Twilight of the Gods (Part 3)

I reel back. 

“I’m sorry, what?”

Bast just stares at me, solemnly. 

“It’s true. Balder’s dead. You’re the first one I came to for this.”

I stand in shock. I didn’t know it would happen this soon. 

People walk around us. Some ask what’s wrong.

I don’t know what to tell them. 

“The end of the world is coming soon?”

“I have cancer.” I say, and I get some condolences.

I probably spend more time in the mortal realm than any other god. 

I actually have a job here. Many, actually. 

Many versions of me, spread through numerous college campuses across the globe.

“Professor Thoth, is everything alright?”

A student asks. 

I give my cancer reply. He looks heartbroken.

“Oh. You’re my favorite teacher. I’m sorry.”

“That’s...that’s alright.”

I tell Bast to try to blend in a little more. 

She stands out among the crowd by a lot, and is not following the dress code. 

Bast has committed to never actually changed out of her outfit, as she prefers not to give in to humanity. She has changed her outfit’s design twice, though. 

Once when it became illegal to show her breasts in most interesting places. 

A second time when a mortal designer gave her a really good idea.

“I have to spread the news to all the other gods, anyway.”

Bast leaves. At least she hadn’t come to me looking like a cat, like she sometimes does.

My next class is in five minutes. 

Ragnarok. 

Odin was the first to find out about it, so we use the Norse name. 

Hecate and I were the second and third to figure it out, when we attempted to fact-check Odin. 

It’s coming.

It’s coming for me. For Bast. For all of us. 

I couldn’t finish the great battle. I never found out what happens to me. 

Odin was more concerned with the Norse Gods, and Hecate with the Greek. 

I saw Ra, Bast and Osiris die and I couldn’t take any more. 

I guess Hecate and Odin are stronger than I am, and I have no chance of surviving this battle.

“I know we said that we would be learning about Mayan Gods today, but I’m going to change up the schedule a bit. I’m going to talk about what each mythology believed would be the end of the world.”

I talk for an hour before I go back to my office. 

I have to grade these papers. 

I don’t. 

Instead, what I do is close my eyes. 

I think of the knowledge that I want to gain.

And I see it.

Myself, on the battlefield, Isis holding my injured body. 

“Let me heal you.” She says.

“I’m not important.” I reply.

“What’s your secret name?” She says.

“Huh?”

“I have a balm that can heal you very quickly if I have your secret name. Made a whole batch for Ra and only used some.” 

I tell her. 

She heals me.

We fight. 

I see a giant club coming right for me. I panic. 

Isis pushes me out of the way, getting hit instead. 

“I’m not losing anyone else.” She says. 

I snap out of my trance. 

I wanted to watch until my death, I thought that I was it. 

It wasn’t. It was Isis’, and I couldn’t bear to watch any more again. 

Seeing all the death in great detail, it was too much.

I grab a paper and try to grade it. 

I’m distracted. The paper probably has many mistakes in it, but I don’t see any.

I set it down and cry for a little bit. 

The futures that Hecate sees are often malleable.

The futures that Odin sees are rarely malleable.

The futures that I see have always come true. Every time.

And now, there’s only a short time left. 

Someone walks in.

“Professor Thoth? Your head is a bird or something.”

I wipe the student’s memory and change my head to its human state.

“Professor Thoth? I had a few questions about the paper due next Wednesday.”

“Yes, what is it, Kaley?”

“Well, you said it had to be about a mythological figure. What exactly constitutes mythology?”

“I’d define it as any religion that has not been widely believed in for 500 years or so.”

“Okay. Thank you. I heard you had cancer. My condolences.”

“Thank you.”

She begins to walk away, before I call out to her.

“Kaley?”

“Yes?”

I don’t know what I want to say. I love all of my students so much. Their deaths will possibly be even more tragic than most gods’.

“Be safe.”

“Okay. Bye, Professor.”

I straighten the name tag on my desk. 

“Phillip Thoth.”

That’s what it says.

I close my eyes again. I want to see how Kaley will die. 

I look into the future and see her, at about age fifty, swallowed up by Surtur’s fire.

Age fifty? That means we only have thirty years left.

That’s much less than I thought.