NOVEL WEB 2) Meeting Gods
CHAPTER 2
“Ai…Aid…Aiden…. AIDEN!!!!” I hear a commanding and powerful voice coming from the darkness that seems to surround me. “Who am I? Where am I? Oh, fuck what is going on? HELP?!” “Calm yourself Aiden Marl. You are safe. You are in our domain there will be no harm done to you here we assure you. Now see.” After the voice said that my vision began to clear, and a glade appeared before me with a small cottage in the middle surrounded by different colored flowers. The morning sun's rays is poking through the trees on the opposite side of the glade. “Holy shit.” I say softly looking around taking in the view then a sharp pain runs through my very being. “AHHHHHAHHHHH” “ODIN…HE IS GOING INTO SOUL SHOCK HELP HIM…OR SO HELP ME!!” “Tiamat, I know but you knew the risks of not putting his soul into the cycle like the others instead of bringing him here. We must wait to see if he can adjust on his own or our blood will just destroy him.” “I KNOW…I know but he will be our child I’m scared for him. My tests resulted in him getting through this but…” “It’s ok honey, look…he is powering through it just like a child of the great Mage Odin and Mother of dragons should. Have faith in us love.
Pain of which I have never felt before is coursing through me. Memories of the abuse of my parents, the neglect of the orphanage, and mind shattering revelations before I was shoved off a cliff play through at horrifying speeds inside my mind. Finally, after what felt like an entirety the pain recedes leaving me on the ground huffing and puffing, that is if I actually had a physical body. Looking down at myself I look like a wisp of fire of red and purple swirling around like a galaxy. Realizing my state, I was in I started to have another panic attack on top thinking about what all had and why I was like this. Before my panic attack took over the same voice, I heard speak my name spoke, “Calm yourself Aiden Marl. Here I will try to soothe your soul into a calmer state.” Looking in the direction of the voice that spoke I was speechless and terrified at what I was seeing. The voice was coming a massive creature the size of a small hill. It flew around in circles descending to the ground slowly. The first thing I noticed about the creature was the sapphire blue scales on the underside of the beast which when the sun’s rays shined upon the scales caused a reflection that bathed the surrounding area in a beautiful blue light.
Distracted with the sight I felt a small earthquake as the beast landed in front of me letting me take in the rest of its visage. The sapphire scales turned into long silk like fur with the color of ruby red flowing like water in the wind. Its massive head covered in the same fur had a snout with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. Each time the beast took a breath I could see smoke come out of its nostrils. Atop its head is five horns with spikes poking out randomly. One horn is in the middle of its forehead with two horns on each side of its temples angled backwards. The head was attached to its muscular neck with scales on the underside and fur atop. Its wings had thin dark red leathery skin on the underside with fur covering the folds and the top of the wings. Its tail was longer than its body and just like the body, had scales and fur. It stood on four muscular legs that had scales on the inside but fur on the outside. The beast’s talons dug into the ground gouging out the earth below. “Oi! I am not a beast Aiden! I AM A DRAGON!” Snapped out of my observation of the dragon by the voice which was apparently coming from the beast itself caught me off guard.
Finally recovering from seeing an actual dragon from the myths and stories I have read throughout my life my body or, soul rather, started to shiver and vibrate from fear of the dragon. “Easy Aiden we are not going to harm you.” Trying to ease my shivering and gather the courage to speak I took a hypothetical deep breath and spoke, “Where am I? What…Who are you? Did I really die? Is this heav- ““Slow down child…hehe…I'll answer your questions to best of my abilities. As for where you are…you are in mine and Odin’s domain. I am the primordial dragon goddess Tiamat though I go by many names besides Tiamat and my real name cannot be said by mortal tongues. Yes, you did die and no this is not what some humans used to call heaven. You are just a soul that we took out of the Well of Souls.” Tiamat finished answering my immediate questions leaving me to digest the information.
My mind went into overdrive pushing down the trauma of being betrayed and death, “I am in a domain of Tiamat’s and Odin’s domain? What the hell does that mean? Tiamat and Odin are gods? There is no such thing. I was not really an atheist per say but they are gods of myth. They are beings that were made up in the past for people to explain the unexplainable at the time. Was there actual truth in the primitive religions of the past. THAT IS CRAZY!... If my memories are true, then I did die or are currently in a dream from a coma…no I’m dead I know that because I was an organ donor and my will made sure I wouldn’t be in a coma too long before they harvest what they could.” After thinking and partially accepting the situation but not trusting her fully due to what happened to me recently and my vow to never be toyed with again. I look back into the dragon god’s eyes which were ruby red and sapphire blue swirling and briefly mixing making a purple tint with slits for pupils, I ask, “Wha…What is the Well of Souls...ma’am?”
