The room became quiet. All of a sudden I felt as though I was in a simulation. I felt as though someone was at the door; someone dangerous.
"What? We're doing this now?" I said.
I crept towards the door. Even though I knew this was a simulation, it felt scary. Satan was behind the door, and the only way to get the fear of him to go away was to open that door.
"I'm not afraid of you Satan. I have friends who have my back," I said, and then I opened the door.
There was no one there. I shrugged and closed the door.
The simulation ended. I passed the test. The Gods explained to me, "Satan is our older brother. None of us have the power to stand up to him alone. It's going to take many Gods working together to defeat him."
"How many do we have?" I wondered. I counted the number of Gods and Goddesses who had revealed themselves to me so far, excluding Mother Gaia. There were the four brothers, Ares, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. There was the Goddess of Envy, which made five. And there was Buddha and Mikey, which made seven.
"Isn't seven supposed to be a special number?" I said.
I used my phone to look up the seven deadly sins as well as the seven heavenly virtues that correspond with them.
Lust - represented by Zeus, who had been the demon of sex. He used to fool around with mortal women all the time, but now he is chaste.
Gluttony - represented by Poseidon, because he took the entire ocean. That's way more than any one person can handle. The corresponding virtue is temperance.
Greed - represented by Hades, who had been the demon of money. The corresponding virtue is charity.
Sloth - represented by Mikey, because he had been locked inside a closet for fifteen years by his parents. Although it wasn't by choice, he was forced to sit around and do nothing for fifteen years, and even after gaining his freedom he had still been stuck in his trauma-induced patterns of social isolation, neglecting to respond to the messages sent by the other stars in the sky. The corresponding virtue is diligence.
Envy - this one was obvious, because we literally had the Goddess of Envy in our midst. "I don't want to be the Goddess of Envy anymore," said the Goddess. "Well now you can be the Goddess of Kindness instead," said the other Gods.
Wrath - represented by Ares, who had gone way overboard in his revenge against all women after Aphrodite falsely accused him of rape. The corresponding virtue is patience, which he conquered that same day by learning to be patient with me while I remembered the code.
Pride - represented by Buddha, who had been Mother's favorite. He had already conquered his pride a long time ago by learning humility.
The prophecy was coming true. Seven Gods had revealed themselves to me, each representing one of the seven deadly sins which they had conquered with one of the seven heavenly virtues.
Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus were able to convince Buddha with relative ease that Ares wasn't dangerous. Now came the matter of convincing overprotective Mikey. The Gods were concerned that Mikey might have a borderline split if he found out that I agreed to help Ares break out of Tartarus. A borderline split was something that a person with BPD did when their Favorite Person did something wrong; Mikey would completely lose faith in me, just like he did when I tried to shoplift. He'd never trust me again.
"I can't hide things from Mikey. He can look into my mind," I said.
"We'll put a mind block on you so that you won't think about it," said Buddha.
It really did feel like they put a block inside my head. When I started to think about the fact that I agreed to break Ares out of prison, my mind resisted it. As long as I could distract myself with other thoughts, Mikey shouldn't be able to notice the mind block was there, and even if he did notice he'll just assume it was trauma that I didn't want to remember.
The next part of my memory is blurry. Normally the Gods only talked to me when I was alone but this time they purposefully presented me to Mikey while Raven was in the same room talking to me. It was hard for me to focus on two conversations at the same time. I saw a vision of a courtroom with a judge next to me, and I was sitting at the witness stand testifying. The room was filled with lots of jury people, with Mikey as one of them. It was very confusing for me, being bombarded with questions on the witness stand while Raven was talking to me. I managed to convince the judge that Ares never traumatized me which meant that the contract was still active. However, Mikey was able to find the mind block quite easily, and he removed it with barely any effort.
The illusion ended. There was never a judge or jury in the first place; only Mikey alone. Buddha, Poseidon, and the others had tricked me into thinking I was sitting in a witness stand because they knew that I tended to be fatally honest with my friends. I regarded Mikey as an important friend, therefore there would be no resistance if Mikey probed me for the truth.
