Prologue
The Third War was nothing like we imagined. It didn't involve weapons of mass destruction.
It wasn't even started by humans. And that was why we never saw it coming.
We prayed without realizing it wasn't just God who was listening.
By the time we knew better, it was too late.
We are now ruled by gods, and the world was never the same again.
Excerpt taken from Dear God: A Post-3rd Diary
SUMMER HAD TURNED AGATHA'S office into a boiling-hot oven, and although all of the windows were flung wide open, the only thing that blew in was a cacophony of noise from the streets below: an angry exchange between a landlord and a shop owner, drivers impatiently honking their horns in the midst of heavy traffic, and the mind-numbing drilling sound from a construction site in the next block.
Such disharmonic racket would've been more than enough to ruin anyone's mood, but so great was Agatha's relief at that moment all of it only sounded like music to her ears. She was just so terribly glad, so, so glad that she couldn't even make herself care that her decade-old ceiling fan had made its last dying spin, and its untimely death had now left her cooking in her own fats.
Agatha had been with Social Services since her first year out of college, and her first case at that time had been a three-year-old girl named Halyna, whose parents' death had been ruled as fated. It was a Post-3rd addition, and deaths in this category were considered thoroughly avoidable and automatically ineligible for any post-mortem investigation. Fated deaths involved humans voluntarily interacting with the divine...and dying as a consequence.
Children made orphan because of fated deaths were often seen as carriers of misfortune and left unadopted. In Halyna's case, however, the child had been so tremendously lucky, with Agatha successfully finding her a match for adoption in a matter of months.
She had hoped it was the last she would see of Halyna. In her line of work, not seeing a former case subject was always a good thing, and as the years went by, Agatha had eventually forgotten about little Halyna...until the call.
The memory had Agatha reaching for her mouse, and she worked the scroll button to move the screen back to the top. She wanted to re-read the email one last time, just to be sure she wasn't imagining anything.
A concerned party who wishes to remain anonymous has written to us...
Our legal representation has thoroughly reviewed Ms. Mariposa's case and has come to the conclusion that she is by no means a danger to society in any way...
If this meets your approval, and in the condition that her parents also consent to her transfer, we at Rosethorne School would be delighted to welcome her as a student in the next academic year...
She read it again and again, but she just could not find any loophole, and Agatha finally closed her eyes and allowed herself to lean back against the soft leathery padding of her chair.
The day she got the call, she had been about to leave her office, and she could still remember how her heart dropped to her stomach as she listened to the voice at the other end of the line, telling her it was the police calling about a person she had previously worked with.
18-year-old Halyna Mariposa, found unconscious in the old music room of her school, along with thirteen dead bodies. Of varying ages and genders, and all of them naked and heavily mutilated.
The forensics team had done their best to find any clue that would identify their killer, but the amount of blood extracted from the crime scene was excessive to the point that it had become more a hindrance than a clue to exactly what had happened in the eighty-plus minutes Halyna was unable to account for.
Although no charges had been made due to lack of witnesses, motive, and evidence, it hadn't made any difference to public opinion. Even when the families of the victims themselves believed the girl was innocent, the die had been cast, and the girl subsequently subjected to harassment both online and in real life. She had been labeled a mass murderer, and her old school wasted no time in sending the Mariposas an expulsion letter that explicitly stated there was no chance for the decision to be subject to reversal.
Unlike before, the gods seemed to be conspiring against the dear girl, and for months now, Agatha had been secretly panicking she would be unable to find a school willing to take the child in...until today's email.
Halyna's parents had told Agatha they were willing to go to the ends of the earth if that was what it took for their daughter to have a normal life again, and in a way that was exactly what they'd have to do.