God's Visit

"Fruit... hm. Oh, is that one over there?" Kyriaki said her thoughts aloud. It had been an hour since she began to search for berries or fruits, but during that time she had only secured four black-coloured berries. Its visual texture resembles blackberries or raspberries, with much smaller, round-shaped flesh in a singular batch, so it might just be blackberries—or of the same family. 

Nevertheless, it was a great find. And now, Kyriaki thinks she has found some more. Her eyesight was pretty blurry despite her age being in her mid-twenties so she might be nearsighted.

Even so, she could still clearly make out some black dots all over the small bush hidden behind a tree, so she rushed towards it. Excitement coursed through her veins as she approached the bush with the blackberries. Her hunger had intensified over the past hour, and with each step, the anticipation grew, and her stomach grumbled in agreement.

As she reached the bush, Kyriaki noticed that the berries were indeed similar to the ones she found earlier, confirming her suspicion that they might be a fruit or berry. The rich, dark hue of the berries promised a burst of sweetness or bitterness; hopefully the former. Carefully, she plucked the ripe berries from the bush they grew on and placed them into one of her pockets in her white lab coat along with the other berries. 

"Wait, I need to check for any signs of poison or abnormalities first." she mumbled to herself while retrieving the berries that she had just placed in her pocket. She brought them up close to her eyes to carefully inspect for any signs of abnormalities that may be caused by disease, infection, or poison.

There weren't too many signs visually to check if the berry was edible or not, so it was a gamble. 

"Well then... I don't see any abnormalities on these berries, they should be safe to eat." Kyriaki said after examining it. And with that, she began the trek back to her base. It wasn't too far, visible from the area she had exited the forest from, so she headed towards the river bank. 

Kneeling down, she took out all the berries she had collected and washed them in the river. Impurities such as dirt or loose pieces of sticks got washed away by the currents and what was left was a clean, glittering piece of fruit. 

"Hm? What was that?" in the corner of Kyriaki's vision, something small was moving under the water's surface. Well, it wasn't exactly 'moving' but the bending of light along with the small waves of the river made it seem it was moving. The rough outline of the thing was like a cylinder, just horizontal. 

"A fish?" she wondered. Standing back up, Kyriaki rolled up her grey trousers and removed her leather shoes and socks. Placing them on the top of a large boulder near the river so the possibility of them getting drenched was eliminated, Kyriaki slowly entered the river. 

It's cold. And the bedrock is not helping either. The water level is just at the base of my neck, so I shouldn't drown here if I pay attention.

This section of the river was shallower and thinner than the sections downstream, such as where Kyriaki's base lies, but it was still at least one and a half metres deep and ten metres wide.

Along with a strong underwater current, it was a struggle to stand without being swept away. "Damn, this is pretty tough. How far is it still?" she mumbled. She was now five metres in, exactly halfway across the river. "There it is." 

Now staring directly at the mysterious moving thing, Kyriaki made her way towards it. Once she got close enough, the mysterious thing turned out to be just a large piece of wood. "Seriously?" Kyriaki grumbled in displeasure. "Darn. This piece of wood baited me to come out here, huh." 

To relieve her annoyance and anger, she took the piece of wood out of the river bed and with all her might, she threw it away, high into the sky. "Tch. Well, I guess that's it." 

Making her way back to land with most of her body wet, she was feeling pretty down and decided to head back to her base and work on some wooden utensils while waiting for the fire to dry her clothes. "Oh. I shouldn't have thrown away that piece of wood then... ack, it's too late now." 

The sun was still fairly high in the sky, so Kyriaki had more than enough time to carve new equipment from scratch, but breakfast came first. She was starving after all. 

"Eghh. The meat is already spoiling. What should I do..? Do I need to go hunt again?" she sighed. "Well, I can always dry it for long-term preservation, though I'm not too sure what to do for that..." 

Her options were limited. And she was aware of that. During a twenty-minute brainstorming session, no ideas came up. However, just then, she had received an epiphany. She had an idea. One that may or may not work, but if it did work, then it would solve her problem of food spoiling. 

And what did she realise? Just use the Orb. Theoretically, the Orb should be able to stop the flow of time in a small and limited area infinitely, however, there was one major problem with that idea of hers. The energy required to power the Orb would be way too much for one person with primitive tools to gather so it wouldn't be worth the trouble at all. 

It might take hundreds of petajoules or even more for the Orb to run for a mere second or so. Even in modern-day usage, the world only uses fifty or so petajoules per day, so even with all the world's energy flowing into the Orb, it still wouldn't be enough. 

