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Some time ago a peeping tom god who watched a dying world decided that they were evidently displeased by the state of things.
It’s difficult to truly know the intentions of any being, let alone an inter dimensional being that could arguably be considered a god, but it did basically tell Grace “I wanted to put these people in a human place where humans can live”.
It did so by asking him, “You’re human, correct?” in a voice one could feel inside a person’s body and mind. It was borderline violating to be honest, very unsettling.
Grace, of course, responded as any sane person with no prior experience with gods would, and screamed “Why am I hearing voices?!” one might ask why he didn’t scream when he saw the giant eye on the ceiling of the bio dome. He did, just less loudly, and he dismissed it as the eridians trying something odd with the sky screen.
“You’re human, correct?” The voice repeated.
Grace eventually responded “Ye-yes, I’m human.” while asking himself if he should really be replying to voices in his mind.
“This planet, humans can survive?”
“Survive this planet?”
“Yes.” the god replied.
“Well, that’s complicated.” Grace said before pushing his glasses back up his nose. “The planet itself is inhospitable to human life,”
Grace began, and the god was starting to look for another planet when Grace continued with “but the eridians, who are just incredible scientists and engineers, did you know that they didn’t know what radiation was until recently? Now they are designing ships that can withstand it and even found a safe way to give me ultraviolet light exposure since I can’t get sunlight here. They can’t perceive any of the light spectrum at all, and yet they have found ways to” He pushed his glasses back into position as his energetic gestures, also nervous sweating, made the frames slide down his nose. Continuing without a pause in his speaking “See images with technology that converts it into something they can observe using echolocation.”
The god did not have a facial expression that Grace could observe in it’s entirety, and might not use human facial expressions at all! It wasn’t human, so maybe it nonverbally communicates differently than humans do? Grace did feel like it was judging him though as what he could see scrunched up.
“Survive or not?” It interrupted.
Grace paused for a moment, his mind catching up to things, before saying “Humans can only survive here, in this dome. Well, here and space ships and”
Grace didn’t get to finish his sentence because in the blink of an eye, his habitat suddenly gained hundreds of people. Hundreds of equally if not more confused people than Grace. The god spoke, gaining everyone’s attention, but aimed it at Grace “Watch over them.” and dropped a particularly traumatized looking man covered in blood right at his feet before the eye disappeared.
That, is the story of how the population of every space ship, station, and a guy stuck on a moon, was transported to another universe from the point of view of Grace’s own.
One might expect that an event like that would create new theology among those with spiritual leanings, and among the hundreds dumped on Grace’s doorstep like the abandoned kittens we found in a field and were also forced to take in, there certainly were new religions being formed. I do think that Grace was likely in much more distress taking in the population of an entire world, than my family was when taking in kittens, but he did want to keep at least one of the humans it gave him sudden custody of.
The first notable instance of changing faiths was when Grace found a group beating up an old man. He was going to intervene, but Simon convinced him not to be too fast about it. Turns out that guy was a cult leader! Who would have thought. Grace hoped that this meant people would have less religious fervor in his habitat, but the answer to that is arguable. No one was making human sacrifices in the dome, to his knowledge, so it must be an improvement! The fact that anyone attempting to do so was quickly stopped after he started berating someone for it, that was not something he questioned. Neither did he ask to whom they were trying to make sacrifice. Why would he? He’s just happy they stopped.
When Grace made an emergency call to Rocky and he arrived, Rocky asked Grace “Grace say humans do not reproduce asexually, statement.”
Grace, who was having a bit of a crisis responded “They don’t”.
“How are there more humans then, question?”
“I wish I knew the answer to that one, buddy.”
“Rocky think Grace made babies by mistake and lie about it.” the eridian said, and might have been giving Grace shit when doing so, but what matters is that some of the people heard that exchange. This exchange, like many others, left an impression on the faith of some present.
Grace’s first exposure to his status as a god was an accident. He was Mildly irritated by the fact that he was woken up early on a weekend, and went outside to see what the heck was up. He had asked for improved soundproofing after he gained several hundred new room mates, but eridians severely underestimated human hearing.
A man stood in front of a crowd. He spoke in a way one might compare to a preacher, saying “And when the god beyond the mortal spared us from our doomed fate, the one called Grace accepted us.”
