The pain had never come.
Maxime was staring at the truck that had crossed the white line, its headlights blinding like twin suns devouring the night. Time had stretched, every millisecond becoming an eternity in which his brain was frantically calculating survival probabilities that all tended toward zero. He had had time to think of his mother, of that coffee he had never paid back to his colleague, of that girl in the subway he had never dared to approach. Then the impact. Then… nothing.
No white light. No tunnel. No replay of his life flashing before his eyes like in the mediocre movies he watched on Sunday nights.
Just nothingness.
A nothingness that lasted, thickened, became tangible like a lead blanket crushing his consciousness. Maxime was floating in that viscous darkness, unable to breathe but feeling no need to, unable to scream yet screaming inwardly against this absolute void that was swallowing him.
I am dead, he understood with icy clarity. Really dead.
Panic should have seized him. It did not come. Instead, a strange resignation settled in, cold and final. Twenty-five years of existence erased by a drunk driver on a rainy Thursday night. No legacy, no work, not even a memorable thought in anyone's mind. He would be a statistic, a line in a police report, an obituary notice no one would really read.
Then the voice broke the silence.
"Finally."
The word echoed through the void, masculine and feminine at once, ancient as the world's first breath. Maxime wanted to answer but no longer had a mouth, no throat, no body. He was nothing but floating consciousness, fragmented, terrified.
"Three thousand two hundred and forty-seven years, two months, and nineteen days. I counted every second of your absence."
The voice was drawing closer, or perhaps Maxime was drifting toward it. The darkness was beginning to take on shades, gray wisps curling like smoke.
"You do not remember, of course. They erased everything. Your name, your glory, your very essence scattered to the four corners of creation. But I never forgot."
Who are you? Maxime screamed mentally. What do you want from me?
A soft laugh, melancholic, infinitely sad.
"What do I want? To bring you back. To restore you. To give back what they stole from you."
The smoke was now condensing, taking shape. A female silhouette emerged from the shadows, tall, majestic, wrapped in a gown woven of stellar night. Her face remained blurred, as though Maxime's mortal eyes—even disembodied—could not bear its direct vision.
"My name is Nyx. Primordial of the Night, mother of Fates, guardian of Forgotten Secrets. And you…" She extended a pale hand toward him, her fingers brushing the center of his fragmented consciousness. "You are Eros. Not the chubby little cupid of Valentine's Day cards. The true one. The ancient one. The Primordial of Desire and Creation, whose power made even Zeus himself tremble."
You're delirious, Maxime thought, but the word lacked conviction even in his own mind.
"Delirious?" Nyx moved closer, and this time Maxime could make out her features: a cold, inhuman beauty, with eyes that held entire galaxies. "Then explain to me why you are here, in the Void Between Worlds, instead of rotting in your mortal grave. Explain to me why your soul was not seized by the Christian Hell, nor by the Egyptian judges, nor by any of the thousand divine bureaucracies that govern death."
She placed her palm against what should have been his forehead, and suddenly Maxime felt. Memories that were not his exploded in his consciousness. Temples of white marble. Prostrated crowds. Celestial battles where beings of pure light slaughtered one another with cosmic rage. And at the center of it all, him. But not him. A radiant, terrible, magnificent being whose mere presence made lesser gods fall to their knees.
Then the betrayal. Zeus and his allies, Odin with his calculating single eye, the Jade Emperor with his celestial legions. All united against him, against Eros, because his power transcended their pantheons, because he represented something none of them could control: pure desire, raw creation, love that knew neither law nor master.
They had killed him. Dismembered him. Scattered his divine essence into fragments they hid at the four corners of the mythological realms.
"You see now?" Nyx murmured. "You see what they did to you?"
Rage should have consumed Maxime. It did not come. Instead, an infinite sadness washed over him, as though these recovered memories carried the weight of three millennia of mourning.
"Why me?" he finally asked. "Why choose me for… this reincarnation?"
