In the Hall of Gods

Elena was in her office when the gods called upon her. Documents pertaining to her most recent client were stacked in neat piles on her glass desk. She read them one by one, taking time to let the details sink in. The small things mattered in court, especially in a nasty eviction case like this one. The family had come to her in complete desperation. They were willing to give her their life savings if she could save their home. She refused the offer, of course. Their case would be handled personally by her, pro bono. It sounded fun, like a stretching of her legal legs. She was confident she could help them and that calmed the couple down. Her confidence came from her process. If she stuck to her ways, the case would turn out. Her ways were the exact reason she hadn’t noticed how quiet her building had become. 

The silence finally struck her when she realized she could hear the paper wavering in her hand. She set it down on the “read” pile, tucked a lock of curly, oak-colored hair behind her ear, and stood to investigate. The door to her office felt heavier than normal. It required a genuine effort to open. Luckily, while Elena wasn’t visibly muscular, she was deceptively strong. The door swung open into a long marble hallway that used to be a carpeted room filled with cubicles. Trying to find the furthest end of the hall made Elena dizzy, as it seemed to go on forever. On both walls were painted fantastically ornate murals of men and women battling massive monsters. The ceiling wasn’t as solid. It was made of flowing white clouds from which rays of golden light sprouted. 

Elena stood stiff for a while. She rubbed her eyes, hoping the friction would wipe away the insanity in front of her. Up until this point, the world was very easy for Elena to understand. This, however, she couldn’t wrap her mind around. Her office felt safe, so she tried to retreat into it, but the heavy door slammed shut before she could. Elena didn’t venture to open the door again. She knew what she was being told to do. With one shaky foot in front of the other, she walked into the hall.

That single step was interrupted by a new presence beside her. Elena swiveled toward the cold hand that grasped her shoulder. In front of her was a man completely drained of color. He was tall and dressed like a butler. He held himself upright, but every line on his body seemed to droop towards the ground. This included the grimace printed on his face. Just looking at him made Elena depressed. Somehow, although she’d never met him, she knew his name was Fredid.

“Good morning, Miss Elena,” he said without a hint of joy. “I was sent to bring you to my masters. Follow me and I must warn you not to stare too long at the walls. This art wasn’t meant for mortal minds.”

Fredid turned on a dime and continued down the hall. She walked a few steps behind him, keeping her many questions to herself as he didn’t seem the type to give good answers. For a while, they didn’t seem to make any progress. Walking down an endless hallway was akin to walking on a treadmill. Then, as if they’d abruptly passed through an invisible barrier, Elena and her escort were in a vast room that would put most football stadiums to shame. 

The arena was a perfect circle that they were somehow already in the center of. This didn’t concern Elena much because she was too busy gawking at everything around her. The room’s ceiling was the same cloud material from the hall. The walls were built with ornate gold, leaving pockets for even larger portraits of the bejeweled warriors from the murals. Elena stood on a raised dais that brought her to about a third the height of the entire room. Surrounding her was an endless sea of thrones. Each was completely unique. Several were alight with flame. A few looked more like bird’s nests. They held nothing in common except that they were all thrones and none of them were occupied. When the majesty of the arena began to wear off, its intense emptiness became the dominant attribute. 

“Please sit, Miss Elena,” asked Fredid. She turned to find a golden throne behind her. It looked plain compared to its surrounding siblings. Upon sitting, she realized the room wasn’t as empty as it looked. 

Between blinks, three floating beings appeared in the air before her. Their names appeared in her head as if she’d always known them. The one on the left was Eronid. She wore a long gown made from a material that mimicked the flow of a waterfall. Her face was constantly shifting between the important women in Elena’s life. On the far right was Albhor, a distinctly male figure whose every muscle protruded to a disgusting degree. He wore only a well-placed shadow that hung over his genitals. The middle being was Indeel and the hardest to make sense of. They didn’t seem particularly male or female. They had breasts (bare and quite large) but a bulging Adam’s apple. A mask with no mouth or nose and a soothing pair of emerald eyes covered their face. Most striking, however, was the completely mundane pair of jeans they wore. Albhor began speaking like the five of them had been in conversation all this time. 

“Elena Markov, daughter of Timothy and Rayne, wife of Teresa, mother of Alan and Carly.” Albhor’s voice was impossibly deep with a hint of exhaustion. “You’ve mastered the art of mortal legality along with many other skills including rugby, cooking, and poetry. Your greatest desire is to bring out the best in as many mortals as you can. Is all this true?” 