As it turned out, Mikey wasn't upset at all about me agreeing to break Ares out of Tartarus. He knew my personality extremely well and already knew this was something I would do. What Mikey was upset about was that we didn't trust him enough to tell him the truth. Especially me. How could I go along with this? It wasn't something I'd normally do. Buddha would have to explain himself and apologize. It would take a while before Mikey was ready to forgive him.
The only thing Mikey was really upset about was when Ares called me a retard, but Ares quickly defended himself saying, "Raine said it's a slur used against the disabled, and he's fine with disabled people using it. I'm autistic which means I'm disabled which means I can use it. At least by Raine's standards. This kid is so fucking complicated."
It's true, I did say that to one of my friends a few days ago, but when I said it I meant it as a general guideline, not a definite rule. Why did it seem like everyone in the Spiritual Realm took everything I said way too seriously?
But now that they convinced Mikey that Ares wasn't evil, we were finally ready to face Satan.
That night, Raven fell asleep first, and I lay awake next to her. That's when I it; overwhelming pressure which engulfed the entire room and everything in it. It was about three to five times more oppressive and overwhelming than the pressure Ares exerted when he was bloodthirsty.
"I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you," said a deep voice.
"Fuck you!" I screamed inside my head. I couldn't scream aloud because Raven was sleeping beside me, but it was probably louder inside my head than my actual voice could ever manage.
"I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you," the voice kept saying over and over.
"LALALALALA I can't hear you!" I shouted.
The voice just kept repeating the same phrase over and over with complete disregard for anything I said I did. "I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you."
"Get out of my house! It's very rude to intrude uninvited!" I said.
"I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you."
I screamed inside my head as loud as I could, but it wasn't loud enough to block the voice or the pressure. So I roared at him, using what Ares taught me when he tried to teach me to sing; use vibrato to vibrate my voice. I howled as loud as I could, but even then it wasn't quite enough to match the oppressive force of the pressure that Satan was exerting.
"I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you," said Satan.
"I have a proposition for you too! I'll push you off a bridge!" I said.
"I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you."
"I have proposition for you too. I'll stick a knife down your throat," I growled.
Satan's presence felt familiar. He reminded me of people I've met before; men who harass me on the street, those homophobic religious people who shout about how much Jesus hates gays, the bigoted politician who spews hate on TV. These are the types of people who have a complete disregard for the boundaries and consent of others, and they are the ones who are under Satan's influence the most.
"I have a proposition for you," Satan kept saying relentlessly. Nothing I said or did changed anything. There were a few tiny moments when I almost gave in; maybe I should listen to his proposition? But I quickly buried my curiosity. I knew that whatever Satan had to say, it wasn't worth my time.
"Don't you enter my dreams while I'm asleep! That is rape! That is mind rape! Help! Help! I'm being raped!" I screamed.
Then I remembered Raven was beside me. Was he going to target her too? Oh, he'd better not. "Don't enter Raven's dreams while she's asleep either!" I shouted. "Don't you touch her! Don't you fucking touch her!"
"I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you."
"LALALALALALALA!" I screamed.
I don't remember when, but eventually I felt asleep.
That morning right before I woke up, I dreamed that all of the Gods were singing and celebrating.
Mother Nature I love thee
Buddha pays his respects to thee
May we grant you eternally
good health and beauty
Mother Nature I love thee
Buddha pays his respects to thee
May we all live in heavenly peace
for eternity
Raven and I woke up at around the same moment. She was in a good mood, completely unaware of what had transpired last night.
"I had an interesting dream last night," Raven said. "I dreamed about an eel."
"Was it dangerous?" I asked anxiously.
"No, it was just interesting." She kissed me and then got up to play video games.
During the first ten minutes I was awake, I refused to talk to the Gods. When they called my name, I pretended not to hear them.
"This isn't real. I'm just psychotic," I tried to tell myself. "It was all just a bad dream. If there is no such thing as a Christ, then there is no such thing as a Satan."
