Chains of Divinity

Jacob's head felt like someone had filled it with rocks and then shaken it really hard. Sunlight stabbed through his blinds, making him groan and pull his pillow over his face. His phone buzzed somewhere in the mess of blankets - probably Ryan or Tyler checking if he was alive after last night.

Last night. The party. Those weird lights and... wait, had Emma been there? His memories felt scrambled, like TV static but in his brain.

The phone buzzed again. This time he managed to find it:

Ryan: u up? Ryan: bro that was wild Ryan: also don't forget winters' essay due monday

"Shit," Jacob muttered. The creative writing assignment. He still had nothing except that weird fragment he'd written the other day.

He dragged himself to his desk, cracking open a warm Gatorade he found on his floor. His laptop screen was way too bright, making his headache spike. The document from yesterday was still open:

The city was nothing special. Just another sprawl of concrete and glass where people lived and died without ever seeing what lay beyond the veil of reality...

His fingers started moving before his hungover brain could catch up. Words poured out like they'd been waiting:

The portal didn't just lead somewhere else - it led to something else. A city that shouldn't exist, stretching up forever into star-filled darkness. Buildings made of crystallized light twisted into shapes his brain refused to process. Streets paved with material that hummed beneath his feet, each step sending weird vibrations through his bones.

Divine warriors were everywhere. Not the ones who'd recruited him - these were different, like some kind of massive army. Some looked almost human in their golden armor, if you ignored how they moved too smoothly or how light bent wrong around them. Others didn't even try to look normal - wings made of geometric shapes, bodies that flickered between forms, faces that worked in ways faces shouldn't.

A group of newer recruits huddled together near one of the crystal buildings, all teenagers like him. Some were crying. Others just looked shell-shocked. A few had this manic energy about them, like they couldn't wait to become something more than human. He didn't join them. Something told him getting too friendly right now wasn't smart.

"Fresh blood!"

The voice made him turn. A divine warrior stood there, but not one of the scary perfect ones. This one looked more... used. Battle-scarred armor, wings that showed wear and tear. Kind of like a drill sergeant who'd seen too much action.

"Name's Vastor," the warrior said, voice like gravel in a blender. "I process the new meat before the higher-ups decide what to do with you."

"Process?"

Vastor's laugh wasn't exactly friendly. "Think of it as divine basic training. Most of you won't survive it, but that's the point. Only the strong get to meet the real powers."

That's when he noticed other recruits being led away by similar warriors. Some went quietly. Some had to be dragged. The crying ones went first.

"The gods chose you," Vastor continued, "but they've got better things to do than watch babies learn to walk. You survive my training, maybe they'll take notice. You don't..." He shrugged. "Well, plenty more humans where you came from."

The next hours (days? time got weird there) were a blur of tests and procedures. Medical stuff that didn't work like normal medicine. Exercises that seemed designed to break them. Questions that made his head hurt - not because they were hard, but because they didn't make sense in any human language.

They were housed in barracks that hurt his eyes to look at directly. The walls kept shifting when he wasn't watching. His bunk felt like it was in a different place every time he lay down. Some recruits couldn't handle it - they'd crack, start screaming about how nothing was real. The divine warriors would drag them away, and they wouldn't come back.

"Remember," Vastor told them during a rare break, "the gods see potential in you. But potential means nothing without pain to shape it."

The first marking ceremony came after what felt like weeks. They gathered the survivors in a chamber that seemed bigger on the inside than the outside. Higher-ranked divine beings watched from floating platforms as Vastor's crew prepared the tools - crystals that sang at frequencies that made teeth rattle, liquids that moved wrong, needles that existed in multiple dimensions at once.

"This is where it really begins," Vastor said, actual respect creeping into his voice. "Your humanity ends today. Let's see what you become instead."

"I don't understand," he managed to say. His voice sounded small in that impossible space.

"Understanding is not required," said the third being, who seemed to exist in multiple places at once. "Only obedience."

