You, an atheist, have died. All the gods that have ever been line up to offer you their version of heaven if only you believe in _them_. Turns out souls are currency and yours is up for grabs.
There are many Gods. They speak, and I am tired. A mass of voices coiling around me, each telling their own tale. They speak over one another, they talk to me, they do not listen. And I am tired.
Currency. Is this what I am to them?
They will not stop speaking. They offer me things. They will take me to my loved ones. They will gift me joy and music. They will have me serve, in their armies, in their choirs. Some tell me stories of how they made me. From clay. From nothing at all. Some tell me they love me, small as I am, that I am their creation and so their child.
Above all, they repeat their stories. They talk incessantly of their power, their battles, of the ways and reasons they are feared. How long will they talk? Time does not happen here. It is so much effort to stay. Effort to maintain. Effort to exist.
So many Gods. Gods whose names I had already heard. Modern Gods whose human disciples still speak their names. Obscure Gods whose stories were written on tablets, on scrolls, thousands of years before, whose only proof and records were discovered underground, in caves, in ancient lands. Every God there ever was. They are all here with me. They have been talking for years. They repeat their stories. Their stories are important to them. They demand, plead for my attention.
I died knowing I was dying. I died as I lived, believing in no Creator, no great demiurge, and no final salvation from death. Knowing that gods were stories we told. I believed only in the universe. That it existed before me and would continue without me.
And it has.
The voices scream their stories. Why are they so desperate for me? Despite their insistence, I know what I knew before. My truth is unchanged. My truth is of the universe, of its physics and particles, of its probable beginnings, of its possible ends. Of the simple fact of existence.
These gods are not my creator. I was created by a long line of life, of unlikely Life happening and colliding and continuing. Eons. Three, four eons, billions of years all lined up behind me, all of my predecessors, their lives and their stories, they are my chapters and I am their sum. I am the story of Life, in all its improbably glory. And gods are as old as humans, but I am as old as Life, and Life is much older.
I think I’ve solved it. I think I know why they seek us. They want what Life wants. To exist. To continue. They need their legends told, at any expense, because:
We wrote them. I said before: gods are stories that we write and tell. We are their Creators. And this is why they scream for me, for my ears, for my attention. Stories exist only so long as they are told. Gods exist only so long as they have a listener. And I know they have nothing to offer me. There are no rooms, there are no gates, there are no hallways, no crowds for me to join. They only keep me here to listen. If I accept an offer, what then? Will they stop speaking, disappointed, and leave me? Will they keep delaying? Will the god of my choice sweep in, desperate, and keep me here as long as I can be convinced?
All of my being is tired. Life is not meant to persist this long after it is through. My presence and existence, temporary from the start, is loosening and loosening. All of my pieces beg to be released. I was not made to last.
I am through. I have given these voices enough.
So I do what life does when it is finished. I dissolve, and return to the world.