“Hey you! Shorty! How’s the world doing so far?” A melodic voice carried over to the ears of Dave who immediately dropped what he was eating.

 

Dave looked around and saw HER…the Creator, that he was shadowing, approaching him from the distance. The Creator wore a simple purple robe and carried a medium-sized handbag over HER shoulder.

 

“I-It’s good, it’s good.” Dave gulped down whatever food still in his mouth and replied hastily. “I-Is there s-something you n-need?”

 

“There is.” The Creator nodded with a hum.

 

“W-What?” Dave asked curiously and with a slight dreading.

 

“I’ve decided to check up on your progress. Have you created your first intelligent species yet?”

 

“I-I have….”

 

“Sounds like a ‘but’ is coming. But…?”

 

“But, the first species isn’t human.” Dave glanced over at the Creator to see HER reaction, but there was none…at least that’s what he perceived.

 

“And what did you pick instead?” The Creator smiled…an odd and foreboding smile.

 

“I chose dwarves….”

 

“I’m sorry, what was that? Speak louder.”

 

“I-I chose dwarves!”

 

“Say that again?”

 

“I chose dwarves!”

A wave of cold air seeped through Dave’s bones, causing him to shiver nonstop. As he chattered out his reason, the Creator snorted before replying. “Hmph! You think I don’t know the true reason? You just wanted to create after your own image.”

 

Dave gasped inwards as he looked incredulously at the Creator. SHE was partially right. Dave did have some thoughts about creating after his own image. After all, which god doesn’t? But when Dave said that he wanted to stray away from the norm and create a different species, he was telling the truth as well.

 

“I-I didn’t want to follow the herd and create humans first. I wanted to try something new.” Dave tried to reason.

 

“New my ASS ! Dwarves as first species had appeared in many worlds before you. If you wanted to try something new, you should have made trolls or something like that instead!” The Creator snapped back, forcing Dave to swallow whatever words still at the tip of his tongue.

 

Seeing Dave unable to retort, his face white like paper, the Creator sighed and rubbed the bridge of HER nose. “Alright. Let me inspect what you’ve done so far.”

 

“N-Now? I’m s-still eating.” Dave pointed at his half-finished sandwich.

 

“Yes! Now!” The Creator flared up once more.

 

Dave quickly threw away his sandwich and rushed back to his room where he opened the display up for the Creator to view. The Creator glanced at Dave before peering into the world.

 

“Hmm…what are these two flying islands for? You only needed to make one. Do you need two vacation homes?” The Creator pointed out.

 

Usually, flying islands were designated as holy places for deities as well as the Creators. In short, they were ‘vacation homes’ that the gods could live in if they wanted a first-person view of their work.

 

“I-I messed up there. I didn’t mean to make two. I was trying to confirm that Sky and Mountain would give an error message.” Dave replied.

 

“Why do you need to show what the error message looks like? Were you livestreaming again? Whose world were you livestreaming from? Do you even have the time for that? Focus on your work!”

 

“Y-You made this world to begin with.” Dave muttered but realized in horror that he had blurted it out loud.

 

“What did you say?!” The Creator glared lasers at Dave.

 

“N-Nothing. Nothing.”

 

“This behavior will count towards your final evaluation.”

 

“No, please!”

 

“Anyways, go ahead and make the human species. You know the combination?”

 

“Yes…Flatlands and Life.”

 

“Good. Go ahead then.” The Creator nodded.