Chapter 3

  Daan Vanzyn heard the same five bells of the old church toll and echo like he had throughout his short eight years he spent in the Ghaldian capital of Krepki and his classmates made their way to the final classes of the day. The redness of the brick that stacked around and made up the place of worship he walked through stood out against the sea of bland colors of tan, black, white and steel gray that the other buildings in the city had. There were five individual bell towers that stood a few stories tall along the outer walls of the church premises. The bell towers were the easiest thing to spot from a distance in the Ghald city of Krepki, and by far the most important. Churches were considered more needed than food markets or government buildings in Ghald, and Krepki had the oldest and most respected church; one of the few that hadn’t been toppled or portions destroyed due to war throughout the millenniums it had stood through.

  The hallways and courtyards were filled with mostly students dressed in their forest-green school jackets trimmed with checkered green-and-white patterns and black slacks or skirts depending on your gender, and a handful of priests and nuns of either scurrying to their own destination or carefully eyeing the students who may be breaking rules between their classes. Daan felt like a drop in an ocean as he clumsily tried to make his way to class, bumping into people who didn’t see him for his shortened height. He was far from being a dwarf, but he was still the smallest boy in his class, and almost half of the girls exceeded his height as well. And while physical bullying was a punishable offense, it didn’t stop from others treating him differently at times, especially the other guys. They always seemed to treat him as if he were… lesser than them.

  Daan continued to make his way to his final class of the day. He had seen Nadia, the cute lime-green haired girl who sat next to him in History, the class he was making his way to currently. She stood at her locker, trying to swap and put away her books as Daan tried his best not to stare. Her long and unscathed legs had made her uniform’s skirt to seem a bit shorter than what it really was, and her bust was enough to make her shirt seem tighter and a whole lot noticeable for the boys who might have wandering eyes. Even though she hadn’t been talking or interacting with anybody, she was smiling, most likely humming a tune that the noise of the world would drown out. She usually hummed when she was happily day-dreaming, enough to the point that teachers would have to ask her to stop in the middle of class every so often. Her smile sparked a fire in Daan’s heart, making him feel like he could melt into a puddle if he stared at it for too long. It was definitely his favorite physical quality about her. She was definitely one of the few things that made Krepki feel tolerable.

  As he started to pass by her, she looked up and caught Daan’s eyes, and her smile only grew with familiarity. It looked like she was about to give him an afternoon’s greeting if he had remained eye contact, but he broke his stare the moment she looked over, and he nervously kept his eyes away from her when he passed. As much as he thanked the gods for having the ability to see such a gorgeous view of a person every day, it was very much a double-edge sword. As he’d learned over the course of being in Morning Glory, the male’s part of the school of religious academics, any sexual feelings outside of a blessed marriage was considered sacrilege, and all things sacrilege were glutton for punishment. The gods are as cruel as they are kind, and only you decide how their judgment befalls on you. Advice he had learned to follow to the best of his abilities. The last thing he needed to do was fall into temptation.

  Daan’s avoiding eyes had made him look outside the walls of the church grounds, and out into the rest of Krepki. The sky was a dark gray, whether from constant smog and coal fumes combining in the sky or deeply overcast, it was unsure to the public. Almost all days were dark and overcast with some type of clouds, whether natural or at the expense of the pollution the factories had made. And the metallic and bland colors of the surrounding buildings had made Krepki look like a hallow and nearly depressing place to be for an outsider. But most of Daan’s peers, this was the only world they had ever known. It had been nearly a decade since Daan experienced what it was like for the sun to fully shine with enjoyment of blue skies and white clouds that didn’t blanket over the entire sky as far as the eye could see, to feel the wide-open spaces of the countryside he grew up in his original orphanage.

  He kept making his way towards his class, feeling mildly guilty for ignoring Nadia. He didn’t want her to think that he wasn’t interested in her, because that was the very opposite of the truth. But at the same time, he definitely didn’t want her to think he was interested in her, because until they had been blessed by the church to enter an engagement, anything more than holding hands was viewed as extremely provocative and also asking for punishment. And it really came down to who was casting your judgment to know how severely you might be disciplined. Some of the priests and nuns were much more lenient than others, but it wasn’t always easy to tell. Some of the kindest priests and nuns seen by the public were the most savage in sending people to be reprimanded in the privacy of the closed church doors. But even though Daan feared the punishment of what the Church was known to do, his biggest fear was that slipping up with Nadia could mean the plans he had been working toward all these years would be destroyed.

  What was worse was that Daan had a girl who had become infatuated with him over the course of the last year, Yara. He and Yara sat next to each other a couple of semesters ago, and they were continually working on projects together hours into the night until the library, classrooms, or any other public learning facility before they had departed from each other to go to their dorms. Every time they had a study session that ended in the evening, Yara would ask if he wanted company as he walked to his dormitory, and not thinking much of it, Daan usually replied that she didn’t need to needlessly walk him home when she lived just about the opposite direction. After a few times of that, Yara began asking if he would walk her home, and as a proper gentleman, he obliged. Each time they arrived to her dormitory, there was an awkward silence before Daan stated something about how he should head home and not take up her time anymore, and most the time she had shown a forced and crooked smile as she agreed and let him head home. But the awkward pause they shared gave Daan the sneaking suspicion that Yara was starting to grow feelings.

  It’s not that Yara wasn’t pretty; it was the very opposite in fact. While Daan had favored Nadia’s looks, every other guy in his classes seemed to talk about how much they’d like to “punish” Yara in the bedroom and other religious innuendos. Her breasts were fuller than anybody else in the young adult group of girls, and she almost always “forgot” to button the top button of her uniform undershirt, exposing just a peek of her cleavage for the boys to drool over. While Nadia had a warm and innocent smile, Yara had a seductive one that drew more than just curiosity. And yet, while she seemed to be flirty with just about every boy, she had rejected anybody and everybody who had proposed a more serious relationship that could lead towards marriage. She usually said the boys in the school were too hard, callous and dumb to win her over.

  But just last week, Yara had asked Daan to walk her home for old-time’s sake, even though they hadn’t shared a class in about a year. Daan didn’t have anything to do and couldn’t think of a reason not to go at the time, so he felt inclined to accept her invitation. The walk home, she had been chattier than he had ever heard her, filling him in with every detail of how she felt about every class, teacher and student she had been involved with the last year, Daan half-listening. It was at one point that Daan’s lack of interest must have shown too much, because she had stopped talking and drastically changed subjects.

  “Do you like anyone?” she asked, studying his face.

  “What…?” the question had thrown Daan completely off, forcing him to snap back to her with undivided attention.

  “I asked if you liked anyone.” There had been a pause for Daan to reply, but when she had seen that he was still stunned by the random timing of the question, she resumed her thoughts. “I feel like every guy around our ages has asked me out in some way or another, and none of them seem- this might seem, like...conceited, but whatever- they never seemed worthy of me. I mean, look at me,” she cupped her breasts in hands and jiggled them, making it hard for Daan to look away. “The gods gave me such a ravenous body, and all the boys think that pretending to be nice and good is the way into a girl’s heart… or panties, I’m honestly not sure which boys want anymore.”

  “Panties.” Daan blurted out. The way he spoke might have sounded cold or cruel, and he looked at Yara to try and explain that boys were known to be little animals at times and not the fact that she was nothing more than a person to be objectified because of her body, but she was laughing before he could get a word out.

  “See, Daan, this is why I like you. You don’t try and sugar-coat anything just so you can try and have a shot at me. You treat me like an actual person.”

  “Well, if other guys had spent half the time studying that they do ogling at you and other girls in our class, they could learn that it’s more important to focus on what the gods have to teach us rather than the bodies of the women they’ve created.” he said sternly, showing his annoyance while just thinking about the other guys in his class, both for their lack of academic interests and also for the subtle cruelty a majority of them have passed towards Daan over the years.

  “Yeah, but Daan...” her voice grew softer as she took a step closer to him. “It’s one of the reasons that I really like you.” she took his hand into hers, and they could both feel his heart start to pound harder. There was hardly a time when he had touched a female in a familiar way, especially as softly and gently as he had been right now. He could feel the tension of the moment growing, and he was about to interject and try to turn the situation away from the lust he was feeling starting to dawn on both of them. But before he could get a word in edgewise, as if she could sense he was about to reject her advances, she dived in for a full-lipped kiss. The kiss was both unexpected for Daan, but also intoxicating. The scent of her smelled like a sea of roses and peppermint, her lips much softer than Daan would have ever imagined. She had brought Daan’s hand to her right breast and guided him to give a small squeeze. Her soft mound was both firm and squishy at the same time, something he didn’t expect. He seemed to almost have lost all sense of himself until he felt her hand press against his hardening manhood.

  Feeling the slight touch of his marriage-parts was the thing that snapped him back to reality. He gripped her wrist and brought her hand away from him and snapped his groping hand free as he took a quick step back.

  “We can’t do this,” he said, panting and trying to fight all urges to go against the will of the gods. He could see Yara trying to hide the pain of the slap of rejection with a nearly-calm smile.

  “Who has to know?” she attempted to be coy.

  “Me. You. The gods. That’s six too many people.”

  There was an uncomfortable pause as the two stood there for a moment. Daan could feel Yara trying to think of some loophole, some way to convince him that advancing in their passions would be a good idea, and he was trying to conjure all of the scriptures and lessons he had been taught about remaining pure until marriage day to counter any arguments. But Yara had decided perhaps words wouldn’t be enough, and leaned in for yet another kiss, but Daan managed to gently stop her and back away a step.

