Chapter Sixty-One: Voice of a God

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Tora lied in her bed. She couldn't sleep that night. Any night really, ever since that man from the Crea guild killed himself in front of her. She couldn't think of anything that could possibly make him do that to himself. She had read tragic stories in the books that they were allowed to possess with content that mentioned suicide, but nothing like this. There was no fear, no anger, no sadness. Only acceptance in that he knew what he was doing.

After what felt like an hour or two into the night after she had went to bed she felt the long thin hands of drowsiness as they tried to caress her into that half sleep she pretended was enough. She relaxed her breath, loosened her muscles, and let her body fall into a position she could sleep in. She waited, without realizing it, to go to sleep. She waited for another hour until she realized what she had been doing. But by the time that she had become conscious of what had just happened she was very much aware of what started to happen.

She saw, in the corner of the room, a shape. A shape that, for no logical reason, appeared humanoid. She was about to get up and approach the shape until she realized that she couldn't move. She tried to call out to the shape, but couldn't speak either. Panic had started to set in. She thought of every possibility that could incapacitate her in such a way. Poison? Venom? Magic?

"Fear not child." The voice sounded wholly familiar and alien simultaneously. It exuded all the loving warmth and care of a mother's voice, but reverberated in wholly inhuman rhythm and sound. "I cannot lay a single finger on you even if I tried."

Tora stood still. She felt a calm unlike anything that she had felt before. It was the calm similar to the kind that criminals feel before their execution. It was the acceptance of their fate. The stillness that comes with knowing that nothing can be done about what was about to happen. Her mind cleared and her rapid breathing slowed.

"Daughter of Tora. I know you feel terror in your heart of what is to come and I am here to tell you that you are not alone. Those forging ahead with you are equally as terrified of what they do not understand. I, the father of fear, will explain to you the threat that your new foe poses."

"It was long ago when me, my siblings, and mother left your world. We felt Holdria had reached a point where we no longer needed to be around, but we were wrong. After our departure, the Crea had sprung up in the very young Aviagard. Along with the magic that we had allowed your people to learn it had sprung interesting new things I'm sure only my Mother could have seen. Ingenious ways to apply magic to objects and then mimicking magic. Finally they had reached the point of creation that had been reserved only for the Mother herself. They had given birth to a new god."

"This god then created his own son who had killed all of the Mother's grandchildren except one. I wish it had been my daughter who lived, but alas it was Vera's offspring who had survived. He created the army that some of your comrades are in. But while the army had changed and the people forget of those events which happened too many generations ago, the Crea have not forgotten. They still have not forgiven that their leader was robbed of his destiny to become a god like his father."

"The Crea have continued to twist Tora's creations and spit in the sanctity of the divine right to create. You will find beasts in there that are unlike anything you have seen before. Monsters so unnatural that their very existence fouls the space around them. You will find yourself facing these either alone or together with another. You will have the courage to face these things. Of that I'm certain."

"How do you know all this?"

"I'm a god. The god of fear. And it just so happens that the Crea are afraid of what will happen now that a traitor has sounded the horn on what they're doing. I've had plenty of insight on what they're most afraid of and I've been able to see what they had been doing all this time. I don't know how we weren't able to see them before, but I didn't waste the opportunity."

"You weren't able to see them before?"

"No, and neither could my siblings. We figured it was fine since our mother could see them. I don't know if she can either. I don't know what to think if she saw all of this and allowed it to continue."

"Why did you-" She woke up. A rack stood where the figure had been planted last night. She scanned the room not knowing why. Everything seemed normal. Without thinking about it she hesitantly put a single foot down as she got out of bed. Thoughts of something grabbing her, or sinking, or attacking her raced through her mind.

She was just an inch from touching the ground. She felt her stomach sink, her heart skip a beat and her skin grew clammy. Mountains of anxiety exploded at the thought of what might happen next. The sun and the moon collided in the sky and sent down fiery doom rending the earth. A whisper rung in her ear. There were no words, but there was clearly an expression. It was the Demoness, and she came to claim Tora's life.

She touched the floor. Nothing happened. She breathed a sigh of relief. She got dressed and made her way to the stable they had in camp. The smell of hay, horse hair, and the warmth that all the animals contributed hung in the building. The smell wasn't pleasant, but it was familiar. That was all she needed. Especially with what she had to do was the farthest thing from familiar

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