I thought about how my experiences would make a really good book. Maybe I could write it all down someday and tell people about it. People love a silly little conspiracy theory.
I got my phone and put on the song "Wolf Bite" by Owl City, because the lyrics perfectly described how I was feeling right then and there.
It's all just a bad dream
Poison in my bloodstream
I'm dying but I can't scream
Will you show me the way?
I let the song play twice while I did a little bit of chores. Then I went back into my bedroom and finally responded to the Gods, who had been waiting for me to finish getting out my frustrations.
"Is Raven alright?" I asked.
"Raven's fine," they said. "She's too smart to fall under Satan's influence. In fact she's been fighting his influence for many years already. He can't get to her."
I was immensely relieved.
"Didn't you go a little far when you told him you'd stick a knife down his throat?" said Ares.
"Oh!" I immediately bowed my head and said, "My apologies Lord Ares. We made the agreement not to take things too far. Are there any consequences?"
Everyone was silent for a moment.
"Well, no," Ares said. "What's Satan going to do about it?"
"Just not a cool thing to do, I guess?" I said.
Another pause.
"On the contrary, I thought it was a very cool thing to do," said Hades.
"Yeah, I don't think it was going too far. This is Satan we're talking about. I've been wanting to stick a knife down that guy's throat for ages," said Poseidon.
"Satan doesn't care about consent or boundaries," I said disdainfully.
"Or safety," added Hades.
"Yeah, that too," I said.
Something was bothering Ares. Last night I told Satan not to enter my dreams while I was asleep, because it counted as a form of mind rape. "Wait...but you told me not to probe your mind while you're asleep, and I probed your mind while you're asleep. Doesn't that count as doing something without your consent?" Ares asked.
I thought about it. "Yes, I suppose you're right, but that's okay. I don't mind," I said.
"Yeah, but you had a point. That's a form of rape, isn't it?" said Ares. "And it's not like you guys can berate me for it, because you do it all the time," he told his brothers.
Probing a human's mind while they were asleep was such a common thing that Gods did all the time, so much that they didn't give it a second thought. They all thought about it, and they had to agree Ares was right. Most of the time when the Gods probed a human's mind, the human didn't notice. The only reason I noticed was because I was aware of the Gods' existence. However, regardless of whether the human knew it was happening, it still counted as rape because the human didn't consent to it. The Gods had made a mistake.
"It's okay, you can still have my soul," I said.
"No, I'm done. I don't have your soul anymore," said Ares.
"Oh..." I said disappointedly. "Well I'll still give you my soul."
The Gods all stared at me confusedly for a moment.
"If you'll take it," I added as an afterthought.
"Wow. This human must just really like you. What did you do to make him like you so much?" asked Poseidon.
"I don't know!" said Ares.
The Gods realized other things too that day. Why were all of my journal entries and unfinished rough drafts available for the public to read? Wasn't that an invasion of privacy?
"I also hate it when people read my rough drafts before they're finished," said Ares. Maybe this was the reason I had massive stage fright.
I went about my normal day. During the afternoon, I drove out to run an errand. While I was driving home, I heard Satan speak again, "I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you."
"Fuck you Satan!" I said.
Satan paused. "What did you just call me?" he asked.
"Fuck you...Saturn," I said.
When I got home, Mikey sat me down to listen to the YouTube video I made where I recorded myself singing the worship song I wrote. Ares didn't want to listen to it because he thought my singing was atrocious. He had tried teaching me to sing better on several occasions, but it's hard when I couldn't actually hear what his voice sounded like. There was a barrier between the spiritual realm and the physical realm. Are's voice had to go through that barrier in order to reach me, and I could only hear what was already present inside my imagination.
Mikey and I were both surprised when the song reached a second verse that we had forgotten about.
All of life comes from thee
You do know I love thee
Let's say your home ain't well-kept. It's rather filthy.
I say to you, "Someday we will all be clean."