  “Yara...” he felt bad for denying her like this. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, gods know he would have loved to know what her touch would have felt like if their clothes were to be removed, how she would have looked naked and bare before him, how her moans and cries of pleasure might have sounded. “I have to go...” was all he could muster to say, and he turned and quickly left before he had to face the consequences of rejecting such a good-looking young woman.

  It wasn’t that the situation itself was particularly bad for Daan or his morality. He did what he could do to keep the gods’ words, and his best was all they could ever ask for. Normally he would have gone on about his day without thinking about it too much, or at least keep it a secret that didn’t need anybody else knowing as long as Yara had respected his space and didn’t try to attempt the same type of thing again. But on his walk home from Yara’s advances, he had heard a voice, almost too close for it to be said from a distance, but when Daan looked around, nobody was close enough to be where the voice sounded like it was coming from.

  “There’s nothing wrong with feeling human emotions. Just learn to accept that.” The voice sounded just like his own voice, but much calmer and knowledgeable sounding. Was it something he had just imagined? That couldn’t be, he insisted. The voice was way too loud and clear for it to be something he simply imagined. He had learned through church sermons that sometimes the gods may speak to people to pass on wisdom and understanding, and it could often sound like your own voice only a significantly wiser. And Daan had thought that it might have been exactly that. Perhaps the gods were talking to him, trying to show him their way. But if that was the case, why were they telling him it was okay to indulge in such sinful behavior? From what the church had been teaching him, the gods wanted nothing but purity from their followers. Why would they say nothing was wrong with feeling human? Then a more creeping thought came to mind: the church had also taught him that Daemons and devils had powers to influence the mind if you don’t guard your mind and heart of secular lifestyles. And if it wasn’t the gods talking to him and telling him to do the very things the church has always been against, then what else could it be but the dark side?

  Daan wasn’t going to let the voice bother him too much if it only happened the one time, but the voice had returned a few more times throughout the rest of the week. “Your wife isn’t the real issue.” the voice told him one day as he was brushing his teeth before school. But Daan didn’t have a wife, nor a fiance, nor any female ready to be a prospect of marriage. It was bad enough to possibly be plagued with Daemons and devils trying to take over your mind, but it’s worse when they’re not even harassing the correct person. “You’re being lied to.” the voice told him another time during lunch, and it took all his mental strength to not look around for a person who wasn’t there like the crazy person he felt like he was becoming. He knew nobody else heard this voice based on how nobody at his table looked up to see who was talking. He’d seen what the church did to punish deliberate sinners, but what would they do to somebody who was hearing ungodly voices and possibly be fully demon-possessed? He didn’t like to linger on thinking about such things.

  The final straw was when the voice had told him that, “The Archbishop is not the man everybody thinks he is...” and in a disgusted tone. While the other messages had seemed weird and cryptic, this one was the first one to make any sense to Daan, and it was the one that had made him the most upset. The Archbishop was the very person who had visited Daan’s original orphanage in the country and saw promise in Daan’s academic life and brought him to the capital of Krepki. He was the man who had given Daan a new hope, a reason to live, and a decent reputation. The Archbishop was the man who had given millions of church dollars to help feed and clothe the poor, who organized some of the best outreach missions to spread the word of the gods and bring more people closer to a better spiritual life, the man who had taken in and transformed so many broken lives. If the voice was insinuating that the Archbishop was anything other than the holy figure Daan and the rest of world had seen him as, it was clear that the voice was nothing Daan needed to have kept around and he sought help immediately.

  It was in a shanty confession booth that he tried to explain the voices. He wasn’t sure which of the couple of Fathers he was speaking to, but that was half the point of confession in a booth that shielded the priest’s face. He had told the priests that he had been hearing voices, and that while some of their messages didn’t make sense, they didn’t like the Archbishop and said he wasn’t who everyone thought he was. The priests asked when the voices had started and Daan told him. The priest then asked if Daan was involved in any unholy practices that may have allowed dark spirits to enter his mind or soul. Too ashamed to deny anything, and told the priest of the promiscuous kissing he had shared with Yara. The priest asked Daan to tell him who the girl who started this kissing had been, and Daan felt the need to give him the information. After a pause, the priest had told Daan to go home and pray hard and to ignore any more voices that didn't make Daan feel like his relationship with the gods were building. They thanked Daan and told him to keep the path of righteousness before dismissing him. Daan felt a lot better walking out of the confession booth…

  ...Until about a week later, the present day, because Daan was noticing that he hadn’t seen Yara at all since his confession. There was a two-day period between them making out and his confession session, and during those two days whenever they passed in the hallways, Yara simply stuck her nose in the air, ignoring him while being blatantly obvious doing so. Daan felt a little bad, but the fact he had these voices in his head kept him from trying to talk to her. But the day after the confession she didn’t show up to any of the classes they shared. Nor the next day. Or the next. Daan could hear some of her friends talking about how they hadn’t seen her at all. Some of the guys joked about how they missed the biggest set of tits in the whole school showing up for class.

  The fact she was missing wasn’t a secret by any means, and Daan couldn’t help but feel responsible somehow. The church had extreme interrogation tactics to break your spirit and make you confess your darkest sins. They weren’t shy when it came to violence, especially with public executions that seemed to go on at least once a week. As much as Daan loved the fellowship, community, and sense of togetherness that the Church had offered, it was the punishments that might have given him a bit of pause at times.

  If you ever asked Daan his opinion on the church, he would tell the world of the wonders the Church had done for him as a person. He was thankful the Church found him and took him under their wing from his first six terrible years at the orphanage he was raised in. He was happy to be given an opportunity to learn and grow in an environment where people seemed to care for him and his well-being. He had been given a home, a bed, warm food, and a sense of purpose as well as a brighter future than any orphanage had offered any child. The Church had been his life, his reason for living in the sense of both past and future. But it was the torture and public executions that had ended up shattering Daan’s perception of the church. During his young life in the country orphanage, they were taught lessons of the Svya, but it had always focused on the love and forgiving nature of the gods and how to behave in such a manner. But seeing the swift cruelty of what the church could do made Daan question if this was really the will of the gods, or if, perhaps, mankind had somehow inserted their own human-willed agenda into what was originally holy intent.

  Daan continued to walk down the hall, avoiding Nadia’s gaze as well as he could before he could slip into a hallway that housed his next class. If Yara had disappeared and was possibly sentenced to the brutal ways of how the Church liked to make examples of people, the last thing he wanted to do was get Nadia anywhere near that type of torture by falling for his hormones. If Daan felt in his heart that Yara didn’t deserve to be hauled off somewhere to be interrogated about her sinful nature, Nadia deserved even less.

  Daan continued to move towards his class, feeling a bit nervous in the fact that Nadia sat right next to Daan in their next class. Usually, he would revel in the fact that he got to secretly indulge in his feelings for his crush in a way that didn’t feel forced or awkward. He was able to converse with her without making it obvious that he had any type of feelings for her, which was usually a win-win. But if Yara had disappeared on Daan’s behalf like he imagined, he didn’t want anything else to happen to anybody he knew, especially not Nadia.

  While talking about schoolwork had made him feel like he had a shield to hide his feelings behind, he felt himself starting to overthink the situation. He knew if she were to talk to him, he would most likely babble and stumble on his words, and his stuttering would only cause him to react more stupidly and make him feel even less confident. And if she didn’t think he was a complete idiot by that point, Daan was known to blurt whatever might be on his mind when he got too nervous or felt the need to fill a silent moment, and knowing himself, he would most likely blurt out his feelings for her. It was either that, or complete and utter silence and ignoring anything she had to say to avoid accidentally making her laugh smile; the silent-treatment would most likely drive her away even more. Either way, Daan wasn’t looking forward to his usual delight in seeing his class beauty.

  Daan had seen perhaps half the class scattered around the classroom, some of them chatting with one another, others taking out books and notebooks for the upcoming lesson. The classroom had a large chalkboard that spanned the entire wall length-wise in the area it was sectioned, long oak tables were met with that three matching oak chairs that could fit the students comfortably, each had been spread out in neat rows of three-by-five. Daan took to his chair on the left side of one of the most-central tables, his table empty of its other two occupants. Daan started to gather his books and simply listen to the chatter that filled the room. Daan looked outside the window and imagined how much more appealing the courtyard of the Church would look if the sun would actually make its way through the clouds.

  “Good morning, ladies of Morning Grace and gentlemen of Morning Glory.” a familiar voice spoke, coated in a sugary sweetness that Daan knew all too well was forced. Sister Tanya, one of the older nuns to be teaching at the school, had been a double-edge sword for Daan and his experience with the school. She was a shorter woman, portly and round, but not in a gluttonous manner. Her face etched with wrinkles showing just how many years she had endured, both her laugh-lines and frown-lines were deepened from years of use. A few strands of her gray hair may have slipped free from her wimple every now and then, but it was usually tucked away in such a fashion that Daan wouldn’t have been surprised if he were to find out she was mostly bald underneath. Her most telling feature, or at the one the kids mocked, was her overly-large backside. The students often laughed and said it looked like she was hiding a baby donkey in her black and white habit, saying she had a “donkey butt” or a “literal ass” under her clothes.

