Revitalisation

Kim Minji is essentially an ordinary undergraduate ancient history major doomed for unemployment in modern society’s capitalist world which disdains all pursuits not involving monetary profit.

Essentially and not entirely because once upon a time, Minji is a god.

Once – in a time so long ago her now near-mortal mind cannot comprehend it – there were many gods who walked this plane; immortal, nigh indestructible beings old enough to attain and dispense invaluable wisdom, powerful enough to wipe civilisations out in fits of rage, and with egos large enough to demand nothing but the utmost reverence from the mortals they lived among. People bowed and keel towed, wrote scriptures, preached sermons and sacrificed one another in the name of their chosen gods. And with each passing of a god’s name through a mortal’s lips, that god’s power and sphere of influence grows.

The era of gods has long since passed. The sacrifices outlawed, the temples and monuments torn down stone by stone, the tomes of sermons and prayers crumbled to dust, and even the names lost to time. Gods fade when the memories of them do, and most are gone from the world today, forgotten without even a note in the annals of mythology. Minji is one of the lucky (or perhaps unlucky?) few who still linger in this plane of existence, rendered powerless and unremarkable in every way, except for their immortality. Though, even that might be suspect, she doesn’t age, but she also hasn’t taken a violent blow since braving a phalanx formation in Macedonia some two thousand years ago, who knows if she can still recover from something like that, and she isn’t fatalistic enough to find out.

Minji doesn’t know how or when or why she came into being. Her memory of anything beyond the last few millennia are rather hazy, with few exceptions of crystal clear recollections b with such intense emotions that it hurt to do more than briefly acknowledge their existence. So she locks those away in a nice little box and shoves them down into the deepest recesses of her mind. The modern psychologists would say that that’s an unhealthy coping mechanism. What the hell would they know? It’s been working just fine for her.

In an eon long lost, Minji splashes mountains and forests across the continents like an artist with paint across a canvas. Nowadays she pulls all-nighters to finish assignments, and rushes to class in the mornings with her hair a mess and one arm in a her shirt after sleeping through her alarm. Once in a while, she does something absurdly trite like carefully placing icing decorations on her meticulously designed macarons in hopes that it’d look good enough as gift for the girl she’s currently seeing.

It’s a monotonous existence that seems to endlessly cycle, and Minji simply keeps moving forward like a little hamster on its wheel. That is, until she meets a games development major in a music elective of all places.

Then things start to get a little weird.

“So, I guess we’re working together then,” the blonde girl sitting a desk away from her smiles in greeting and holds out her hand, “I’m Yoohyeon.”

Minji knows. It’s impossible not to take note of the tall blonde girl who carries herself with a self-assured confidence, and a carefree laugh, and she notices her since the semester started. Notes how she can look so stoic and aloof one moment, only for all the sharpness and angular lines to melt away and soften the moment a smile graces her face; how she’s always has at least three books on the table, most of which have nothing to do with the course; how she chews the back of her pen whenever she gets bored of the professor’s droning lectures and then doodles little puppies into the margins of her notebook; how from a particular angle she looks just like that one priestess – no, no, Minji slams down that train of thought before all the ugly emotions that come with it can rise to the surface.

But well, Minji can’t exactly respond with all that, so she cracks a smile and takes the offered hand (the grip is stronger than she expects, firm and secure), “Minji,” she supplies the name she’s been using for the last dozen or so years; she still manages to marvel at how easily people open themselves up now. Names freely falling from their lips, ignorant of how much power they hold.

“I’m afraid you’ve drawn the short straw when it comes to project partners. I don’t have a clue about any of this – this is the only elective that matches with the rest of my schedule, well it was this or the fundamentals of physics, and well...”

Surprisingly Yoohyeon’s smile only widens, and she leans closer to Minji, “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” she whispers conspiratorially, strands of blonde falling into her face, bringing with it a scent of ambrosia with a hint of amber, and Minji feels a jolt of delight at being in such close proximity to the blonde, “I thought this class was a practical music class, I don’t actually care about how musical analysis. Guess we’ll fumble through it together then.”

“Yeah,” Minji agrees, she’s not entirely sure what’s so funny only that she feels the ridiculous urge to grin like an idiot, “I guess we will.”

“Might have to do it later though – forecast says it’s going to rain soon, so I need to go be a responsible adult and take the laundry down from the line,” Yoohyeon says with an exaggerated groan.

Minji feels a stab of disappointment run through her, and she wishes, for the first time in a long time, that she still has some semblance of power. Making the sun shine had been one of her specialities, and oh, what she wouldn’t give to be able to do that right now. They exchange numbers and Line IDs with promises to contact each other soon, only to be greeted with a clear blue sky the moment they step out of the building.