“Well, that is a long story that will take some time. How about we get comfortable and go inside the cottage Odin will be able to explain better than I can.” Tiamat answered in a cheerful voice though still booming. After she finished there was a shift of my perspective, and she started transforming. Slowly her wings receded into her back and her tail that was double the length of her body shrunk. She stood on her two back legs and her body too shrunk. Before my very eyes the dragon transformed into a humanoid form. She has a beautiful face with sharp red and blue eyes that swirled with slits for pupils. Her body was draped in a red sundress that matched her long ruby red hair that reached the middle of her back. The curves of her body displayed a motherly aura that any child would want to hug and be coddled by. If I had a mouth, I’m sure my jaw would be on the ground not just from the show of transformation but by the motherly beauty in front of me. Tiamat was the embodiment of my imagination of what a loving, caring, and kind mother would look like.
Once she was done transforming, she turned her back and moved to the cottage motioning me to follow. I noticed that her tail was not gone and trailed behind her along with a tattoo of dragon wings showing from her dress being an open back dress. Her skin was as smooth as any humans’ but had patches of her sapphire scales contrasting with her hair and dress. We arrived at the door of the cottage, and she opened the door motioning me in first. I started walking or more like floating since I’m nothing more than a wisp of flame, through the door and noticed a man around forty years of age sitting at the small table in the center of the room. He had an eye patch just like the stories and games I had read and played. “I can’t believe these two are gods. I’m still on the side that I am just having a very lucid dream.” I thought this as somehow without arms pulled out a chair to sit down. “You are not in a dream Aiden. Your soul is truly here in mine and Tiamat domain.” Odin said this as I was floating above the chair sitting, I looked at him surprise. “Can y’all read my mind?” I asked with concern as it was bad enough people could read my facial expressions when I was alive now it seems these people can read my mind. “Yes, but only when you are in our domain.” “Fuck, do I truly have no control over life even in the afterlife.”
Tiamat finally sat beside Odin and was smiling at me as if to try to reassure me that my fear are unfounded. “Odin, he wants to know about the Well of Souls.” Tiamat says to Odin who looks at her with a strained expression. He sighs and says, “Tiamat why did you mention that, you know we can only say so much to mortals.” “Oh, please Odin.” Tiamat says while rolling her eyes and continues, “If he is going to be our son, he needs to know a little more background about us and what has happened to the Cosmos. I can sense he has trust issues, and he needs us to be honest with him or he will never really become our son.” Odin grabs her dainty hand that one would not think to belong to a mighty goddess of dragons. Odin turns from observing me to her and says, “Of course love, but I just didn’t want to overload him on information since he just got here.” “You worry to much darling…hehe…there is a reason I picked him out of all the other souls still left in the Well.” Tiamat turns back to me with her motherly smile, but I could see the fierceness in her eyes that held…pride? She continues saying with the pride in her voice as in her eyes, “Aiden will become a mighty dragon once he releases his inhibitions.”
Odin turns back to me with a weathered face and impressive white beard with beads and braids decorating it. Before he said anymore, I studied him and him me. His eyes were a solid blue that sparkled with kindness. They were keen eyes with vast amounts of wisdom and intellect behind them. Contrary to most stories, he was well built and toned with his defined muscle groups showing themselves but not to the extent like that asshole Cowe.
“Why do y’all keep saying that I will be your son?” I asked after my brief examination of the man in front of me. “We will get to that Aiden. Before that though I agree with my wife that we need to tell you a few things about our situation. I can tell that you are still exhausted by being brought here, so would you like to rest before I tell you the summarized story or would you like to hear it now?” Odin says leaving me surprised that a god would give two shits about a mortal’s wellbeing. I recovered from my surprise and decided to question their intentions about the concern they were showing me and say, “No offence to the two of you but why would gods give a shit about me or any mortal for that matter?” They both just smile at me, and Odin says “We are not the same gods in the stories of humans. In fact, I guess we can start there if you want to continue?” I nod my nonexistent head and he continues, “There were no gods here in this universe that has been called the Realm of the Cosmos which your planet resides in.” “Wait, if there were no gods in the universe where did the two of you come from?” I asked before I could stop myself from interrupting him. Odin just smiled and says, “I was getting to that.”
