I was in a trance during the first ten minutes that Ares escaped from prison and was on the run. I couldn't tell what was going on for the most part, but once he was at a safe distance from all the guards he released me from my trance, and I had some time to do whatever I wanted as he was looking for a safe place to hide.
In reality I was still at home. It's not like Ares could physically kidnap me, but he did hold me hostage in a spiritual sense. All of the other Gods were far away now, unable to do anything except try to listen, watch, and wait. They could only see me if I walked in front of a mirror, or if I was in a video call with someone. And they could only hear me if I spoke out loud, not when I was thinking. But they couldn't do anything if I needed help. I was at Ares' mercy.
However this didn't really bother me. I went to the other room and said good morning to Raven. We kissed and played around for a while. I spent the morning doing what I normally do every day: swiping on my phone, getting food for myself, and just generally relaxing in bed. I felt like I didn't get enough sleep last night but I needed to give my friend a ride to their mom's house this afternoon so I calculated in my head what time I would have to fall asleep to take a three hour nap. I set my alarm for 2:30pm and fell asleep.
About an hour later, I woke up without any alarm. It was still two hours before I planned to wake up. My mind felt exhausted even though my body was well-rested. I quickly realized what had happened; during the entire hour I had been asleep, Ares had been rummaging through my mind very desperately, looking for any clues as to what had happened yesterday when the words didn't get fully deleted from the screen. My feelings were hurt. Did he really believe I could've set him up? I wasn't that kind of person, and even if I was, it's not like I had the skills or ability to set him up, plus I was a terrible liar. A wave a fear washed through me. I had just been kidnapped by a God who didn't really like me, and on top of that he thought I did something to set him up. Was I in trouble? But I quickly reassured myself that none of this was real anyway; it was just a story of fiction that my imagination was making up, which meant nothing bad could really happen to me. Besides, I had the contract to protect me, assuming it still held up when we were alone.
As I lay there in bed, I felt sad because losing the game meant that I wasn't friends with Ares anymore. He sensed this and scoffed.
"Let me give it to you straight, human. You and I are not friends, and we never were friends. You are a slave, and you've always been a slave."
I was partially disappointed, but another part of me felt relieved, because that meant losing the game didn't change anything between us. At least we still had some kind of relationship.
"I wouldn't lose a game to you even if it was on purpose," Ares said.
I understood now. I never had a chance to begin with. He looked down on me like I was a lesser species, because I actually was a lesser species. I was a human, he was a God. But he also looked down on me in general because of my personality.
I felt Ares pinning me down and staring me right in the face. It's not like he could actually pin me down physically but he did so in a spiritual sense. It felt like the entirety of my being - my mind, body, and soul - was being held in the palm of his hand. I could feel him staring down at me. He was shaking from anger.
"I could kill you so easily," he said.
I gazed up at him with half-lidded eyes and said, "Make it swift and painless."
There was a moment of stunned silence. Ares stared at me dumbfoundedly for about three seconds.
Then I started having second thoughts. "Actually, don't kill me. Raven would be devastated if something happened to me, and so would my parents, and my friends, and my brother."
Ares released his hold on me and sighed. "When someone says they're about to kill you, you're supposed to plead for your life first. Don't just go straight for the mercy kill. How are you so dumb?" He shook his head.
He asked me what happened yesterday.
I thought about it. "There was a voice telling me, 'remember this code.' I thought it was your voice." Then it clicked. "Oh! I think I know what happened! I was trying to type the code, but it's hard for me to figure out where numbers are without looking at the keyboard, so I must've accidentally pressed the record button at some point."
"Code? What code?" asked Ares.
"Uhhh....there was a 1 or a 2, then an 8 or a 9, and I'm pretty sure there was a 5 in it..."
Ares groaned. Of course I wouldn't be able to remember properly.
"I'm pretty sure it was five digits," I said. "But it could've been six. I am ninety-percent sure it was five digits. Maybe the numbers aren't important?"
He subtly asked if I was scared, and my response was no, I wasn't scared, because I knew he wasn't allowed to traumatize me which means I was safe.
"Even though I can't traumatize you, I can still use your own trauma against you," Ares said. "I can punish you by making your anger flare up so that you have to lie in bed for an hour, maybe even two hours. You wouldn't like that, would you?"
I thought about it and decided, no I wouldn't like that very much at all. "That would suck," I said.
"Then don't displease me," Ares said.
