Maia woke to a clear blue sky above her.

    In that moment she was lost, her mind blank, unable to latch onto any meaningful thoughts or memories. She leaned up instinctively, holding a hand on her aching head and looked around. A lifeless wasteland of rubble and concrete spread out in front of her. A few cracks of falling debris and faint winds of dust trailing between jutting pieces of half-collapsed buildings were the only sounds to be heard on an otherwise complete desolation of the former bustling capital.

    It all came back in a rush to her. From the carnage that she herself inflicted to the true deity that smote everyone around her with a simple gesture. It was in that moment that she understood how clouded her mind had become after she had gained her power. There must be things behind the way the world worked far bigger that she could have possibly imagined.

    She turned her head, not the least bit surprised to find Aria there. They both stood on a rooftop on one of the still standing structures, half of it having broken off into smithereens. The golden-haired woman sat at the edge, arms and legs crossed, looking deep into the horizon towards a faraway mountain range before she heard Maia and turned to look at her.

    “Ah, awake at last.” She said. She still wore the same clothes, while Maia stood naked in the chill of the wind. The cold still didn’t bother her.

    Maia moved her hand to brush off the threads of hair that danced to the tune of the wind from her face. She did not know what to say to that woman. Or rather, she had way too many questions and didn’t know where to begin, but supposed that Aria already knew that.

    “Please, just be… straightforward.”

    Aria raised her eyebrows. “Oh, I like you already!” Then she pulled her legs, swung around from the edge and stood up, taking a few steps towards Maia. “I assume the first question would revolves around who I am.”

    Maia only nodded.

    Aria smiled. “Naturally, as it always is.”

    “Always?” There was a certain implication in her words.

    “Yes.” Once again, she started circling around Maia, like a walz designed to intimidate. “But never mind that, you will understand in time. As to who I am, I think the simplest way for you to understand would be this: I am the architect, sort of.”

    “The architect? Of what?”

    “All that is relevant. This world, other worlds. Humanity as a whole.”

    “There are other worlds?”

    “More than you might imagine.”

    Maia thought for a moment. “Worlds as in…”

    “Planets.” Aria said, stopping and looking towards the sun between the cracks of her fingers. “Circling around far-away stars. Populated by all kinds of societies. Primitive ones that know of nothing more than sticks and stones. Modern ones with technologies beyond your wildest imagination.”

    She looked back at Maia. “Trillions of souls. And I preside over them all.”

    Maia opened her mouth to say something, but hesitated. She blinked rapidly a few times, her mind racing to make sense of the magnitude of her words. She didn’t know much about the stars, just that they’re incredibly far away. To think that there are other places just like her home? And that she created them all?

    Her eyes shifted towards the sky. “So, you’re god. The god.”

    Aria chuckled. “Not exactly. I only preside over humanity, not the universe itself. In fact, I’m not much more than what you are, except that I do it better. And that’s because I’ve had far more time in this... universe, than you.”

    Maia looked back at her. “Then what am I? What are we?”

    Aria gazed into Maia’s eyes with a frightening intensity, smirking a little. “To them, humans, we are indeed gods. There is absolutely nothing they can do to us. We own them. We can create and we can destroy, we can use them whichever way we please. And trust me,” Her smile broadened greatly as she took a few step towards Maia, “From my vast experience, imagination still seems inexhaustible in that aspect.”

    She then stepped behind Maia, and put her arms around her belly, resting her chin on Maia’s shoulder. Maia stiffened at her embrace, a rush of terrorizing memories of pain and despair flooding her mind. It seemed like she lost her ability to breathe for a moment, but something soothed her mind, like a distant abstract force blowing away all the negative emotions that clouded her mind. Her shallow breathing deepened and she calmed in a few more breaths.

    “But on a broader sense,” Aria continued, as if she hadn’t noticed the little panic attack Maia just experienced, “We are anomalies of this universe of ours. We are those that don’t quite follow the rules. We can’t entirely break them, we only bend them, and sometimes we bend them a lot, but we’re still limited in many ways. So we have to make due with that.”

    “Make due for what?” Maia forced herself out of Aria’s embrace, turning and looking at her, still getting used to her unusual eye and hair colors. Aria expressed the faintest surprise for a moment, then fell back to her usual self. “What do you want from me, Aria?”

    “Ah, right. Good question.” She walked towards the edge of the rooftop and looked at the far away mountain range again. “See, me and you, we might well be gods to humans, but that’s it. We’re also human, and that makes us… well, human gods I suppose. We still have two legs, two arms, two eyes, a heart, a brain. We still feel the same emotions, the same pain, the same fear. We can still love, hate and grieve. Oh and yeah,” She turned back and looked at Maia with a mischievous smile “Sex. Nothing like the kind of sex we experience.”

