Chapter I: The Goddess Athena

I know you're not going to believe me, but this is the truth. It sounds crazy and insane, but every word I tell you is nothing but the truth. It's going to sound fantastic, insane, unbelievable, and everything else you can say about it.

But it's the truth and there's plenty of evidence if you know where to look. I know what you're going to say; "Evidence? Of reincarnation? That's impossible." Not at all. There is plenty of proof throughout history. Take Dorthy Eady, for instance. A British woman who claimed she lived in Ancient Egypt as a priestess in the Cult of Isis. She has given a convincing account of her life before.

Then there's the account of the Oklahoma boy, Ryan, who lived in the golden age of cinema as Marty Martyn. James Leininger was a Louisiana boy who claimed to be a World War II fighter pilot shot down over Iwo Jima.

There are other accounts of people claiming to be reborn. Or reincarnated. Whatever it is that you would like to call it.

That's what happened to me, though my account may differ slightly from those listed above. Before I died, I was Jacob Hansen, a boy born in the first year of the 1970s. It was a great time to be alive and I'm glad I got to live through the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, and the early 2000s.

My first memory was watching my father as he played Computer Space and Galaxy Game, some of the earliest video games to ever be released. My mother died in childbirth, so I never knew her. Maybe if I had, my life would have been different, but only gods can turn back the hands of time and none of them want to do me any favors.

My father loved my mother with all his heart and he did his best to cope with her death. He was a gentle and kind man, so he never turned to the bottle. Instead, he grew to love video games. That's where my early fascination with the medium comes from, and I think that's where you can look if you want to see the point that set my life on the path I lived.

My father loved me and he did his best to take care of me as a single dad. I don't blame him for the person I became. Video games were my drugs, and I got addicted from a young age. I forsook the world to stare at a screen for most of my life. None of that can be blamed on my father.

He did love video games, so growing up, I too came to love them. Whenever new games were released in America, we would buy them. Some nights we would stay up until morning playing, then he'd grumble and go to work and I'd grumble and go to school. Those were good days and I didn't release how much I treasured them until my dad passed away in 1989.

I was attending college in Austin Texas at the time and when I heard the news, I came straight back to Mayfield, Texas. In my time, Mayfield was only a small town, not the city that it would grow to become. It was a small town, the place I spent my childhood and the place I lost my father.

My father left him his savings, his house, and everything else of value. I dropped out of college to attend to his affairs, setting everything in order. None of our relatives attended his funeral.

After everything was done, I sold his house. I couldn't bare to stay in that house, filled with memories of my father at every corner. It was too painful. So I sold it and used the money to move to Seattle. I wouldn't live there today, but at the time the city was exactly what I wanted and needed. An escape.

My dad left me with plenty of money and when I sold his house, I had even more. He left me with stalks and investments, enough to assure me that I would never have to work again. If I was frugal, I was set.

I paid rent for my shitty little apartment, I bought food and soda to keep me going, and when I needed to, I would buy equipment. Games were everything to me then, so that's what I spent most of my money on.

I became a shut-in and I let myself go. My hygiene took a turn for the worst, I only took showers when I left my apartment, or when my body became too itchy or sticky. I hardly washed any of my clothes, because I didn't wear any unless I went outside. There was a pizza restaurant and a grocery store nearby that would deliver, so I called and had everything I needed brought to me. The only time I set foot out of my rat-infested cage was when I wanted to buy a new game or a new console.

The PlayStation 1 didn't impress me that much. I was a Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn guy, but then the PlayStation 2 came out on October 26th in North America and it changed my world. To this day, it remains my favorite system and I think if my father was still alive, he'd love it. I remember spending days just playing Dynasty Warriors 2, Eternal Ring, Evergrace, Midnight Club, Smuggler's Run, and so many other games. It was a new month of insanity that I have rarely experienced.

It only broke a year later with the release of the original Xbox. PlayStation 2 is my favorite console, but the original Xbox is a very close second. Halo, my favorite game series, was a launch title and I sunk more hours into that game than any other game. Baring Primal Vale, of course.

When the Xbox 360 came out in 2005, I order it and had it the very first day, along with a few launch titles. By that time my apartment was becoming too cluttered with games and consoles to move without risking stepping on something and breaking it. I got storage and put all my old consoles and games in it, putting it on a plan to take money out of my account every month to pay for it.

