Chapter 334: The Mortal World Awakens (Part 3)
A week of chaos.
That was what the news anchors called it, back when the news anchors still had words for what was happening. The first three days had been confusion. The next two had been panic. The last two had been something else. Something quieter. The kind of quiet that comes before a storm, or after one, when no one can tell the difference anymore.
The United States deployed the National Guard to six states. Not to fight anything. To keep order. To stand on street corners with rifles and helmets and faces that looked as confused as everyone else. Curfews were announced. No one followed them. The lights in the sky didn’t care about curfews.
The European Union held emergency sessions that ended in shouting. France wanted to close its borders. Germany wanted to open a dialogue with whatever was out there. Italy wanted to pray. No one agreed. No one left. They just sat in their grand buildings, arguing about words, while the sky cracked above them.
China sealed its borders completely. No flights in. No flights out. The official statement mentioned temporary stability measures. The unofficial statement was silence. The great wall had never been just stone.
Governments collapsed in places no one was watching. Not with armies. Not with coups. Just... faded. The people stopped listening. The orders stopped mattering. The flags still flew, but no one saluted.
New faiths bloomed in the cracks.
Not in churches. Not in temples. In living rooms. In parking lots. In the comments section of livestreams that no one remembered starting. People prayed to statues of Zeus—not because they knew him, because they saw his face in a dream. A woman in London quit her job to spread the truth. No one laughed at her anymore. Laughing had become too expensive.
---
Hermes landed on a rooftop in London.
The city stretched below him, grey and wet and ordinary. The Thames still flowed. The buses still ran. The people still walked the streets, heads down, phones in hand.
But something had changed.
He could feel it in the air. Not the weather. The weight. The same weight he felt in Heaven, the pressure of fractures spreading, the thinness of boundaries that should have been solid.
Apollo landed beside him.
The God of Light looked out of place in the grey. His skin still glowed. His hair still caught the nonexistent sun. He had traded his chariot for something more subtle, but subtle had never been his strength.
"I don’t like this place," Apollo said.
"You don’t like any place that isn’t Greek."
"That’s not true. I liked Rome before they got boring."
Hermes didn’t smile.
"We’re not here to sightsee."
"I know why we’re here."
They stood in silence for a moment, watching the city move below them.
The souls were harder to find now.
Not because they were hidden. Because they were everywhere. The streams had thinned. The fractures had spread. Mortals were dying without guides, without prayers, without anyone to carry them home.
Athena had sent them to find the lost ones.
Not the souls. The living. The ones who had started to see.
"Her name is Maya," Hermes said. "She lives in a flat near the river. She quit her job three days ago."
"To spread the truth."
"That’s what she calls it."
Apollo nodded slowly.
"And the truth is?"
"She saw Zeus in a dream."
"Did she?"
"I don’t know. Maybe. Lots of people are seeing things in dreams."
Apollo looked at the sky. The cracks were visible now, even from here. Thin black lines against the grey, like veins in tired eyes.
"What do we do when we find her?"
Hermes was quiet for a moment.
"Athena wants us to observe. Report back. Don’t interfere unless necessary."
"That’s not an answer."
"It’s the only one I have."
---
They found Maya in a coffee shop near the river.
Not preaching. Not spreading truth. Just sitting at a table, staring at her phone, looking like someone who hadn’t slept in days.
Hermes sat across from her.
Apollo stood by the window, watching the street.
Maya looked up. Her eyes were red, tired, but sharp. The kind of sharp that came from seeing something you couldn’t unsee.
"You’re not from here," she said.
"Neither are you," Hermes replied.
"I grew up here."
"That’s not what I meant."
She studied him. Her gaze moved to Apollo, then back to Hermes.
"I saw him. In my dream. He was standing in a broken sky, holding lightning in his hands. His face was... I can’t describe it. Old. Young. Both. Neither."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing. He just looked at me."
"And that made you quit your job?"
Maya’s jaw tightened.
"You think I’m crazy."
"I think you’re honest."
She stared at him.
"Who are you?"
Hermes almost smiled.
"Someone who’s trying to understand what’s happening."
"That’s not an answer."
"It’s the only one I have."
---
They left her at the coffee shop.
Not because they had learned anything. Because there was nothing to learn. Maya was one of thousands. Millions, maybe. People who had seen something in their dreams and couldn’t look away.
Apollo walked beside Hermes, his hands in his pockets, his glow dimmed to something almost normal.
"She’s not wrong," Apollo said.
"About what?"
"About the dream. I felt it too. Someone’s been reaching out. Not Zeus. Something else."
"The Father?"
"I don’t know. Maybe. Or whatever’s left of him."
Hermes stopped walking.
"The Tribunal fell. He’s gone."
"Is he?"
Hermes didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t know.
---
They appeared in Athens at dusk.
The city was different from London. The air was warmer. The streets were fuller. People gathered in squares, in parks, in front of the ancient ruins that had stood for millennia.
The Parthenon glowed in the fading light.
Not from the sun. From something else. The stones themselves seemed to hum, vibrating with a frequency that made Hermes’s teeth ache.
A crowd had gathered at the base of the hill.
Thousands. Maybe more.
They were chanting.
Not praying. Not singing. Chanting.
A name.
Zeus. Zeus. Zeus.
Hermes stood at the edge of the crowd, watching.
Apollo stood beside him.
"They don’t know him," Apollo said quietly.
"They know something."
"They know a name."
"Sometimes that’s enough."
The chanting grew louder. The stones of the Parthenon glowed brighter. The cracks in the sky above Athens pulsed in rhythm with the words.
Hermes looked at Apollo.
"We should go."
"In a minute."
"Apollo—"
"I said in a minute."
They stood in silence, watching the crowd, watching the light, watching the world remake itself in ways no one understood.
The chanting didn’t stop.
It never stopped.
Not anymore.
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