own, and when it didn’t, I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands.

I grabbed the thin branches sticking from my gut, steeled myself – and pulled, as hard as I could. The scream I let out sent birds and other creatures scattering. Blood and tissue came out attached to the growth, splattering to the ground in a sick, wet mess that made me want to heave, but my stomach had quite literally just been yanked out, so only blood fell from my lips. Thankfully, the growth was in the early stages of implantation, so while it ripped a hole in my gut, it hadn’t spread anywhere else.

The only reason I didn’t die right then is that I was a god, and my healing ability was faster than that of other creatures. It still took most of a day for the hole to close up enough for me to move, and another week before I was able to eat again, although, after the last experience, I found I had little appetite.

Needless to say, I avoided that particular fruit after that.

I continued on my journey to find Idris. I wasn’t entirely sure why I needed to find him, but he was the only thing I knew in this world other than myself. The universe had thought it important to tell me about him, so if I found him, maybe everything would make sense. Maybe he would know how to deal with this forest where everything seemed to be trying to eat me, even the grass.

I traveled the forest for about a month before I started to lose hope. I hadn’t seen any sign of Idris, and I needed to create a base to return to at night. I needed shelter. But I also didn’t want to waste time building a home. I wanted to find Idris. No, I needed to find him. Everything I’d seen of the world so far was scary. It was violent, bloody, devoid of warmth. Idris was the god of light, of creation. Surely, he would be warm. Surely, he would be kind. He would save me, I was certain of it.

Maybe he was looking for me too, I thought hopefully, side-stepping the greedy clutches of a Bone Eater tree. Maybe we’d been circling around each other this whole time. Shouldn’t I stay in one place to make it easier for him to find me? That thought renewed my hope, and I searched for a good place to build a temporary shelter. I wandered for a couple of days, looking for a safe spot, but that was the thing. There was no such thing as safety, not in that forest.

Eventually, I stumbled across a very large, black rock. It was oddly shaped, with a trapezoid shape at the bottom, rising into a series of cresting peaks, like a small-scale mountain. I stayed a good few feet away from it. If there was one thing I’d learned from the past month in the forest, it was how to be cautious.

The rock was made of some sleek material, so shiny you could almost see yourself in it, except that no matter how I tried to look into it to see what I looked like for the first time in my life, I couldn’t see myself. I could see the trees and bushes behind me, but not myself. It was odd, but I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time, more concerned with figuring out if the rock was going to kill me somehow. Everything tried to kill me. A rock, though not alive, was no exception.

I stepped closer to it hesitantly, waiting with bated breath for something to jump out at me, or for my skin to start itching and peeling off. But nothing happened, and eventually, I grew bold enough to rest my hand against the rock.

Immediately, a horrible shrieking filled my ears, alongside frantic whispers and desperate pleas, and all at once it was too much. I stumbled back from the rock, landing on my ass and breaking the connection. I breathed hard, sweat forming at my temples to slide down my face.

…What the hell was that? It sounded so…agonized. My heart pounded so hard inside my chest that it was shaking my slender frame. It hadn’t seemed to harm me physically, but touching it was like touching ice, and it felt like my soul was being dragged inside.

Soul, I realized slowly. There were souls inside that rock. They were in so much pain. The exact reason for the rock’s existence came to me all at once, as if the wind had whispered it directly into my head. And maybe it had.

The rock was damnation. It was a prison, a place for the corrupted, evil souls to go when they died.

But how could there be souls in there already, I thought, bewildered. Was the world not brand new? Surely nothing had died yet. Surely not. Idris would not allow it.

The answer to that question came slower as if the universe was reluctant to give too much away. It whispered that the rock was empty of souls – for now. What I’d heard when I touched it was the echoing of an empty prison, a prison that would be filled all too soon. I was hearing the torment yet to come. A sickening promise for future inmates.

Chilled to the bone, I fled from the rock. I didn’t want to think about the fact that people were going to suffer in their afterlife, even if the universe decided that they deserved it. I may be the god of death, but I was not the god of torment. Death was change. Necessary change even if unwanted, but I was not the one who would punish them. That was the job of the universe. Or at least, I hoped it was. I wouldn’t wish that job on anyone.

I wanted to get away from that rock. I was so cold inside after touching it. I wanted Idris. Why wasn’t he coming to find me? Where was he? How do I find him?

It was as I was thinking this that I came across the first truly beautiful thing I’d seen in this evil forest. It was like a large silver coin embedded in the ground. I saw it glimmering from half a mile away, so still and smooth, reflecting the world around it.

It was a pool of silver water. When I touched it, hesitant as I was with all things, it felt thicker than the other water I’d come across. It didn’t hurt me when I touched it, and it didn’t seem like there was anything living in it.

