Young Writers Society

The feeling deepened.

It wasn't that the voice had seen through his lie - if they even have. It might have just been a lucky guess. But it was the fact that he was standing in the United States that made him feel horrible. He had lived here. Lucifer had lived here. God had come to visit here. It was the place where a large majority of the gods spent their time on Earth - not because they had to, but because it was a relatively good place to spend their time in.

A nuclear disaster wouldn't wipe out the gods.

He just had to keep telling himself that.

"I'm from the United States - a little while away from New York City," he said, his voice quiet. "I take care of snakes. I have some with me, if you want proof. The only two people I'm close with are two brothers - Dante and Luke Blythe. What other information do you need?"

A long, exasperated sigh came out of the screen.

Before Mal could try to cover his ears or tell the voice to shut up, the voice started talking. Fine, let's give you an example. Lion kid-

"Mal," the lion growled.

Mal, whatever. What's your last name?

The lion paused, squinting at the screen. Should he be honest? Well, it looked like he was on another world, his last name wasn't that big of a deal (even his uncle barely used it), and he wasn't keen on being pinned under Lunis for any longer. "Cinis," Mal said.

Mal Cinis. Alright. Who's the big guy?

"Lunis," said Mal, glaring up at the unconscious panther in question.

Ashes? Moon? Are those your real names?

Mal rumbled. "Cinis is my last name, but his real name is Cysol."

Fine. Is he your partner?

"No," Mal growled.

So, you're a lion, and he looks like some kind of melanistic jaguar or leopard. What's the deal with that? What makes you different from humans?

The lion shuffled, nudging one of Lunis's arms to make the claws easier to see. "We have fur, we have retractable claws, we have tails, we can smell and hear things better than humans, we're more flexible, we live longer, and we're generally better," Mal said, voice becoming more irritated and faster the longer he talked. "That good enough for you?"

Yeah, that'll work. Get the idea, Alex?

"I do," he said. Given the example and his lie of being a human, his earlier response should have given the voice plenty of information. But he interacted with other gods - he knew how to play someone else's game. "My name is Alex Smith. I only just met Mal and Lunis today; we're not from the same world. As I mentioned earlier, I take care of snakes. I have a couple of baby albino rat snakes on me that I could show you, but they're currently sleeping in my pockets."

Pride remained silent throughout this, listening to all of the parts of the conversation while doing his best to remain unnoticed. Whatever he was doing, it seemed to be working.

"I don't have anything special about me," he lied. "I'm just a normal human - the closest thing I have to a speciality is being able to work easily with technology."

He paused.

"Is that answer better?" he asked, not a single antagonistic tone to his voice.

Maybe, the voice said. Dunno what's your deal with snakes - if we've got a lion and a panther, maybe you're just some snake in disguise, or something stupid like that - but I'm more curious with that technology thing. What do you mean, you can 'work easily with it?'

If only they knew how true that was.

Godhood was a hard thing to prove if someone wasn't a believer - even then, it could be difficult. God frequently pretended to be an angel around his religion because he was too different than what they visualized, while most of the older religions had once gotten around it by intimidation and saying they could take whatever form they wanted.

There was nothing to say that his myth had persisted until now, and not a single way for him to prove that he wasn't as human as he appeared to be.

And, now that he was being questioned about it, he was beginning to realize that the way he worded things made him seem like some kind of tech genius. "I use my computer a lot, so I know how to fix it when it breaks. There's no reason to add more waste to the planet if I can help it."

It was right about then that he noticed that at least some of the formerly sleeping members of the group - Ari, Aquarius and Liz - had woken up and were currently peeking out from behind one of the small sand dunes. He could just barely make out Zion's shadowy outline beside Ari, but the group were doing a mostly good job of hiding.

He let his gaze travel like he hadn't seen them, and was just studying the area around them while he waited for another response.

And Pride continued to stand eerily still and silent.

But then one - or maybe all - of the group crouching behind the dune tried standing up, and chaos broke out as someone tripped on someone else. Liz, Aquarius and Ari all gave startled yelps when they realized they were beginning to fall. Zion tried to grab all of them, but there was only so much they could do.

The four went tumbling down the side of the dune, landing just inches away from the net in a tangled heap of limbs.

