Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
“It wasn’t until all of this,” I said, waving out at the world at large, “started happening that I started to put things together.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“Well, I heard about all the things going on. And they kind of… reminded me of this class I took once on mythology. So I went digging in my father’s library for my old books.”
My father never threw a single book away. He had the old manuals for how to work Windows XP and for explaining how the internet itself worked.
“I’m assuming you found more than just your old textbooks.”
“I found my father’s journals,” I told him. “Except they weren’t exactly journals. At first, they seemed like the ravings of a man who was losing his mind. Except my father was sharp right until the end.”
“They were about your mother?” Daemon guessed, tone conversational. He wasn’t even out of breath, despite carrying a large grown man in his arms as we trekked through the cold woods.
“Yeah. Just notebook after notebook. The first ones were mostly just about their, uh, encounter.”
“That sounds… traumatizing,” Daemon said, shooting me a smirk.
“You could say that,” I agreed. “I mean, we all know our parents have had—and likely continued to have—sex. But it’s another thing to see an entire notebook about it.
“Anyway, as the notebooks went on, it became more of an analysis about my mother. Things felt… odd to him about the encounter.
“Then, one day, she showed up again. With me.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would she show up with you? Did she… adopt out all of her children?”
“No. The problem was that I wasn’t a god myself. She told my father that I ‘wouldn’t survive’ with her. Then she just… walked away.”
“Harsh.”
“A mercy, I think. Now that I know about what happens in the primordial realm. It’s… elemental chaos there. I was too soft, too warm, too… human. Giving me to my father was actually the most motherly thing she could have done.”
“Did your father know that something wasn’t… right with you right away?”
“No. I grew slowly, but not even slowly enough for doctors to worry. It wasn’t until I reached adulthood that my aging all but stopped. But he suspected for other reasons.”
“The shadow thing?”
“Yeah. Apparently, I used it even as a small child to play hide-and-seek. Then, once, we were rehabilitating a wounded dove. My father kept saying that what it really needed was to sleep to recover. So as I was petting it, I told it to sleep. And… it did.”
“He never told you about his suspicions?”
“What were the chances that I wouldn’t have thought he was insane?” I said, shrugging. “I just thought I had great night vision and was good at ‘blending in’ when I was out at night. People seemed to look right through me. Honestly, it created a bit of an insecurity for most of my life.”
“Right. Because anyone who actually sees you wouldn’t stop and stare.”
“Anyway,” I said, uncomfortable with the way my heart fluttered at his words. “The last notebook was just before his death. He, apparently, saw the signs of the old gods waking up well before the rest of the world started to feel it.
“Knowing he was fading himself, he wanted to write down everything he could for me, detailing who he thought I was, who my mom and siblings are, and what he thought I should do if the worst comes to pass.”
“What was his advice?”
“Hide.”
“Not good at following advice, huh, sweetness?” Daemon asked as the woods started to thin, and I could see my car sitting mostly hidden behind a crumbling old stone shed.
“Maybe I could have. If so much suffering wasn’t happening. Already. I can’t imagine what is to come as the gods get bolder.
“Humans are… somewhat predictable with things like this. Once they realize what is going on, they will all break up into factions. They will worship their gods while shunning those who worship others. Wars will break out. Millions will suffer and die. While the gods laugh.”
“And feast on their battlefield blood,” Daemon said as he waited for me to open the door so he could deposit the man across the backseat.
“Yes.”
“So, you set off to restore balance.”
“My father had a lot to say about Nemesis,” I told him, turning over the car and cranking up the heat. “He thought she might be the only one of my sisters that I could get along with. Are you coming?” I asked when Daemon just stood outside the car.
“Don’t have to ask me twice,” he said, jumping in, then pressing his hands to the vents to warm them. “How’d you find these other siblings?”
“They weren’t exactly being subtle. In this area, suicide rates skyrocketed out of nowhere. Enough that it was actually being investigated by health officials. To me, it sounded like Eris, Oizys, and Moros running amok.”