I went out looking for fanfic based on the Black and White computer 
game.  What I found was, needless to say, disappointing.  A collection 
of journals of other people's games for the most part.  I think there's 
more potential for exploration than that.

Sharks


"Would have been better if they'd just let the sharks eat you," the old
man grumbles as he glares at me.

I'm stunned.  The whole town has been showering me with attention.
The god had descended from the sky to save _me_ after all.
Prophet calls me "the instrument of destiny".  Since before I was
born the village had been building a temple to his promised god under
his supervision, but I heard my folks talking about how a lot of people
were grumbling about it.  Now everyone's just glad that when the god
finally came, he didn't start punishing them for not having it finished.
    He even helped us build it.  It was amazing to see those cut stone
blocks float through the air.

Everyone wanted to hear what it felt like to be lifted safely out of the
water by the god's invisible hand, to touch me like the
god's...goddiness rubbed off on me.  The matris all offer me food.
Matri Kelan actually asked me to bless her baby!  It's funny, I went
swimming because I was mad everyone was ignoring me.  Now nobody'll
leave me alone.  It was fun at first, but now it's starting to suck.
Lucky the god saved someone else. Parner's fever got worse and he went
out of his head and wandered off in the night.  When the god brought him
back, everyone went to see and finally left me alone for a bit.

Then old granther Abd comes along to tell me it would better if I was
dead.  "What'd I do?" I squawk indignantly.

He points at the temple and snarls, "You and your idiot parents brought
THAT down on us.  It's easy for the desperate to ask for help without
reckoning the price, but it isn't just you three who'll be paying it.
We were almost ready to stop listening to that fool of prophet and his
promised wonders, but now it's here and there'll be no getting rid of it."

"W-why would you want to?  The skygod's helping us!"

He gives a wet cough.  "Oh aye, they start out helpful enough.  They
want us to grow, stay healthy and prosper for the same reason any
herdsman wants a big healthy herd.  But sooner or later, he'll start
eating them.  That's what a big healthy herd is for."

"He can't eat!  He doesn't have a mouth."  This crazy man's making me
feel dizzy.

"He doesn't have hands either, but he still carrried you to shore,
You'll be seeing a set of teeth soon enough, though.  All the gods make
a special pet.  I saw one of them with my own eyes, a twisted black ram
with blood-red eyes that walked on two legs and ate men.  Nearly ate me.
  As soon as the gods get a little power together they take some poor
creature and twist it into a giant half-man half-beast monster with an
appetite for human flesh.  Every fighting man in the village put
together is no match for one of 'em once it's full grown.  That's why
they make them.

But that's not the worst of it.  Trading with other islands, I've seen
foreign matris and paters lay their own children on altars so the god
can suck the life out of them.  It'll happen by the time you're a man.
Mark my words."

I'm stumped.  I want to argue but I can't think of the right words.  I
just have a bone-deep feeling that what he's telling me is real, but not
true.  I just glare sullenly at him, wanting him to shut-up and go away.

He says, "Don't believe me?  Well, let me give you my own little
prophecy.  Quite soon now those helpful little tricks our new god has
been doing will stop for a while because it's busy with something else.
  When it comes back, it'll bring a monster with it.  The monster'll be
twice the size of any man, but it will grow to ten times that height
before it's done.  Still it'll be more than tall enough to impress
anyone who's never been seen another village."

He pauses for another couple of coughs.  I try to edge away but he grabs 
onto my shoulder.  For a sick old man, he's really strong.  "The 
villagers will be a bit scared, but the god will have more power now and 
suddenly the crops and the herds start doing better, and the monster'll 
scare off those bastards from over the mountain who've been stealing our 
beasts.  Most everyone will be happy.  Happy enough that when the first 
of us goes into that monster's belly, the rest will just  say he should 
have been more careful, or more respectful.  Watch for it, boy.  That's 
when you'll know the truth."  His breath smells terrible, like rotting 
meat as he bends over me.

I can't keep silent any longer.  I shout, "What do you want from me?"

He looks at me and he seems to quiet down as he says, "You know about 
that boat the Diri brothers are building?  The one so big that they had 
to build it over at the side of the island because the water in the bay 
here is too shallow to launch it?  If they're quick they could be done 
and launched before the god's power stretches that far.  When it leaves, 
if you're smart enough to realise what's happening, you'll be on it with 
the others who are leaving to find a land free of gods.  You didn't know 
what you were doing when you swam out into those sharks.  You deserve a 
chance for freedom, if you're smart enough to take it."

He sits down on a stump heavily as he lets go of me.  He's gasping for 
breath and shaking and doesn't seem nearly so scary, now.  I ask him, 
"You...uh...want me to get the healer?".

He shakes his head and says "Nothing to be done about it.  I just need 
to sit for a spell."  He looks at me eye to eye.  "You run along now, 
boy.  But remember what I told you."

I go to find my pater and matri.  I want to ask them about what he said, 
but when I get there, the god's eye is there shining with the yellow 
light that they can't see but I can't.  He's watching us.  Listening. 
Now that makes me a lot more nervous.









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