I spent a little bit more time lying in bed, trying to get more rest before I had to pick up my friend. Ares thought about how I said I would spread his religion for him. Would I really do it?
I said, "I will, and I promise I will not fail you."
"That's not a promise you can realistically keep."
"Then how about, instead of I will not fail you, I promise I will succeed for you. That way I can fail many, many times, but each time I fail I'll try again until I eventually succeed. I only need to succeed once."
"Now that's a promise you can keep. I'll hold you to it."
Ares tried to teach me more about Greek mythology, but he couldn't explain things to me through the spiritual connection otherwise he might break my brain. I had to read Wikipedia on my phone. I skimmed a few articles here and there about the Greek Gods and Goddesses, including an article about Aphrodite. The article said that Aphrodite was born from genitals, a fact that I once knew but almost forgot.
I grew bored of lying in bed and decided I wanted to get up. There was a letter from the SSI on the table beside my bed which I had placed a few days ago, telling me that the amount of disability money they gave me every month was reduced because I worked too many hours. I had recently switched to working part-time which meant I didn't work as much as I used to, and I needed to follow the directions on the letter to appeal to their decision. The deadline was 60 days which meant I had plenty of time left, but the Gods (especially Mikey) wanted me to get it done early. Ares told me to get it done today, and he also told me not to try to talk to any of the other Gods. I said "Ok."
I wondered what was happening in the Spiritual Realm. Was Ares running from the law right now?
He said, "Yeah, I'm pretty much the number one most wanted criminal right now."
"The Spiritual Realm has a police system?" I marveled. How interesting. I was curious about how that worked. "Am I making things harder for you? You have to run from the law while protecting me at the same time. What can I do to make things easier for you? I wouldn't want to get in the way."
"You're not getting in the way. If anything you're an asset. I have a higher probability of survival if I have someone to protect than if I was alone. I've seen it happen many times, both with humans and with Gods."
I smiled, relieved.
He wondered, "Why are you being so fucking nice? I just kidnapped you."
I said, "We're going to be spending time alone together for a while, so it's better if we don't make each other miserable."
I picked up the letter and went to the bathroom where I put the letter on the ground before using the toilet. Then I left the bathroom and forgot the letter.
As I walked through the kitchen, Ares was ranting exasperatingly about how foolish I was. He kept saying, "You're so dumb! Why are you so dumb? You signed your soul away to the God of War, and for what? You don't even get anything in return. And it wasn't even a well-written contract. It's like a child wrote it. Because a child did write it. You are a child!"
I didn't respond. I wasn't sure how I felt about being called a child considering I was 28 years old now, but I supposed 28 was very young in God years.
Ares continued, "You didn't write much. There wasn't much to go off of. Pretty much the only smart thing you put in that contract was that I'm not allowed to traumatize you. You didn't even give yourself an exit clause."
"Exit clause?" I questioned.
"An exit clause is a term or condition to allow yourself to break the contract on purpose if you need to. But you already fulfilled your side of the bargain. The time when you broke a glass bottle and injured your foot by stepping on a piece of broken glass technically counts. The blood doesn't have to be self-inflicted. Which means I have full control over how long I get to keep your soul."
"At least my soul has value to you. I think that's flattering," I said with a smile. "If you didn't want my soul you could've broken the contract at any time."
Ares muttered something about how he didn't have a choice because the other Gods were going to kill him if he didn't have some kind of bargaining chip. But he could admit that my soul had value regardless.
That's not to say that he liked me or anything, as he was quick to let me know. "Pretty much the only thing I find tolerable about you is your refusal to be the victim. You're sick of always being the victim and would like to be the perpetrator for a change. I respect that."
Then I thought of something. The contract said that Ares wasn't allowed to do anything against the greater good, however what if the world became perfect? Then there wouldn't be any greater good to work towards, and he'd lose rights to my soul. Therefore he might not want to work towards making the world a better place.
But Ares reassured me, "Nah, I'm not too worried about that. Heaven on Earth is an imaginary concept. As long as there's anybody left who does any wrongdoing the world will never be perfect. It's impossible."
Throughout the day, Ares kept saying, "You're so dumb" every so often. There were a few times he called me stupid, and one time he called me a retard. I didn't mind. I knew it was because he cared about me. He just didn't want me to get myself into dangerous situations.
There was a little bit of time left before I had to pick up my friend so I thought I could get started on appealing to the SSI, but I forgot where I put my letter so I ran all through the apartment looking for it. I started to panic. "Where is it? It was just here," I said out loud. "Hold on, I'm looking for it. Don't punish me," I told Ares.