  “Good morning, Sister Tanya.” the class responded in scattered unison as the remaining students who weren’t prepared for class began making their way to their seats and coming to an orderly classroom. Nadia sat next to Daan, and he could smell whatever soap it was she washed with this morning wafting through the breeze of her walking past him to find her seat. Their eyes accidentally met, and she greeted him with her casually warm smile, and he did his best to do the same as a courtesy, but turned his head immediately to the front to pretend like he was paying close attention to the class lesson. He didn’t like acting even more distant than they already were as classmates who barely knew each other, but he figured he would like it less if he or she were to be punished for their romances. If Yara had disappeared because of Daan, he knew that the eyes of the Church and its members may keep a close eye on him to make sure he wasn’t the one at fault for the sexual desires that were exchanged that evening.

  “Now,” Sister Tanya started as she saw the last of the students find their seats, papers and pens. She picked up a piece of chalk and started to write on the board in big cursive letters: History Review. “Who would like to help us recap on what we have learned about the history of our four nations starting from the beginning?”

  A few hands shot into the air to be selected, and when Daan had seen who it was whose hands were raised, he couldn’t help but roll his eyes. In almost every single history lesson, there were the same three students who had raised their hand to be called upon for just about every question. There was Aldrin, the top student of the school, as well as the son of one of the bishops who had a lot of influential control over the business of Krepki and their ties to the church. Then there was Jocelyn, the girl who seemed to have something to prove to the world. She had been the know-it-all that got on everybody’s nerves, as well as the tattletale teacher’s pet, making her somebody almost nobody in their class got along with. Then there was Jonah, who’s only goal it seemed, was to best Jocelyn in anything in the class. Daan didn’t know the full story, but he heard that Jocelyn had ratted Jonah out a few years back over something small, as well as mocking him for getting wrong answers in the more recent past, and it was more than enough to drive Jonah to be better than Jocelyn, or at least publicly shame her in ways that weren’t violent or overly petty.

  Of course, as usual, all three of their hands were the first to shoot up, Jonah’s hand only a second after he had seen Jocelyn start to raise her hand. But like almost every other teacher Daan had ever had, Sister Tanya decided to choose somebody who not only didn’t have their hand raised, but looked like they possibly didn’t know the answer.

  “Arthur, how about you?” Sister Tanya called, and the three academic super-stars dropped their hands in defeat.

  “Uh, where did you, uh…” Arthur, a kid who had day-dreamed a good portion of his academic career, rushed through the pages of his closed history book, looking for the place the class might have left off, but clearly not having any understanding that they haven’t started reading yet. “Where are we starting from?”

  “The very beginning,” Sister Tanya’s voice oozing with disapproval in the fact that Arthur was almost never ready for partaking in learning during the course of their study time. “From when the Goddess Sonova first chose our planet of Terra as a place to call home. Can you recall what happened?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, his shoulders lifted in the fact that he was being summoned to answer a question he actually knew for once. But to be frank, just about everybody older than five years old had known this story, making his joy seem a bit underwhelming for those who had tired of hearing the same old story for the millionth time. “So, like... the goddess Sonova first decided to give life to our planet, Terra, sometime around 50,000 years ago. She spent almost ten thousand of those years making mountains and the ocean and stuff.”

  “Right...Stuff.” Sister Tanya repeated, clearly not impressed with his shallow answer nor hiding the mockery in her deadpan tone. “The Holy goddess had spent ten thousand of her years sculpting the mountains and valleys of the world as all of you know it. She hung every tree, flower, and star in the very place it needed to be. And when she was done with it, she was overjoyed to see how beautiful everything was. And what happened next?”

  The same three hands shot up first, but once again, Sister Tanya chose somebody who had raised their hand, but less enthusiastic. She called on a shy girl that Daan rarely ever heard talk in class, Alexis.

  “Well, when Sonova saw all the beauty she made, she became saddened at the fact there was nobody to enjoy the rest of the world she had made for her. Goddess Sonova had started to create animals, and as time went on, the more different she made each creature. But even when the world was filled with all types of animals to swim, fly, and appreciate her world, she wasn’t able to communicate with the animals. They had no full understanding or appreciation for what she had made, and so she decided to take a part of herself and give that part of her body a special force of life. That life would become her first child, and the eldest of the gods to come before her, Adriel.”

  “Correct, thank you, Miss Alexis. And who can tell me what happened with Sonova and Adriel after he was born?”

  The same three hands skyrocketed as quickly as possible, trying to give Sister Tanya no reason to call on anybody else, and yet she did. She selected another young man in the back of the class, Sasha. Daan knew that the three super-star students who kept throwing their hands up were constantly called throughout the semester that even Sister Tanya was getting tired of hearing only those three voices speak up in class, but that didn’t deter them from trying to be picked on all the time anyways.

  “After Adriel was born, he quickly grew and learned from our goddess about what the planet and all its inhabitants were made of and what made them special. But even the entirety of the whole planet couldn’t hold the attention and playful spirit of Adriel, so the goddess decided to make another child, this time female to be made more in her own image. And that is when the goddess Yukina was born.”

  “Thank you, Sasha.” Sister Tanya said before letting him get too far ahead of the story without giving somebody else a chance to answer or be humiliated. Her eyes scanned the room, and Daan knew that meant she wasn’t going to pick on any volunteer, but more likely an unsuspecting day-dreamer. But to Daan’s surprise, everybody in the class seemed alert and ready to answer a question. Granted, it was an easy review, but that’s what made Daan surprised; most of the time easy questions had caused more boredom and daydreaming than the things that were difficult to understand. Reluctantly, Sister Tanya chose Jocelyn from the three intellectual show-offs before they could shove their hands into the sky.

  “Thank you, Sister Tanya,” Jocelyn said graciously, which seemed to pester a number of people in the room. Jocelyn had always seemed overly polite and kind when in the midst of an audience, but every single individual in the room knew that Jocelyn could be a cold-hearted bitch when she was in a small group and things didn’t go her way. She could be vindictive and selfishly cunning and destructive of other people’s lives and reputations in a way that led almost no trace back to her. And if her terrible personality traits weren’t enough to make people avoid her, the fake-politeness she masked was the icing on the proverbial shit cake. Even Sister Tanya rolled her eyes as Jocelyn thanked her for being selected to talk.

  “It was said that after Yukina was born, our goddess Sonova had watched Her first-born son show his younger sister the world and bond through the acts of being siblings. The two grew and learned from each other, as well as entertained each other when the goddess or the rest of the world grew too tired of playing. Adriel was said to have been a tender and loving big brother in the first few thousand years, but Yukina had learned from harsh and cold world that it’s a kill-or-be-killed type world and that there is a time and place for kindness, and a time and place to show people who’s in charge. This sort of edge in Yukina’s spirit had started to cause a rift between her sweet and kind older brother Adriel. The two started to constantly fight and bicker about just about everything, so our goddess Sonova had created a set of twins, a boy and a girl, to help take stress off the older two siblings and foster new relationships to help the family as a whole. But the two new gods, the goddess Martell and the god Doran, had very different personalities as well. Doran was a fiery and overly competitive god who wanted to best his siblings in everything to prove his worth, while Martell was quiet, reserved, and cared more about the inner workings of the world. It wasn’t until-”

  “Thank you, Jocelyn,” Sister Tanya cut her off before Jocelyn had a chance to get into the rhythm of giving the class a sermon on the history of their gods. It was clear Sister Tanya was getting fed up with Jocelyn’s ability to show off her knowledge. “Who else can tell us what happened after all of Sonova’s original children were born?”

  A few of the other hands besides the smart kids had raised their hand this time, and Sister Tanya chose somebody as Daan looked out the window to the gray skies, half-listening and half day-dreaming about the shining sun and bright blue endless skies painted with puffy white clouds he used to see more often in the countryside. It wasn’t as if Daan hadn’t heard the tale of the beginning of life began a million times in the years spent in the church, so intense focus on the subject wasn’t needed.

  “Sonova gave birth to a fifth child, yet the four children didn’t want any more members to be made. They were tired of having to share the whole world with three others, and they didn’t want a fifth child taking up space and attention. So, the very day the fifth child was born, the children of Sonova cursed and hexed the child with what little power they had gained in their young age of gods. To keep the fifth child alive, and also to appease her other children, she had hidden the unknown child in the center of the tallest mountain that lay in the center of the world, casting the child into a deep and eternal slumber until the goddess herself woke the child.”

  Daan stared along the rooftops of the houses that peaked above the gates and walls of the church grounds. While every house in the nearby area had meaning for Daan- a friend or teacher or shopkeeper lived plenty of those houses and the houses in the surrounding area- he could imagine that a stranger to their city would think everything looked the same. He heard Sister Tanya pass the continuation of the story onto another student.

  “For two thousand years, the children seemed to be growing even more restless as they developed powers and abilities of their own. Some were jealous of the powers of their siblings, even when their own ability was coveted by the others. The bond of the siblings seemed to disappear as time grew, and the children started to irritate each other and eventually animosity grew too fierce for the children for Sonova to pretend not to notice. It seemed like the children were about to go to war and destroy each other, until Sonova decided that her children needed to learn how to take care of something of their own. So, the goddess Sonova created mankind for her godly children to watch over and care for. Each god had their own share of land and a million people to teach and love. But what Sonova didn’t consider was the fact that her children may use her gift the wrong ways.”