I leaned over it, trying to get a look at myself, but all I saw was the sky peeking through the canopy of trees.

…Where was I? Shouldn’t I be able to see myself? I picked up a rock nearby and held it over the water, waving it around. I watched as it looked like a floating rock was waving around in the air, and tilted my head, confused.

How odd. Maybe something was wrong with this water. Or at least, that’s what I told myself, but I felt uneasy, like something was very wrong. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to leave that beautiful shimmering pool. Thinking that I might be able to drink some of the water, I tried to cup some in my palms, but it all ran out like it was magnetized to itself, pouring over my palms and through my fingers like it was running away from me.

Well, I couldn’t drink it, and I couldn’t see myself in it. What could I do with it, I thought, irritated. It may not be poisonous, but it may be worse – useless.

Hmm. It had been a while since I last bathed. I had a hard time finding water that was safe to bathe in around here. Some water made my skin raw and red. Some had a paralytic effect, leaving me struggling to keep my face above water enough to breathe. One pool of water even melted the skin and tissue right off my finger when I stuck it in curiously, leaving me with the bare bone for another week before it regenerated.

But this water hadn’t hurt my hands. Maybe it was safe to bathe in. And I felt particularly disgusting still after touching that rock. It would be good to rinse off.

I considered stripping my clothing off, which at that time, was just a single black robe, now dirty and torn, but decided against it. The robe had been the universe’s gift to me when I was born. It was the only thing I truly owned, a silky black material that tied around the waist and fell to my calves. It didn’t do much to protect against the cold, but it was something, and it was very dear to me. Once, when I’d stupidly gone into the paralyzing water to try to bathe, I’d left the robe on the ground nearby, and some kind of hideous shadow creature had come by to steal it.

The shadow creatures were exactly what they sounded like. They looked like living shadows, misty and dark, but they didn’t have a defined shape. It was like someone had stuffed a bunch of random animals into a bag and called it good. The only clear thing about it was its eyes, glowing green orbs with no pupil.

The shadow creature thankfully hadn’t been all that interested in me, most likely wary of the water as well, but it had been interested in my robe. It snuffled at the material with gross snorting noises before picking it up in its mouth – or what I assumed to be its mouth – and taking off, possibly to use it in a nest of some sort.

Panicked, I had fought as hard as I could to get out of that damned water. I eventually had to use my mouth to grab onto a nearby vine, nearly shattering my teeth and tugging my head and shoulders onto the ground. After an hour, I regained feeling there and managed to wiggle gradually out of the water. It was still a few hours before I was able to walk again. After that, I spent the next day tracking the shadow creature down to get my robe back. I’d had to kill three of the things before I was able to retrieve it, now torn in several places.

So yeah, I was a little wary about leaving it behind. But it was fine, I could get myself and the robe clean at the same time this way. With my mind made up, I slowly slid into the pool of silver water, clinging to the shore in case I was wrong and something vile was living inside it, waiting to snatch up an easy meal.

But nothing happened. A bit more confident, I let go of the ground, wading deeper into the water – only to yelp as the water pulled me right under. It closed over my head before I could take in a deep breath, leaving my lungs to burn. I tried to swim up, paddling desperately, but it was like something was sucking me toward the bottom of the pool.

After what felt like minutes, but was probably only a few seconds, my legs flailed fiercely as they came out into empty air, rather than the mud-like consistency of the water. The rest of my body followed soon after, dropping gracelessly to the ground.

It felt like I’d been sucked of all my energy. My breathing was labored as I lifted my head weakly, squinting at the bright light that was surrounding me. Was this another part of the forest, I wondered?

It appeared to be flat and clear of trees as far as the eye could see. Soft green grass cradled my body, and I waited for the grass to start slicing at my skin to get a drink of blood, but it didn’t move. And that scared me at first. Was the grass dead? Why wasn’t it moving? What had happened to it? What new hell had I landed in where the grass was dead like this?

I struggled onto my hands and knees and nausea struck me suddenly. I vomited into the unmoving grass, grimacing. It was mostly blood. I had discovered after killing the shadow creatures that while their flesh was like eating tree bark, their blood was perfectly safe to drink, and filled my belly at least. Now, whenever I came across one, I ate it.

There was a faint squeak to my left and I looked up through bleary eyes that were watering from how bright everything was. I was used to darkness, to shadows, and my sensitive eyes couldn’t handle the sunshine here. When I squinted through the tears, I saw…a person.

A person?! I gasped and shot up, forgetting my weakness in my excitement. I crawled closer to him eagerly, and he shot to his feet, backing up and looking absolutely terrified.