Pearl's eyes shot open. Brain-tearing pain pounded against his mind. His vision blurred. The lights above him became nothing more than murky smudges of oranges and yellows. He rubbed into his eyes, but that only worsened the pain he felt. He sat up on the bed and swung his legs around. His feet thud against the carpeted floor. The pain slowly hiked up in intensity. The more it did, the more he rubbed his eyes. It reached a point where he drove his palms into them. Sweat dribbled down and snaked around his well-sculpted body. His muscles were in perfect shape, the perfect blend between lean and muscular.
A cold hand gripped his shoulder. Startled, he whipped around to notice a pair of glossy purple eyes staring right into his. He wormed out of the lady's grasp and stood up long before he could process the contours of her hourglass figure, partially hidden behind the white sheets.
"What the fuck are you doing here, " he asked.
"You don't remember? "the girl's voice wormed into his ears, dripping with honey.
Fuck! He couldn't remember much of yesterday. When he tried, pain shot up his brain. Think! After signing the letter, he couldn't map out his movements throughout the castle, let alone what he did. But he had to remember. Having a blank in his memories was supposed to be impossible. Gods had perfect memory. Another possibility surfaced from his subconscious. Rootweed! One of the few substances that could put a God of his caliber into a trance.
He turned his focus to the girl. Her violet eyes swallowed his focus once again. A pink blush bloomed around her cheeks at his intense stare, but that didn't stop him. She puffed her lips and slowly dropped her eyes to the ground. He followed her gaze. Finally, he understood where the pinch of shyness in her demeanour came from. He was still naked. With a thought, faith energy rippled into existence from the ground and swirled around him. Within seconds a blanket of pure energy covered him from all angles and not a moment later it disappeared, leaving him dressed in silky white pants and a shirt.
He thrust his arm to the side. A wooden chair that rested on the wall near the large window to the left of his extravagant room slid over to him. He sat on it and gave a little sigh of exasperation.
"Explain, " he said, trying his best to control his anger.
The girl, Vivian, bundled large sections of the white sheet and drew it above her chest. She squeezed herself into the smallest shape she could manage and shifted back against the headboard.
"We met at Blood Jasmine, the gentlemen's club a few thousand kilometres from here, in Oakwood village. You approached me, seduced me with your irresistible charms and then bedded me," she said under the guise of confidence.
But he saw through it. The pitch in her voice fluctuated from high to low in nanoseconds at each formation of a sound. She drew circles around her chest with her left index finger, which trembled every few revolutions. She wasn't fooling anyone with her lack of emotional control.
"If you believe I'll marry you or something along those lines. Purge those thoughts immediately. We slept together. Cool. But that's the end of it. "
Pearl stood from the chair and made his way to the door. Someone was playing a deadly game with him. And he hated that he couldn't peer into whoever was trying to set him up. Rootweed was what truly scared him. Those capable of getting their hands on what most would agree to be the only psychedelic, capable of affecting a God, were far from simple people. Selling his planet would only make up a fraction of the cost. Who was messing with him?
"Don't think about leaving this room till I find out what is going on. I don't trust you as much as I wish I could. "
He pushed open the doors and exited. Before he disappeared into the hallways, he touched the walls of the room and injected his energy into it. The red walls gained a golden hue. He created a barrier to stop the girl from escaping. He needed to verify her story with a few others.
Pearl ran down the winding staircase, took a right down the hallway, took a left and banged on the door to Roosevelt's office.
"Roosevelt, I need answers. Now! "
"I'll be with you in a second your Holiness, " Roosevelt yelled.
The brief sound of books falling to the ground, followed by nervous footsteps, sieved through the walls to Pearl's ears. He couldn't stop massaging his temple to dial down the rapid pace of his thoughts. The scratchy creak of the door as it scraped across the ground gnawed his ears. He was annoyed but the sound did a good job of reigning in his wandering thoughts.
Pearl pushed him back into the office and he followed after, slamming the door behind him. He waved his hand and another pulse of golden energy erupted from him. It formed a bubble around them. He looked around making certain that everything was within the ordinary before he opened his mouth.
"Where was I yesterday, after leaving my office? "Pearl said. Anxiousness dripped from his voice. If he truly went out to have fun last night then he fucked up big time.
Most gods were watching him like a hawk, waiting for him to slip up and do something substantial enough to hammer in a negative narrative about him. Most thought his ascendancy to godhood was the work of the devils. A mortal was never meant to breach past the thin line that separated gods from mortals. Yet he did. And not only did he do it. He did it spectacularly, leaving thousand year gods in the dust when it came to strength and influence. His existence alone warranted half a pantheon of enemies.
"You went to you room to sleep, Your Holiness, " Roosevelt said, not understanding what had his master worked up.
Pearl's palms got sweaty that instant. The pressure building up within him skyrocketed. He dashed forward, shortening the distance between him and Roosevelt in an instant. He grabbed onto the lapel of his robe and pulled him closer to his face. His emotions were written all over his face. Most of it was annoyance and fear. His perfect image amongst the gods that mattered was going to be ruined thanks to this slip-up.
"Then how the is there a violet eyed lady with me in the room and half my memories from last night are gone? " Pearl tried controlling the rapid contortions of his facial muscles but he failed miserably. He pushed Roosevelt away before his rage took over him.
He clenched his fist, flipped around and punched the wall. With a resounding boom, the entire castle suspended in the air through magic creaked, and gold dust flew everywhere. The wall became unrecognizable. Most of it was bent recognition, pieces of gold clanked to the ground.
"Their is a reason why have you guys. And it's not to fuck up like this. I need to fix this. Check the mirrors. Gather all the chefs to the common room, someone poisoned my food. Just do that first. "
Roosevelt shivered in fright. He couldn't believe that death just zipped past him and there was nothing he could do about it. So that was the so-called gap most people talked about when comparing gods. He hadn't expected it to be something that primal and scary. He felt like an ant when his Lord held onto his robes. His unbridled rage tore through his heart like a spear-sized needle. He understood that he messed up. But he couldn't tell where he went wrong. His Lord's routines haven't changed much since a few decades ago. It didn't make sense to his senses that something like this happened now. Something foul was at play but what was it? Who was trying to entrap his Lord?
Pearl stormed up the stairs to his room. He couldn't keep the pretence going. Although Roosevelt didn't say much, he understood the general gist of it. He followed his routine to the tea. Nothing had changed, except the blank spots in his mind. And that scared him. Someone was able to attain Rootweed. That same person had a contact in his Castle, one with a good enough position to be near his food.
He needed to get to the bottom of it all.
He pushed open the doors to his room, expecting to see the violet-eyed girl sleeping or wasting her time somehow. But the sight that greeted him made his stomach churn. Blood. And it was everywhere!