    Maia ignored her hint. “What’s your point?”

    Aria’s smile faded. “There are other kinds of gods.”

    “Other kinds of… you mean like…”

    “Mhm.” Aria noded. “That’s why we need to stick together.”

    “And what if I don’t want to.”

    “You don’t have a choice.”

    “You’re saying we’re the same. You can’t force me.”

    Aria smiled mischievously once again. “Oh, but I can.”

    She raised her hand, then formed her fingers like a gun, making one of those gestures kids would do while playing soldiers on the streets and alleys. Maia felt a stab of fear, like she had just challenged a bear, and took an instinctive step back. But Aria instead pointed her hand towards that mountain range she was looking at earlier.

    “Pow!” She said, recoiling her hand like she had just shot a bullet in the horizon. Maia frowned, confused at the gesture.

    A split of a second later, she saw a bright streak of light falling from the sky. The next one, the whole mountain range blew up in a fiery inferno that almost blinded Maia if she hadn’t moved to protect her eyes with her hand at the last moment.

    She curled up on the ground like a frightened child until the brightness faded a little. She then looked up, spotting Aria’s silhouette superimposed on the bright flame on the horizon dimming with every moment.

    “What the fuck?”

    A few moments later, the brightness dimmed enough to reveal Aria’s smiling face. “Yes, we’re the same, Maia. But as I’ve said, I’ve been here far longer than you. I’m far better than you, and as you can see, I have much better toys on my disposal than you. And lest you forget,” She spread her arms around, gesturing at the devastation surrounding them.

    Maia stood up again, watching as the fire in the horizon subsided entirely. The mountain range was gone, replaced by a massive, mushroom-like cloud, and the ice-cold fear that engulfed her forced her to clench her fists so hard until her knuckles turned white. First the city, now this. This was Aria’s power-show.

    “Death doesn’t scare me.” Maia said. “I’ve accepted it a long time ago. You can’t use fear to bend me to your will.”

    “Bend you…” Aria laughed. “Ah, child. So naive. But let me ask you this: what is death?”

    Maia frowned once more at her philosophical question. She looked back at the smoke and dust that once were mountains while she pondered the meaning of her words, spotting a bright line of what must be a massive shock wave rushing towards them.

    “I don’t know.” She finally said. “I’m sure some of those trillions of souls you preside over told you a thing or two about what comes after death.”

    “I didn’t ask you what happens after. I asked you what death itself is.”

    “What death itself is?” Maia was even more confused. “What do you mean what death itself is? It’s… the end?”

    “Exactly.” Aria said. “That means, it’s a release from this world, and all that comes with it. And by extension, it means release from pain.”

    “What is your point? Are you trying to impress me with your philosophical babble? It’s not working.”

    Aria ignored her words, she simply walked over to her, “But what if… you can’t die?”

    Maia looked her in the eyes, her confusion still there, but then realization sparked in her mind, and her eyes grew wide. Aria saw that, and smiled broadly. She said nothing though, but held a hand behind her just in time as the shock wave arrived. Everywhere around them, the shockwave blasted the remaining buildings to rubble, inciting massive clouds of dust and debris to billow out in its wake. But at the building they stood on, it seemed like it hit something solid but invisible, sparing them.

    “What if you can break someone over and over again,” Aria continued. “And yet have them survive every time? What if you can inflict hellish pain without having to worry about the subject giving out to it?”

    “The curse of immortality.”

    Aria grinned. “Exactly. And why do you think you’ve been so unafraid when walking around after you found your power? Why do you think you never feared bullets, or some random angry kid stabbing you in the back while you were your normal size? You might have thought it was because you didn’t care, but no, child. You can’t die that easy.”

    “I-” Once again, Maia didn’t know what to say. “I’m immortal?”

    Aria stretched out an arm, and a bright flash of light sparked on her hand, forcing Maia flinch back and squint. She refocused her eyes and saw the sword Aria now held on her hand. She had summoned a sword, just like that. Another one of her inexhaustible powers. Where does it end? And why a sword?

    “No,” Aria said, “You’re not immortal, but you’re damn hard to kill. It takes some pretty special stuff to do so, and not just some plain metal. But despite that, it still hurts.”

    Maia had no time to even react. In the blink of an eye, she found herself pierced with the sword straight through her stomach, the other end of the blade jutting out from her back, clad in her blood. The next moment he felt her whole lower body go numb, and she fell back on the concrete. “What-”

    The following moment, pain came. A sharp, burning sensation beneath her chest, right where Aria’s sword still pierced her as she had let go when Maia fell. She tried to speak out, but could only gasp for air, blackness starting to fall down from the edges of her vision. She then felt blood rushing through throat, blocking her lungs. Everything was happening too fast.