  “Thank you, Andrew.” Sister Tanya stated as the student wrapped up his portion of the tale. Sister Tanya’s eyes scanned the crowd, looking for another possible victim. Daan stopped day-dreaming, knowing that Sister Tanya could call on him any moment if he weren’t paying attention at all. Sister Tanya seemed almost irritated when it was apparent every student was paying enough attention to not be the nail sticking up to be hammered down. She gave a smirk before she looked at Aldrin, the superstar whiz-kid. “Alright, Aldrin… at what year did the gods and the four nations begin to go to war?”

  Daan would have felt bad if the question was asked for anybody besides the three brainiacs in the class, because it was a trick question that had different parts to answer for the whole question. Daan, as bright and invested in the religion as he was, still wasn’t totally sure he had the correct answer for the question.

  “That depends,” Aldrin started, showing a small, cocky grin while the rest of his face seemed unfazed by the difficulty behind the question. “The Gods’ War Era was the third era after the Creation Era and the Era of Children, when the gods were first born, which happened 22,000 years after the Creation Era began, or, in other words, 23,000 years ago.” Adriel answered flawlessly. As smart as he could be, Daan sometimes found it annoying how cocky he could be. It’s not like you’ve been groomed by the Archbishop and other members of the Church your whole life, Daan thought sarcastically. And it wasn’t that hard of a question.

  “Correct,” Sister Tanya stated indifferently. “And if you could indulge us with what happens at the start of the war… or should I say wars?”

  “The four children of Sonova were granted humans from their Mother to give love and knowledge to them, hoping it would be a good distraction from the constant fighting and arguing they did so often. And for nearly 5,000 years there was peace, or at the very least, a lack of animosity. But peace between the children never lasted long. Some of the gods had been kind and brought blessings to their humans. Some of them were cruel and punished those who didn’t obey their every word. Some of the gods tried instructing their siblings how to raise their humans, and that would cause certain gods to do the very opposite just to spite the wisdom that was shared. But at one point, all four of the children grew bored of the world and its inhabitants. And that’s when Doran, the god who chose Ghald as his land of chosen people, had decided to start warring his humans with Adriel’s humans of Paiyi.”

  “Thank you Aldrin,” Sister Tanya could tell that Aldrin was getting almost more amusement out of hearing his own voice than Jocelyn did. “Daan, could you please continue?”

  “M-me?” Daan croaked. Sister Tanya had stopped Adriel so briefly and chosen Daan so suddenly that it came as a surprise. It was almost as if she was waiting for anybody to let their guard down, and Daan was the first victim she spotted.

  “Yes, if you could let us know what happened after Doran attacked Adriel’s chosen people of Paiyi with our people of Ghald?”

  “Um, yeah...” Daan cleared his throat and tried to find his words. “The people of Ghald had landed successful attacks all over Paiyi for a year, and Adriel did almost nothing about it, knowing his younger brother was acting out childishly. But after a year of hearing the cries and pleas of his people, and seeing that Doran had no intention of slowing down or stopping his attack, Adriel retaliated. And he retaliated hard. Adriel not only killed or captured all of the Ghaldian people who were on his land, but he massacred and tortured all those who stood on the border of Paiyi and Ghald as a lesson to Doran not to cross any more lines. But Doran was stubborn and wouldn’t listen, and tried to attack Adriel again, but Adriel only slaughtered Doran’s forces and civilian Ghaldians with every attack. Adriel, tired of Doran’s stubbornness, decided to eliminated all of the Ghaldians in an attempted genocide that would put Doran in his place as the lower, younger brother once and for all.”

  “Thank you, Daan,” Sister Tanya dismissed him from talking any further and selected another student in the class to continue the tale.

  “After Adriel had nearly wiped out half of the entire innocent population of Ghald,” a student named Garret continued. “The other three gods grew concern of the war that was happening. Lady Yukina had tried speaking to her older brother about backing off a little, but Adriel only reminded her he was the oldest and strongest out of all of them, and she had no business trying to butt in. Adriel had razed a handful of villages from Miizu to the ground as a sign not to try and get involved. But Yukina loved her children, some say more than any of the other gods, and she had joined alongside Doran to help stop Adriel from the power-hungry ways he had fallen into. Martell, the goddess who watched over Ryn, wanted nothing to do with the war for as long as she could help it. So, it was Yukina and Doran, and their people of Ghald and Miizu against their older brother and the land of Paiyi.”

  “Thank you, Garret.” Sister Tanya said, and she turned her back to the class to start writing something on the chalkboard, something she usually did when she was done choosing people to give answers and do the lecturing herself. “So, after Doran and Yukina declared war on Adriel and Paiyi, there was a clashing of war between the three nations for hundreds of years, scholars and church officials alike are not sure of how many years exactly. But even as two gods and nations, they couldn’t bring Adriel to his knees. They waged war for thousands of years more, hatred for Paiyi was strong from the rest of the world, and that hatred only fueled Adriel and Paiyi’s need to punish and destroy. It wasn’t until Martell, the lover of wisdom and knowledge, had decided to join Yukina and Doran in order to end the fighting and bring peace to the land. As the three worked together, it seemed they would finally begin to defeat Adriel on the battlefield consistently.

  “There was a point nearly 10,000 years ago to this day when the trio had a plan to put Adriel down once and for all, and to wipe the nation of Paiyi out for all the destruction and bloodshed that remained on their hands. Adriel’s numbers were dwindling, and everybody knew it. The three nations planned to launch one heavy attack to break down their eldest brother’s forces, and it had seemed fool proof. That was, until Adriel came after Doran with his biggest weakness of all: his pride. Adriel mocked Doran’s masculinity, saying he couldn’t win a fight without the help of his sisters, and that he was the weakest of them all. Doran, the one who had grown to be the second largest army behind his older brother, fell for the trap, and began to strike on his own without the help or counsel of his sisters. And it was everything that Adriel could have asked for.

  “Doran had half a million men, ten times the amount of his brother’s army, and he launched them all in one swift assault. But the areas Adriel and his men were reported to be were empty of bodies, but full of booby-traps. 200,000 men lost their lives in explosions, fire, barrage of arrows, and traps of all kinds before Adriel and his men appeared, surrounding the Ghaldian army who were already taking a beating. Between Adriel’s men and the traps, yet another 100,000 were lost before the last of the traps were activated and Adriel and his men drew their weapons and charged into the battle. By the time Yukina and Martell had heard of the Ghaldian Massacre, there had only been 40,000 Ghaldians left, while the nation of Paiyi hadn’t even lost 2,000 men. The survivors were given the chance to join Adriel or be slain, and most chose life.

  “With Doran’s portion of the trio’s massive army shattered, the sisters knew they couldn’t withstand any attack that Adriel might have thrown at them, and they sent terms to surrender. But Adriel didn’t care about leaving those who opposed him to remain alive, nor did he forgive his siblings for trying to stand up to him. Adriel purposely and sickeningly would annihilate entire villages and cities as slow and cruel as possible, only for his sisters to hear the horrid news and blood-chilling cries. Every messenger sent to Adriel in hopes of a peace treaty was brought back in several bloody boxes. It didn’t matter if the Paiyites had seen a foreign soldier or an innocent child from another land, it was in their nature to destroy anything that didn’t come from Paiyi.

  “After nearly 10,000 years of war, the goddess Sonova could no longer let her children keep behaving in the fashion that they had. Sonova asked each one of her children to set aside their differences and to bring peace to the land and help reconstruct what had been destroyed in their damage. Yukina, Martell and Doran had quickly agreed, as they had been trying to do for millenniums, but Adriel still rejected the idea of seeing his siblings as equals. He told his mother the he was the first born, and he was clearly stronger, more tactical, and a better leader than any of his siblings, and he demanded something that Sonova couldn’t give more than once: her ability to create life.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “While her children were gods and can do miraculous things, no human has ever been able to do, and while they could resurrect a person who had recently passed away, they hadn’t acquired the unique ability to create life like their mother, nor did it seem like they were ever going to grow the strength for the gift on their own. Adriel demanded the power be given to him, as it was wasted on his weaker siblings and their humans, and even wasted on his mother for creating such weak gods and the people who served them. Adriel believed he and his followers were unconquerable, and he threatened to rise against his own mother if she did not provide the Gift of Life he demanded.”

  “What I don’t understand is: why did Adriel think his Mother was going to give him the Gift of Life when he was so adamant on destroying his whole family and most of the planet? If the goddess Sonova had enough strength to create a planet and such powerful beings as her children, why didn’t she simply destroy Adriel, or at the very least contain him for eternity?” Jocelyn said after her hand shot up in the air, not waiting to be called upon.

  “As we all have experienced the Goddess’ love and mercy, you must remember she created the world to inhabit and give to her children. To punish her children for doing what they want in a world she created for them to do just that would be hypocritical. Without the mercy of Sonova, we are nothing more than the playthings for her children. Praise Sonova.”

  “Praise Sonova.” The class echoed in scattered unison.

  “And who could tell me what happened after Adriel threatened his mother if she did hand over the Gift? Yes, Jonah?” She chose the last of the notable students.

  “Not taking him seriously, and thinking her children would never try to strike against their own Mother, Sonova pleaded that Adriel would stop the constant bloodshed and make peace with his siblings. Then, and only then, would she consider giving the gift to any of her children. She would not give anything until there was peace. And, reasonably enough, she thought that that may have been enough to end the discord among her children. And Adriel had actually agreed on the deal to her face, but it was a bold lie for him to buy the time he needed to take his Mother down by surprise.”