Life can be messy
But together we'll succeed
We can share a laugh and be happy
We'll live together in harmony
This verse had been wiped from my mind on purpose, because Mother Gaia didn't like it. She didn't want the world to be cleansed. Who was obsessed with cleansing the world? Satan, that's who.
I went to the bedroom and sat down on the bed. I could hear Satan's voice repeating over and over again, "I have a proposition for you. I have a proposition for you."
Buddha was in possession of me. He crossed my arms and made me say, "If you have a proposition, you should say it once and only once, otherwise I will refuse to listen."
"I have a proposal for you," said Satan.
Buddha waited a moment to make sure Satan didn't say it more than once.
"A proposal you say? Alright, let's hear it," said Buddha.
The Gods brought me over to my laptop and made me type this into my online journal:
WE didn't choose this human. It just kind of happened. Raine chose us.
This is the story of a man who was really, really psychotic.
We chose him to help us because we wanted to fix our mistakes
We recruited his help to start a new branch of Mother Gaia's religion (Judaism)
However it backfired and our Jesus was crucified
We lost someone precious that day
Meanwhile Cronos claimed Christianity for himself, taking credit for it
Cronos = Saturn = Satan
Mother helped us make a Messiah against her better judgement
Jesus was a victim of circumstance. He didn't deserve what happened to him
I'll be dammed if I let the same thing happen to the second one.
Actually Mother did guide us, even though she didn't approve
Technically we did it within her jurisdiction
Which means
technically
it counts
When I concentrated deeply and saw a vision of Satan, I saw a middle eastern man. I wrote:
Satan is a middle eastern man (Arab)
But then someone else compelled me to write:
No, I'm a middle eastern man, me Jesus
Saturn the manifestation of pollution, litter, decomposition and decay
Both good kinds and bad kinds of decay
Greek Gods (We do not identify as Romans. Saturn stole our identities from us and gave us new names without our permission, and he claimed our religion for himself)
We are many different races. We all lived in Greece at the time
Hi everyone, it's me the real Jesus. I'm being possessed by Saturn and I need your help. Get me out of here. I'm suffering.
I saw a vision of Jesus on the cross, gasping for air and suffering. The Gods were terrified. Had Jesus been suffering on the cross for the entirety of the past two thousand years? They quickly rescued him and got him out of there.
Yeah I'm definitely going to reincarnate and not remember any of this happening. I don't want to stay. Jesus is out. peace out yo
(Holds up peace hand signal)
Bye Jesus. We will miss you.
"I love you, Jesus," says Mother Gaia
"Me too," says Father Death
Well anyways, we don't want you to suffer any longer. Go on and be free.
Thanks
The next thing I knew, I was lying in bed, and Jesus was sitting at the headboard, smiling down at me.
"Hi Raine," said Jesus.
"Hi," I said.
"I'm sorry for all the hardship you've endured," said Jesus.
"Uh...not to compare trauma but I think you had it a lot worse," I said.
Jesus began to laugh. It was just a small chuckle at first, but then he erupted into vigorous laughter. It was the first time he had a genuine laugh in over two thousand years. There was a touch of bitterness in his voice.
Jesus was trying to tell me something.
"What is is? You want to possess me?" I said. "Um...okay...wait, I don't even know you. Um...maybe just five minutes."
And so I felt Jesus possessing me. I still had partial control; it was just that Jesus was in the driver's seat. I looked at the clock and it was around 6pm. "Actually, you can take ten minutes," I decided.
Jesus went out onto the balcony and took his first breath of fresh air in over two thousand years; his first taste of freedom in a very, very long time. He went to the park nearby. It had recently rained, so the grass was wet. Jesus ran around and did somersaults. Then he took off my shoes and socks so that he could run around and do somersaults barefoot, feeling the wet grass beneath his feet. He lay in the grass and sang a song I'd never heard before in a language I didn't know. He hugged a tree.
Jesus was worried that he was running out of time, so I told him, "You can take an hour instead. Actually, take as long as you need."
There was a person walking their dog nearby so Jesus asked if he could throw a tennis ball for the dog to fetch, and they let him. Beyond the grass there was a lot of untamed wild. Jesus walked up to it, yearning to explore it.