    Aria knelt beside her. “I just severed your aorta, and your spine. Normally, you should die in less than a minute, but if you are what I think you are… well, let’s just say: magic!” Aria then removed the sword from Maia’s torso.

    And it truly was like magic. Everything going wrong with Maia’s body stopped in a heartbeat. Her fear and panic stopped growing, her shaking that she hadn’t been aware of calmed. Then everything started receding, her vision came back, the pain disappeared, she could feel her lower body again.

    In the rush, she leaned up in utter confusion, stopping herself from crying out after she became aware of it too. She touched her skin where the sword had pierced her, nothing. She was fine, she felt fine. Everything was as it should have been, except it felt so… wrong. Her body had no idea what just happened, and it was just as confused as her mind.

    Aria smirked. “At last. I meet another one.”

    Maia looked at her, eyes wide, “What just happened?”

    “What happened is that I’ve shown you why it’s unwise to reject my offer of friendship. You don’t want to end up underneath my feet like they ended up underneath yours, but not being able to die even after I break all your bones to fine dust.”

    Maia shivered at the thought. I can’t die, she looked blankly in the distance. I can’t fucking die. I can’t fucking escape if I want to!

    She stood up, shock still clouding her mind. She walked to the edge of the rooftop, gazing at the sprawling destruction. It was too much to take in. She wasn’t just a monster who could reign chaos and terror unto innocent people, but an unkillable one too. And now this woman, this god-like being, wanted to take her in, to perfect this curse and turn her into who-knows-what. She felt sick.

    A thought then occurred to her. A realization, in fact. Aria was god-like, with unrivaled abilities and powers at her disposal. So, why did she let Kaia, Maia’s sister, die? She turned around and looked at Aria who stood at the other edge of the rooftop now.

    “Could you have saved her?” Maia said, taking a few steps forward. Aria looked straight at her. There was a little twitch on the corner of her lip. It was enough for Maia. She stopped, an ice cold shiver running down her spine. “You… could have saved her?”

    The realization angered her. She took a few more steps forward. “You could have saved her!” She pushed her. Aria made no effort to stop Maia. She fell from the rooftop, several stories down, smiling all the way. Maia watched the entire time.

    Right as her body approached the ground, Maia was blinded by a flash of light. It lasted for less than a blink of the eye, and when she opened her eyes, she only saw a billowing cloud of dust below. Then she felt the winds shift behind her, blowing against her naked body. Maia never turned her head, she wasn’t surprised the least bit.

    “Yes, I could have.” Aria said from behind, her voice calm and steady, as always. “But your sister made her choice. She took control of her own destiny. And she was the key that unlocked what’s inside of you. That’s all I care about.”

    “But,” Maia wanted to say something, to scream at the injustice that she felt inside of her. Yet, she held back. That woman started a war between nations just so she could find her. She understood, and she hated herself for it. “Tell me one thing. Why us? Why was our side the one that had to suffer?”

    “I flipped a coin.”

    Maia felt another stab within her. The fate of millions decided like that. She was…

    “There is no difference between the two.” Aria said, approaching. “Do you know why?”

    “There is!” The frustration mounted in her. She hated being so powerless, again. “There always has been.”

    She felt her right behind. She started shaking, dark feelings resurfacing once again, memories of hopelessness. She jumped when she felt Aria’s arms surround her. But they extended forward, holding the palms of her gloved hands up. There was something in them.

    Maia’s eyes then widened. There were people, on both hands. Small people, shrunken. “How is... “

    “... it possible?” Aria let out a brief laugh. “I think I can forgive you for that. But take a closer look.”

    Maia did, and the difference between both hands was immediately obvious. She held redhairs on one and darkhairs on the other. Half a dozen each. They looked confused and full of terror, gazing with shocked expressions at Maia. “Why?”

    Aria said nothing. Instead, she pulled her hands back and kneaded Maia’s breasts with them. Maia gasped, then put her hands on top of Aria’s. She didn’t pull though, she remained still, concentrating the tiny beating hands and fists that she now felt on her sensitive skin.

    “They may look different on the outside,” Aria said, then kneaded Maia’s breasts with much greater force. Their little bodies gave in immediately, spreading a wet warmthness on Maia’s breasts. She gasped further, shocked. Even her kind was dying on her breasts now.

    “But ultimately, they bleed the same color.” Aria then spread the warmth all around Maia’s chest. Maia looked down, her chest was all covered in their blood, and no trace left of what they had once been.

    And it was true, of course. They all bled the same: a uniform, carmine redness.