A long pause. You're all idiots, aren't you? But, even if you're just good for turning a computer on and off, maybe I can go point you in the right direction. That'll give you something to do, and me a chance to figure out how to get you out of here so you don't break anything important. Sound interesting?

"I'm not an idiot," Liz said with a groan, popping back up to her feet. This wouldn't have been funny on its own, but Ari was mirroring her reaction from a few feet away. The two exchanged a look and started to giggle - even though both knew they should probably be a little more serious in a situation like this.

Aquarius awkwardly approached the net, studying it from beside Apophis.

"...That sounds interesting," the demigod hesitantly said. "...But, um, who are you?"

I realize I made a big deal about knowing everyone's names and identities, the voice said, But that's not important. What's important is how in the hell there's so many of you. We haven't had an event like this in a long time. Not since everything went to s***, anyhow.

"...But who are you?" Aquarius asked, looking increasingly more confused the longer the conversation went on. If the voice wasn't so picky, Apophis would have tried to catch him up on current events. "And what happened here? What-What's going on?"

The voice sighed. Maybe I'll give you my name once you get going. Unlike any of yours - and I'm pretty interested in hearing these new people's names and identities, by the way - mine doesn't really matter. What happened here doesn't really matter either. I don't want you getting any bright ideas, and you'll probably figure it out soon enough.

Now that Liz had untangled herself from the mess of limbs a short distance away from the net, she rejoined her boyfriend over by the net.

"What's going on?" she asked. She glanced between Aquarius, the screen, Pride, and Apophis, but none of the three gave her an immediate answer. Her gaze lingered on the net. "...Can someone get Mal and Lunis out?"

Zion slipped away from Ari as her host joined the steadily growing group. They reached out a hand to touch the net, only to draw it away when they seemed to feel some kind of shock.

"...Can you let our friends go?" Aquarius asked.

"I think he was going to," Apophis commented. "He was just telling us more about what happened here, and how he wanted to do something while he thought of a way to get us back to our worlds."

He nudged the tip of his foot in Pride's direction.

It took Liz a second to get it, but then she made sure not to look in his direction anymore - the owner of the voice she had heard talking earlier apparently hadn't noticed Pride, and both Pride and Apophis could easily take care of the net between one being a homunculus and the other being a god.

Hmm.

Wire by wire, the net retracted, slipping back into the spheres it had come from. Using what strength he had to shove Lunis off of him, Mal sprawled out on the ground and let out a few deep breaths.

The spheres rose into the air, blue lights falling over each person in the group. I was trying to be nice, the voice said, But none of you would explain yourselves. So sure, you can have your friends back. You can even to sleep, since I'm guessing you're all pretty tired. You don't have to worry about me - it looks like I got plenty of new information to keep me busy.

"Three of us explained ourselves," Apophis said. He didn't want to lose their only source of information, but he also wasn't too worried about their somewhat helpful acquaintance leaving - they would find some way to get the information they needed. "The rest are just confused - they've only just joined the conversation. As it is, you're doing exactly what they're doing - asking questions, and growing frustrated when you don't get immediate answers."

Please, the voice said. It wasn't a question I needed you to answer; it would've just been nicer if you had. And I asked the same question over and over again, only for a bunch of people - that you've been very happy to hide from me, by the way - to throw questions at me that I also explained over and over again I couldn't answer. I don't care about immediate answers - I just don't want to be stuck here for the next hour, so lay off.

At this point, he had accepted that the voice wasn't going to be of anymore help - not that they had been to begin with. It was only giving bits and pieces of what had happened, and hadn't done more than just question them.

But Apophis was curious.

He couldn't tell if the voice had realized he hadn't been giving the full truth before, and honestly doubted that the voice was going to accept what he was saying as fact.

"Before you go," he said, his voice nonchalant, "I need to apologize - I wasn't entirely truthful. I do live in New York City, do take care of snakes, and do have somewhat good skills with technology. I also have two friends named Dante and Luke Blythe, and both of them consider each other to be family."

He paused.

"But Alex Smith is just an alias of mine, and Dante and Luke's names are too. My real name is Apophis - I'm the serpent from Egyptian mythology that's supposed to devour the world. Dante is actually God, and Luke is actually Lucifer."