Ares thought, mostly to himself, "It wouldn't even make sense to punish you for that. It wouldn't change your behavior at all except make you more anxious and afraid of making mistakes."
I ran out of time, so I got ready to head out to pick up my friend. I drove my friend to their mom's house, which was about 20 minutes away. After I dropped them off, I started singing a song during the drive home, and Ares sang along with me.
At this point I've got ten thousand hours;
I don't know what more I can do.
I could get a Bachelor's degree
in getting over you.
At this point I'm so great at forgetting.
I'm the expert on what you do.
But I think I'm finally ready
to be bad at someone new.
The song was called "Bachelor's Degree" by Philip Labes. I liked the lyrics because it was about getting over an ex to find a new relationship. Since Ares and I both had exes who had screwed us over, it was the perfect song for us.
"Of course Aphrodite would be a terf. She is literally born from genitals," I said with a chuckle. "Maybe she can have her own religion and be the Goddess of Terfs."
"Yeah," Ares agreed, but there was genuine feeling behind it rather than anything negative. It felt like he genuinely wanted her to have her own religion.
"Wait, what?" I said.
"Well, I still want her to be happy."
I couldn't really process what he just said. He still wanted her to be happy even after all this time, after everything she did? It seemed that this relationship with Aphrodite was a lot more complicated than anyone thought.
After I got home, I found the letter in the bathroom but instead of dealing with it immediately I put it back on my bedside table and lay in bed to relax. I get tired very easily and need to rest a lot because of my mental disabilities.
There was a long list of men who had sexually harassed/assaulted me over the years whom I used to imagine myself punishing when I was in my PTSD episodes. Ares asked me, "Would you actually like to punish any of your harassers?"
I said, "Not all of them. Just Miles." Miles was a black man who had an extremely creepy and racist fetish for Asian girls. He had harassed me both in person and on social media on multiple occasions. One time he sent a bunch of pictures of himself to me without my consent. I got my revenge by sending him pictures of my used period pads, pretending to be an ugly white man and sexually harassing him back on Facebook, and by using the pictures he sent me to create an online dating profile so that I could send extremely creepy and invasive sexual messages to other men on dating sites. Some of those men I sent messages to were the very aggressive types, and extremely racist and homophobic too. Given that Miles was a black man, it would not bode well for him to meet one of the racist white men in-person. I told Ares I wanted to punish Miles by making him meet in-person one of the very aggressive men I had sent sexual messages to.
"Do you want Miles to get beaten up?" Ares asked.
"Nah, just scare him very badly," I said.
"I can make them meet but I can't control what happens after they meet. I don't have the ability to control human actions."
"I don't think there will be any violence. I think they'll settle the argument and talk it out without it escalating into a fist fight."
"How about we place a bet? If I'm right...nothing happens. I'll have the bragging rights of winning but that's about it. We don't do things like turn humans into spiders if they lose a bet to us anymore. That's old school. But if you're right, I'll gift you a teddy bear. I won't tell you which one or when but you'll know it when you get it."
My eyes lit up with excitement. "Really? What kind of teddy bear?"
"Something you would like."
I unlocked my phone and opened the Facebook app. On my feed, somebody had posted a picture of a jewel-encrusted teddy bear from Build-A-Bear that costs $2,000. The comments section talked about how this bear wasn't worth the money and it was ridiculous to get something like this. I told Ares, "I want this one."
"That thing is two thousand dollars."
"You're a God. You can get it for me."
"What are you going to do with a two-thousand-dollar bear?"
"I could put it into storage until I need to sell it if I need money in an emergency. Also it's just a really cool thing to have."
"I'm not getting you that one. That's way too excessive."
"Oh...right...." I became self-conscious about asking for too much. But then I came up with another idea. "How about this. It doesn't have to be an expensive one, it just has to be the color white. When I was a little kid I asked Santa for a white teddy bear for Christmas, and then I never got it. It made me disbelieve in Santa."
While I was lying in bed, Ares scanned my mind to figure out how well I knew Greek mythology. It seemed that I didn't know the difference between Uranus and Saturn. In fact, I barely knew anything about Uranus or Saturn despite how important they were.
