2 Morpheus: Last god of Earth

Drake stared on blankly as the ripples, in reality, rushed at him. Too shocked to react, he was swallowed up by the supernatural event.

Around him, the greek mountains melted away, replaced by an astonishing, chaotic realm.

Everywhere, shards of glassy rainbow light shimmered, they bled into one another continually shifting in shape and size. Echoed voices from a place unknown rang out; the hushed whispers of forbidden secrets, the depraved mutterings of mad-men, screams of terror, shouts of joy, and the laughter of children. All somehow distinctly audible.

This world changed around Drake. Moving around him. Or maybe he was the one moving through it. Either way, everything was flying past him, Faster and faster, the voices and light blurred past until all that lingered was a high pitch drone and flickering streaks of shaded light.

The world continued to speed by until...

(('(Boom!!!)'))

A monumentous explosion of sound, light, and heat burst forth and then went away as quickly as it arrived, collapsing in on itself as if absorbed by a black hole.

Everything became still, quiet.

The shaded light of before, divided out into an inky black sky, seeded with stars of celestial white light. Grey fog curled around Drake's legs, solidifying below his feet and before him stood a columned white marble building, reminiscent of the Greek Parthenon.

"What the hell is going on, did I die?"

"Were their shrooms in my coffee?"

"Is this a hallucination or a dream?"

Eyes wide, Drake strolled towards the temple, feeling a subconscious pull while speaking aloud to himself.

As he arrived at the marbled steps, in his mind, a voice sounds;

"Ding ding ding our champion guessed right, congratulations give him a round of applause everyone,"

Out of the floor of grey fog forms a rising colosseum. Seats filled with hundreds of white-robed men and women, clapping, cheering, and hollering praise.

The wall of the colosseum had formed around Drake, converging with the temple and out between the pillars floated a man, dressed in a simple black robe. From his back protruded silky black wings, almost twice the size of the man himself.

"Well, which one was it?" Drake asked. The bizarreness of his situations still having not fully sunk in.

"It's a dream, of course... well, I guess you're technically dead too, but that's just a temporary matter, I can't bring anything 'living' into my divine domain of dreams now can I? A corporeal form in an incorporeal world, now. that doesn't make much sense, does it?"

The man gave a speedy grin, waving his arms, they're surroundings shimmered, transformed once again, and Drake found himself on a restaurant terrace, with an up-close view of the Eiffel tower. It was night, and Paris was lit up by countless street lights. The sky somehow still starry, despite the luminous city below.

The winged man gestured to a chair, and spoke. "take a seat." Drake gawked at the city mesmerized; he couldn't help but ignore the winged man.

"This.... this is,"

Paris, the final destination on Drake's bucket list of places to travel.

Slightly irritated at being ignored, the winged man again waved his arm. The world shifted, and Drake found himself sitting in a corrugated steel chair.

"Well, lad, I have a proposal for you, well more of a demand per se, as you have little to no choice in the matter anymore. The other Gods of Earth have all buggered off while I slept and, frankly, good riddance. Always waking me up with their frivolous squabbles."

A nasally high pitched tone came from the winged man's lips.

"Aphrodite cheated on me with so and so. Ares started another war again, and Zeus has lasered off Hephaestus's beard with lightning, oh no what will we do, you would assume after a few millennia they would have all matured a little."

Drake watched the winged man jabber on and complain. Interrupting his ranting he asked,

"I'm sorry, but who the hell are you, and did you say I was dead? am I dead?!"

there was a little panic in Drake's voice, Ignoring the question, our feathered friend continued to talk.

"Hush and listen. There are more important matters at hand than your pathetic mortal body. Now, where was I, ahh yes introductions. I am the great god of dreams, Morpheus, and you. My little mortal friend, are my newly chosen champion, hurrah," he finished with a little clap.

Drake tried to interject, what did he mean by pathetic? But found his lips had been sealed by a mysterious force.

"So to sum it up, my godhood is about to expire, and with the pantheon gone, I'm just a remnant of what I was. A mighty oak without roots, so to speak and with the ever-increasing amount of mortals.... you lot do love to procreate. It has been slightly hard to keep up with all the energy seeping in from other dimensions, pooling into your unconscious minds, and I'll be needing a little help with this matter. Any questions?"

Feeling his mouth unseal, Drake spoke.

"Why was I chosen?"

The god looked a little embarrassed, he rubbed the back of his neck and looked away as if to admire the Effiel tower.

"Ahhh, that. You weren't so much chosen; it's more like you happened to stumble into this place. So essentially, convenience was the main factor for you becoming my champion. I don't have the resources left to search the Earth for any particular talent, but I'm sure you'll do just fine. You look like a reasonably capable fellow, well. for a mortal anyway."

Drake gave the god a look bordering on contempt, feeling that maybe the god's hasty actions of pulling him from his world were out of laziness. More than anything else.

"What exactly do you need me for then?"

"Oh yes, didn't I say, well this is a rather sticky matter I'm afraid. The condensed thought energy of the nearby dimensions constantly seeps into this one, attracted by the unconscious minds of you mortals, in the form of dreams.

Its a perfectly normal occurrence, but now with the increased presence of sentient life on Earth, attracting stupendous amounts of this energy, and my godhood being weakened after the dissemblance of the gods, I am struggling to keep all the excess of energy at bay."

Morpheus let out a sigh.

"This energy has been building up for quite a while now, and I've been backlogged for a few hundred years at least. Anyway, at the rate things are going, there are only two maybe three decades left till this reality. Earth. Will be taken over by the materialization of transdimensional thought energy. and this world will become like my domain, incorporeal."

"And what exactly does this mean." Drake inquired,

Let me put it into perspective for you. If it wasn't for me right now, your soul would scatter to dust, and what's left of it would become a type of receiver and relay for transdimensional thought energy. If the encroachment of this energy isn't stopped, all the souls of your reality will be enveloped, consumed, and scattered, being converted. The humans of Earth will cease to exist."

Drake paled considerably, not taking to the incoming apocalypse well. His hands clenched into fists as panic overtook him. His thoughts turned to the comrades he had served with. His hometown, and all the wonderful people he had met traveling.

"What exactly do you expect me to do about it then, as you said, I'm just a mortal and if you a god, can't do anything about it, what the hell am I supposed to do?" Drake snarled

"Finally, we get to the main point of all this."

Morpheus pushed his right hand into his chest. It sunk in cleanly as if he was made of water, a body of neither flesh nor bone. From inside the cavity in his ribcage, he pulled something out.

Clutched tightly in his hand, was a ball of congealed grey fog swirling into itself, like the clouds of a storm pulled in by a tornado.

The world around them became blurry and sparked with colored static, similar to that of Drakes faulty GPS. It returned to the dark sky of before, but now the white stars were dimmer and the grey fog below receding.

Morpheus looked fatigued as he presented the twisting mass of ashy grey matter before Drake.

"This is roughly a third of what remains of my divinity, it's just about enough to lay a seed of divinity in your soul, and give you a one-way trip to a world that is bleeding into this one. If you accumulate enough energy, it can facilitate travel again,"

He thrust it into Drake's chest, Drake was shocked by his sudden actions, his eyes open wide he shouted: "Wait!".

"You need to grow strong and return. Only together do we have a chance to stave off the end, good luck in your travels dreamer."