Then I played the 360 for all it was worth, never leaving my apartment except to pick up games. I was falling further and further into my little world and I'm sure even my father, who loved video games, would be concerned. He was the one who pushed me to go to college in the first place. He didn't want me to waste my life, but that's what happened.

I died in 2006, a few days before the PlayStation 3 was set to come out. I had pre-ordered it because I was me, so of course, I did. I had a heart attack before I could ever lay eyes on it. The years of sitting in a dirty apartment eating junk food had caught up with me at last.

And that was that. The pitiful excuse for a human that was Jacob Hansen died in 2006, thirty-six years after he was born. He contributed nothing to his country, the world, or society. He died in his dark apartment, unloved by any living person

Anyone except for the neighbor girl who loved video games as much as Jacob did. He left everything to little Eryn and he hoped she would get use out of his games and his money. Everything he owned was left to her.

And so our story comes to an end. Pathetic Jacob Hansen died as he lived, alone. That should be the end of it, right?

In his thirty-six years of life, Jacob had never seen anything that would lead him to believe that God existed. Not just the Abrahamic one, but no God or gods or any higher power. Creation was a series of random mutations in a universe full of chance and anarchy. We, humans, had no special place in the universe, any more than another alien species did.

Earth could support life and we got lucky. That's all there was to it. Everyone only got one life and when you died you were just dead. There wasn't any higher power looking down at you, there was no heaven or hell, there was just the void. Darkness. Oblivion. Your body rotted where it was left or you were burned to ashes. You ceased to exist.

I was sure that was what happened after death. There was regret there at the end. As the darkness closed and my vision faded, I remembered my father's smiling face. How he would tell me stories about my mother, who was such a beautiful person and so full of life. I remember spending hours at the arcade with my dad, learning how to play video games. My dad... God, I missed him so much.

I had let my life slip past me and there was regret there for that too. I didn't do anything my dad expected of me, I closed myself off from the world and lived in places created by video games. That was something I was just going to have to live with.

I wished there was an afterlife. I wanted to tell my dad how sorry I was.

And so I died and that was that.

Then I found myself sitting in front of a beautiful woman. We were in the middle of a majestic meadow that stretched as far as the eye could see. Trees and flowers dominated an ethereal world that looked untouched by human hands. In the distance, I could see snow capped mountains.

The woman in front of me was so beautiful it couldn't be natural. It hurt to look at her, but she smiled. We were sitting at a small table, under the shade of an umbrella. In front of me was a cup of tea. As a guy who practically lived off soda, this was strange.

"Where... Where am I?"

The unnaturally beautiful woman chuckled. "You might call this purgatory. The land between life and death. Between Terra and Hades."

Okayyyyyy. I wasn't expecting that. "And who are you?"

"The Greeks called me Athena. The Romans called me Minerva. Two names I am very fond of. I've had many names over the millennia. If you want to call me Athena or Minerva, I wouldn't be offended."

"Athena and Minerva? As in... The goddesses?"

"The very same, though you humans have not understood perfectly. We are beings of light, luminescent in a way that you could never understand. We are powerful, primal forces in the universe, but we are not gods in the way that you humans have worshiped us in the past."

"Wait, wait, lady, hold on. You're trying to tell me that the Greek and Roman gods are real?"

"Not just us. After this, I am having tea with Freya and her brother. Later on, I'm going to have a competition with Horus for his wife's hand in marriage."

"... Isn't Athena a virgin goddess?"

"As I said, you humans created a mythology around us. You were primitive and couldn't comprehend what we were. You still can't, though you would have a certain degree of understanding that you lacked before. I am no virgin. I have had many loves over the eons. Human lovers and lovers of my kind. I have twelve wives and seven husbands, to put them into your terms. If I win Horus's wife, I will have thirteen."

This was a fever dream. I was dying on my apartment's cold floor and I was dreaming about a goddess. It was a strange thing to dream about, especially since Greek and Roman mythology never interested me, but I guess my brain was weird.

"So, am I going to Hades? Will I see my family?"

It was a nice thought. Impossible, but nice.

Minerva frowned. "You do not believe me. I see. That belief will come in time, I'm sure."

I humored her with a smile. "Of course."

"If you want, I can send you onto the afterlife. Though if you'll see your family, that I cannot tell you."

"Hades or Pluto rules the underworld, right?"