"Look at all this untamed wild. I want to go in, but I know Raine wouldn't like it," he said.
I said, "Maybe someday we can. Right now I don't want to go in because I'm not wearing the right kind of clothes for it. But someday we might be able to travel the world and go on a safari expedition together, and that way I'll be properly dressed to be able to explore the wild."
Jesus thought this was tempting, but he had to decline.
There was a pattern in the way Jesus walked. It wasn't the way I normally walked, but I could recognize that it was a pattern that only an autistic person would walk. "You're autistic too, Jesus?" I asked.
"Of course," he said.
"Cool," I said.
He stood at the edge of the wild, yearning to go in. I told him, "I'm not smart enough to know which plants are poison ivy."
"I am," he said.
I almost let him go in, but then we noticed there were thorns in the way. So Jesus just stood there and sang a song.
Jesus lay down on the grass again. "No, I can't stay. I have too much resentment and anger towards the people who allowed this to happen. I have some resentment towards you too, Raine."
"Oh," I said. And I thought, fair enough. The first messiah gets crucified and possessed by Satan for two thousand years while the second one gets to live a long, happy fulfilling life. Anyone would feel resentment towards me for that.
Jesus ran around some more and did a few more somersaults and cartwheels. He went to the playground and played around on it, going down the slide, spinning around on the equipment and playing the tune of "Joy to the World" on the instrument installed into the playground. When he was done, he went to grab my shoes and went home.
Jesus went into my bedroom and looked into my closet. There was a punk shirt in the closet that he was curious about. He brought the shirt to his face and breathed in the scent. I never noticed how good it smelled before. He changed into the shirt and put on a pair of black shorts with skulls to match.
Then Jesus took out my notebook and wrote down a code, which he showed to the Gods to memorize. Then he ripped out the paper with the code on it, grabbed a lighter, and went outside to burn it. However, because it had recently rained, the grill was wet.
"It's too wet. It's not going to burn," I said.
Jesus started ripping the paper into small pieces and throwing them away in a trash bin. He wanted to throw the pieces of ripped paper into a nearby stream, but Satan didn't like that because it would be littering the environment.
Ripping up the paper was taking a long time. "Why not use scissors?" I suggested.
"Scissors?!" Jesus exclaimed. "Oh, the modern world is interesting."
And so Jesus went back inside, put the lighter away, and grabbed a pair of scissors. He sat down and started cutting the paper into small pieces using my left hand. I didn't tell Jesus I was right-handed just yet. I wanted to see if being possessed by him made me better at using my left hand. It did not. I transferred the scissors into my right hand and cut the paper myself.
Satan wanted to cut the paper into very small, tiny pieces, because he was a perfectionist. Jesus said no, it didn't have to be perfect, it just had to be good enough. I got the sense that Satan often forced Jesus to have to do things perfectly and meticulously.
Jesus took a break from cutting the paper to eat a sandwich. The Gods were impatient with him and told him to keep cutting, but Jesus said no, "Let me enjoy my sandwich."
Jesus got on my laptop and wrote:
Hi
I was telling a half-truth half-lie about the suffering part.
Satan only put me in suffering if I refused to cooperate.
Sometimes he did ask for consent, boundaries, and safety
Sometimes he didn't
I've experienced the most heavenly pleasures of heaven as well as the most devastating deadly horrors of hell
I'm not sure how long I'll stay.
Y'know, trauma sucks
But I'd like to go to the beach
Signed,
Jesus
He changed one of the lines that had been written earlier. He deleted "We recruited his help" and changed it to this:
We made him start a new branch of Mother Gaia's religion (Judaism)
Jesus gave the Gods a knowing look. They looked back at him, shrugged, and nodded. "Fair enough," they said. It was true. Jesus never truly consented to creating Christianity. The Gods set him up. They had a lot to make up for.