“Huh, the forecast was wrong then,” Yoohyeon shrugs before turning a cheery smile onto a gobsmacked Minji, “Guess we’re on for a study date then.”

Minji, meanwhile, is staring at the sky. It had definitely been raining while they were in the building. The forecast had been for non-stop rain for days. Could…No, Minji shakes her head. She’s being ludicrous, the weather changes all the time. Forecasts are wrong five times out of ten, it’s no big deal.

“I know just the place,” Minji finally says, and introduces Yoohyeon to her favourite quaint café tucked into a little alley ten or so minutes from the university.

Minji’s good at reading people, she supposes it’s the one ‘super power’ she gets to keep, she recognises the spark of attraction, and decides to indulge herself. She learns all of Yoohyeon’s superficial surface details in the next few weeks, whispered in library corners, giggled through hallways between classes, and spoken over coffee and brunch.

Yoohyeon, despite her non-interest in music theory, plays the guitar and is trying to compose a song of her own; she’s learning English, German and Mandarin all at the same time, and her hobby is playing video games. Minji tries to keep her replies as close to the truth as possible, the instrument she can play no longer exists, so she settles for a modern equivalent in the piri; she knows how to read and write a few dead languages, but definitely doesn’t speak them because no one does; and she likes to bake. When Yoohyeon talks about her younger brother with both fondness and total exasperation all in the same sentence, Minji has a flash of Minhwan’s annoying face, and she has to physically stop herself from blurting out that she has a little brother too. She doesn’t know where he is right now – she hasn’t seen him since…since she can’t remember, but either way, he’s not around and Minji can’t even prove he exists (he does, she ran into the remnants of his dice-obsessed cult three decades or so ago), so she refrains from saying anything and moves the topic onto more mundane things instead.

“Huh, pink and black? Interesting combo. Personally I like greens and browns,” Yoohyeon comments over her copy of Music in Theory and Practice, a text so dry they’ve both resorted to playing twenty questions to keep each other amused.

“Really? You don’t look much like a forest though,” Minji teases, and earns herself a light smack to the arm for it. For the briefest of seconds, Minji recalls the dismembered limb of the last mortal who’d dared to lay their hands on her, before locking that memory up and pulling up something lighter, “Seen any good movies lately?”

“I saw latest Resident Evil the other day. It’s really good, the actress hasn’t aged a day,” Yoohyeon says and proceeds to describe the plot of said movie and show her screenshots on her phone, and it’s really not helping Minji repress gory memories. Apparently Yoohyeon has a thing for action thriller movies. It’s such a perfect irony, Minji nearly falls out of her chair in a fit of laughter and has to cover it up by claiming it was a coughing fit.

Minji’s been feeling strange for weeks. She can’t fall asleep till the early hours of the morning, and wakes up earlier than usual, feeling twice as refreshed. She hardly touches her seafood rolls, and any kind of food just tastes bland. Yoohyeon insists on checking her for possession, and Minji thinks she’s joking for all of ten minutes before Yoohyeon actually pulls out the number of the local shaman.

“Nope, nope, we do not need to do that!” Minji declares in somewhat of a panic. Most rituals have been lost through time, the few that survive, warped and evolved beyond recognition and effectiveness, but Minji doesn’t want to test whether or not one potent practice survived the eons. Shamans, real shamans (not the tourist and local scammers) can sometimes tell when an immortal is nearby. They may not be able to tell what she is, but she’s heard whisperings of them being able to tell that something is off, and Minji would like no attention drawn to her, none whatsoever.

So she tells Yoohyeon she’s probably just stressed from exams, and the blonde decides to drag her outside for some fresh air. Minji doesn’t regret her decision to indulge herself this time at all.

“Why ancient history?” Yoohyeon asks out of the blue when they’re lazing about beneath the shade of a tree on campus.

Minji had been complaining about the inaccurate details of her textbook when Yoohyeon springs the question on her. She pauses, and shrugs, not quite sure how to explain ‘because I enjoy poetic irony so much, I’d torture myself to make a perfect statement’, which would of course need more explanation, “…sometimes I feel like it’s the only thing I know,” she says instead, “What about you? Why games development? I thought you’d be more happy studying languages or something.”

“I studied languages in my own time. Actually, I do most things in my own time. I’ve already launched my own online game, well, co-created one anyway with my housemate Yoobin, she says I need to ‘get a qualification so the investors will take us seriously’ and well, here I am,” Yoohyeon says with a fond chuckle, “I think it’s really cool that you’re so passionate about what you study.”

Minji blinks, well, she supposes her annoyance at all the inaccuracies can be mistaken as passion, “Err…thanks I guess? I just don’t like it when things are wrong. You on the other hand, making your own game is awesome. You’ve got to show me.”

“It’s nothing special,” Yoohyeon says, looking a little embarrassed, “It’s an MMORPG you know? Mass multiplayer online role playing game – only right now, it should really be called ‘fifty players on a shoddy sever’.”

