Prologue | 6. The End

Viktor woke up, lying on a field of long grass. The weather was pleasantly warm, and since he was facing the heavens, he could see the sky about to practically burst with water, but despite the grey, it let the barest amount of diffused light through, which meant that it wasn't past sunset yet. The air smelled like flowers and a brewing rainstorm. 

This was no mountain pass. This wasn't even winter season....how long was he here? How was he still alive? 

The best explaination his brain could conjure up was....nothing. His mind drew up a blank.

He tried moving his arms and legs, scared that he might find them paralyzed, but to his pleasant surprise- he figured out that he could, in fact, move them.

'Aha!' he knew his situation. 

"I'm in heaven?!" he exclaimed, confusedly, as he stood up. No pain, no missing chunks of his body, not even a tiny boo-boo scratch or even a runny nose. 

"Well, you WILL be in heaven, if you decide to help us, boy." A voice rang out from behind. He sounded like an extremely happy young adult.

Viktor turned around and saw a peachy-skinned man, with strawberry blonde- almost coppery hair short on the sides, and medium length on the top, nothing too fancy. It looked like he combed it but then stuck his face out of a car window, and somehow it really suited him.

He had a light stubble, and a bright pink-and white hawaiian shirt with the top three buttons undone, a pair of black shorts and black crocs with pink socks on. 

He was attractive enough to pull off that horrifying combination, though.

He awkwardly raised both his hands and gave a double thumbs-up, which made the woman next to him roll her eyes.

"You're embarrassing us both, Zeus" she facepalmed, covering her eyes. 

'She doesn't seem to have a sense of humor'. That thought somehow managed to cut through all the chaos and confusion Viktor was feeling at the moment, and briefly flickered in his mind. But it was instantly swallowed and forgotten, replaced by the familiar feeling of unfamiliarity.

She looked the part too. Hair like obsidian. Black eyes, like squid ink in Mariana Trench. The eyeliner made her seem even more serious-looking. She looked like she was in her late thirties/early forties, and had the job of a very angry, perpetually serious librarian. Her formal full-sleeved white shirt, thin black belt and long brown pleated skirt accentuated this look.

She could pull off a great disappointed face. It'd make people fall on her feet and wash her boots with their tears.

In fact, that was the look she shot at this 'Zeus' person. He didn't-sadly- fall at her feet and dribble snot on her expensive-looking footwear, but instead grinned and looked at her like she was an adorable puppy trying to look threatening.

"AWW, I'm sowwy my little Starlight Honey Muffin." he cooed, reaching his hands out to pinch her cheeks. "I'm twying my best to be serious, but you're just sooooo KYYUUUTE!" he squealed.

"Uhhh-" Viktor raised his hand as the lady swatted his arms away and hissed 'stop!' in a low tone, glaring daggers-no, hydrogen bombs-at him.

She turned her attention to him and said, "Listen, kid. This man child here-" she swatted Zeus's hand away again, as he was reaching for her cheek, muttering, "I'm serious, dude." to which he replied by instantly stopping and wiping off his goofy look. "Sorry." He said.

Hera cleared her throat "He is Zeus. Ruler of our world and King of the Gods. I'm Hera, and I will be known as the Queen to every man, woman, animal, tree or rock you will meet. We will need you to go on a Quest with Jason of Iolcus." she pronounced it like yol-cuss "Do you wish to take on this responsibility?"

Her words made it seem like she was being considerate and empathetic to Viktor, but her tone sounded like Viktor could either accept, or suffer an eternity of testicular torsion.

'Who are these weirdos??' Viktor thought to himself. He just stared at them blankly. "Uhm....well, did I die?" he blinked and shook his head "Okay so I just-"

"-crashed a plane into a tower, saving your comrades and securing the victory of your empire, forever solidifying your name in the stories of valour told in your world. Yes, your friend Artyom is good. He lost a few of his toes though. No, that Pyotr guy didn't name his son after you."

Viktor stared at them, befuddled. "How do you know-" 

"Chop chop, we don't have much time, boy. You aren't slow by any chance, are you?" the Hera lady tapped her feet impatiently. 

'Don't have time??!' Viktor felt rage bubble inside him. 'Do these clowns know what I've gone through? Entitled pricks.' Viktor opened his mouth to tell the lady to go fuck herself when Zeus suddenly seemed to teleport to his side, with an arm around his shoulder and looking at him like he was trying to say, 'What are you doing??! Are you trying to get yourself killed??!'

Viktor looked at him like, 'Damn..you smell nice. Wait, how the fuck did you do-'

Zeus stared at him, 'That doesn't matter. Please trust me for a couple of seconds. Or else....' Zeus gulped.

Viktor gave him a confused look. 'Or else...?'

Zeus winced, and looked at him, as if he was trying to say: 'Testicular torsion.'

 Viktor's mouth fell to the floor and he looked at Zeus with terror in his eyes. 'I don't want testicular torsion.'

"Right! I knew you would accept!" Zeus yelled, as if he wanted Hera to hear him and turned both of them around so that their backs were facing Hera. 

"But-"

"Awesome!" Zeus yelled again. "Amazing! Let me just talk to you about the terms and conditions, okay?" he turned back at Hera and gave her a thumbs up, then whispered, "Just give me two minutes, man. I'm so sorry."

