Parallel worlds. It is a strange concept if you think about it. The possibility that there was a similar world to yours, just because a few gods felt like it is quite weird. But the moment I took Aska´s hand all these hundreds of years ago, I immediately knew I was at the centre of all. The atmosphere was just … different. Loaded with … everything.

I couldn’t grasp the feeling back then, mostly because I didn’t ascend even remotely, but I still felt as if this was the centre of creation, despite its seemingly ordinary look. From purgatory, Aska brought me to a plaza, hovering in the air just above the clouds. I couldn’t hear the sound of machinery, nor could I see anything odd about this little floating island right away, but it was still a fact that it flew.

“Welcome to Elysium, the world of the gods. This is where everything started.” He explained, even though I was able to feel the relevance of this place alone.

“Okay … and why does this have anything to do with me?” I asked, looking in utter amazement as an orb of glass, apparently used as a home floated by hundreds of metres above us.

“You will see in a minute or so …” Aska claimed and waved towards the distance until a yellow car broke out from the clouds beneath us a few hundred metres away. It was fast and just like this island, without any apparent engine. Just like a mirror, the silvery flying car reflected the light a bit as it landed in front of us and opened its doors.

Sadly, there was no driver to greet us because I really wanted to talk with anyone except this evil god. Said person couldn’t understand my fascination with this simple taxi and ushered me into the vehicle rudely.

“Where are we going?” I asked and looked out of a window to my left towards a world that was more of a city than anything else. The clouds were high, really high up in the air, but this wasn’t what amazed me this much. The buildings were … I couldn’t see the ground, but I was able to see massive skyscrapers, easily higher than tens of kilometres. These cars were flying around everywhere in between them, but up here, there weren’t that many.

“If you think this is amazing then you are mistaken. Down there live the common gods, those without a domain they can call their own. They are mighty, don’t get me wrong, but they don’t have any part in the architecture of reality. The really important gods are only a few hundred who were there since the beginning of time itself.”

“I ignore the question where these origin gods came from for now … but the normal gods, how can there be so many?” Their numbers had to be in the quadrillion, judging just by the endless city beneath us.

“Are you really asking how children are made?” The evil god asked rhetorically. But if what he claimed was true, then quite a lot of time must have passed since the beginning of time.

“Eww…” I muttered and looked out of the window once again. “And where are we going?”

“I assumed you wouldn’t ask a second time … well, we are already there.” He mentioned and pointed forwards. We immediately passed through some kind of invisibility barrier, revealing a sphere built out of glass, just like the one I could see earlier. I still couldn’t look inside though, but I could already guess what this was.

“I am surprised you live this frugal.” I mentioned casually. The sphere could have six storeys at max, and those at the bottom and top were obviously very small. It could only be the size of a small villa this way … not that I knew how big a villa could actually become.

“I´m not living here, at least most of the time.” He said, opened the door of the taxi as soon as it landed on a blue barrier forming in the middle of the sphere and stepped out. He even gave me his hand to help me out … as if I would ever take it though. As soon as I stepped onto this very special landing pad, the taxi lifted off again and flew away while Aska strolled towards the sphere which opened up for him.

I waited a little while and took in the view of an endless sky a little bit longer, but as the barrier beneath me began to blink dangerously, I headed inside the sphere as well. The entrance was immediately shut behind me, caging me into a home which was surprisingly … normal? The ceiling and floor were made out of wood, there was a stairwell in the middle, a really luxurious bed to my left and a black U-Shaped sofa to my right with a table in the middle.

 “How lifeless.” I mentioned. There were no signs of life in here. The bed made properly, the floor was a tad too clean and the glass which surrounded this whole floor gave off the impression of being sterilized yesterday.

“As I said, I don’t sleep here that often. Take a seat.” He said and headed towards the sofa right away. I followed immediately, mostly because there was nothing interesting to look at other than the stair, the bed and the sofa. Shortly afterwards, I sat down at the opposite side of him and looked outside for a second or so, until the glass turned into a screen, blocking off the perfect view.

“You want me to show television? We have a whole database of shows on the spaceship? If you are bored, I would suggest you Arte. They make great documentaries in German and French.” I mentioned casually as a man was stabbed to death on the screen.

“Right, but you will never find this in there.” He said and the program switched immediately. At first, I could only see the stars shining in the distance, but the camera soon panned around to a spaceship which fired of missile after missile and shot down creatures around it which tried to latch onto its hull.

“That is …” I was speechless. In front of me was the UFS Excalibur, the flagship of the human flotilla battling against the enemies which crushed us so effortlessly. Aghast, I watched how one of these aliens latched onto its hull, sealing its fate. Mere seconds after the alien bore a hull into it, the turrets around it turned silent as the flagship was destroyed from the inside. Seconds later, the engines went dark as the alien ate everything it could lay its weird muscular tentacles on, including metal and radioactive isotopes. “… there is no footage of the destruction of the first flotilla because our communications were jammed the moment the battle started. Nobody survived … which means someone else must have taken this video.” The implications were … bad.