  “Thank you, Jonah.” Sister Tanya dismissed him and continued herself again. “Adriel had pulled all his forces from the borders of his siblings' lands. But as he pulled out from each nation, he left the leading sibling of that nation the same message: Mother was going to give him the Gift of Life if they ended the wars, but he was going to kill her and take it anyway. Anybody who would say anything or get in the way would be destroyed and the rest of the humans would be tortured and made sure to curse their names before their lives were taken. And if any of them actually helped assist him in the matricide, they would even be given some of the Gift to share. Each sibling swore to help Adriel the best they could, and they wouldn’t say a word to anybody about his future attempt.

  “But each sibling was lying to Adriel, and they conspired against him behind his back. They knew that Adriel had the power to destroy all of them and their mother. Even if She suddenly found the desire to put Adriel in his place, half of them would die before that happened. So, the children fearing for their own lives, decided to allow Adriel to attack his mother and spend his energy on her and attack him immediately after while he was spent. They agreed to share the gift afterward, and to never gain the greed that had overtaken their eldest brother.

  “The day Adriel had launched his attack, it had gone exactly as he had planned. His three siblings met with him at the rocky canyon-gates of his mother’s natural paradise and positioned themselves for attacking. The commotion did not last long. Adriel and his forces attacked, expecting his siblings’ forces to join, but they all stood outside the gates. Too eager to change plans, Adriel headed in alone and slaughtered the few hundred who occupied the area his Mother resided in, right at the foot of the Mountain that used to stand in the center of the world.

  “Nobody but Adriel knows exactly what happened next, but Adriel had chosen to speak to his mother alone before he took her life. The conversation has been recorded to have lasted nearly half an hour before there was a bone-chilling scream that could be heard in all four nations, and a bright light that descended from the sky onto the entire mountain range below, strangely turning the stones of the mountain white, and an explosion that had destroyed the small chapel that stood at the peaks of the mountains.

  “Since nobody knows what happened other than the story Adriel told, this is all we know: Adriel told his siblings later on he had confronted his mother and tortured her demanding the gift, all while she kept telling him she didn’t have it anymore. Thinking she was lying, he beat her nearly to death before she weakly explained that she had removed the Gift from within her, and set it alongside the sleeping fifth child that was hiding in the depths of the world, locked away by a magic barrier that not even Adriel at his greatest strength got past. In his rage, Adriel ended his mother right then and there, but her death had caused the explosion. The damage done to Adriel had weakened him to a state of barely being able to stand… leaving him to soon be surrounded by his vengeful siblings.”

  “But his siblings weren’t vengeful.” Daan blurted out his thoughts before he realized he was speaking. He felt his face turn beet-red as his entire class and Sister Tanya looked at him in surprise.

  “No, they weren’t, were they?” Sister Tanya raised a brow as she spoke, still curious to his sudden outburst. “And if they weren’t vengeful, do you care to tell us what happened next, Daan?”

  “Uh… yeah,” he said nervously. “Adriel had passed out from exhaustion before his siblings could even begin to attack. Seeing their brother as weak as he had ever been in his existence, they decided to imprison him rather than kill him, to honor the life of their mother and her mercy. When Adriel woke up, he did not speak for nearly a decade, nor did he eat or do anything other than lie in his prison and stare out its lonely window. When he did finally speak, his first words were a plea to tell his people to abandon all the ways of war and advancing technology. They were to live a life of basic needs, and they were going to aid the rest of the world in whatever ways they possibly could in their spartan lifestyle. They were to make twenty-times the amount of farms the country already possessed, and to mine all areas with any large deposits of metal in the earth. And the people of Paiyi have remained living this way all the way to our present day.”

  “Thank you, again, Daan,” Sister Tanya spoke, her tone indicating that she had hoped that with another chance to talk Daan would stop blurting things out and interrupting. “The other three gods had passed the word to the nation of Paiyi and they immediately began to change their ways. They helped restore the other three nations, but that didn’t mean the other nations and their gods weren’t wary of their eldest brother. But Adriel had truly changed. He had stated to his siblings several thousand years later that the fact their Mother was murdered by his own hands had killed a part of himself, in a sense. Adriel rarely spoke or did much other than guide his people to help the other nations for the remainder of his physical form.”

  “How come we call it their ‘physical form?’” a student asked after raising their hand and being selected, pages of their notebook had been filled out during the duration of the talk, and Daan assumed they were preparing for any possibility of a pop quiz coming up later that day.

  “We’re getting to that.” Sister Tanya said curtly. “After the God’s War Era, the siblings had agreed to act more like their deceased mother, and be loving authoritative figures, rather than rulers over the humans. They had given humans their freedom to live their own lives and not just be the playthings of the gods, and decided to let humans make their mistakes and learn from them. But the gods foolishly thought that us humans were capable of making decent decisions by ourselves. The other three nations aside from Paiyi were so accustomed to war and battles, that without the laws and discipline of the gods, humans would war and slaughter and rape one another. The gods would moderately intervene, but not enough, in fear that the other siblings may assume they were going back on their word and might try to obtain power over the others like Adriel did.

  “But through war, the people of Ryn began to use science and to develop technology. They began crafting bigger and faster boats, their city structures began to be more advanced and well-defined. But it was their defensive war tools that made the other gods suspicious of Ryn, and they began to assume Martell was secretly plotting against them. Arguments were made, fights began to be more common as time progressed. Eventually arguments and angry words turned into thoughtless action, and Yukina had purposefully attacked several Ryn cities to put her sister in her place. This would cause the gods to bicker and have small periods of war, seek forgiveness, but only to go back to war decades later over the same issues. Certain human cities had such hatred for certain nations that they would attack cities without their gods giving any war-commands, which caused more bickering among siblings, and more war to break out. This would be known as the Human’s War Era, and it would last until 300 years ago, leaving us presently in the Modern Era.”

  “So, what exactly caused the end of the last Era?” another student from the back asked. “Because despite what we’ve been taught from the holy book of Svya, I’ve heard rumors and from a great number of sources about how the last era ended.”

  “And do you think those sources would know better than those that were visited by the gods to write their story, to write the Svya? To have been blessed and given people the power of visions of the past, only to be questioned by secular mortals?” Sister Tanya’s voice had been tight, as well as sharp. It was one of the biggest offenses to the Church to change or question the teaching in the Svya.

  “I didn’t mean to-”

  “I know your intentions mean well, but it is important that all of you learn to grow wise enough to listen to anything that doesn’t come from the Svya, the church of the Mother and Holy Four, and whatever direct message that comes from the heavens in a loud booming voice of the gods. Humans are fallible, opinions get murky and cluttered with uneducated assumptions and think they know better than the gods because of their science and technology.” Sister Tanya’s voice didn’t hide her disdain for modern advances that didn’t have to do with the church. Sister Tanya was also considered one of the lenient enforcers of those types of rules and standards, and Daan feared whoever in the church might have had much harsher views.

  “When was the last time we heard the booming voices of the gods come down from the heavens?” Jonah asked a question that was never specifically covered in the classes they had taught, and Daan could feel the curiosity grow in the other students in the class. Eyes of students who seemed bored only moments ago were staring at Sister Tanya for an answer.

  “The last time the gods were written to have spoken from the heavens nearly 300 years ago, just before they disappeared. But they have sent messages through dreams and visions to a handful of prophets that have appeared to us over that time. But before we get too engrossed in the prophets, who can tell me how the Human’s War Era came to an end?”

  The class seemed to collectively sigh in disappointment. Whenever questions were asked about the last time anybody had seen the gods, or heard the gods, there always seemed to be an unsure answer, and the answers were different even if they seemed similar. One Priest may say it wasn’t until 297 years ago, and another Priest would tell you it was 299 years ago with the same amount of confidence back when Daan was young and first growing up in the church. But as they’ve gotten to the age of adulthood, the answers came out more cryptic than ever, or they were countered with a question shot back that usually questioned the student’s faith. Nobody was going to say the Church didn’t have all the answers; Daan and his classmates had seen all too well to those who would say such blasphemous things. When nobody volunteered to answer the question, Sister Tanya chose Jocelyn, who had seemed antsy to give more answers and receive more praise. Daan couldn’t help but roll his eyes at her eagerness.

  “After so much war and chaos among the humans, whether the gods commanded their wars or not, the civilization of mankind was dwindling down to near extinction. The gods knew that without helping and supporting humans, they may go back to simply being bored and irritable and may cause war against one another. Not only that, but each god had become caring for the nation they chose to represent. So, when they noticed their humans were almost all gone, they decided they had to do something, but they didn’t have the power themselves to create more life. Without any other options, the gods decided it would be best to try and find the Unnamed Child and the Gift their mother had left with them in the center of the world. Not wanting the last of their people to be wiped out, the gods decided to go inside the middle of the earth and find the gift.”

  “Thank you, Jocelyn.” Sister Tanya said nonchalantly, but Daan could see Jocelyn beam with a smug smile regardless. “Nobody knows what exactly happened, but one of the gods had triggered something in the magic barrier that surrounded the Unnamed Child. With a bright and massive explosion, the entire mountain range that stood there had been completely wiped out, and was replaced with a massive crater that filled with water and left nothing but a tiny island. The magic barrier that was contained in the center of the world had flourished and cut the entire world into four parts, blocking the nations from contacting each other or traveling to one another. It wasn’t until almost a hundred years ago when the nation of Ryn had developed a technology to allow very small amounts of materials, whether living or not, to go through the barrier per day. But by that time all the of the nations had grown even more estranged from one another. Languages developed differently, cultures started to become more diverse, people began to-”

  The loud clamoring of the five bells in the towers surrounding the church grounds rang one time in unison, causing Sister Tanya to stop talking and the class to lose focus of the lecture. Depending on how many times the bells rang, it was meant for a different message. One ring meant that it was time for the classes to pause for a moment of prayer. Two rings meant that the priests and nuns were needed for an emergency meeting. Three rings meant the Church may be under attack or on fire or any other type of danger that would mean evacuation. Four rings meant a public execution was going to happen, and an audience was being requested. There were plenty of other bell toll patterns that only the priests and nuns knew their meaning, but those were far less frequently used.