Eventually Jesus finished cutting up the piece of paper and threw away the pieces. Then Raven came in and greeted me, not knowing that Jesus was there. She pushed me into a wall and kissed me. Jesus stood still, feeling extremely uncomfortable. However it would be rude not to kiss back, so he had no choice. He had to kiss her back. Once the kiss was over he started walking over to the bedroom, and Raven slapped my butt, which made Jesus even more uncomfortable. He desperately looked for a reason to be alone.
"I'm going to change into different clothes. Since the DnD session was canceled today, there's no point in looking cool," Jesus said.
"There's always a reason to look cool," said Raven.
"Uh..." Jesus looked at the clothes Raven was wearing and came up with an idea. "I'm going to change into the same outfit you're wearing. I want to match you, honey."
"Okay babe," Raven said, and she finally left.
Jesus closed the bedroom door and sighed. "That was awful. Even though it was technically consensual, she doesn't belong to me. She's your future wife."
I got the sense that Satan had put Jesus through this kind of torture many, many times. "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Jesus," I said.
"I'm unpossessing Raine right now. I'm not going through that again," Jesus said. Then he stood at the edge of my bed and did a trust fall, and I was unpossessed.
I changed into the same shirt that Raven had been wearing. It was a white dress shirt with a black vest on top.
Raven wanted to go out to buy some food for dinner. I drove us to the convenience store. On the way there, I started to feel like something was wrong. Even though I wasn't supposed to be possessed anymore, I felt the presence of someone else inside me. That presence became stronger and stronger as time went on. It was at the convenience store, after Raven and I ordered our burgers, when I heard Jesus say, "Have fun, Raine."
I gasped when I realized what happened. When Jesus unpossessed me, Satan stayed behind. "Why you..." I almost swore, but then sighed. "Well played."
Fair enough. Jesus dealt with Satan for two thousand years, so now it was my turn. As I sat down eating my dinner with Raven, I felt like I was losing myself. I couldn't focus on what Raven was saying to me. "My psychosis is acting up," I told her.
I drove us home. There was a package for us, because Raven had ordered new chairs for the balcony. Raven decided it was time for us to assemble those chairs.
As I was trying to help Raven assemble the first balcony chair, I couldn't focus. I wasn't myself anymore. When Satan possessed me, it was almost total control. I barely had the cognitive ability to do anything. I was reduced to a child, only capable of following Raven's directions.
Raven instructed me to put the pieces of the chair together and put the screws in. I did exactly what I was told, because that's all I had the capability to do; just following orders. "You're a really good teacher," Satan told Raven.
It was frustrating but we got the chair finished. Raven decided we would finish the other chair later, so she went to play video games. I asked her what time it was. She said it was 1am on Sunday.
Satan was very much like a child. He went to the balcony where I was growing plants, and we found out that a few mushrooms had sprouted.
"Why Raine not like mushrooms?" Satan wondered. Whenever there was a mushroom that sprouted up next to my plants, I picked it out and threw it away. Satan thought that all plants were good. Why did I favor some plants over others? I compromised by letting one of the mushrooms grow, but I still got rid of the other ones.
There was a bug crawling on the floor of my apartment. Satan loves bugs and didn't want to kill it, so he got a plastic cup to try to capture it.
"Shhhh, it's okay little friend. I know you're scared. It will all be over soon," Satan said as he captured the bug and let it go outside.
The Gods asked Satan to apologize for everything he put them through.
"Sorry," Satan spat stiffly.
"Like you mean it?" said a spirit I couldn't identify.
"I'm sorry," Satan said earnestly.
I wanted to stop being possessed, but Satan wouldn't budge. I sighed. "Alright Satan, I get it. I should clean up after myself more. It's just hard sometimes, and I don't like doing it alone. But I make more of an effort than some people."
Satan shrugged and said, "It true."
I asked Satan to stop possessing me and go along with everyone. "You don't have a choice because I'm the only thing keeping them from killing you," I said.
Satan agreed and finally stopped possessing me.
There was a puddle on the floor, so I got a paper towel and started to clean it up. As I was cleaning, I felt something awaken inside of me. All of a sudden I was being possessed by someone new.