He walked with Viktor, away from Hera, through the long grass. "Alright bro, my wife is amazing, okay? And she's cute and awesome and really, really smart" Zeus chuckled, "But she doesn't really know how to talk to people. She's got a bit of a superiority complex and she's just a teensy, tiny bit prickly, I admit. Which is why if you decline, she'll make sure you suffer. She will hunt you down and make you pay. You're, unfortunately, not a god like us."

Viktor gritted his teeth. "I don't even know who you are, where I'm at, what's going on, or if I'm even supposed to trust you guys. I. Have. NO. Idea what's going on and you guys just come here and look at me like I'm some sort of bug supposed to do whatever you want me to??! I'm- I'm....ugh..." he gripped his head with his hands. "Does she need me to get on all fours and bark like a dog too?"

"I understand." Zeus looked at Viktor empathetically and patted him. "How about this? You live a comfy life in our world. You'll be nobility. Rich, carefree, attractive. Your world doesn't have harems, does it?"

"Harem? What the fuck is that?"

"Well, apart from the fact that a day in our world is closer to 52 hours than your 25, some people don't just marry one other person. Imagine this, you can date multiple people. They'll all only be yours if you want them to be. Imagine having ten REALLY HOT girlfriends. Or boyfriends. Lolis. Fuck, even animals if you want. There's this one guy who loves horses and- ah. Okay. That look on your face tells me that you're probably not into animals, eh?"

"Uhhh...no..only women, thank you."

"Yeah! Women! You can do that! There's this one girl I know in Miletus. She has 7 wives and 5 husbands. All of them are faithful only to her."

"Well...." Viktor stammered "That..does sound nice, but I don't even know if you're tellin-"

"Ayyy, my man! Easy peasy, then! Women, money, peace, security, freedom, and a chance to go on an adventure! And also you're guaranteed a place in heaven if you help us. What's stopping you from accepting?"

"How do I trust you?" Viktor stared at Zeus's glacial blue eyes.

Zeus stared back for a while, then took a deep breath. "I am a god. Uhh...everything I promised him is fairly true. Not exactly true, got it? You little shit!" Zeus stomped the ground and glared at it. "It's kinda true. It's pretty fucking true. It's just not 100%, fully, exactly true. Like, it's true to a realistic degree..ugh, you got that, right?" Zeus seemed to be speaking to the floor.

"My man Viktor will experience and get what he's promised by me, and go to Elysium if he does what we ask him to, which is to go on the adventure with Jason of yol-cuss. Not just any Jason of Iolcus...ugh, I don't need to explain all that. You get what I mean, right?" he shrugged at the ground. "If you don't, you're just stupid. Everything I explained and promised to Viktor is true to a fair extent. This is an oath on you, Styx."

That was the moment Viktor felt like he was staring into a deep, gaping, uncaring.....void. Except the void was alive. All he was, was a pinprick, a tiny, insignificant bacterium in the body of a monstrous being. So was this Zeus fellow. The void was Truth. Neither Viktor nor even these 'gods' mattered to this void. It could swat them with its hand like they were an annoying mosquito. Which is why Viktor felt-no-knew in the deepest part of his soul that he could trust this being, simply because this being couldn't be bothered with lying to someone as unimportant as Viktor. And nobody would ever dare to lie to it. All oaths to the Styx must be kept, lest the oath-breaker face damnation.

"You're telling the truth." Viktor muttered. "You really are a god."

Zeus shuddered. "I fucking hate Styx, dude. But, yeah. Good to know that you believe me now."

"Yeah..uhh..." Viktor realized that this man, and the prickly lady were both gods. "Yes...my lord?" He awkwardly bowed. Viktor did not want to get on the bad side of the Gods.

Zeus laughed, "Oh, stop it! We're friends now, Viktor!"

"Hehe...I don't think I'm good enough to uhh...be your friend. Um. Sir." He mumbled. Was he doing this thing right? His parents taught him that God should be feared and revered, but he was an athiest up until this point. They were really religious people. And although they didn't force their beliefs on Viktor or anything, Viktor obviously picked up something about god and religion. 

"Okay, that's cute Viktor. But seriously, stop. I'm not that great." He scratched his head and looked around, embarrassed. "Okay...I'll send you on your way now, alright?"

"Okay sir."

"We will meet in the future, though. I picked you because you're batshit insane." Zeus chuckled "In a good way. Smart people exist, insane people - like you- exist too. But someone who's intelligent precisely because they're stupid....is rare. In a good way." he winced. "You're not stupid, you're just crazy. I hope you don't take offence. Sorry."

"None taken sir." Viktor almost saluted, but caught himself before doing so.

"So....." Zeus looked behind him and gave Hera a double-thumbs up. Then turned back and put his arms on his hips. "There's a lot to explore, adventures to be had, money to be spent, and a lot of love-making to do. You ready?"

That sounded weird. Viktor shuddered a bit, but then remembered Zeus's oath on the Styx. Zeus wasn't lying. His heart started picking up pace as his imagination went wild with fantasies he had only been dreaming of for the past few years.

"Fuck yeah."