Mia decided to go downstairs at the time find her Mum and talked with her about how natural beauty was so much better than artificial makeup and how she felt that as a young woman it was damaging to her skin.

  Oh, and by the way my little sister is currently in my room trying on makeup. How sad.

  Her Mum was a woman with both a good work ethic and strong views. Once she got an idea in her head, she would initiate it and follow through on the action. This also applied to her family life.

  She then watched her Mum proceed to find her little sister and talked to her for an hour about how wearing makeup wouldn’t make her any prettier and how beautiful she was without it. Also, the fact that she was far too young to be wearing it in the first place. Her sister had attempted to protest her innocence without success, and her Mum had banned her from trying on Mia’s make-up and said that she would go shopping with her instead to buy her own set.

  Ah. Sweet sisterly revenge.

  Walking on the stairs past the floor that her sister occupied Mia saw a poster on the wall by her door. As normal the poster advertises the highly popular demi-god events that were coming up in the country. Likely her sister who had posted it as she didn’t remember putting it up, sparing a moment Mia wondered if she should tear the thing down and throw it in the trash.

  Good luck with the medals you posers.

  Mia’s sister’s space was filled with cute animals, clothes to dress up in and her jewellery collection. Her Mum did not want her to have anything that was easily breakable, so she ended up giving her discarded creations that were still amazingly beautiful but had been deemed by her Mum as not good enough to be sold to clients and used in any form of the shrine.

  A whole load of her old stuff had ended up becoming her sisters possessions, mostly the beanbags, stuffed toys, and religious-style costumes. When she had been around her sister’s age, she had been into the whole High Priestess of a god thing in a big way. After seeing movies where the Chief Priestess would deal with a conflict in a god's temple between different followers, Mia had begged her Mum to buy her the exact outfit.

  Mia had thought at the time that the high priestess was just so brave, beautiful, and strong. She loved her golden robes with the purple lining, it was so striking.

  All of that was before those words somehow got stuck in my head. The phrase changed Mia's whole identity and made her feel so confused about the whole religious situation.

  Gods are made, not born.

  Every time she tried to remember where she had heard it before her mind just came up blank. Mia was sure it was around five years ago, but the pressure and weight of the words had only started to become a larger presence in her mind over the last two months or so.

  Before that, it was like recalling a scene from a movie or a catchy song.

  You can’t forget it but it’s not the most important thing in your mind.

  The last few months had been a blur, it had been driving her to think more about the nature of the gods.

  Questions had begun to grow in her mind like a planted weed in fertile soil.

  Were they real? How did they have the right to tell us what to do? Was it all a big lie?

  The last question that made her think. A lie that had permeated through the entire world. Our entire civilisation was built on an old lie that had deliberately been fostered, I wasn’t quite sure if the surrounding countries developed along the same lines, but they still had gods I knew that much at least.

  Surely, gods had their friends and enemies though, the concept of a heretic wasn’t a new one. Always usually the big bad that ended up in the movies. Even when writing your god fan fiction you would include someone who caused division within the religion by espousing a different set of beliefs.

  Mia opened the door to her bedroom and walked in before making sure that it was closed behind her. She wanted her privacy but left the door unlocked in case her Dad, Uncle and hopefully not her sister and her friend came along to check on her.

  She didn’t think that a closed door and an intention to have some personal space would keep out the wrath of an angry god, but it was always worth a try.

  Finally, she had reached what she called her space. Mia’s Mum and Dad had been supportive enough to Mia to let her create her area of peacefulness. Or empty and boring as her younger sister called it. It was a choice of preference that she had made by herself, two red lounging chairs, a desk, a chair, a set of draws, a few power points to charge up any devices that she had, and a few electronic devices loaded up with music and resources that she had gathered.

  No posters of random gods, no information, or mini shrines around either. Just the space that she had created, as though she was the goddess of her little world. She didn’t even have a single believer though unless self-belief counted.

  Her bedroom was next to The Area as she liked to call it. Her parents were pretty kind like that, they understood that she wanted her own space as she grew older. Mia had used to have her best friends around when she was younger, but they used to play on the floor below where her little sister had now taken over.

  Occasionally she had asked people to come around but as everyone had started getting older the whole religious god thing had started to become a more serious topic. Friends began to form groups around which god they wanted to follow. Temple internships became a popular trend to follow.

  For those kids who wanted a position in a temple’s hierarchy now was the time that exams, extra study practice and character assessments came into play. That had been the main reason that my home room teacher Mr Rictor had been willing to allow the event of stoning after he had heard her discussing the concept of atheism in school.

  The alternative would have been permitting her to go to the prayer room to find a suitable place to practice her atheism, but it seemed like he had wanted to take other particular students into higher consideration than her own.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Mia didn’t think that it was fair that a system that was meant to allow freedom of expression and thought allowed one student to purposefully inflict physical harm on another without dire consequences.

  Forget about it, this was going to be her time now, away from the world and all its stupid imaginary deities. Just some new Jaja swag songs some ice-cold snacks, and a few fiction books to read. If her teacher had assigned homework from school, then she would have decided to finish it straight before the weekend officially began.

  She was lucky today that the assignment had been dismissed by Mr Rictor. One of the few kindnesses he had shown today.

  Once Mia had calmed down her mixed emotions from the tiring day it would be time to head downstairs to the ground floor to have dinner with the rest of the family and her sister’s friend Charlotte. If her Uncle was also there, then he’d also be joining in. She felt that might surprise her Mum a little bit though, given that she had strong feelings about her Dad’s brother.

