Killing a Godking Chapter 1 (Patreon)

** SO! I did a poll in the discord server and everyone voted unanimously! I will now be posting WIP stories that might not be continued to patreon for you all to read. I have to reiterate though, if a story is tagged as WIP, there's a chance it might not be finished or whatever. Just showing you all my random story ideas etc.

Anyway uh... content warnings, this story is sorta depressing and melancholy. Good luck! **

A god was talking to me. A real one, I mean… it couldn’t be anything other than that right? I’d spent my short, miserable life vehemently denying their existence in the face of my… blood relatives. Right up until the end, at a measly eighteen years old.

I shuddered as a portion of my most recent memories gained emotional tangibility for a second, the fear that had coursed through my veins surging up to wrap its greedy hands around my throat. Like he had done, my own father.

“You see, I need you to be a good little soul and take up a part in the game I’m playing. Nothing major, I assure you…” the god was saying from up high on his throne. Gaudy thing, in a dark sort of way. All black and gold, hints of red. The deity leaned forward, fingers playing through his perfect goatee. “You hear me girl?”

“Yeah,” I nodded, too emotionally exhausted to summon anything other than that single word. Truth was exhausting. Truth had gotten me killed.

When I’d said that I didn’t want to go to prom with that Nathan guy, I’d been telling the truth. When I said I hated god, hated christianity, I’d been telling the truth. When he raised the brick to silence my cries and I’d begged through my bruised throat, saying I’d do whatever he wanted, I’d been telling the truth.

The first blow landed again in my mind’s eye, the gut churning crack that had come from within me. I shuddered as the memory of that moment repulsed me. Hearing a sound like that transmitted through the bruised and broken meat of your own body… I closed up again, shaking with the aftershocks of the blind animal terror I’d felt.

“My, you really are damaged goods aren’t you?” the god laughed, eliminating any hope I’d had that he would be the compassionate type. “No matter, perfect for the role, docile and quivering. The man you’re intended for will like that, or so I’m told.”

“Man I’m intended for?” I asked bleakly, finally raising my eyes to meet his.

“Indeed. You see, on the world that I call… well, home is never the right word for us higher beings is it? Let’s say my domain. In the world that is my domain, there is another god, and he took my favourite toy from me. An adorable little empire,” he explained, as though I should be heartbroken that this overpowered man-child had lost his toy empire.

Jesus, this was a lot to take in. Shit, did this mean that Jesus had actually existed?

Continuing without waiting to see if I was listening, he kept going, “I intend to take it back, and in order to do so, I pluck at the strings of a vast web. I am a god of intrigue after all, shadows and plots are my calling. One little junction on this web requires a marriage between a little girl and a little boy.”

“How?” I prompted when he paused, swirling a finger on the armrest of his throne.

“She had her soul ripped out, unfortunate really, she was so well suited for the task… a political marriage between two noble houses,” he explained dryly, as if bored of the conversation already. “I intend for you to take her place.”

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. I’d died trying to avoid a simple prom date, and now I was being thrown into some poor brain-dead girl’s body and her shitty arranged marriage. I wondered what this god would think when I killed myself? Could I make myself do it, take the life of another to end my own?

“Who was she?” I asked, my curiosity coming to life for the first time since this conversation had started.

“Oh, some noble brat,” he shrugged. “I never paid much attention until her soul was torn out by a Predni during the swarm a year back. Nasty creatures. If I was still in control of the Empire, they’d have been eradicated, but alas, pest control is difficult when your arrogant brother blocks your every move. The family has been foolishly keeping her body alive with magic in some sort of ridiculous attempt at hope.”

“What happened to her soul after that?” I asked, rather than taking up the bait about his brother. I wondered if the other god was actually nice?

The god blinked, leaning forward to stare down at me. “Whose?”

I winced at his expression. It was the same unconsciously dismissive face that my mother had made when I’d tried to actually contribute anything to a conversation at the dinner table. My next words were in the carefully submissive tone that I had perfected to deal with her.  “The girl who owned the body.”

“Oh, snapped up by the harvesters I imagine,” he told me, leaning back in his throne, satisfied that I was as dumb as I looked. “Probably thrown into a bundle deal like yours was, although unlike her, I believe no one will be able to slip into the wreck you left behind. What a mess that was.”

I gulped and forced my eyes shut, trying not to remember what he’d just so callously described as a mess. It came anyway, the momentary distraction that curiosity had provided falling beneath the onslaught of memory. Falling, I remembered that. He’d pushed me down the stairs and into the basement after I made the stupid mistake of shouting back for once.

The sound of each footfall as he stomped down the rough wooden steps echoed in my skull, as did that final step onto the cold concrete floor of the basement. He’d never really hit me before, not with this level of intention, not with the furious intensity that had shone in his eyes that night. He’d been angry, he’d shouted, he’d thrown and broken things, but he’d never more than smacked me on the back of the head before that moment.

“Oh dear, the broken thing is having a meltdown,” I heard the god say, his voice distant and slightly disgusted. “Someone get her moving! Where’s the next one?”

I felt hands come down on my ephemeral shoulders and I twitched, a small squeak of a thing that showed just how right the god was. I was broken, damaged goods. Worthless. I kept my eyes closed as whatever passed for tears in this place trailed down my cheeks.

While being led away, I heard a new voice, a girl’s by the sound of things, sounding terrified. “W-where am I? Who are you?” There was a pause. “Why am I… why do I look like a girl?”

“Oh, do shut up,” the god sneered. “My patience for snivelling, broken souls is waning. I do not know why, nor do I care about the differences between your soul and your previous body. You are here because I have a task for you, so quit your whimpering and listen.”

Before the small feminine voice behind me could respond, I was led out of earshot at strange speed, as though each step counted for many more than one. This place was weird, but my mind didn’t really seem to give a shit. However... a small part of me that wasn’t strangled by self loathing and apathy was able to conjure up a little sympathy for the girl behind me. I guessed I wasn’t alone in being a smashed soul.

With a slight, instinctual shrug of my shoulders, I realised that the heavy hands that weighed down my shoulders were not the terrible vices that I’d been thinking they were. They were almost soothing, a kind and comforting weight that would have been alien to me even before my death.

I followed along with the gentle pressure of direction that the hands provided like the good little quivering wretch that I was. It’s not like I could have done anything else as I tried my best to stave off the memory of events that to my mind had only happened ten minutes ago. Oh god, his eyes, the rage that had filled them… oh god…

The hands shook me, albeit gently. I gave a gasp, a real one this time and my eyes flew open like blinds thrown wide on a bright saturday morning. I was staring at a body, a small girl no older than ten years old. She was so thin, frail to the point of being malnourished. Long charcoal hair spilled over her shoulders, while eyes the colour of that manuka honey I used to like stared vacantly back at me.

“You have more fire in you than that idiot can see,” a voice said in my ear, soft and genderless. “I’ll give you something to wield with that fire, see if you stir up a little trouble, hmm?”

A dark light flashed within my mind, an embrace filled with power and grace such that I lost all thought for a moment. Before I could recover, I was being pushed forward into the body of the young girl.