"No. We are beings of light and life, We have existed since the dawn of the universe. I have seen planets and species rise and fall, but we are eternal. I know there is an afterlife where souls go once they pass on, but we beings of living light have no power on that side."

"Then how am I talking to you?"

"Your soul was still tethered to this world when I found you. I was able to take it and bring it here. As long as you are under my power, you will not pass on."

"Then... Why?"

"Horus is not the only one of my brothers I have made a bet with. Set and I have agreed about the Earth."

"About... The Earth?" I repeated.

She nodded. "Have you heard about the titanic?"

I nodded. "No duh. Who hasn't?"

"Shortly after you died, my brother Set went back in time and changed the past so that the Titanic had never sank."

"You went back in time?"

"We are beings of light. We do not exist in the same frame of time that you mortals do. We exist outside of the flow of time."

Chalking this all up to a fever dream, I decided I might as well play along before the end. "Why would he do that?"

"For our game. We proposed a contest to see who would hold the dominion of this galaxy. Did I say your planet? I mean to say all of the Milky Way."

"Dominion... Over this galaxy?"

"Osiris holds power over Andromeda. Zeus rules eight galaxies on the other side of the universe. We were worshiped by your people because they saw us as gods. We have so much power that we can do anything we want. We can create anything we want. Can you imagine that? An eternity outside of the time stream, so we never age. We will never die or grow old. We will continue as we have been forever.

"It gets very old, Jacob Hansen. Some of us have faded from existence because we were too bored. There was a danger of our species ceasing to exist, so we have thought of ways to amuse ourselves. Collecting time periods and territories in your universe to rule has become one of the many games that we create to amuse ourselves."

"You rule the universe?"

"You mortals would never feel it. No mortal race ever does. The only time we, normally, make contact is in the early years of a species' evolution. Always under different names. We do not take a direct hand in ruling, though some of us take more of an interest.

"Vishnu, a god that you would call Hindu, ruled this galaxy until a thousand years ago when he faded. It has taken us this long to decide what to do with the Milky Way. Set and I will compete for rulership. To advance our game, the titanic was saved, so that Andrei Petrov can be born in 2000. He was not born in your world because his great-grandfather died on the Titanic. He will go on to pioneer virtual reality for your species.

"From this virtual world, a game called Primal Vale will come to prominence. It will be a VRMMORPG that will take the world by storm. Huge e-sports competitions will be built around this game. Money and influence will be exchanged and it is on this virtual reality game that Set and I have come to an agreement over this galaxy."

"What does that mean?"

"The first major e-sports competition for this game will take place in 2035. It will be a team battle that the fate of this galaxy hinges on. If Set's avatar wins, he will rule. If mine wins, I will rule."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.

Minerva smiled. "Because, Jacob Hansen, I have selected you for my avatar."

"But... I'm dead."

"You are, but my power has anchored you to this realm. I can give you what most mortals never experience: a second chance at life. If you become my avatar and work for my benefit, I will reincarnate you as a newborn on Earth. Circa 2013."

My mind must be giving me its all, trying to fight off death. Maybe I should have been a fiction writer. Or a game developer. "Why?"

"Because you have regrets, Jacob Hansen," Athena said, her eyes blazing. "You felt that you've wasted your life. You've become very good at video games, but little else. Since my competition with Set will be decided by a video game, I've called upon you. In exchange for your cooperation, I will give you a second life.

"Believe me, you do not want Set ruling this galaxy. He will take no direct action, but his influence is chaos incarnate. Do you think your world is getting bad? Magnify that by a trillion under Set's influence. He will reduce your world and your people to the stone age. Any law and order your people have created will be gone. Under Set's influence, chaos will reign across this galaxy forever. Or until Set fades, and I assure you, he will not.

"Of course, what do you have to worry about? You will be dead. Though your friends might suffer. The people of Earth surely will. Every species in your galaxy will."

"And you can stop this?" I challenged.

"Me? No. I can take no direct influence beyond what I have arranged. YOU can stop this, Jacob Hansen. You have the abilities that I need. Under my rule, I will allow the Milky Way to continue as it has been. Of course, I will not force you. If I must, I shall pick a less suitable candidate and hope for the best So, what do you say?"

She offered me her hand. This was a dream. None of it was real, but this phantom in my mind was right. I did have a lot of regrets. I wanted a second chance. I wanted to live a real life.

So I took her hand.

***

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