  Her Mum didn’t exactly dislike her Uncle, but she wasn’t a big fan of his patron deity. The Nightbringer wasn’t exactly known for its charitable work as it brought down punishment on those who were punished for being lost in shadow.

  According to her uncle, that didn’t mean that people who looked to god were walking in shadows but more that in their hearts they felt overbearing pressure and emotional sadness that they were unable to overcome.

  The shadow of the heart was easily preyed upon by those who had suffered loss and possessed a degree of weakness. It meant that the god offered a reprieve for people to overcome the shadow hanging over them.

  That usually means that it was viewed with a penchant for either violence or shock. Certain situations demanded physical action but not all. Occasionally power gave clarity of mind and purpose.

  Mia did know that her Uncle had told her that his god apparently didn’t believe in formal worship in a temple and instead he would recruit when he found those who were lacking in purpose or lost. He had never exactly told him how he had ended up as High Priest though.

  That could have been the situation between him and her Dad that caused them to argue every time he turned up at their house. She did know one thing though, her Uncle was wealthy, dressed in a smart suit and seemed to have relative freedom without the burden of responsibility for the running of a large temple.

  Direct protection of the innocent was a key thing there with the god that her Uncle worshipped. Not that he would call it that, he had told her that direct prayer wasn’t his thing, and he expressed his belief through action instead.

  Mia at least knew that her Uncle was in a powerful position as being the High Priest of a god gave him a lot of power and influence. The thing is that she never actually saw him like that, he wasn’t appearing on TV or in any online content.

  The only reason she had even first learnt about his position was that her Mum had told her when she had been developing a line of crow and thorn-styled jewellery that had been requested by his temple.

  One of the thorned crows was around her room somewhere, her Mum had called it a rejected model but too good to destroy. So it had ended up in Mia’s hands because she had thought that it looked interesting at the time. There was a possibility that it could have channelled some of the energy of the god during the night, but she hadn’t noticed anything strange from it so far. Her luck was holding out so far given the lack of interference in her daily affairs.

  Mia assumed that her Uncle’s position must have meant something to the school priest though when he had handed her the metal cube after school earlier today. Taking a seat on one of the red chairs she stretched out before grabbing her backpack which had been left on the floor. The red stripy comfy chair groaned under her weight but soon settled back down.

  ‘Uncle Felix said that he knew a priest who wanted to join in a moon thingy. Guess he also wants to move into his nighty-night priesthood then. Sorry Bringer of the Night, someone in my family might believe in you but I don’t need to.’

  She spoke aloud just in case the god was listening to her although she highly doubted it. She had never had the first-hand experience of talking to a god directly, it had all been worship and prayers without response. At least in verbal form, those avocados on the roof did seem to grow well.

  Mia hesitated for a moment. Given that it was daytime she thought that she should be fine being blasphemous and all, not too sure that she would want to do it at midnight though. The god that her uncle followed might take direct offence given her family connection.

  ‘Not my god anyway.’ she said aloud.

  Seeing if anything happened like a sudden eclipse of the sun. Mia wasn’t a priestess in a film who had to deal with in-temple issues between acolytes and awkward practitioners. After waiting for a moment.

  ‘Nope. Nothing yet so I’m safe from divine retribution for now. After dinner perhaps.’ She murmured again to herself. Talking to herself wasn’t the best option right now.

  Mia opened up her school backpack and pulled out the small metal cube. According to the school priest, he had been tasked to give it to her. He had been aware of my little expression in my classroom but turned a blind eye to it aside from asking me for an expression of my faith in the gods in the form of a prayer to our local higher power devoted to healing.

  Asileticus the lizard stick god.

  Stupid thing.

  Mia had been told to break it as soon as possible, but she wasn’t a fan of always being told what to do. She threw it onto a pillow on the other chair and ignored it. Today had not been one of her best days, at least she had gotten out of doing an assignment from school.

  Break it.

  A strange sensation resounded inside her head. The idea that another being could enter your mind which was meant to be a sacrosanct space wasn’t a nice one.

  Wait. This was a different feeling. An outside force that was driving her to a single purpose. She was annoyed with the small device, more that it had been handed over to her than being told what to do with it.

  The actions of that school priest had been kinda stressful Mia. He sure felt like a conflicted man, if her Uncle had been directly involved then she was going to ask him directly.

  He had also told her when she had arrived home to break the cube and grind it into dust. It wasn’t as though she had been told the purpose of this thing. It was a stupid-looking thing. She looked at the small cube sitting on the pillow thinking about what was so important about it before she felt another sensation. Slightly stronger this time.

  Break. It.

  ‘Are you the Nightbringer?’ Mia spoke out.

  Her body shivered ever so slightly as though the air conditioning had been turned on full blast and she was sitting directly in front of it.

  The fact that there was no response didn’t mean much. Marshalling her courage and she remembered her earlier words.

  ‘My Uncle might need to believe in you, but I don’t. I’m sure you’re a really powerful shadow ghost and all but sorry I’m not going to use the ‘’athee’’ word but I’m sticking to my principles.

  Mia felt the air grow chillier this time before she felt her strongest impression so far. The room appeared to darken for several seconds as faint shadows of thorns began to creep onto the walls of her bedroom.

  Break. It. Into. Dust. Do it. Girl. Do. It.

  Not to be outdone. Mia repeated her own choice of words aloud in an attempt to push back against the alien presence that tried to push deliberate intent into her mind.