“Hmm, so was this.” He said as soon as the video was cut to another place. A single massive spaceship, using the gravitational forces of the moon to slingshot itself away from a dying earth. Our spaceship.

“Someone of you was there the whole time … and none of you did anything? No … you filmed it. This is … your entertainment.” It was sickening. Using the misery of so many for a space opera was truly the worst I had ever seen. They could have saved everyone from so much pain, but they just stood there and watched. The whole video only lasted a mere minute, but I already felt like puking.

“This is a trailer.” Aska said exactly as the title of the show was presented. ‘Otherworldly adventures’ was written there in yellow letters underlining that what I just saw wasn’t the content of the show.

“No …” I could feel blood leaving my cheeks as it dawned upon me. “… this isn’t real.”

“You are surprisingly correct. All of what I just showed you never happened. There never was an earth destroyed by these weird aliens. The UFS Excalibur never existed, your parents never existed … you never existed.” He said while I dug my nails into the sofa. But strangely, I couldn’t refute him right away.

“…” I couldn’t say anything, mostly because I felt that he was indeed correct. It made absolutely no sense to create a whole universe just for setting up this story which was supposed to play out in my new world.

“All of your memories until you met the god of hope are faked … admittedly by me, but for a very good reason.” Aska continued while I got more and more depressed.

“They … what?” I muttered, still in disbelief. I mean, if someone told you that everything is a lie everyone would react stunned.

“Can you remember the name of your father? Your mother? Where you lived on earth? Or more than a handful names of your comrades on the spaceship?” I did have memory loss, that was correct. I couldn’t say if that was because someone couldn’t bother to give me a thorough backstory, or because Aska took them from me. And so, I clung onto my last hope.

“… I … my mother was a nurse. Her name was … you took these memories from me!” I exclaimed angrily, but also with tears in my eyes.

“I did not. Compare the memories of the time on the spaceship to those you made since you met me. There are a lot more details, the colours feel more vibrant … you know that this is the truth.” A crushing sadness hit me like an unstoppable train. It was true. My memories were a bit … dull. It was as if someone wrote down everything, but forgot to include all the details like how my mothers smile looked … or how she was even called.

“… I …” I leaned backwards until the back of my head hit the sofa. For a little while, I stared at the wooden ceiling until the TV blasted the next part.

“Magical … PUNCH!” I heard someone cursing in pain shortly afterwards and I could directly say who that was. It was me in this weird tunnels fighting against the crab. “Introducing: Lucinda! The apostle of the god of death himself!”

Thankfully, Aska turned off the TV shortly afterwards, leaving me alone in my misery for some time. My life … a freaking show for gods. I was nothing more than a bit of enjoyment for them … and I hated it. All the misery I had to live though … will need to live through … I hated every god for that, including the one beside me.

“Why?” I growled after some time, giving way to what slumbered beneath the surface the whole time. My real personality was never a kind one, but rather the one that enabled me to watch how the noble got bitten by wolves without any issue.

“Because I need you to end this show for me. I am a big fan of self determination and … I hate to see this happen when I could do something against the exploitation of unknowing souls.” Did he turn into a politician during the last minute, or why was he saying stuff like that?

“Quit your lies.” I said angrily. Just once, I wanted to hear the truth out of his mouth, or at least something I could believe in.

“Fine. I want you to be my partner for life and trust me, there is nobody more worthy than you are. We will work together to reach our goals whatever those may be in the future. We will be on equal footing because you will be a goddess as well. But for that to happen, you will need to lose your memories.” He claimed while my thoughts were already racing. A partner for life? He and I? I couldn’t imagine it at that point, but I also had memories that weren’t mine so … I didn’t know how to answer that, but I knew that without my memories, there was a possibility of exactly that happening.

“Why do you need to erase my memories?” I asked suspiciously. Something was amiss, but I couldn’t point out what it was.

“Because they stand in your way. You aren’t the type of person to care about your grades and neither are you altruistic in any way. Trust me, you are exactly like me and the memories I and a few other gods gave you will be in your way of ascending into godhood.” He claimed which was something I could neither proof, nor disprove.

“And you gave me these memories in the first place because …” I asked slowly. Why bother giving me memories, if he could just start without them?

“It was a prerequisite to create you … I had to make you join this show, otherwise it would have been illegal and you would have been laid on ice. So, what do you say? Godhood without these memories, or a life full of misery where you know that you are nothing but a lie.” He asked which put me in front of a decision I absolutely didn’t want to make. First of all, I didn’t want to give him exactly what he wanted, but the possibility of ascending into godhood was tempting, especially because I could do something against him with whatever strength I will gain on the way. My memories on the other hand … what value did they held? None. The only beneficial knowledge I had from them was that there were others like me, and that the gods were making fun of us. Otherwise, I didn’t have much of an attachment to them. Surely, I would figure out that Aska is a liar and has nothing good in his head anyway.

“… the unknowing are usually the happier ones.” I claimed, sealing my fate once and for all. But luckily, that was already long in the past. Still, the memory alone made me wake up with sweat all over my so called body.