"I remember now. My name is Gabriel," said the archangel. That's when it was revealed that I was the angel Gabriel in human form. If that was true, then maybe my meeting the Gods wasn't pure chance after all; it was all planned from the beginning.
That's not to say Gabriel and I were one and the same person, because that's not how it works. The angel and the human are the same, but they are not one.
"Raine, don't ever change," Ares said laughing.
When Gabriel finished cleaning up the spill, he stood up and threw the paper towel away. He sat down on the chair that Raven and I just assembled that evening.
I have to admit, it felt awesome being Gabriel. He sat on his throne and the spirits answered to his commands at the wave of his hands.
"We have to get going," said a Jewish man.
"Yeah, it's Sunday. We're supposed to rest," said a second Jewish man.
With a flick of his wrist, Gabriel sent them off.
I don't remember clearly what happened that night or the order that it happened, so I'll just explain the little details that I can remember. Also, not every spirit wants their part of the story to be told. There are details that the Gods and spirits want me to leave out, so that's what I'll do.
Different spirits took turns possessing me to get a turn to dance. My body was a little bit out of shape so I wasn't able to do this for long, but it was cool to be able to perform dance moves I had never learned before.
I remember Mystery Man possessing me and speaking to Abel and Cain. I don't remember what he said to Abel, but towards Cain he said, "I'm sorry for favoring your brother over you."
I remember Ares sitting next to me, laughing and saying, "Raine, don't ever change. Don't ever change."
Mystery Man looked at Ares and said, "Raine might change. How would you feel about that?"
Ares said, "I would be okay with it."
Also, it turns out I won the bet. Ares said to me, "Hey Raine, you were right. You'll be getting that teddy bear."
Another spirit whom I couldn't identify said, "You're not supposed to tell him. You'll make it too obvious that we're real. How is he going to be able to believe he's just psychotic?"
Many of the spirits were curious as to why the teddy bear had to be white.
"Is it really that important to you?" said Mystery Man. "Alright fine, I'll tell you the story. Once upon a time a little girl sat on Santa's lap. 'And what do you want for Christmas, little girl?' asked Santa. 'A teddy bear,' said Leah. 'And what color do you want the teddy bear to me?' asked Santa. 'White,' said Leah. And that's about it. It's an old memory. Well, old by human standards but not by God standards."
The spirits made me type this before going to bed:
Greek Gods (We do not identify as Romans. Saturn stole our identities from us and gave us new names without our permission, and he claimed our religion for himself)
We are many different races. We all lived in Greece at the time.
Some Gods, such as Buddha, were cherubs first and then tried being human to experience what suffering was like.
Some Gods, such as Mikey, were humans first, and became Gods after death.
Some Gods, such as Ares, was a fallen cherub first and experienced being human, then became a God.
Some Gods were angels first and experienced being human, then became a God (we're hoping Raine will be one of these).
Yahweh = by the guidance of the light (of earthly Mother) and death (of heavenly father)
Father Death = grim reaper
friendly dad guide who helps you move on to the next realm
I'm not dangerous. I help you feel less alone and less scared as you make your way into whatever's next of your choosing.
Uranus <= I don't like that name. Call me by my preferred name, A man duh
A landa
Elanda
Among Us
I stopped writing for a moment. I asked, "If I say God's name, am I going to die? Or is that not true?"
"What do you mean?" asked a voice I couldn't identify.
"If I say God's name, do I die? It was in that video," I said.
"What video?" asked the voice.
"The Bible Project video that talks about Yahweh's name."
Whoever that voice was went to look up Bible Project videos. When he came back he was furious.
Father Uranus said, "I was joking. I wasn't actually going to make the human say the safeword."
He wrote:
I'm kidding. It was a joke.
The Gods continued typing:
Hispanics Gods?
Africans Gods? Where are you?
Uh, we're here. Just hiding. WE don't want to be seen because lots of people hate black people.