Golden light erupted around him. It felt like being torn apart and put back together wrong. Like every cell in his body was being rewritten. He screamed, but no sound came out - the chamber swallowed it, hungry for his pain.

When it was over, he wasn't the same person. Literally wasn't the same person. His skin burned with strange markings that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. His bones felt heavier, denser. Even the air felt different against his new flesh.

"Rise, warrior," said the golden-eyed one. "Your training begins."

The training. God, the training. Days that lasted years, nights that passed in seconds. Learning to fight with weapons that shouldn't exist. Learning to break the laws of reality itself.

Other humans were there too - ones like him, taken and transformed. Some adapted. Some broke. Some simply disappeared, and no one dared ask what happened to them.

He learned to—

Jacob's head throbbed, breaking his flow. He blinked at the screen, surprised by how much he'd written. Where was this even coming from? The hangover made it hard to think straight, but something about the words felt... familiar. Like he was remembering rather than creating.

He chugged some Gatorade and kept going:

He learned to shape energy with his mind, to break physical laws, to exist in multiple spaces simultaneously. The marks they'd burned into his flesh weren't just decoration - they were channels for power that reality itself rejected.

His first real test came three months in. Or maybe it was three years - time moved differently in that place. One of the golden beings materialized in his quarters, wings spread wide.

"Come," it said. "Show us what you've learned."

The arena was massive, curved walls stretching up into infinity. Other recruits watched from impossible angles as he faced his opponent - another transformed human, but one who'd been there longer. One who'd already forgotten their original name.

The fight was brutal. They moved faster than human eyes could track, wielding energies that made the air crack and burn. His opponent was stronger, more experienced. But something in him refused to break.

When it was over, he stood over his fallen opponent, blood dripping from wounds that were already closing. The golden beings watched with expressions that might have been approval. Might have been disappointment. Hard to tell with faces that didn't work like faces should.

"Acceptable," said his trainer. "Again."

And so it went. Fight after fight, death after death. Their bodies would knit back together, stronger each time. The marks spread across their skin, growing more complex with each resurrection.

Some recruits formed bonds, finding comfort in shared trauma. Others turned cold, distant. He walked the line between, never quite connecting but never fully disconnecting either. It was easier that way. Easier not to care too much about people who might disappear tomorrow.

Years passed. Or minutes. Or centuries. The chamber of stars became home, the impossible architecture more familiar than regular buildings. His old life felt like a dream - had he really once worried about things like homework and crushes and—

Another throb of pain made Jacob stop typing. His head was spinning, but not just from the hangover. These words... they didn't feel like fiction. They felt like...

His phone lit up on the desk. Through his hangover haze, he caught the notification banner:

Ms. Winters: Fascinating progress. Keep going. The truth speaks through fiction when we let it.

Jacob grabbed his phone, head spinning. Why was his English teacher texting him on a Sunday morning? And how did she know he was writing?

But when he opened his messages, there was nothing from Ms. Winters. Just drunk texts from last night - Ryan bragging about his mixology skills, Tyler sending blurry party photos. He scrolled through twice, but no message from their teacher.

He checked his email too. Nothing.

"What the hell?" he muttered, looking back at his laptop screen. The words swam a little, his headache definitely not helping with focus.

He looked back at his laptop screen. The words swam a little, his hangover definitely not helping with focus. But under the headache and nausea, something was trying to surface. Something about the story felt important in a way he couldn't quite grasp.

His fingers hovered over the keys. There was more - he could feel it pressing against his mind. But right now his head hurt too much to keep going.

He saved the document and crawled back into bed, pulling the covers over his head to block out the sun. Sleep came quickly, and he dreamed of chambers made of starlight and beings with wings of pure geometry.

In the dream, one of them looked at him with golden eyes and said: "Soon. You'll remember soon."

He woke up hours later, mouth dry, head still pounding. The dreams faded, but the story remained, waiting to be finished.

Tomorrow. He'd finish it tomorrow.

But some part of him wondered if the story was actually finished long ago, and he was just now remembering how it went.