PANTHEON (Volume 1)

The Day I Died.

Hi, I'm Luke, and I'm a god.

Not normally how somebody starts a conversation. Normally there's a bit more nuance I know. Maybe a "how you doing?" or some ice breaking to really soften the blow of such a blunt statement. 

But if I'm going to hold your attention, it best be with something stinging and striking. 

Right now you're either thinking "This guy's crazy! Lets keep reading!" or you're thinking. "Okay, maybe its a metaphor for something, lets keep reading."

Neither is true. That statement is very literal. I am a god, and I will probably remain a god till I die. Whether I like it or not is a different question altogether, and honestly I'm still trying to piece together that answer myself. 

But that answer is not something that I intend for us to search for in this book. Right now, I think I will just tell you how I got in this situation. How Luke Mikazuki Jackson, the loser, ended up being the person who decides what goes on in this puny planet rotating around a giant ball of fiery gas. 

The story itself started on a day filled with wet rain, and the smell of diesel and pollution amid shimmering city lights under a dark gray sky. 

My name is Luke of course, I already introduced myself I think. And I am that dark haired scrawny petite boy no taller than 5'4 standing under the clear glass roof of a bus stop, waiting for the automated sleek white vehicles to stop by on its scheduled run. 

across the street, signs and neon lights blazed against my retinas, the language that I barely understood looked like QR codes to me sometimes. Japanese was tough like that, so was Chinese since they both came out of the same foundation. 

Luckily an occasional sign had English Subtitles, or sometimes there was a sign completely written in the broken English of the locals that made sense in context, but at the same time didn't sound fluent in the slightest. 

The busiest most stressed out human beings on the planet passed me by, paying me no attention, except to sometimes stare at my non-Asian features before furrowing their brows back at their phones and getting back onto calls about their upcoming meetings. 

I was an ant in the world.  A mere speck, the tiniest cog. No being of great power would ever pay attention to me, a scrawny boy in a sweatshirt and jeans, carrying a Seven Eleven grocery bag filled with chips and coke zeros.

As I watched a few cars whiz by, their windowless exteriors pattering with the glint of rain, their backs hissing out air cleaner than what they took in, I frowned. 

I looked back up at the holographic digital numbers hovering next to the pouring water coming over the edge of the bus stop's roof. 

7 PM, 19:00 HRs. 

The bus was late. The bus was never late. How was a driverless vehicle ever late to begin with?

I looked next to me to see my fellow waiting passengers looking confused as well, eyeing their phones and then comparing the number on them to the one blaring in green holographic staticky light.  

This mistake would probably end up on the local News at the very least. 

"Oh shit." I grunted as I pulled up my phone's contacts and immediately tapped on one of the names.

I held it in front of me as the implant in the temple of my skull vibrated pleasantly and waiting music played in my ear.

"Bwip!" the sound of somebody picking up finally drifted upon my attention after a minute or so.