The day was bright and sunny, not at all feeling like the beginning of autumn.
A truck pulls into the driveway of a small one-story farmhouse. Surrounding the road and home was empty fields for miles. The crops were just recently harvested, leaving the fields bare.
On one side of the house was a small pasture with a couple goats. On the other side of the home was a shed, filled with tools, and a parking spot that the truck just pulled into.
It was a 2016 Ford F-150, which was rather common in this area. The door of the truck opens and a young man hops out of the driver seat. He was 6 feet and one inch tall, and weighed 140 pounds, which was on the slim side. He had short black hair and shiny bronze colored eyes.
His name was Aros Mercer. He had just turned 22 a month prior, and still had a young look to his face. He had just come back to his home from his grocery shopping trip.
Aros was living in the home which used to belong to his parents. Both of his parents died in a car accident back when he was 16, and being an only child, led him to live without a family.
After his parent's death, he was able to become emancipated, and lived here on the farm by himself.
Right beside the home was the farm which he also now owned. He didn't farm it himself, but instead rent it out for others to farm, which led to a stable income.
Aros hauled the groceries back inside to the kitchen, putting everything away before walking back outside. He threw some bundles of hay over to the goats before walking back inside.
The place he was living at was roughly a dozen miles away from a small town. Situations like these were quite common for the east side of Washington State in the US. Even though the state was nicknamed the Evergreen State, that was mainly for the west side of the state, where Seattle was located.
The west side of the state was along the Pacific Ocean, which led to lots of moisture. That was cut off however, but the Cascade Mountains which went right down the middle, leaving the west side full of lush vegetation, and the east side full of sagebrush, tumbleweeds, and dry land.
The side of Washington State he was on was full of farmers, leading to spread out homes over the area.
Aros grabbed a cold soda before stepping back outside and sitting down in a chair, watching the goats go about their business, and hearing the wind slowly rustle the tree leaves.
His mind drifted towards the Corona Virus, also known as Covid-19, which was making a resurgence. The panic buying in stores had increased again, leading to what could almost be called a toilet paper scarcity.
He quickly shook his head at the thought of the chaos that the stores were in again as he calmly sipped on his drink.
Everything here was calm, and felt oh-so relaxing.
That was until, he became stuck in his current posture, with the tip of the bottle an inch from his lips.
Everything had become silent.
The wind wasn't blowing.
The goats weren't moving.
The water shot from a sprinkler was stuck in mid-air.
Time had come to a stop.
[Greetings Everyone.]
[This is an automated announcement.]
[The last living god, has just passed away.]
The text had appeared directly into his mind along with a dull toned voice. The contents of the message were enough to give him a shock.
That was even so for every living human on the planet, who were also experiencing the same thing he was.
[The gods had kept and sealed away all sorts of being and creations that could be classified as 'mythological' and 'supernatural' by modern standards. With the last god dead, they will now ravage the Earth once again.]
Aros' eyes would've widened considerably if he could move. He didn't think for a moment that this voice was lying, since he was currently experiencing something, he had never thought possible before.
[If that was all there was, then things would've been much simpler. However, due to the nature of how the gods had previously acquired godhood, it had locked the planets natural growth, since they each held a piece of essence of it inside themselves. Due to the stagnation of the Earth, the natural energy that once covered the land had vanished for thousands of years. It will now be coming back with full force.]
He wasn't completely understanding what the voice meant, but he could almost feel the heavy tone of it with the last sentence.
[You can think of this natural energy, which has gone by many names such as Mana, Chi, Qi, Chakra, Prana, and more. It will lead to shifting and changing landscapes, which will in turn lead to natural disasters. The full effects aren't something that even the gods can understand.]
[One example would be the current Corona Virus as you all know it. It had slipped out through the cracks with the weakening of the last god. With natural energies once again covering the Earth, the true virus will be revealed at its full strength.]
That made Aros shudder to himself. If the current virus which has led to the current chaos of the world were to become even more dangerous, he couldn't even imagine the consequences.
[Of course, the gods had seen this coming for hundreds of years, even if they couldn't stop it. They had made preparations for the human race, creating a path for them to survive and grow. This could be called The Final Blessing of the Gods.]
[Time will restart in 30 seconds. Prepare to be back in control of your body, especially if you're in a dangerous position. The full change of the world will appear in one hour. Good luck, and may the gods be with you.]
With that final word, the countdown started going down from thirty seconds, until he was back in control of his body.
Time started once again, with the sound of leaves and running water, and goats in the background. Everything felt so… surreal.
Aros quickly pulled out his phone, and saw that it was 11 AM, so things would happen right at noon for him.
He quickly opened up his social media, going to twitter, and checked what was going on.
Aros didn't really have any friends, and became more of an introvert after high school, so a lot of the accounts he was looking at online were of celebrities, Youtubers, and other things that he would look at for fun.
It seemed like there wasn't anything online for the first few moments before dozens of posts started rolling in.
It seemed like everyone had an opinion that they wanted to make, and some were talking about their own experiences of what just happened.
Aros quickly stood up and walked back into his living room and turning on the news channel, seeing if anything was being said. It seemed like so far, there was no statements made.
Aros quickly checked a couple government officials twitters, but nothing had been said by them yet.
Going back through other posts, things were an absolute mess.
Some were saying that it was the Rapture, Armageddon, the Apocalypse, Ragnarök, and others as people were correlating it with their own religion.
Some were calling it a hoax, which honestly wasn't surprising. People call everything a hoax now at days.
There was also a large number of people asking what they should do, which even Aros wasn't sure. It wasn't like there was a precedent for this. He couldn't even imagine how chaotic the cities would be at this moment, and he was quite glad to be at home.
He put his phone down and took a deep breath for a moment to think. In some situations, the best choice would be to be holed up, and in others, it would be to move.
Aros sat there for a few moments, thinking of what the Voice had said. The easiest way for Aros to guess the meaning of it would be to compare the Earth to an engine.
Over the centuries or even longer since Mana stopped being produced, all that fuel for it was being stored up. So, all this backed up fuel, was just sitting there, waiting. Now that the final piece of the engine had been given back to it, the engine will start running again.
He let out a soft sigh as he looked around his small living room. The single-story house he was in had a basement, which he was now going to make use of.