  The first bell toll caused the students to look up from their books and listen for a few seconds, some of the students shifting to get ready for prayer. When the second bell tolled, all eyes fell either on Sister Tanya to see her reaction, or out the window to see how the nuns and priests in the courtyard were responding to the second bell toll. Before Daan could even wonder what type of meeting the staff of the Church might need to attend, the third bell rang. It was the third bell toll that sent chills down Daan’s spine, and he could feel the same tension surround him and his fellow students. The first two rings always meant safety, but once the third bell rang, it usually resulted in somebody possibly dying. Whether it was an attack or because an execution had to be made public, Daan could feel death creeping around and filling the hallways. Even Sister Tanya, who was as hard as a rock when it came to emotions, seemed troubled by the third bell. Part of the tension was released when the fourth bell toll had rung. If anybody was going to die, at least it was a part of an agenda, and not random chaos.

  “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” Sister Tanya said softly as the fourth bell toll rang into the empty air with no signs of any further ringing. “Pack up your things and stand in a single file line in alphabetical order like we’ve practiced on safety drills. We will be moving out to the town square to see who the secular deviants are who have summoned the judgments of the gods. Please don’t go ahead of the group, stick together, and do not wander to talk to friends from your other classes before we get there. And when the execution begins, I expect you to be on your best behavior. It’s a privilege to see what happens to the those who tend to live with lives for the wicked.”

  Daan started to collect his books and pack them into his backpack, unsure of how he felt about viewing another execution. He hadn’t been to one in a few years, and the last one he attended had him and his classmates in the back row where they could barely see or hear anything that was happening. At the time, Daan didn’t mind; he had no real interest in seeing the bloodshed of people he had possibly seen walking in the streets of his home. But as he grew older, he saw what happened to those who showed even just a shred of remorse or sympathy to those who were charged with religious crimes. They were treated as outcasts, or even worse, they would eventually be persecuted for the smallest and most forgivable of sins. Because of this, Daan had learned to not express such sympathies outside his thoughts. If he were to watch a beheading, he would have to force himself not to flinch at the sound of the ax meeting the chopping block. If they were to burn a person at the stake, he would watch and listen to their tortured and bone-chilling screams of agony with a stone face. Even if he didn’t want to witness any of this, he knew there were people watching, whether staff of the Church, or fellow students who might be eager to tattle just for some brownie-points. He had to be careful.

  It only took a minute or so of standing in his place in line before the line began to move out the class and spill into the hallways. He watched as other classes maintained their form as they tried to navigate as a larger horde. It was much easier to move when they got outside and into the courtyard. Daan felt the sense of excitement from other students in other classes as the school groups left the Church campus and headed towards the town square. He knew the excitement was more for the fact that they were able to leave school early rather than the actual activity that was happening downtown. But Daan had a questionable feeling about heading towards a public execution. Yes, he knew it was wrong to go against the teachings of the gods and their rules were made to help keep a peaceful world. But why were the sentences for punishments so openly cruel? Because the world we live in is harsher than anything the Church can ever hope to deliver he heard the voices of several priests and nuns saying the exact line whenever somebody in his class had asked the question. But it never felt like a fulfilling enough of an answer.

  Daan’s class followed Sister Tanya through the town square, and the streets seemed to fill more and more with each passing street block. At first it was more students and staff members of the main Church of the Mother in Krepki, and then he started to see other uniforms from other church academies that were spilled throughout the town. While all the boys had long sleeved white button up shirts, a jacket to cover the top along with slacks, and the girls had the same white button-up long sleeve and jacket with a skirt and high-knee socks, each school had their own colors. The colors of the main Church, the school Daan attended, had always been a forest green and white, but here he saw colors of black and gold, or red and blue. However, each one of the staff members had been wearing the same black and white outfits as they had in every church.

  After a few more blocks, Daan could start to see workers from the inner city starting to mix in with the crowds of students. Some of them had soot or coal or oil smeared across their worn and tired faces and clothes, and most of them looked tired from the regular 14-hour work day that was mandatory for all residence in Ghald who didn’t attend any of the church programs for work or school. That was the custom in Ghald: serve your life in the Church, or by providing the services to the industrialization of the nation for more than half of your entire day for 6 days a week. When Daan asked why the people who didn’t work in the Church had to work such long hours, it was always explained that it was so that, “people could focus on working hard rather than use their energy in sin.” Daan, like most of his classmates, accepted it without much thought. They had always just believed that was the way things were, and like most of the Church congregation, they didn’t ask many questions regarding the ways of life based on their faith. That is all going to change soon, a voice whispered, and he couldn’t tell if he audibly heard it, or if it were just a passing thought that struck a nerve, but he couldn’t afford to look around aimlessly like he had when he thought he heard the voice speak to him the first few times.

  The rivers of people started to pour into the town square, an area that was a large encircled area paved neatly with cobblestone, a large wooden stage made of fine polished oak, yet scarcely any trees, benches, or any objects to take up space. During certain times of the year, farmers would host a small market for a week in this area after certain harvests were completed, which made the large, nearly-empty space perfect for an event. On summer nights, plays and musicals would be performed on the large stage from both traveling professionals and local amateurs. It was a beautiful area during the summer evenings just as the sun began to set and gave off an orange hue to the nearby houses and buildings that surrounded the area, making everything seem so inviting to commune with your neighbors. Those events were the handful of days that even the overworked members outside of the church were allowed to relax and join their neighbors, family and friends.

  But the main reason the town square was built was for the very reason they were traveling there: public executions. Daan had seen more than enough in his life, and as much as he loved the Church, it was his least favorite thing to come from it. He remembered the first execution he witnessed back when he was eight years old. It was a woman who had been caught stealing from the tithe box in the church who was given the choice of hanging or being burned to death, and she chose hanging. The Church had usually given their victims a choice on how they were going to die, especially if they were going to execute numerous people in the same go. Daan realized that they gave the people with lighter offenses the first choice of the more humane deaths, and would leave those who were worse off to experience the true torment of their actions. Hanging, burning by fire, and being shot by a firing squad were by far the most human- and the most common- of deaths that Daan had seen over the years. But he had the feeling the church had more than enough fun finding new and creative ways to punish those who they felt were more deserving of the wrath of the gods.

  Daan and his class filled into the crowd that started amassing at the front of the stage. There were only a handful of rows of people ahead of him, but his group would still be closer to the front than those who would show up later. And as the minutes ticked away and more and more people started to fill the entirety of the town square, the more Daan could see that the entire city, if not the whole nation itself, was split into four categories: those who ran the Church, those being groomed to become the new Church staff, and the common workers, and the elderly or school children. Daan couldn’t think of one other type of person who didn’t fit one of those categories. Sure, there were poets, artists, musicians and all things alike, but they were typically doing their artistic work for the purpose of the church. And while there were occasional whores that had roamed the streets for years, Daan couldn’t think of a single whore he saw from his first year moving to the city still alive and not converted by the church yet. A whore’s fate was one of those two things: salvation or death.

  It had nearly been an hour before the crowd heard four strong tolls from the bell towers of the church once more, and Daan couldn’t be sure if it was simply a reminder for those who may not have heard (something Daan highly doubted, seeing as he’s heard the bells metallic song from just barely beyond the farthest city wall away from the church), or if it was a sign that the executions would begin shortly. In his experience, it seemed to go both ways equally as often. But his pondering ceased when he heard a commotion from the crowd behind him, and when he looked he saw the sea of people splitting through the middle to let a group through. It wasn’t until the people directly behind him started to move to the left that he followed suit, but saw that he was looking down an empty path.

  Daan saw a group of four priests and two nuns in their black and white wimples and cassocks, and an archbishop dressed in white robe, bound with a red vest with gold trimming and a red biretta walking along with a gold staff. The archbishop’s age was at least twenty years older than the oldest priest in their group, with wispy white hair that seemed to be fading to nothing, deep wrinkles that seemed to crack along the ridges of his face, his eyes hard enough to tell that the things he’d seen in his lifetime would leave a wounded soldier feeling morbidly sympathetic. And though the Church had talked plenty of the love and mercy of Sonova and occasionally some of her children, there was no love in this man’s eyes... only judgment.

  Behind the group of Church leaders were a mixture of Academic students and workers, at least a dozen in total, carrying a large golden statue of Doran, the god who had chosen Ghald to be his people. Doran held his sword upside-down with both hands on the hilt as the tip of his blade dug into the earth, his face as firm as the archbishop’s, but not nearly as intimidating. Perhaps his face is so fierce that the sculptor didn’t do it justice, Daan wondered, remembering the tails of how fearful Doran could be known to be. Each one of the people carrying the statue seemed to be having difficulty carrying it such a distance, but not enough to ask for more help. Daan watched quietly as they slowly passed in front him, trying his best not to be in anybody’s way or be any type of distraction.