Ares instructed me to grab my notebook from my desk and draw a family tree, using Wikipedia as my source. This shouldn't be too hard, right? All I had to do was figure out which was the father and which was the son. Well, it turns out it was very difficult for Ares to teach me even this basic concept, especially considering he was frustrated, and it was hard to be a good teacher when you're frustrated. I read the Wikipedia articles for both Uranus and Saturn, but when I drew the family tree I got the names mixed up and put Saturn as the father and Uranus as the son. I crossed them out and switched the planet names, but I also switched the non-planet version of their names too even though I was correct the first time.
"You're so dumb! How are you so dumb!" Ares said, whacking me on the head a bunch of times (or rather he used my left hand to make me whack myself on the head).
"Ok, ok! Sheesh! Ow! I don't understand!" I said.
Ares told me to cross out the family tree I drew and start over with a new one. When I finished the new tree I closed the notebook and thought we were done. But then Ares made me open the notebook again and look at the tree I just drew. That's when I noticed I wrote Uranus twice.
"You're so dumb!" Ares just kept saying exasperatingly.
It took a few tries, but I finally got it right.
Mother Gaia -------------- Uranus/Caelus
|
|
|
Saturn/Cronos
I continued to read about Uranus, trying to understand. Every article that talked about Uranus associated him with a sickle.
"What's a sickle?" I wondered aloud. I Googled the word "sickle." The dictionary definition didn't make any sense so I looked it up on Google images. As soon as I saw a picture of it, I immediately made the connection that it looked like a grim reaper's scythe. I gasped. "Is your Dad the Grim Reaper? That's so cool!"
Ares scanned my mind to see what I thought about the Grim Reaper. I like the Grim Reaper! He's nice! He's a friendly helpful guide who helps humans and animals through the afterlife so that we feel less alone and less scared.
I got bored of lying in bed. But before I got up, Ares (by taking control of my hands) opened up the notebook and ripped out one of the pages. "I'm burning this," he said. He made me walk into the kitchen towards the stove.
"Not in the kitchen! You'll set off the fire alarm! I'll do it outside!" I said.
"You mean the smoke alarm," he said.
I grabbed a lighter from a drawer and walked towards the balcony. Our apartment was on the first floor so Raven and I often used the balcony as a shortcut exit and entrance. I thought about burning the paper on the balcony, but Ares didn't think it was a safe enough; I could get hurt. Then we both remembered that our apartment complex had small park with a place to make a campfire, and a public outdoor grill which anyone could use. I could burn the paper over there.
However, Raven saw me and wanted to watch a movie. I told Ares that I'll burn the paper later, after the movie. I'd wait until she was distracted before doing what Ares wanted. So I folded the paper and put it on the shelf for later.
Once the movie was over Raven went to take a nap, and that's when I grabbed the paper and lighter and went outside to visit the park. On the way there, I thought about the contract and wondered if period blood fulfilled my side of the bargain too.
Ares said, "Yes, period blood technically counts. You're such a disgusting person, Raine."
"Does it bother you?" I asked.
"I'm the God of War. I'm not squeamish no matter what kind of blood it is."
This made me respect him more. I thought that was very manly of him.
I put the piece of paper on the grill and lit it on fire. Then I went back home and ate dinner.
It was evening and the sun was starting to set. Earlier today Ares had been frustrated, which made it difficult to think properly, but now he was a lot calmer. He said, "You have an extremely accurate memory, Raine. I've seen it. We can extract the code."
He had me lie down on the floor and imagine sitting in front of the computer screen. I relived everything that happened starting from when I looked away from the computer and we had our first conversation. Then I remembered the voice telling me the code, and I imagined trying to type it out. Ares was very patient. He didn't get frustrated or call me dumb even once.
"2 1 9 8 5 6," I said.
Nothing happened.
"2 1 9 8 5 something."
I couldn't remember what the last digit was, but since I already remembered five out of six, Ares tried every possible digit until he found the correct one.
219851
219852
219853
At first I didn't notice anything was happening. I was ready to give up on remembering the code. "Maybe the numbers aren't important," I said. But then I noticed that Ares was distracted, like he was talking to someone on the phone. I asked him, "What was the code for?"
"It's a God thing. You wouldn't understand," said Ares.
I didn't say anything, but my curiosity was bleeding through the spiritual connection. Ares could tell I still wanted to know.
"Alright fine, I'll explain it in a way a human can understand," said Ares. "The code is like a secret telephone number that I can use to make a secure, private, psychic phone call with another God."
