first person perspective:
I'm not the best person, if you couldn't tell already. My therapist once described me as uniquely selfish and self-absorbed, words that cut me to the bone with their impeccable accuracy. But even with that personality type, I was crushed under the immense guilt of my actions. I had single-handedly condemned the human race, secured our extinction, and won the war for the opposing side. To make matters worse, it was a complete accident, but I was taking that fact to the grave.
It was bad enough that I'd killed our messiah; I wasn't admitting it was all a mistake.
"Peter was undercover. His target was Sister Maria, a high-ranking member who was responsible for over half of the supply of ichor to the Illuminati," the hologram continued.
Another nail in the coffin. I had killed him just as he was about to take down a huge dealer.
"The failure of the mission has cost H.V.N. years of planning. Of course, this dulls in comparison to the impact of the loss of our prophet himself," it continued, still taking Vicar Peter's form, might I add.
Great, even the hologram knew what I had done.
"But won't the scales even out again? You said yourself evil will always have an opposition," I reasoned, praying that would free me of some guilt.
"Perhaps, but the karmic scales of the universe take time to adapt. Humanity might be lost by then. At the very least, everyone here will be dead," it replied coldly.
Of course it does. Fine. I didn't want this to be the case, but it was my fault.
"Okay, I'll be your prophet. I'll step in as a replacement until the next one is appointed," I offered reluctantly. Surprisingly, the confetti and balloons weren't released at my noble offering. Instead, the hologram laughed.
An AI, non-emotional, non-emotive life-form, belly-cackled until pixels seeped from its eyes.
"You? You're not even blessed, never mind a savior. You are an ordinary. An ant. You couldn't even prevent your own death. How are you going to save humanity?" it said between chortles.
Okay, harsh.
I won't pretend that hadn't unearthed some childhood insecurities and seriously damaged my self-confidence. This took me back. To my last mission, in fact. The one that had me running to the hills in an attempt to bury my head in the earth—and we all know where that got me.
"Really? Because it was extremely easy to kill your so-called prophet. One swipe was all it took, from an ordinary no less. It took even less to kill your director," I bit back.
That shut it up.
"Well, if you're so eager to die, I certainly won't stop you," a chilling voice spoke from behind me. I whipped around to come face-to-face with the "channeler" from earlier. A short women, with dark skin and pale, piercing eyes.
"Also, he wasn't in charge of this place. I'm the one here who has direct communication with our leaders. And I'll be deciding your fate, curse-bringer," she continued, "I happen to agree with you. You've doomed us all, but the least you can do is commit yourself to our service for the rest of your life, which I predict won't be very long."
"Killing is my specialty," I answered, smiling sweetly.
She scoffed and clicked her fingers. In an instant, we were flown to a different room. White tiles, sterile lighting, and completely empty.
"H.V.N is simply put, a detective agency. We catch and punish members of the illuminati and their affiliations. To become an H.V.N. agent, you need to attend the academy. Of course, that has a selection process, but only the blessed can enter. You are an ordinary," (as they loved reminding me, I thought). "Fortunately for you, every human possesses the gates of divinity. Of course, only the blessed can open them, but we came up with a way of forcing them open, for people like you."
Wow, this was big news. Was she saying I could have powers? Like mother superior? Thirteen year old me would have been so happy to hear this news after we didn't recieve our invitation to Hogwarts.
"I don't understand how this power system works. Everyone can have abilities? Why doesn't H.V.N. recruit ordinaries then? Also, what do you mean by the gates of divinity?" I asked, immediately serious. What can i say, I could be mature at times like these.
She laughed cruelly. "I suppose I should take pity on you and answer your questions. It is only fair. In fact, I'll even answer questions you don't yet know you should ask."
How cryptic. A golden egg timer materialised in front of her. The sand began to flow, and she began to speak.