  When the group finally got onto the stage after trying to maneuver the large and heavy statue, it came down with a heavy thud that Daan could feel the vibrations in his feet. The carriers backed away from the statue, most of them out of breath, some even bent over to catch their breath before getting off the stage. Once the stage was only dressed with the staff of the church and their godly statue, Daan could hear the chatter and commotion slowly cease. Not a word was spoken as the archbishop moved to the front of the statue where a microphone was placed, overlooking the crowd. For a moment, he didn’t say anything; he simply scanned the crowd, slowly panning from left to right, as if soaking in each face to memory. Once it appeared he had seen the whole crowd, he pounded his staff onto stage twice.

  “Children of Doran!” His voice echoed from the speakers placed all around the town square, off the nearby buildings and walls, and he let the echoes fade before resuming his speech. “It is an honor and a privilege to be in this beautiful city, the capital of this amazing nation that our gods have blessed so very much! Thank you for joining me underneath the Blessed Mother and her Children.”

  “Blessed be the Mother and Children,” the crowd repeated in scattered unison.

  “However, as much as we have had much beauty in our lands… there is also much darkness. And as the Svya has taught us…”

  “‘Darkness must be purged.’” the crowd roared along with the archbishop with the message from the Svya in surprising energy. With how tired and dead everybody appeared to be on the walk to the town square, the archbishop seemed to have rejuvenated their energy. Daan looked around him and saw some eager faces ready for the show that was about to go on, and wondered how anybody could be excited for the ending of somebody’s life. Sure, he understood that there were rules for a reason, and those rules had to be followed. But to have actual joy at one of these executions always baffled Daan.

  “We bring you four sinners who have committed crimes against our nation and our gods, and they are here to learn that no matter what atrocities you try to hide, the truth cannot be hidden for long, and the gods will seek justice one way or another.” the archbishop announced, and drew his hands forward, indicating the open path between the crowd that archbishop had just walked through.

  Daan had seen four people in a tattered sack that was turned into a one-piece that was enough to cover from shoulders to knees, chained and shackled from their wrists and ankles. Most of them had looked beaten and bloody from beatings from at least a day prior, and that’s only the wounds that were obvious. Daan could see plenty of more subtle scars and bruises one their arms and legs. He couldn’t tell who they were at a great distance but he started to make out their faces as they got closer. There was a man and a woman in their forties, a young man at least five years older than Daan himself and… Daan couldn’t believe his eyes when he had recognized Yara as the last person being dragged through the hallway of watchers. Yes, she had a tendency of being overly flirtatious, but Daan didn’t think she had committed a crime so great that her own death was considered necessary. All Daan could do was stare as the group passed. At one point, she made eye contact with Daan, which made his heart stop. He expected anger or pain or a plea for help in her eyes, but to his surprise there was very little emotion. It felt as if she half-dead already.

  The four prisoners had been forced onto the stage, the man slightly older than Daan gave a small struggle being forced up the stairs until a couple of the guards guiding them whipped the butt of his spear across his face before smashing into the center of the face, making a sick, wet crunch before a river of blood started to ooze from his nose. The young man muffled his screams of pain in his hands as the guards forced him onto his feet and up the stairs. The guards and the staff of the Church that remained on stage seemed to show no hatred or ill-will towards the prisoners, yet their faces showed even less pity. When the four prisoners were lined up on the front of the stage for all to see, the archbishop set himself up next to one of them, the older woman.

  “Today we have some sinners who may not contend with some of the murderers or rapers we’ve dealt with in the past, but their actions are just as displeasing to the gods. And for that very reason alone, they must perish and face judgment before the gods.” The archbishop turned to the woman, who finally seemed to understand there was no getting out of this. She began to cry, but Daan could tell she was trying her very best not to. It was as if she didn’t want to show her fear and weakness, but it flooded out of her. “This woman, Clara Fokin, has not only been found guilty of prostitution, but for the intentional murder of her unborn baby from one of her johns. As the Svya tells us, we are to remain pure and not sully ourselves for our bodies are the temples the gods created for us to take care of. We cannot simply hand our bodies to be filled with carnal desires to anybody who pleases. And our gods have given us life to cherish, regardless of the circumstances of our birth. Every child should have a chance at life, and you’ve taken that life selfishly. What if the child you destroyed was one of the Chosen children meant to help regenerate the world?”

  “P-p-please,” the woman whimpered. She barely moved other than her nervous shaking, keeping her head and eyes down. “I-I can barely feed myself. I don’t want to put a child through the same life as me, especially if it were to be a girl. Please, your holiness... surely you can-”

  “We have four options for you, and seeing as you’ve done the least harmful sin, you can choose the way you wish to do die first.” the archbishop’s voice was ice cold, showing that the woman’s pleas were fallen on deaf ears. Daan could tell that the archbishop had heard all of the excuses, all the sob stories and all of the tragedies behind the reason they committed their sins. But to the Church, sin was sin, and the only people who were going to listen to such tales would be the gods in the afterlife; the humans who filled the earth were meant to serve and keep the ways of the gods structured and continually keeping the ways of their traditions. “You can choose to be hung, shot, crushed to death by boulders or be cooked alive as you sit inside this metal statue of our god, Doran, and light a massive fire underneath. The last person to have been scorched by the statue had screamed for nearly an hour before the screams were silent. The choice is yours.”

  “Please, your Holiness...” tears were streaming down the woman’s face as she fell to the ground and clung to the drapes of his garb. But the archbishop seemed to pay no mind to her. He simply looked over to one of his guards and signaled for him to come over with his hand, and the guard nodded as he walked towards them. The guard threw the woman off the archbishop’s feet and onto her back, pulling out a pistol and firing three shots into the woman’s head before she even had time to fully sit up and see who it was who had thrown her. The first shot made Daan jump with how quickly the gun had gone off without hesitation. He had thought the guard would have had least given her a chance at last words, but perhaps they considered her begging to be the last word. In any case, a bullet to the head seemed much more humane than the other choices.

  The archbishop recomposed himself as a couple of guards dragged the woman’s body away, trying their best to not have the leaking blood ooze onto them. A couple other guards grabbed the young man who was slightly older than Daan, and brought him to the archbishop, who had presented him to the crowd.

  “Our second sinner is Sasha Yoblonsky, a young man who thought it would be a good idea to steal from the tithing box of our church on a number of occasions, but was finally caught this previous day of rest after the church services. To commit crimes of our human nature, like lust, is one thing, but to steal from the church and to hinder the services that money goes towards? Very few things are as heinous as such sin.”

  “And I’d do it again!” the young man shouted, both to the archbishop and to the crowd, causing the crowd to start booing against him. “The Church gets so much money every week, and how many of the orphanages and homeless shelters have they helped fix up? How many-” the young man was met with another spear butt smashing his face. He went down to the ground from the blow, and three other guards joined in as the crowd had a mixture of boos for the announcement the young man started, and an applause for the beating he was receiving. The archbishop raised his hand high, and the guards ceased the beating immediately and the crowd’s chants and noise simmered down to nothing, no words were needed to be spoken. There was a moment of absolute silence before the archbishop lowered his hand and said two words:

  “Hang him.” he stated nonchalantly and the crowd went back into a cheering uproar. The guards were far from gentle as they picked the young man up by his hair and tattered clothes. They dragged him to a noose that was on one of the ends of the stage and draped the rope over his head and around his neck. They tightened it to a point that the man wanted to object, but he only found a punch in the stomach before they tossed his body off the stage, his hands bound, and his feet too far to reach any ground or platform. Daan was unfortunately close enough to hear the choking and gagging as the man struggled in every way to find air, but it wasn’t coming.

  “Next,” the archbishop spoke, moving on even as the young man continued to struggle and suffocate. Most of the crowd seemed too engrossed in what the archbishop had to say next rather than the man dying at the end of the stage, but Daan couldn’t help but give lingering looks before it got to be too painful for him to watch. “We have a young woman, Yara Bex, who was a part of our Morning Grace ladies’ course to become a part of our Church Staff. But it seems sin has entered her heart and not only led her to seduce a number of our men in the Morning Glory school to sexual acts, but she has also started seeping doubt and rumors of our faith being false to the same students. A sinner who knows no better is bad enough, but for a member of our Church to fall away from faith and bring others down with her is a matter that not even the Mother’s mercy would suffice.” the archbishop looked at Yara, and it was the first time Daan had gotten a good look at her since she took the stage.

  While the first woman who was killed showed her emotions of fear outright, fear seemed to have done the opposite thing to Yara. Her eyes were widened and her mouth hung slightly open as she took in hyperventilating breaths. The words of the archbishop didn’t seem to change anything, the crowd’s boos and the taunts didn’t seem to faze her either. It wasn’t until the archbishop put a hand on her shoulder that she seemed to snap back to reality.

  “The choice is yours, dear...” the archbishop said plainly. “Do you wish to be crushed or cooked alive?”

  Her mouth moved, but nobody beyond the archbishop could hear anything she was saying. But the archbishop’s eyes were understanding of whatever it was Yara softly muttered, and the smirk he gave was an indication that it was the more obvious choice being chosen. Daan had noticed that the man who was being hung had finally stopped twitching and only swung softly back and forth in the gentle breeze.

  “This young lady has chosen to be crushed. May her body be purged by the weight of her sins so her soul can rest easy for eternity!” the Archbishop announced, and the crowd applauded and cheered as he made a gesture to the guards on stage.