Elena was too stunned to respond. She had never put any thought into her greatest desire but this being seemed to know it as if it were in her Instagram bio. “I-I’m sorry, what is all of this?” She said, finally. 

“You have no right to ask questions of us, you—” 

“Albhor, quiet,” said Eronid. Her dress transformed from a waterfall to a flowing field of grass as she turned to him. “Elena deserves an explanation before we begin examining her fitness.” Eronid’s voice had a melodic quality to it without the sense that she was trying to sing. 

Both beings turned to Indeel, who lowered their head towards Elena in response. Their eyes glowed as their form dissolved into a thick mist that enveloped her. She felt that she would go completely mad if she took her eyes off the glowing, now floating, jewels. The mist soon took on colors and details, becoming very similar to the paintings from the hall. The brilliant orbs Elena affixed her attention to faded into the background of the image coming to life around her.

It at first appeared like a Jackson Pollock painting in motion. Swirling clouds of colored essence intermingling with one another. They soon began to curve around a single point that grew larger and larger, becoming the eye in the center of this godly hurricane. This was Earth; Elena understood that somehow. The environment changed to the planet’s surface where the multicolored tendrils imbued the world with oceans, continents, and plant life. A red tendril formed itself into a man while a blue one became a woman. They pulled out pieces of their essence and made smaller versions of themselves. The newly created species constructed a society, from which a green tendril sprouted. Time flew by as humanity conquered the world, but as they did so, the tendrils began to thin. Soon the tendrils began to fade away, until only the blue, red, and green remained. The tendrils formed themselves back into Eronid, Albhor, and Indeel before Elena realized she was back in the arena. 

“Now, Elena, you understand our plight,” said Eronid, but Elena was still confused.

“So…you created humans, and we somehow killed all the gods but you?” Elena asked.

Albhor let out an exasperated sigh. “Humanity was not intended to take the amount of power over the Earth that it has. Once Indeel was born from your creation, we realized the mistake we made. You, mortals, took ownership of the Earth and the aspects my sibling gods represented. You diluted their godhood and killed them.”

“Why not just…” Elena hesitated for a moment. “Smite us? You’re gods, isn’t that your whole thing?”

Another grunt came from Albhor, but Eronid stopped him with a calm hand. “We made you with our own essences and took you as our aspects.” Elena instantly understood. Killing humanity would kill them as well. 

“So, what do you need from me?” she asked. 

The three gods looked at each other, but it was Eronid who spoke. “We want you to join us. My siblings and I are building a new pantheon to guide humanity into the future and we want you to be part of the newest generation of gods.”

Before Elena could respond, the three gods pointed their palms at Elena. Shining chains of light sprung forth from their hands and cocooned around her. The change was instantaneous from her perspective. She grew over a foot. She now wore a blazer that was made of fire. Her skin changed from milky brown to golden. But the physical evolution had nothing on the earth-shattering change that was omniscience. Elena knew everything in an instant. At first, it was a pain unlike she’d ever experienced, but her godly mind quickly grew numb to it. Her body no longer felt like her. It was more like a puppet that her much larger and amorphous self was controlling. She screamed and the entire room shook.

“You can’t just do that!” Elena roared with power that made even Albhor flinch. “I don’t want to join you!”

Confusion broke over the trio’s faces. Even Indeel’s mask bent in misunderstanding. 

“You don’t want to be a god?” Albhor asked. “I thought that’s what every human strived for.”

Elena shot up, now floating at their level. “You created us, but you don’t understand us,” she said. “You gave us the world and then got angry when we took it. That’s not how this works. You can’t force us to make up for the power you gave up creating us. In time, humanity may join you here, but you must let us get there ourselves. Otherwise, it’s all artificial.”

The gods stared at her in disbelief. Elena’s omniscience included them so she knew that they thought this would be an easy sell. She also felt a well of sadness deepen between them. A cough echoed below them and Fredid floated up. 

“Shall I escort Miss Elena back to the mortal realm then?” he asked. 

Eronid, now wearing a storm cloud dress, nodded. Elena realized her godhood was gone when she couldn’t tell what the goddess was thinking. Fredid touched her arm, and they were back in the hall. The stroll felt longer this time as the opportunity she’d passed up on sank in. Before she knew it, they were back at her door, but she needed one more question answered before she could return to her normal life. 

“Fredid, if those three are the only gods left, what are you?”

The monotone man’s body didn’t shift at all to imply that he was thinking, but he stood silently for a moment. “You are not the first mortal they’ve asked to join them, Elena. You’re just the strongest.”

As she walked back into her office, Elena caught a glimpse of something no one would ever see again: a small smile on Fredid’s face.