“Hey fifty is better than five, and it isn’t exactly a number to scoff at either, you’re just getting started,” Minji says, and she’s not entirely being a whipped girlfriend either. Fifty devoted cultists could really give some minor god a power boost.

“Yeah I suppose. It’s just there’s so many games out there you know? I wanted to make something different, but well, turns out certain things are popular for a reason,” Yoohyeon shrugs in a ‘what can you do’ sort of gesture, “Yoobin comes up with a lot of the lore and stuff, she always has her head in a book, so I’m not surprised she’s so creative. I just wish people would give it a chance.”

Minji ponders on it for a moment, and for a slight second of insanity she has the idea of pitching forward her own pantheon, the group of deity’s that she was a part of, her own name, her own story. The Hellenic pantheon are insufferable, not as powerful as they once were, but still mighty in their own right, being as well-known and well-mentioned as they are; the Egyptian pantheon slightly less insufferable and powerful, but still respected; and Minji wonders if maybe hers could reach such a status again. Red flashes to the forefront of her mind, inky branching shadows, stones altars dripping in blood, logs of charred flesh tied to – bile rises to , okay maybe that isn’t a good idea at all.

As if Yoohyeon could read her mind, she pipes up with an enthusiastic, “Unnie, you must’ve studied some obscure mythology in ancient history right? Mind running some ideas at me? Just some names and basic concepts and stuff, I can do the research on my own.”

“Er…can’t really remember anything at the top of my head,” Minji says apologetically, and the slight dimming of excitement in Yoohyeon’s eyes makes her feel like she’s kicked a puppy, “I could send you some when I get home later? My textbooks have got to be useful for something.”

Yoohyeon grins, “Awesome. If you want to check out what it looks like right now, so you have some idea of what to recommend, the game’s called Dystopia: The Tree of Language, and the website’s Dreamcatcher dot com.”

“You should put posters advertising the game up on campus. You never know, some bored undergrad might check it out while procrastinating,” Minji suggests, trying to figure out why the name of the game bothers her, tugs at an inkling of a memory, but before she can even start to unpack the boxes in her head, Yoohyeon leans over and presses a brief kiss to her lips.

“Thanks unnie, you’re the best!”

Minji’s brain short circuits a little.

In her defence, it’s been a while since she’s indulged.

The little oddities start to pile up over the next month.

First it’s innocuous, like the rusty gate surrounding her apartment complex is a little easier to open than usual, or the cupboard above the range hood is a little less annoying to reach, and her morning runs are no longer making her as tired as they used to. She’s just getting fitter is all, there’s nothing weird going on here.

During exam period, Minji throws her attention into studying, and by the time she comes up for air, it’s twelve hours later and she hasn’t eaten anything in that time, nor does she feel the urge to. She chalks it up to stress.

Then Minji finds herself walking to Yoohyeon’s apartment in the middle of the night in her pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt, and instead of being greeted with one of Yoohyeon’s toothy grins, she gets a horrified once over before being dragged inside by her collar.

“Kim Minji it’s sub zero outside!” the blonde rants as she turns up the heating.

“Uh…I’m not cold,” Minji is completely unconcerned, and thinking that the other girl is exaggerating as she is prone to do when she’s worried about Minji’s alleged lack of concern for her health.

It’s only when Yoohyeon starts piling blankets upon blankets on top of her, that Minji starts to become a little concerned. The blonde is frantic, and not in her usual caring overreaction kind of way. There’s real worry in her eyes, and Minji reaches over to calm her down.

“I’m okay, alright? See? Feel this, I’m not going to die of hypothermia,” Minji says, and she’s about to touch Yoohyeon to let her see, only to stop halfway and pull her hand back into the blankets.

What. The. Hell.

“Uh…Actually, I could use with a warm drink?” she says weakly, and Yoohyeon immediately sets off to the kitchen to do just that.

Minji pulls her hand back out, and sure enough, it’s hot, like burning fire. Her hand is radiating heat after a fifteen minute walk in the middle of the night. And now that her mind is a little more clear headed than earlier, she remembers it’s winter. No wonder Yoohyeon is out of her mind with worry, Minji just took a goddamn stroll in the middle of winter in her pyjamas.

Minji stares at her hand, and there are no words now. No excuses, no brushing it off as a coincidence, because she can feel it.  The heat, the intensity, the raw power thrumming underneath her skin. If she concentrates, she might even be able to make it do the purple thing that her priestesses loved to depict in the mosaics.  

There’s no denying it anymore.

Her powers are coming back.

The only question is, how?  

It’s only possible if she’s amassing followers, cultists, worshippers, and that’s only possible if people know about her.