  One of the guards had taken Yara to the back of the center of the stage, just slightly behind the microphone the archbishop was currently using and laid her on the ground. There was no fight in her, no resistance, which made Daan feel all the worse. He couldn’t describe why, but seeing people frantically freak out over meeting their death seemed… natural. With Yara’s empty responses, it seemed like her soul had already left her. Yara wasn’t the first person to have this expression in the midst of their execution, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant for Daan to have to watch. Two other guards walked to Yara’s lying body with a large flat plank of wood that would be sturdy enough to hold a few thousand pounds of boulders flat and evenly, and placed it on top of Yara. Daan could see guards, workers and students come from behind the stage with boulders almost too heavy for each individual person to carry for too long struggle to walk to Yara before carelessly tossing the boulder onto the plank. The first handful of rocks that were tossed onto the plank forced a short cry out of Yara as the boulder’s crushed her lungs, possibly breaking ribs. It wasn’t until the sixth boulder that she gave a blood-curdling scream, making Daan realize that bones in her body must have snapped and broken under all the weight. After four more boulders, she stopped making as much noise, not because it didn’t hurt anymore, but because her lungs were being crushed. A line of people kept coming back and forth from behind the stage, bringing more rocks, but the archbishop continued before Yara was fully dead, just like he did with the man hanging.

  “And for our last sinner, we have a man who- I swear to you, my children- will spend the rest of his days in the nine levels of hell before we cook him alive for all that he had done.” the archbishop presented the older man in his forties who, without the clothes of staff of the church, looked like he could have been one of the priests with the clean shaved haircut and the matching salt-and-pepper colored facial hair as trimmed as it had been. “This man had been caught doing one of the most insidious acts imaginable. Here, in our very own place of worship,” he gestured towards the church in background of the city. “He was caught, literally red-handed, with the murder of our dearest Sister Emilia. And if that wasn’t horrid enough, it has been found out recently that he had severally raped her before taking her life. And for that, he will pay...”

  The archbishop continued talking, and the crowd reacted accordingly, but Daan had felt a tap on his shoulder that made him turn around. Before he could see who it was tapping his shoulder, he felt a finger press against his lips, and the owner of the hand shushing him to be quiet. When he got a look at who it was, it was all he could do to not yell out any type of exclamation in surprise. In front of him, hiding their face with a hood over their head was… Yara? Daan tried to ask what was going on, but she pressed her finger against his mouth more.

  “Keep your mouth shut and follow me. This is super important, and you need to make sure to attract as little attention as possible. I’ll explain everything on the way to your dorm.”

  “My dorm?” Daan repeated, lost in all that was going on.

  “Didn’t I just tell you to keep your mouth shut?” she asked, and before Daan could say anything else, she turned around and started to leave the group.

  Not wanting to get left too far behind, Daan started to follow her through the crowd. He eyeballed the people in the crowd near him as he left, but they were all too engrossed in the execution. Half way through the crowd, Daan had accidentally made eye contact with Sister Tanya, who looked confused about where he was leaving towards at first. But he saw her eyes shift and spot Yara, and instead of being upset, confused or any normal reaction, Sister Tanya smiled and nodded and turned back towards the stage, as if giving her blessing for him to leave. Between seeing the two different Yara’s existing in two places at once, and Sister Tanya’s reaction, he wasn’t sure which one left him feeling more confused. Once the two made it away from the crowd and found themselves in less-crowded streets, the Yara he was traveling with began speaking without looking back at him as she led him across the city.

  “You’re Daan Vanzyn, right? Nobody in charge was dumb enough to point me in the direction of another Daan, right?” she asked, and Daan couldn’t help but feel her walking strides were hurried and only growing faster as she spoke.

  “Yeah, that’s me.” he said, feeling like an idiot for not having much more else to say. Then again, she didn’t exactly seem to want him to be chatting too much.

  “Do you understand why I’m here, Daan?” she asked, and it took a moment for Daan to realize it wasn’t a rhetorical question.

  “It’s kind of hard to understand anything going on right now. I mean, I just watched you get crushed nearly to death on stage, but then you’re behind me, but on the stage at the same time? I mean, I really don’t under-”

  “First off, I’m not Yara, or whatever her name was,” the leading lady had spoken, and she looked back at him for the first time since they got away from the crowd. Her clothes and the correct hue of green and hairstyle was exactly the same as Yara would have looked, but now there was an entirely different face that wasn’t there a few minutes ago. Whereas Yara had wide and hopeful eyes, this new girl’s eyes were more slanted and closer together, her nose not as bulbous and round as Yara’s, and her mouth showed no signs of laughing very much, while Yara had deeply engraved laugh-lines. “Before you go off asking any stupid questions, I’m a shape-shifter. Or rather, an apprentice shape-shifter, I should say. I can change very well to look like any other person, but animals and objects are something I still need to learn.”

  “Okay...” Daan said slowly, processing what he was being told. “But… I still don’t understand why you’re here for me.”

  “Well, if you could use your brain for a moment, you might have realized that the Ceremony of the Moon is coming soon, right?”

  “Well, yeah, it’s almost everything the nuns and priests have been talking about for the last couple months. They’re always talking about who they hope the Children to be chosen for Ghald will be.”

  “And nobody has told you who it might be?” the girl asked, sounding more curious than pretentious for once.

  “It’s not like any of the students would know, and even if they did, there’s so much gossip that nobody is going to believe.”

  “Well, I’m not one of your fellow students, so you can trust me when I say that you’re one of the Chosen Children for the ceremony.”

  “What?” Daan asked, perplexed. “M-M-Me? Why me?”

  “You know, most people might feel honored or some type of pride in being Chosen. So maybe you should act a little, I dunno… Chosen-like?”

  “But it doesn’t make sense...” Daan muttered. “It’s not like I’m the highest grade in my class. I’m not more qualified than most people to do this, and I’m a nobody who came from an orphanage. I was a charity case when they accepted me into the Morning Glory, why would they want a nobody like me?”

  “Look, it’s not my job to ask questions. I also wonder why they’d choose a snot-nosed brat like yourself to possibly help regenerate the world, but it’s what the higher-ups have been saying, and I’m only doing my job getting you to the ceremony grounds alive and in one piece. Anything other than that is out of my hands and nothing I want to concern myself with.”

  “Alright, that makes sense...” Daan said, skepticism still in his voice. “But why did you look like Yara when you just now approached me.”

  “Oh, that.” she said casually. “Well, when the Church got wind of the fact that you were the one they wanted to choose out of the men to send into the ceremony, they wanted to have you go through some type of test to check the purity of your heart. You know, making sure that you’re going to be a well-suited candidate who’s going to upkeep the laws of the gods and all that.”

  “So, wait… when Yara kissed me-” Daan started.

  “And grabbed your dick?” the girl interrupted coyly, but Daan kept on with his sentence, not without blushing a bit at the mention of the memory.

  “-that was you? That wasn’t ever really Yara at all?” Daan asked, and the girl tilted her head back as she let out a hearty laugh.

  “Why? Did you actually think a good-looking girl like that would be into a little boy like you?” the girl questioned, and her laughing tone alone was enough to put a dagger in his sensitive heart. “Not in a million years!” she laughed harder.

  “Are you usually this cruel…” Daan paused, realizing he didn’t know this girls name. “Whatever your name is?”

  “My name is no concern of yours as long as we’re on this journey, and trust me, kid, I’m usually a lot crueler to those who aren’t the appointed one who could regenerate the world. You should consider yourself lucky I’m being so nice.”

  Daan couldn’t help but scoff at her idea of what “nice” meant. He saw they were getting close to the church, his dorm on the southern end of the property, and started to think of what he should bring, and how long his journey might have been.

  “How long do you think we’ll be gone for? What should I pack and bring with me?”

  “I honestly don’t know, kid.” the fact that she referred to him as a kid while they looked the same age was something else about her that rubbed him the wrong way. “All they told me is where to start to take you, that they’ll give me more information throughout our journey together, and that you should bring the bare minimum and make sure nobody knows that we’re leaving. I wasn’t told anything else other than your name and a description that forgot to mention you’re kind of a little pussy.” Daan was caught off-guard by the blatant insult, but before he could snap back, the girl continued talking. “I think it’s a good idea if maybe you stopped talking to me if you don’t want me to shit-talk on you the whole way, don’t you agree?” she stopped at the end of her sentence, which was the same moment they arrived in front of the men’s dormitory. “You should probably gather your things. Quickly.” she stressed the last word harshly.

  Daan scoffed again at her rudeness before heading inside. But once he got passed the building doors, he kept thinking about the small adventure he was about to go on and how serious it could be for the entire world. Not only was his Church, his city, or his whole nation depending on him, but also the whole world and possibly the entire future. He couldn’t let anybody down, especially knowing that he didn’t harness any special skills or talents that he thought would be more appropriate for someone of his newfound status.

  But as he packed a few things from his room into a backpack- just a toothbrush, a jacket, T-shirt and shorts that were his school colors and a small blanket- he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that something was coming in the near future. Something bigger than he or anybody he had known could have expected. But what did he know? He was just a student who had just recently turned an adult a few months prior, an orphan who had barely known his own past, let alone his lineage. What knowledge did he possess that would make him so sure of what the future would hold?

  But on the way out of the building and back towards his shape-shifting guide, he heard the same familiar voice that had been sending him small messages for weeks now. But this time, Daan couldn’t help but shiver from the chills crawling down his spine when he heard a voice of his own whisper softly, yet so well-heard: “From here on out, neither you nor Ghald will ever be the same.”