"I did not choose you. You returned on your own." Nyx withdrew her hand, and the darkness began to crack around them, letting a golden light filter through. "Your essence slowly reassembled itself, mortal life after mortal life, until it reached a critical mass. This death was not an accident, Maxime. It was an awakening."
The cracks widened, revealing a sky of impossible blue and columns of white stone emerging from a milky mist.
"But you are not complete yet. Seven fragments of your original power remain scattered, guarded by those who were once your allies… or your enemies." Nyx gestured, and a translucent interface appeared before Maxime, floating in the air like a hologram.
[DIVINE CODEX ACTIVATED]
Bearer: Maxime / Eros Primordial (Incomplete Incarnation)
Restored Divinity: 14%
Fragments Recovered: 1/8
Active Abilities: NONE
Warning: Power level insufficient for prolonged existence. Fragment recovery required.
What is this video game nonsense? Maxime thought, with a mix of incredulity and rising hysteria.
"The Codex." Nyx brushed the interface with her fingertips, and new lines of text appeared. "A system I created to track your restoration. Each fragment recovered will increase your divinity, unlock forgotten powers, bring you closer to what you once were. But beware…" Her gaze hardened. "The Council of Gods knows you have returned. Zeus, Odin, all the others. They will send their champions, their assassins, everything they have to prevent you from becoming a threat again."
The golden light had now completely replaced the darkness. Maxime felt something solid beneath him—no, within him. A body. Real. Tangible. He looked down and discovered tanned, muscular hands that were not truly his, yet obeyed him.
"I reconstructed a body for you. More resilient than your previous mortal shell." Nyx circled him like a predator assessing its prey. "But it remains fragile compared to the divinities you will face. You will have to become stronger. Much stronger."
Maxime stood up—or rather, his body stood up without him truly commanding it. His muscles responded with a new, alien yet exhilarating fluidity. He now stood in a ruined temple, broken columns rising toward a twilight sky where two moons shone side by side.
"Where are we?" His voice echoed, deep and assured in a way it had never been in life.
"The Temple of Oblivion. The place where you were assassinated." Nyx pointed to the ground, where dark stains still marked the stone despite the millennia. "Your blood never fully disappeared. It was calling you back."
A shiver ran down Maxime's spine. He approached the stains, and something within him recognized the place. The memory of his death—no, of the other death, that of Eros—throbbed faintly like a phantom pain.
"And now?" he asked, turning back toward Nyx.
The goddess smiled, and for the first time Maxime saw something in her eyes that resembled affection. A possessive, devouring affection, almost frightening in its intensity.
"Now, you learn. You fight. You reclaim what belongs to you." She stepped closer, so close that Maxime could feel the cold emanating from her, a cold of outer space and starless nights. "And you let me protect you. As I always have. As I always will."
Her hand rested on Maxime's cheek, delicate yet firm, and he suddenly understood that this goddess had not spent three millennia waiting for his return out of simple loyalty.
"You…" He swallowed, searching for his words. "What were you to him? To Eros?"
Nyx's smile turned melancholic.
"Everything. I was everything to him. Lover, confidante, ally." Her thumb gently caressed Maxime's skin. "And he abandoned me by dying. So you understand…" Her galaxy-filled eyes locked onto Maxime's with an intensity that made him falter. "…that I will never let you leave again."
The Divine Codex emitted a luminous signal.
[MAIN QUEST ACTIVATED]
Title: Forbidden Ascension
Objective: Recover the 7 remaining fragments of Eros's essence
Progress: 1/8 fragments (14%)
First fragment available: Bastet, Egyptian Goddess — Temple of Bubastis
Estimated Difficulty: ★★★☆☆
Warning: Agents of the Council of Gods have been detected in the region.
Maxime stared at the interface, then at Nyx, then back at the interface. The reality of his situation was finally sinking in: he was dead, reincarnated as a fallen god, hunted by entire pantheons, and apparently bound to an obsessive primordial goddess who was looking at him the way a starving wolf looks at a lamb.
"Shit," he muttered.
Nyx burst into crystalline laughter that echoed throughout the ruined temple.