You wake up in the middle of the night and find a new recording on your phone. You play it and this is what you hear.
Siri
The Beginning of the Story of How the World Got Weird
Long ago, many gods ruled the world. People’s myths were inspired by those gods, but none of the myths were completely right. To see a god could be either good or bad. The gods and many other supernatural spirits and monsters were from a magical realm called the Akhan. Earth and the Akhan were parallel dimensions, different layers of reality. The gods ignored the rules governing inter-dimensional travel; they just wanted what they wanted. They wreaked havoc everywhere they appeared. However, the biggest problem was that their antics often had catastrophic consequences for humans. Eventually, the humans started to learn magic and used powerful artifacts and magic to imprison gods and other supernatural entities. Humans believed these powerful artifacts, like the staff of Urak,ld function as permanent prisons. They were wrong.
Want to know why? Hmmmm, you probably have big enough problems already. Oh, you want to hear? Well, I guess I could tell you. Here goes. (Yes, Quinn, I know you’ll be telling the story too, but it’s my turn so stop interrupting.) Anyway, here’s the beginning of the story of how the world got weird.
Siri
Our School Gets Invaded by the Goddess of Cockroaches (Sorry, Quinn, “The Goddess of Click Beetles”) Nah, Cockroaches
Quinn would tell you our school got invaded by the goddess of click beetles. But she was about as pleasant as a cockroach, so I call her the goddess of those instead. (Quiet, Quinn. I don’t care about the importance of a truthful explanation to a dependent audience.) Now, it all started in the middle of a lecture by my biology teacher, Mrs. Shrewd. (Which would be a great describing word for her, really!) Mrs. Shrewd’s personality was about as venomous as a black mamba. Which was funny, as she was just talking about snake anatomy. She had her very own high-tech laser pointer. (Apparently it the latest development in student-torturing technology.) Whenever a student so much as sneezed, she would point her laser pointer right at them. The second that malicious, no-good, horrible, kid-obliterating, red dot of devastation touched the kid’s chest, they would be sent to detention and Mrs. Shrewd would say something in a cold, pitiless, high-and-mighty voice like, “I won’t have wicked children like you disturbing this class with your inconsiderate noise-pollution. Students simply have no appreciation for the needs of others who are trying to learn!” That was exactly what she was saying to me right then as her malevolent red dot of terror smoldered on my chest.
What was the “noise-pollution” Mrs. Shrewd was talking about? It was when I said “ack”, because Glenda Lee (Who I made a mental note to strangle if I ever got the chance) shot a spitball into the back of my neck. Just then a tiny click beetle fell right onto Mrs. Shrewd’s nose.
She screamed, “Cockroach!!!!!!!!!!” and fainted. Now you may think that since she called the click beetle a cockroach I wouldn’t call them that, because I want to be nothing like her. But I’m not calling click beetles, cockroaches. I’m calling the goddess of click beetles, the goddess of cockroaches. Totally different. Anyway, a torrent of click beetles fell from the air vent that Mrs. Shrewd had been standing under. The click beetles flooded into the room scuttling all over each other, so that students had to sit on their desks to escape the disgusting bugs.
Now me? I wasn’t stupid. I knew trapping yourself on one of those desks was about the worst thing you could do. I jumped from desk to desk then barreled into the door and escaped the room. Quinn, who had the good sense to follow me, came as well. Click beetles poured out of the classroom, and out of them rose a regal looking woman with light brown skin. She wore a dress made from the wings of millions of click beetles and her silver-gray hair was tied up in a bun. The look of disgust she had on her face could’ve made the most arrogant person in the world fall to their knees and beg her to tell them what they did wrong.
“BOW!” she commanded.
“Bow?” I said. “ This is the United States of America, lady, we have a democracy. D-e-m-o-c-r-a-c-y, de-moc-ra-cy. Want me to spell it again? Okay, d-e-m-o-“
“SILENCE!!!!!!” the woman roared. “I am Kerek, goddess of click beetles and you, girl, will bow or be destroyed!”
I followed the only logical course of action. I ran, dragging Quinn after me.
“Get them!” Kerek shouted. A swarm of click beetles flew right at us. Just as we were passing the X room, a hand shot from inside and pulled us in. The X room was a giant gymnasium that was never used for anything, so it was off-limits. However, sometimes you could see strange lights through the window blinds that always obscured what was going on inside. One person even claimed to have seen a tentacle.
I was about to punch the person who had rescued us, but he hastily said, “Stop!” He looked he was of Asian background. He was tall with short, shiny, black hair that didn’t seem to be growing in any one direction. He wore athletic shorts, neon green and black sneakers, and a short sleeve t-shirt. He put on a black-colored baseball cap, snatched out a notepad, and scribbled something on it.
“Who are you?” asked Quinn.
Our savior sighed and put the notepad back in his pocket. “I’m Arai, god of rivers.” he said.
God of rivers? This guy looked like he was only about eleven. “Who was that woman back there?” I demanded.
Arai grimaced. “That was Kerek. She thinks that humans aren’t worthy of free will. She seeks to control them.”
So, to sum things up, we’re hiding from an army of click beetles with a possibly juvenile god of rivers, there’s a weirdo cockroach goddess who wants to enslave all of humanity, and worst of all, after all this I’m still probably going to get detention.