Raine speaking: Sorry I don't know enough about Hispanics to know which gods are under their jurisdiction. If it doesn't exist in my imagination or my mind, the Gods can't teach it to me unless I read wikipedia or something.
Psychosis primarily teaches proverbs and opinions. Facts are harder to teach.
You can teach a human a name or a date. Try it phonetically, or through psychics. Like for example muscle memory.
Raine knows where letters are on the keyboard because of those bumps on the F and J keys, and this allows us to make Raine type things for us even without looking at the keyboard. It's a lot harder for him to tell where numbers are, so we blindly typed a code, hitting the record button sometime along the way. To him it felt random but we knew what we were doing.
Some joined Satan
But you can't always tell which ones did it out of their own volition. Some were possessed/brainwashed/forced/blackmailed/deceived/etc. Try not to go for the kill unless it is a last resort. Try to capture them first.
Towards those who willingly and consensually broke the contract, the contract no longer applies to them. If they violated the contract on purpose without being forced/blackmailed/deceived, the contract no longer protects them and it is permissible to use violence to stop them.
Treat everyone with equity, not equality. Please learn the difference between equity and equality because it is very important to know the difference.
Those who joined Satan could've been:
brainwashed
blackmailed
threatened with rape and violence and other unimaginable horrors
following orders
deceived
manipulated
afraid
Wife of Saturn: I was blinded by love
Well yeah even though he was abusive I still loved him and he did more good things for me than bad.
The bad thing only happened once every thousand years or so. HE was good to me otherwise.
I don't know. I see him differently now. Fine I'll break up with him.
You broke the contract too, wife of Saturn. We're sorry but you're under arrest.
Those who were afraid or just following orders, that still counts as purposefully breaking the contract. The contract no longer protects whomever broke the contract for those reasons.
If they were manipulated or deceived, that's more complicated. You still did something bad and have to face some consequences for it.
Dear residents of the Spiritual Realm:
Privacy is important.
Do not read rough drafts that haven't been published. Do not read letters that were not addressed to you.
Do not watch people when they think they are alone unless they call out.
Only read the final works that have been openly posted online for the public to see, or officially published in a book/newspaper/etc. If humans in the physical world aren't allowed to read private drafts, nobody in the spiritual realm should be allowed to see them either. That is an invasion of privacy, and disrespectful toward boundaries.
You are only allowed to look at artwork that has been posted publicly on deviantart, tumblr, or any other public platform.
Use your own judgement.
Some art forms such as paintings can be subjective. Use your own judgement if you think a human would mind if you looked at it. Most of the time though, they don't want anyone to see it while it's still unfinished.
Do not disrespect boundaries. Do not enter anyone's homes uninvited, and do not overstay your welcome if you were invited. Do not probe anyone's minds with permission, especially when they're sleeping because that's a form of rape. That includes Gods'.
Do not stalk people. If it's creepy for a human to do it, it's still creepy even if you're invisible.
Do not watch people in mirrors. That's creepy.
Do not force anyone into therapy without their consent. Do not harass them about it. Remember Britney Spears.
Solitary confinement is a form of torture.
When you release prisoners, try to make sure they have decent homes to go to, or you could improve their current home so that they're more comfortable.
Comfort, consent, trust.
Safety first or consent first?
Use your gut feeling to decide.
The following names are the only ones allowed access to all of Raine's journal entries on Penzu, and they will decide as a group which entries are allowed to be shown to the public.
These are known as the Council members:
Buddha
Ares
Zeus
Poseidon
Mikey
When it was the Goddess of Envy's turn, she told Father the name she preferred:
Venus
"You like that name better?" asked Father.
"Yes," said Venus.
There was a collective gasp when everyone remembered that Venus was Aphrodite's Roman name.
"No way!" said Ares.
"I didn't want you to know it was me," said Venus.
"We'll talk about this later," said Ares. Right now they needed to help me get ready for bed. The Gods continued to make me type:
Pluto/Hades
Mother Nature (Gaia)
Father Death (Dad God)
Gabriel
Jesus
Raine himself too (duh)