Mortal Gods

Chapter 1 (Aidan)

I woke up in the middle of the night from a noise. I thought it was Henry again who had dropped something from his midnight snacks (this happened a lot) but then I heard that he yelled my name too loud to be that kind of accident. I rushed downstairs and saw Henry with an expression of pure horror on his face staring at the living room which was a complete mess. It looked like there had been a tornado inside our house.

"What the hell did you do? You made a junk out of this room, dad will be furious."

"I- I swear to God, h-he was right there", Henry stammered.

"Who was?", I asked.

"Your father was, but he disappeared when I walked into the room in one giant tornado that made the room like this."

"Henry, you know that's not possible."

One thing you have to know about Henry is that he worried about everything. I couldn't have counted the amount of times he'd called me up at 3am, freaking out about something petty that might or might not happen the next day. It's why I wasn't very concerned about what he was telling me: over-exaggerating was one of his greatest talents.

"Aidan, I know it sounds crazy, but I'm telling you I'm not lying. Your father disappeared right before my eyes in the most mysterious and weird way ever."

"Are you sure you didn't just blink?"

"Aidan, goddamnit, I mean it, your father is gone!" He grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes with a haunted look on his face. When I saw this, I realised it wasn't like other times.

I studied his piercing expression for a while and then nodded once. "Okay, then let's look for him."

While I was searching for my father, he searched for clues to explain what happened right before his eyes. I didn't find him anywhere and grew more and more agitated with every empty room I saw and started to believe Henry's strange story.

When I got back down, Henry was sitting on his knees staring at the only clean spot in the middle of the room.

"That's where Felipe stood right before it happened", Henry said, his voice laced with too many emotions. I kneeled down beside him and put an arm around his shoulder. "He's gone, isn't he?" Henry asked, though I think he knew the answer. It's why I didn't answer, and why we sat in silence for a minute.

What were you supposed to do when something like this happened? I wanted to call the police, but what I was I supposed to tell them? It didn't even feel like the right thing to do, but at the moment I wasn't feeling much at all. My mind was clouded and fuzzy.

"I think it is best if we try to sleep a little bit", I said to Henry. "We'll figure this out in the morning."

He made a noise that sounded between a sob and a scoff. "Yeah, okay."

I helped Henry put a mattress on the floor because he was too shocked by what happened to even figure out where he was supposed to get one. He fell asleep immediately, and I went to my own bedroom.

I didn't close an eye that night. It felt like something was missing and it was on the tip of my tongue, but every time I seemed to be onto something tangible, I lost it again. It drove me insane, but it must've made me exhausted to, because before I knew it I awoke with a gloomy light falling into my bedroom. It couldn't have been later than 7am.

I decided to go downstairs, although it was still very early. I caught a glimpse of myself in the hallway mirror and noticed I looked like a zombie.

The first thing I did, was drink a big cup of double expresso to wake up and get rid of the foggy feeling I had.

While I was drinking, I wandered off to the laundry room for no other reason than I hadn't checked it the night before -- I didn't think that if my dad had disappeared, he'd pick that room to hide. It was a small room under the stairs, just big enough to be a laundry room. When I got there, though, I nearly dropped my cup of coffee. The wall in the back of the room was on ajar. A faint light came from it.