Ares continued the phone call. I couldn't hear what they were saying so I just sat around spacing out. At some point I remembered the first time Ares asked me to recruit followers for his religion, and I told him he was going to have to force me. I realized something.
"Oh no, I did hurt your feelings, didn't I?" I said aloud. "Oh no, I'm so sorry. I didn't know how important it was to you. If it's important to you then it's important to me too. I made a promise to you that I intend to keep."
Over the course of the evening, more information was revealed to me, a little at a time. I learned that the Gods had been hiding information from me about the contract. They made me forget the little detail I added about how Ares had to do things "safely and consensually, in a way that doesn't cause trauma." It meant that not only was he not allowed to traumatize me, but he also wasn't allowed to do anything to me without my consent, and he was required to keep me safe. This meant that earlier today when I told him not to punish me, he contractually wasn't allowed to anymore. Also, if I had simply told Ares not to kidnap me he wouldn't have been able to. When I said, "Ares please, it doesn't have to be this way," it technically still counted as consent due to the wording, because I said it didn't have to be this way but it still could be this way if he wanted it. Poseidon told me that all of this was done on purpose. He explained that he was the one who whispered me the code and made me accidentally press the record button, and he made sure I left part of the conversation on the screen when I held down the delete key.
"I left out the part where Raine consented to breaking you out of prison. That would've screwed everything up, because then it meant that Raine would be an accomplice in crime rather than a victim of circumstance," Poseidon explained.
Soon, Ares returned to be with the other Gods, and Poseidon explained to everyone what had happened.
"It was me who set you up," Poseidon said. "Actually it was me, Zeus, and Hades. It was all three of us. We already knew the truth about how Aphrodite falsely accused you of rape."
"What? I didn't know!" said another God or Goddess I couldn't identify.
"Alright fine, some of us knew and some of us didn't. But we were still going kill you anyway regardless of if we knew the truth or not. You were screaming nonstop for a thousand years. That shit gets grating after a while. We were looking for literally any reason to kill you at that point. We knew you were going to break out of prison. It was just a matter of setting you up so that you would take Raine with you, and that would give you some time to bond with each other. Mikey and Buddha didn't trust you but we do because we know our little brother."
"I'm not little!" Ares said indignantly.
"My apologies," said Poseidon.
During the rest of the evening, I spent time with Raven watching movies and doing other mundane things. I could hear snippets of Ares' conversation with the other Gods. Everyone thought I was super dumb for consenting to be killed. They were appalled by my lack of self-preservation. At one point I heard Buddha calling me a "ben dan" (Chinese word for idiot). But at least it was a good way to prove that Ares wasn't a bad person.
"Raine consented to being killed by him, and Ares didn't do it. Give him some credit," Poseidon told Buddha.
I also heard what happened when Ares told everyone about the teddy bear.
"Wait, really? You told him you'd gift him a teddy bear and he immediately went for the two-thousand-dollar bear from Build-A-Bear?" Poseidon said laughing.
"Yeah," Ares said, also laughing, and a bunch of other Gods joined in on the laughter. Humans asking for absurd things we don't need was a common occurrence that all Gods can relate to.
Raven went to play video games. I sat alone on the floor, daydreaming, when Poseidon came up to me and said, "Hi."
"Hey, it's good to see you!" I said. Boy had I missed Poseidon so much. I could feel Hades hovering right behind him, watching and smiling.
"How are you feeling?" Poseidon asked.
"Good. Better than ever, actually."
I put my fist in the air, and I sensed Poseidon fist-bumping me.
The Gods started talking to each other again, and I began pacing the floor. Pacing around was one of my autistic stims that helped stimulate brain activity. I could hear bits and pieces of their conversation.
Ares was telling the others about how difficult it was to teach me Greek mythology. "Raine didn't even know the difference between Uranus and Saturn. But he's not dumb. Not always. As soon as he looked up a picture of sickle, he immediately made the connection to the Grim Reaper. And I didn't even have to explain to him that Lord Death isn't evil. He already knew. He might be dumb in some ways, but he's smart in other ways. I should be able to teach him that..."
As I was pacing back and forth around the room, Ares influenced me to start repeating the word "Saturn" inside my head. With every step it was Saturn. Saturn. Saturn. Saturn.
"Yes, that's it," said Ares. "Now what does the name Saturn sound like?"
Satan.
The Gods applauded. Yes! They celebrated. I did it. I made the connection.
"Very good," said Ares. "Saturn is Satan."