You’ve never heard of me. You don’t know my name, and you have no idea what I look like. Despite all of those things, I am perhaps the most powerful human in the world. That was part of the deal. I get all the power, but I can’t have the fame. And honestly, I was fine with that. Who needs fame when you can do what I can. Fame is a small price to pay. If you were offered practical godhood as long as you didn’t tell anyone your secret would you reject it?
How then can I write this story?. Honestly, who would believe it? This story is posted in a place full of fantasies and dreams. If I manage to hold your interest until the end then I think you’ll agree with me that it is quite unbelievable. A quick explanation of the deal: It wasn’t a deal with the devil, as some of you may be thinking, but rather a deal with Gods. Stick with me, all will be made clear.
I was living in Arizona at the time, having just finished school, and was doing my part to contribute as a functioning member of society. I worked, paid my bills, went out on the weekends with friends...all in all a very normal life. That day, I came home, opened the door to my apartment, set my keys down and began sifting through my mail.
“Mine....Mine...Kristel's...Mine...Krist...”
It was at that point I became aware of someone in the room with me. I glanced up and noticed a figure sitting in my living room. I jumped around, “Oh SHIT!,” I had to take a moment catch my breath, “You scared the hell out of me man.”
“You..whew...are you a friend of Kristel's?” I looked around, expecting to see her in her room maybe or in the bathroom. The apartment was empty, the lights off, the only sound besides my labored breathing being the soft whir of the air conditioner. I looked back at him and he shook his head with a slight grin on his face. I took a point to really study him.
It was hard to judge his height because he was sitting down, but he looked to be at least as tall as my 6’ 1”, and very lean. He had short blonde hair in a spikey punk fashion that looked to be tipped with red and was wearing sleek looking black sunglasses that seemed molded to his face and a black leather trench coat. I saw deep royal blue shirt on underneath with black pants and some type of animal skin shoes that gleamed faintly in the dull light of my living room.
“Okay...who are you then?"
“Why don’t you sit down Stephen, we have things to discuss.” He gestured to the love seat sitting near the couch.”
At this point I began to get a little worried. I wasn’t wanted by the law, I had no criminal dealings (well I cheated slightly on my taxes that year, but I don’t think the IRS sends punk looking agents to break into your house and wait for you to get home and audit you) and I could think of no one that I might have pissed of enough to have someone sent to my house.
“I’m not sitting down until you tell me what the hell your doing in my apartment. Wait...as a matter of fact, get the fuck out of my apartment.” I reached behind me and pulled my butcher knife out of my knife block on the kitchen counter and spun around pointing the knife at him. “Now.”
He just shook his head and clicked his tongue at me.
“You’re making this much harder then it has to be mortal.”
What did he say? Mortal? Who talks like that.
He stood up in one fluid motion and faced me. He didn’t move like anyone I had ever seen. If a viper could get up and walk around, it would be something like the way he moved. Almost like he didn’t have bones, but his body was just a fleshy shell for fluid power. He pulled off his sunglasses, sliding them into an inner pocket of the trench coat, and all thoughts of the knife were gone from my head. All thoughts of everything were gone from my head.
His eyes were silver. I don’t mean silver contacts or maybe a grayish color, but silver. They glimmered in the dim light like pools of living mercury. He had no pupil, no iris, no cornea just a gleaming silver from eye lid to eye lid.
“Now put down your little knife before you cut yourself and come over here and sit down. We need to talk. I’ll not say it again.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I found myself too terrified to speak.I felt his power crash into me like a physical thing. It’s an impossible feeling to truly describe unless you’ve been in the presence of a God. Any strength or confidence in your own abilities completely evaporates and you’re left with an overwhelming desire to crawl into a corner and weep and pray for the emptiness of insanity. That might give you some idea of what I mean.
The knife fell from my hand and clattered to the floor and I started walking towards the love seat almost without realizing I was doing it. I dropped heavily onto the cushions and he flowed back into his seat and studied me with his metallic eyes for a moment.
“That’s better. Now tell me, what do you know of the Gods?”
That was completely off the wall. It took me a moment to collect myself enough to speak. I wasn’t totally sure whether or not I had just wet myself. The stranger waited patiently.
“I...uh..God..he uhh...well Jesus and Mary, the Devil. I don’t really go to church anymore. I used to be catholic, went to catholic school, did the alter boy thing but I never paid that much attention, I always got bored.
“I didn’t say God, although I should have expected as much from you. No, I said Gods, plural. In particular the Greek and Roman gods. Surely you studied it in school.”
“Well yeah, I guess. Zeus defeated the Titans and fucked anything that walked right? Hera was his wife and was always getting jealous and killing his girlfriends and his kids or something like that. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, Poseidon, god of the sea. Umm...Hercules. I used to watch that show every once in awhile. I saw Clash of the Titans once.” I looked at his eyes again, swirling and shifting in his head. “Are you...you’re a god?”
“Darn, did the eyes give me away. Happens every time," he said, with a sarcastic smirk. "Yes, I’m a God. I’m surprised you know that much about us. You people are so ignorant of the world and confident of your own beliefs these days. Why should you even bother knowing of the past and of those who came before you. Still your limited knowledge gives me something to work with.”
“But that’s just mythology, it wasn’t real," I stuttered. "You...you aren’t real. Are you?”
He held his hand in front of my face and I watched as it glowed blue and what looked like electricity coursed around his fingers and across the front and back of his hand.
“Look real enough to you?”
I just stared, wide eyed and nodded. ”Uh...why–”
“Why am I here? I’m here because you’ve been chosen by Zeus to receive some very special gifts. Since I am the designated messenger I’m here to give you these gifts. You will be practically immortal for all intents and purposes, along with all those godly powers you always hear about. Unless you want to refuse. I don’t advise that by the way.”
Well how does one respond to that. You suddenly find out that all those gods you read about in history are real, one of them is in your living room bearing gifts from Zeus, and you are the benefactor. Shit on me. Maybe I was having some sort of hallucination brought on by heat-stroke. The desert can do that to you. Still, the best I came up with was:
“Seriously?”