“As I was saying there WERE no gods here in the Realm of the Cosmos but that changed when the universe that we come from called the Realm of the Mystic ended by being embroiled in war between gods and its inhabitants.” Odin paused to let me digest the information and thoughts took over my attention “A FUCKING WAR OF GODS. Are you kidding me, did I die and become stuck in some kind of FANTASY GAME!!!” Odin continued with a somber tone “Tiamat and me along with a large number of gods were on the losing side and were about to be overwhelmed. I convinced the last of our faction that we needed to escape and start anew in another universe. I had kept this plan in my back pocket in case we were pushed back far enough, and we were unfortunately.” With my soul eyes went wide as I thought “Are these two invaders into our reality? What the hell were they thinking?! Surely there were consequences of traveling between different realities. The laws of physics for one. I am not the smartest person, but I do know that there must have been damage that occurred.”
Both gods having read my mind changed their expression into a more somber and regretful expression looking at each other then back me before Odin continued, “It is as you expected there were consequences to my and the other’s actions of tearing and making a bridge between our two realms.” Odin sighed and looked down before continuing, “The energy that existed in the Realm of Mystic burst through into the Realm of Cosmos causing chaos and destruction throughout. I did not know it would have such an effect and after the rest of our faction and refugees crossed the bridge, I sealed the tears and destroyed the bridge between our realties so that we were not followed or more energy could come through. Though by then it was too late, and the damage had been done.” He paused again to regain his composure and was comforted by Tiamat for a few minutes. Trying to wrap my mind around all of this absurdness I ask, “I’m…I’m afraid to ask but what exactly are you saying that the damage was already done? Was…Was the Realm of Cosmos, as you called my universe, is it gone?”
Tiamat was the one who looked at me with a sadden expression says, “No, not entirely. The clusters or as you know them as galaxies that you know of are all mostly gone. There are only a few hundred left in this realm.” “WHAT! There were trillions of galaxies maybe even more and you are telling me there are now only a few hundred left!” Tiamat slowly nodded at me and continued, “What we have learned is that the burst of energy used the other clusters as fuel to reshape the Realm of Cosmos more like the Realm of Mystic. Many civilizations were wiped out and what you call the Milky Way Galaxy was barely spared due to how far away the bridge appeared. Though it did not go unscathed. Many habitable worlds are no longer able to support life. Earth now called Marble was affected but less so than others.” “Fuck, then that means humans survived?” I asked, a little disgruntled at the fact that Cowe and Amy may have survived. Odin dismissing or ignoring my thoughts spoke up again, “Earth was decimated and only a few humans survived around the world.” Taking a deep breath I ask, “Okay…so what is going on now on earth? When did this all happen? Wait…how long have I been in the Well of Souls?” Odin finally smiled again and waved his hand and cups appeared with coffee inside before each of us.
Surprised I tried to pick it up and was astonished that I could and brought to my nonexistent mouth and sipped the ambrosia. “Haa…Thank you it is very good.” “You are very welcome.” Odin says and continues to answer my questions. “To answer when all this happened it was probably around twenty-five years after your death. For how long it has been since you died, I would say around 125,000 years in Earth years.” I sputtered out my coffee at the mention of the number of years that have passed. “Holy hell! 125,000 years has passed I cannot even begin to imagine that. Though I guess there is no such thing as time in this so called Well of Souls.” Noticing that spat coffee in all over the table I quickly apologize, “I’m so sorry. I’ll clean it up do you have a rag?” “Here you go hun.” Taking the rag from Tiamat I wiped down the table muttering to myself that that was embarrassing and was glad that I had no blood or face to show.
The couple chuckled to themselves a little and while I was wiping the table. “Well, I think that would be enough information for now darling how about you get him settled in and comfortable. Once he is rested and recovered from the soul shock we will continue chatting.” Tiamat pouted and pushed out her cheeks but Odin nodded and Tiamat turned to Aiden and guided him to a room further inside the cottage. Tiamat motioned inside the room and Aiden floated inside where there was just a simple twin sized bed. Tiamat spoke from the door frame, “This’ll be your room for tonight. Tomorrow we will explain more.” Before I could say anything, she turned around and left closing the door behind her.
Finally, alone after what seemed like hours since arriving, I felt the crushing force of mental exhaustion. It’s not every day someone meets gods let alone a beautiful goddess of dragons and the wise god, Odin. I floated towards the bed and sat down to think about my situation for a few moments but soon felt Mr. Sandman calling me to sleep which seems even souls need sleep. My consciousness faded and soon the alluring darkness of sleep claimed me.