"The divine resonance is an ability that relies on the gates of divinity and the contract of souls. To put it simply, a blessed is one who has been chosen by the Gods, and a binding contract has been made between you ( the blessed ) and a God. Once this happens, you are imbued with that God's ichor, allowing you to access certain abilities depending on the domain of your deity."
Ok, easy enough, but my impeccable intuition was telling me it was about to get way more complex.
"The more ichor you have, the more power you have. There are two ways to get a lot of ichor. The first is to be awakened with it. This is by having more gates of divinity open. Think of the gates of divinity as levels. The more levels you unlock, the stronger you are. To our knowledge, there are eight gates. Let me elaborate"
Please do.
"Common gifters are Gods who enjoy blessing many people at once. The most known are the Four. They tend to bless many people at once but only form initial contracts with one gate open. The contract between you is weakest, meaning your ability is weak or simple; however, this means you are subject to less divine punishment and fewer divine restrictions. See, the more gates you open, the more stipulations are added to your contract for more power. A common one all deities possess is that the more gates you have open, the less you can discuss your contract with others. For this reason, knowledge of the gates beyond the second is very limited. The other restrictions are unique to each deity. The second way to gain more ichor is to please your deity and become favored, which allows you to renegotiate your contract and open more gates.That is also specific to your deity" She stopped speaking, and the timer paused— with halfway left.
Okay, that was a lot of information, more than I could process immediately, and she had yet to explain how I could become blessed. Plus, it seemed her revelations were linked to the timer. That probably meant she would speak for however long the timer had left, for whatever reason.
The issue is I had so many questions: How did ichor grant immortality? Who were the Four? What was divine punishment? What abilities did each deity grant? What did we know about the first two gates? But I needed to be strategic. In this moment, it was more important for me to get information on how I could become blessed than anything else.
"How can I become blessed, and why has H.V.N. not recruited ordinaries before?" I spoke finally. She flashed me a smirk and nodded, and the timer restarted.
"We realized all humans had the gates; only the blessed had them open. We created a potion, one that allows an ordinary to ascend to the divine realm in a sort of dream-like trance. When there, they could beg favor from the Gods and pray one takes mercy on them. H.V.N. has recruited ordinaries before, but so far, no one has survived the process." The timer stopped once more as she calmly landed a bomb of a revelation on my lap. So, I could beg the Gods for power, but apparently they didn't seem too reciprocal.
Fantastic.
"So why should I risk it?" I mean, it's true—forgetting all the honourable talk from earlier, it seems she was telling me I was committing suicide.
I felt bad, but not that bad.
"You won't leave H.V.N. headquarters alive as you are right now. The people are angry, I'm sure some of the Gods are too. They will come for you. However, the blessed only make up 30% of H.V.N. If you become one, the ordinaries, no matter how much they hate you, will not try to hurt you. You will become valuable to our cause, and right now we need as many blessed as possible. Your contract will also shield you from some of the blessed, not all, but at least you'll stand a better fighting chance."
Great, this was sounding like a lose-lose situation. I looked at the timer—only a quarter left.
One last question.
"Any advice?" I reasoned that was my best chance at getting something useful out of her.
"Take the potion. Look for one of the Four. Preferably Kaelith, the God of Chaos and Flames. After the stunt you just pulled, he's your best chance at becoming blessed—he loves troublemakers. Avoid Thalos, God of War and Valor. He's not a common gifter, and Peter was his first blessed in over a millennium. We suspected he had seven gates open, so you can assume they had formed some sort of relationship. He won't take kindly to his hero's slayer." The timer ran out and then vanished. That was it? I needed more information!
She gave me one last look before setting down a flask carrying a swirling silver liquid.
"One last thing, free of charge: never sign without reading," she said, then walked away. In a moment, I was alone—just me and the flask.
Fuck it, after all the bad luck I've had today, surely it was time for a little fortune. Besides, who wouldn't grant mercy on me? I was the definition of lovable.
Unscrewing the cap, I took a small whiff—glad to discover the potion smelled of nothing, because that would have been a serious deciding factor. Here goes… everything.
Geronimo!