Grace was starting to get a little weirded out, but they weren’t technically wrong yet.
“The sky god said to him “Watch over them” and Grace did as his name suggests, and accepted us.”
Grace grimaced a little at that, and almost went outside to stop them, but a hand came from behind and covered his mouth. He jumped and turned his head to look, but when he saw Simon with a tiny mischievous smirk, Grace scowled. He actually grinned at that response. Grace wondered if he could leave his body behind for a little while.
“He became as mother to mankind.”
Grace was going to walk out there, he was going out there this instant! He went to pull the door open but was stopped. “Simon! Stop it! I can’t listen to this” he yelped as the only one he would consider his actual roommate, held him back. Oh, Simon was enjoying this and Grace Knew it. Grace hated it. There was no way he was going back to sleep now though so he decided to just eat breakfast.
Outside, the preacher continued his speech.
One day, on his way back from his second class of the day (because of course he had to find out about the state of education in that universe and started offering human classes as well as eridian ones. His eridian students would still be his priority, but until they managed to send most of the humans to earth he wasn’t going to let kids go without science education! It wouldn’t be bad if it was just kids, but these adults didn’t know enough either! He was a little surprised by how well they were listening though, he would prefer if they asked more questions at this point) he stopped short on the path back to his house. Simon was outside working on something. Shirtless.
“Damn.” he said before his teacher senses could filter it.
“Luckily none of his students were there”, is what he would have said, if there hadn’t been someone following him!
“Did you just damn the butcher of eden? To hell?”
“Jeebus chris”, he thought, “what is wrong with these people?”
Out loud though Grace said “No! No, not that kind of Damn. I mean, well, I mean” Grace was having a bit of a crisis on what to say here. His hands waving around a bit with nothing to do and flustered energy to channel.
The person following him kept staring intently so he sighed and spit something out. “I meant, “damn” as in, the thing you say when someone is attractive? Like when you say, “Hot damn!” or something like it?” He almost groaned while trying to find decent words to use without just blurting out whatever came to mind first. Half the battle was trying not to ramble nervously instead.
“Besides” Grace continued “You guys already sent the guy to that blood ocean place. I think you damned him enough already.”
Grace bit the inside of his cheek because, frack, he didn’t say things well anyway. Might as well have just let himself go! He turned around to walk home with his shoulders slumped and noticed that, wait. Grace squinted before pushing his glasses back into place. What kind of expression was that? Grace wondered, looking at Simon, who was still outside. Wait, was Simon fricking laughing? It looked like he was trying not to laugh! How much did that man hear?!
Later, though Grace didn’t know it, a preacher said “And as he embraced all who came from the stations, he embraced also those most damned. He accepted the man he and the watcher took from the blood ocean, the very butcher of eden himself, into his own arms. Grace, he showed us, as he’s so named, shown he people fairing from a world fated to die. He, and the watching god, have guided us to safer shores. And promised to guide us further. Grace shepherds us still, on our journey to a new earth.”
Were Grace to hear that, there are many things he might think to say, but he’d probably end up groaning and saying “I just want them to leave Erid.” at some point.
The people from the land of the watchful eye pray with words like:
“Hail and fear the watcher, who decides the fates of men. That which changed the paths of worlds.
Hail Grace, blessed of the land of rye.
He, who took in those spared by the watcher.” Is how the prayer starts near universally.
What follows varies more. And is, in the opinion of the author, much more amusing to hear.
“As the one cast out from everywhere heard and begged the god to put the world back to it’s start.” Among other things.
Wow, that’s depressing actually. The writing goddess is kinda sad now.
“The watcher did not comply”
Jesus, I’m just gonna let them talk.
“And why would it? When you speak to it in such a manner”
Okay, what the fuck?
“but still, it could provide something anew. And so it did. It asked the savior of the stars it did not take, will you watch them? And the star’s saving Grace took all in.”
Uh, what about Rocky? Also, Grace did let you guys beat an old man so there’s at least one guy he didn’t. Which is fair.
“The listener who spoke and the Grace that was given, touched by the watchful god, bridged the chasm between the world and created a bridge for mankind to walk for salvation.”
The keyboard quiets as the writing god stops taking notes for the watchers.