Sorry, Your Quest Cannot Be Completed (ONC 2024)

Chapter 3

Without anything else to do, I began scrolling through the mysterious text again. I must have scrolled for hours, not finding anything remotely new or interesting. Eventually, I gave up and lay on the ground, falling asleep. Waking up, I was still in the same blue room. 

Where was this place and how did I end up back here? Where are the other Gods? If I'm a God, then surely I would be able to meet them? 

In time, I was back in the field with Love, Jorney, and Sirius. 

"Wonder if the game's still glitched," Sirius asked. 

"What does that word mean?" I asked rather impatiently. 

"Whoa! It is! Uh... A glitch is like a technical error." 

"Technical error?" I asked, completely unfamiliar with this term. "So someone has committed an error?" 

"Yes," Sirius answered; his expression unreadable as he gazed at me. 

"And who might have committed it?" 

"Uh, you." He made a weird face where his eyes became wide but his mouth remained in a straight line. 

"Me? I most certainly didn't do anything! You killed me and awakened my godhood! If anything it's you who committed this glitch!" I crossed my arms. 

"Oh. That might actually be the case." His expression was neutral again. 

"What error do you speak of?" I asked, still not quite certain why he was convinced there was some sort of error. Perhaps he thinks my godhood was a mistake. Or perhaps he was simply referring to Love and Jorney's motionless stares, as if time had completely frozen for them. 

"The fact that you can actually interact with me more. Yet everyone else remains ignorant." 

That still didn't completely answer my question. "Am I the error or are they?" I asked for clarification. 

"You are." 

This pissed me off. "They're looking at us like they're zombies and I'm the problem?" I pointed at the two in question. 

"Ugh. How do I explain this? The game isn't supposed to work like this." His eyes closed as his mouth formed a straight line. 

"Game? Are we playing a game right now?" I narrowed my eyes. Why was Sirius suddenly acting so strangely? He has never spoken this way nor this rudely! 

"Well, I am. You're kind of in the game." Sirius shrugged. 

"This quest is a game to you?!" I balled my fist and had to mentally talk myself out of punching him in the face. This man was chosen by the Gods themselves to save our world, and he considers it a game? Truly, our savior was a psychopath. 

He facepalmed. "Listen, this is a video game. You're just an NPC controlled by AI!" 

"NPC? Video game?" I asked. 

"You're not real. All of your actions are predetermined. Look at Love and Jorney — they're not reacting or responding because they haven't been programmed to." 

Programming, predetermined... Clearly, Sirius had information nobody else was privy to. But that was to be expected considering he was chosen by the Gods. According to him, it would seem that all of our actions are predetermined by the Gods. They then "program" us to react to certain information in certain ways. 

A few scholars over the past centuries had presented several theories about predestination. Many of those theories had been rejected, but perhaps they were right after all. However... I didn't think the result of that would be this jarring.