"Why me" Leon asked himself. "Why is my life so shit". To the uninitiated, it looked like he had everything. A rich and influential dad, his own apartment, friends and family. But they didn't know. No one knew. His friends never called him, never invited him to anything, never thought about him. Except when they needed something, then he suddenly was good enough. His apartment? A pigsty with old plates of food and rotting takeout leftovers lying everywhere. It stank, like oil, like burnt spices, like old dried and rotting meat. And he stank to. With his oily skin, his long dark brown unwashed hair and his chewed down nails he fit right in. The one thing out of place were his eyes. On someone else they could have been beautiful. On him they were creepy, piercing, tired. A mix of green and gray. In the background Indiana Jones was playing on the Television while Leon himself was trying to find the next novel on his tablet. The next fantasy to drug his mind away from reality while the tv took care of his other senses.
"Why can't I get my life together?". What went wrong? Was it his father's emotional abuse? How he and his sister got abandoned in the Forst for hours once? How he pitted them against each other, only showing any affection to the one who got the best grade? Was it his Mom who wasn't able to deal with it. Who went back into a state of mind even more childlike than her children? He had tried, oh how he had tried.
" Please god, make me something, anything. I can't do it myself. PLEASE!!!". When Leon was younger he thought he could make it. It started by him taking his obese self to the gym. "People who look good have it good" he told himself. "Everybody will flock to me". That's what the buff dudes online suggested. So he trained, and trained, and trained. Training took over his life. And once he started to look good? Nothing changed. Still a nobody. Still spending every waking hour he was not training on the internet. So he let it go, and continued living on his father's allowance. "PLEASE" he shouted. "MAKE ME SOMEONE. I would be remarkable, I would be remembered, I would make myself great" Leon didn't remember when he became religious, and even less did he remember when he lost his faith.
"Is that so?" Leon froze.
"Couldn't make something out of yourself hmm. Need someone to give you a little help hmm"
"Are you God" Leon asked, but in his heart he knew the answer already. He felt it under his skin. He sensed it in his soul.
" I could be. Should be. To you… might as well be". It felt wrong.
"What are you offering me?". Leon knew he shouldn't ask. He knew he was in over his head. That he should start praying, praying to get out alive, to banish… it.
"You want to be someone, I can make you someone. And once you are someone, you make me someone". It stated.
"What else would something like you try to be", he said with weak distain and fear. "What goal could you have that I could help you with… Serpent". He didn't see it, it was still just a voice, but he knew, knew deep in his soul, it was smiling.
"I can perform miracles" it said. The TV flickered. Indiana had just dropped into the snake pit, and one of the snakes looked into the camera. It spoke "I am mighty, I am great, do I not deserve worship for it? Do I not deserve to be God? I have everything that should make me, but you humans, you believe",it paused, "believe in something without proof. In me you wouldn't need faith, you would know"
A chilling realisation came over Leon. "You need an apostle. A prophet"
"Smarter than you look" the serpent hissed. "But not here. Not in this world. Your humans nonesensical believes have already spread to far. I will bring you to another world, a world where some humans wield power's, not unlike the superheroes of your stories. And you will be one of them. So Leon", a red apple formed on the TV screen,
" be my hand", the snakes tail wrapped around the apple,
"be my mouth" the tail moved toward the screen until it touched it. Then it pushed. The screen warped, it dented and finally, it broke.
"won't you be my will?"
Leon looked at the apple hanging by the serpent's tail. As it dangled in front of him, it seemed almost fleeting, like a chance waiting to be missed. Like all chances Leon had missed. Like the time he wasn't brave enough to pursue the love of his life. "I have time" he told himself ."She won't go anywhere ". She moved overseas.
Like when the Russia-Ukrain war started. He had thought about his fathers occupation, how he got rich with stocks."With a war in Europe, Europe is going to want to arm itself". He pondered" Maybe I should invest, something like Reihnmetal. They ought to strike gold in these times". He never did tho. The risk of losing his money held him back. His laziness to only click some buttons did to. Most of all tho, did his morality. What kind of human would he be if he invested in an arms company, into the military industrial Komplex? Compared to the start of the War the stock went up 2000%.
"Leon…" the serpent hissed, " your not the only desperate human out here". There was a dangerous glint in it's vertical, sickly yellow eyes. "You know in this city alone there are thousands like you, desperate for a chance, for a change". It's tail dangled the apple closer.
"Won't you take my gift!"
leon feelt it. It was time. His time. Finally he could make something of himself. And as a thought wormed its way through his thoughts like a gentle ray of light through thick and fluid darkness, like a wise old man wading through deep and sticky mud, as it gently said "Don't…"
he had already bitten down.