She isn’t a figure remembered in history. In fact, Minji’s pretty sure she only exists because some obscure ancient tome mentions her once or twice, and one (maybe two) really really specialised historian somewhere on the planet knows of her existence. Hell, maybe it isn’t even a historian, for all she knows she’s being kept alive by an oral story told by an old Wiseman from a tribe lost in some jungle – she can’t really remember where she came from, and she doesn’t want to unpack all the memories to figure it out. For millennia’s she’s existed as an ordinary immortal, unremarkable in every way except for her agelessness, and vitality. Her powers have been waning from as far back as late Mesopotamia, it’s a miracle that she’s managed to outlive so many younger deities.

While Minji is busy being in the middle of a hysterical panic attack, she misses someone else walking into the room.

A sharp, “What are you doing here?” jolts Minji back to the present. And it’s the shocked and rather specific ‘you’ that catches her attention, because it’s definitely a personal address, and Minji hasn’t spent more than a few years on this side of the planet in a long while, and she’s pretty sure she’s made herself innocuous enough that no one should remember her.

She looks up and nearly swallows her tongue. She in a sharp breath, the air doing nothing for her anymore (she can panic about that later), but it stills restricts her windpipe and stops her from saying anything until it passes through.

“Dami.”

“Fancy seeing you in my house JiU.”

Names have power. The moment hers passes through her old friend’s lips, purple dances up her arms and Minji almost hisses at the sensation. She forces it to cool down, smothers the flames until they disappear to nothing – it’s difficult, it’s been a while since she’d been able to produce any sort of power, let alone flames but she eventually does wrestle it under control.

“I never understood why you became so afraid.”

She looks different to how Minji remembers her. Her hair is longer for starters, some mix of ash and wood brown, and it falls a little past her shoulders, frames her face like pretty vines. She looks softer, kinder, though Minji supposes they all would, the lack of blood and steel would make anyone look gentler, but her words are just as cutting.

“The fact that you’re still not afraid after millenia’s of being all but mortal concerns me,” Minji responds, unsure of whether or not to be exasperated by the old argument, or somewhat disturbed, “We were a bloodthirsty lot.”

“We were gods,” she says dismissively, like the violence, and the blood sacrifices, and the frenzied rituals are a given.

“I suppose this will always be a difference between us,” Minji says, and Dami nods her head to the side in agreement, “Do you have any idea how this happened?” she gestures to her hand, before frowning, “Are your powers coming back too?”

The dagger materialising in her hand answers that question, and the grin that spreads on Dami’s face is all teeth, “You haven’t figured it out yet have you?”

Minji raises an eyebrow, “Am I supposed to know how we miraculously got our powers back?” she pauses, the brunette is far too pleased, “…you did this, didn’t you? Or you had some part of this.”

“Don’t you know JiU? Kids these days worship their video games,” Dami is outright cackling now, and Minji can slowly feel it all fall into place.

“Hey Minji-unnie, I only have green tea, so you can it up and – oh hi Yoobin, did we wake you? I’m sorry if we did. This is Minji-unnie, my stupid girlfriend who walked over here in her pyjamas. Minji-unnie, this is Yoobin, my housemate I was telling you about,” Yoohyeon’s tone is cheery as she walks into the living room with a steaming cup, “Well, you’re clearly not dying, just don’t do that again. Also you’re staying tonight and we need a place to sleep, so I have to go clear my bed of all the maps and stuff I have on it.”

Minji can picture it now, Yoohyeon innocently wanting to program a unique game, and her oh so helpful roommate offers stories and mythos that resemble nothing in popular culture today, because it’s been all but completely lost to history. The game gains traction – Minji helps it gain traction, and suddenly, enough people are muttering her name and talking about her story and damn it she can feel the energy welling up in her, she’s going to have to find a harmless release for that before she does something dangerous.

“You and Yoohyeon made a game that is restoring our godly powers,” Minji says flatly. And nope, saying it aloud didn’t make it sound any less absurd. Idly she wonders, “Does that make her my head priestess?”

Yoobin shrugs, her head to the side and mimes being in deep thought, “Why not? She’s ticked all the boxes of your old head priestesses. She’s young, studious, spreading the word of you, and you’re ing her, so – ow! You set my arm on fire!”

Story inspired by this writing prompt: 

[WP] You were a god with millions of believers. After millennia you're reduce to an immortal being. You find video games based on your mythology; the latest an mmo rpg. You find your name available, and after some time people start referring to you as that name. You feel your godly powers returning

I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this and make it multi-chapter, or just keep it as a one-shot, I suppose I'll let inspiration decide. Feel free to throw ideas at met, I'm always happy to chat xD Also, it's my first time writing Dreamcatcher, so I'm not really sure if i have their voices or not, do offer some constructive critcism if you can spare the time and effort -- thank you for reading.