"It seems you are having some trouble," a voice said. It was telepathic, directly speaking into Kyriaki's mind, and so, immediately, she knew it wasn't some mortal. "Shall I intervene on your behalf?" the voice asked her. 

That voice... Janus, is that you?

"Oh? Colour me surprised. You still have your memory from our first encounter? I am positive I had used my power to remove your memories..." 

You did? Well, it isn't like I can fully recall every nitty-gritty detail of that conversation. Just the reason why I got sent, your voice and your name. That's all I can remember. 

"I see. Well then," a bright light appeared in front of Kyriaki, blinding her. In response, she blocked the light with her arms, but by then, it was already gone. Instead of the bright light, a being with two faces on one head appeared instead. The body of the being was muscular while also quite skinny and lean and it was covered with a long white Roman tunic. Apart from that singular piece of tunic, the being was not wearing anything. "I cannot stay materialised in the mortal realm for long, so I will make this quick." the female face said. 

"What do you want?" replied Kyriaki in a bitter tone. 

"Haha. Nothing much. I see you are in a female's body now. Just like myself. How do you feel? Hopefully nothing too irritating for you." 

Kyriaki crossed her arms and answered, "Eh, it's fine. I do miss my little guy though. Oh, and also the fact I will have to worry about periods and those kinds of stuff." 

Janus' female face smiled. 

"I see. I must admit, you are beautiful. Why not make that your new form? Your silky black hair and sharp eyes are perfect for attracting the opposite gender." 

"Are you stupid?!" Kyriaki shouted in annoyance at her answer. "First of all, absolutely not. I'm only staying like this because of the fear of a possible penalty if I die too many times, so I cannot just waste these precious lives whether it was biologically female or male! And second of all, there's only Erectus and Hablils in this time period. Even if we share 98% of our DNA with them, it is still a definite NO from me."

"I understand. I apologise on the behalf of my other self for asking that question," the male face of Janus spoke. "Is there any way I could make it up for you?" 

"I don't think so... wait! Is it possible for you to make my Orb use little to no energy at all? That would make it up."

"Your Orb? It is fine for me to reduce the energy required by half, however, if you are asking for less than 1% of the usual required energy, that would be considered a favour, so I cannot grant you that." 

"Tsk. Well alright. That's fine." Kyriaki replied as she started to think of other options. As she was doing so, the female face of Janus suddenly grinned. It was defying her mature and godly appearance, so whatever she had in mind wasn't going to be good. 

"Well..." she started. 

"I recommend you to not say anything at all if that is what you are thinking of." the male face said to its female face. 

"It will be fine. Besides, it would be more interesting as we are also the God of Change, correct?"

The male face sighed. With a long pause, he finally agreed.

"Fine. Go ahead." 

"Thank you, my other self." 

Kyriaki at that point was deep in thought so she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings, and when she finished thinking, she looked up to see Janus still hovering above the river bed and opened her mouth to speak. 

"So I finished- woah?!" her voice completely changed. It was much more light and high in pitch compared to her voice before which was much more deeper. Her voice sounded like the voice of children who still haven't gone through puberty and it has been well over a hundred years since he had gone through puberty so the light and high-pitched voice was much of a surprise, more it should have been. 

"What did you do to me..?" Kyriaki asked. 

The female face of Janus grinned once again. 

"Go take a good look at your body." 

Kyriaki followed what it said. "Wah?!" her arms were short and small, her clothes that fitted him and his female form were all baggy and too large to fit him now, and it looked like he had returned to being a child. 

Is this her fetish..? Or is she completely playing with me right now?

Kyriaki wondered.

"Ugh. Return me to my original form at once! I beg of you!" 

"Now, now, don't be hasty. My other self here has some information that he wanted to share with you," it replied. "Don't worry, I will revert you to your original self after this. I just wanted to see how cute you would've been if your female form was a child." 

So it was her fetish...

"Fine. Hurry up and say it. And also, you better stick true to your word." 

"Hehe. Do not worry, I will stick true to my word. I wouldn't dare try and lose the trust of a possible future apostle of mine. And yes, I was indeed correct. You look fabulous and most importantly, your cuteness is superb." it giggled once again. 

Why is that female face of Janus so goddamn cheeky? 

Kyriaki sighed. 

"Well, let's get down to business. What did you want to say to me?" she sat down and crossed her short legs on the bedrock.