    Aria’s hands retreated. She remained silent, letting Maia contemplate the meaning of the gesture on her own while fresh, warm blood dripped from Maia’s breasts. Maia remained silent too, her head bent down, watching the redness coagulate and dry on her bare skin.

    A dozen lives snuffed out like that just to make a simple point. And her own kind too. She should feel angry, disgusted, betrayed. Yet, apart from the initial shock, there was nothing. That in itself made her angry.

    A twitch caught her attention. One of them had in fact survived, a redhead. His little form slid down on the slick surface of her breast, generating some bizarre inhuman noises in the process. Just before he fell down Maia’s breast, he managed to swing an arm and cling to her nipple. His other arm was limp, bent awkwardly, and one of his legs was missing, torn completely apart.

    “Can you heal?” Maia said. “Or are you just a harbinger of chaos.”

    “I could.” Aria said. “I just prefer chaos.”

    Maia raised a hand to her little survivor, and with a powerful flick of her finger, she sent his tiny body flying through the air, splattering it into many tiny pieces in the process.

    “Thought so.” She said quietly to herself.

    “Let me entice you more thing.” Aria said from behind. Maia frowned, turning around in time to see Aria pull something from the pocket of her jacket. It was another shrunk person, a darkhaired woman.

    She placed her just in front of her feet, and as soon as the little thing regained her bearings, she scurried away from Aria. That’s until she noticed there was another giant behind her and turned around, craning her head high up with hope in her expression until she saw Maia bearing down on her.

    Syl’s face sparked a sudden, uncontrollable wave of fury within Maia. She gritted her teeth, clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white, and her blood boiled. Maia called on her power with a strength like never before, and the winds shifted immediately, the whole surrounding area darkening visibly in an instant.

    “You fucking dyke.” Maia said to the frightened little thing at her feet. “This is all your fault. I’ll fucking rip you apart!”

    Then Maia’s power was gone.

    “Whoa there, child.” Aria said, waving a hand. “Take it easy. If you kill her right now, you’ll regret it. Trust me. You’d rather want to keep her around for a long long time. It’s way more fun that way.”

    It was like fighting incredible thirst while a bucket of water was standing right in front of her. Maia desperately wanted to plant her foot on top of the scrawny little girl, to end her life the way it should be. Beneath her sole, smeared against the dirt, spewing her guts and blood for Maia. But the promise of endless torture later on? She fought the urge, hard.

    “Fine.” Maia said through her gritted teeth. “I’ll do what you want. As long as I can keep her around and do whatever I want to her.”

    Aria smiled. “Deal.”

    Maia sighed. She raised a foot and moved it above the curled up ball that was a crying Sylisia. She used her big toe to pry Syl open, then ran it all along her shaking body, shivering herself too. “So, what now?”

    “Well,” Aria turned around and shifted her gaze into the distance, “Now you’ll spend a lifetime in a little place between the stars, learning.”

    ---

    “And so, I ended up here, living happily ever after.” Maia said, smirking at her ironic remark.

    Matthew drew a deep breath, “Phew! That was one hell of a ride.” He stretched his stiff body a bit. “How do you feel now?”

    Maia’s gaze was fixed on the flickering flames of the fireplace. “What do you mean?”

    “I know you didn’t do this for me. You didn’t revisit your past and lingered on it for so long just to tell me your story. You wanted to reconnect to your old self, to remind you of what you’ve once been. I mean, this is a lot to take in for me too, and I have a thousand questions, especially when it comes to this Aria person, but there’s enough time for that later anyway.”

    Maia’s gaze didn’t shift from the flames. “I feel like… I feel like I want to play around with Syl some more.”

    “Uh,” That wasn’t what Matt expected. “Ok. But why?”

    “Just because.” Maia said, stretching herself too. “Eve, call for Syl.”

    “Yes, Maia.” A computerized voice came.

    “So, you’ve been playing with her the way I’ve seen for, what, nine years now?”

    Maia smiled. “And hopefully many more.”

    It took less than a minute before Matthew could practically feel the presence of the tortured soul behind the doors of the room, waiting. He shivered at the thought of being at Maia’s mercy for so long. He wondered how she has survived so far, and more importantly, how she hasn’t killed herself so far.

    Maia sat up, heading for the door. Matthew followed up quickly and grabbed her arm, stopping her. She turned around, looking at Matthew with puzzled expression.

    “Don’t do this, Maia.” Matt pleaded to her. “It’s been so many years. Syl deserves some respite. It’s not all her fault.”

    Maia’s puzzled expression lingered for a few more moments before it was replaced with one of anger, one that frightened Matthew deeply. Then, the pain came, and in that instant, Matthew knew he made a terrible mistake.