"I will be gold."
A young girl stood atop the jagged needlepoint of a dilapidated high-rise, her silhouette etched against a bruised dusk sky. The wind tore at her bright blue pigtails, whipping them around her like twin banners of defiance. Her tattered pink dress fluttered violently, the fabric snapping against itself in warning-like bursts. Below, a crowd gathered — a patchwork of panic and irritation, shouting into the evening air.
Melissa ignored them all.
Clutching the hem of her dress, chin high, shoulders squared, she declared with eerie certainty:
"I am Melissa Guildford — future master of humanity and the next God."
Her eyes closed. Calm, almost meditative, she breathed in the city's decay: the coppery tang of rust, the acrid bite of rotting waste, the subtle metallic hum in the air from failing infrastructure. "Death does not oppose me," she whispered, letting her words echo through the distance. "I have conquered it. There shall be no resistance to my utter control."
The crowd fell silent. Not out of reverence, but discomfort. The word God carried weight, fear, taboo. Their curiosity drained, they began to disperse, muttering complaints about madness, blasphemy, the audacity of a child claiming divinity.
Melissa's grin spread across her face, not joy, but revelation.
Her foot lifted. Wind clawed at her limbs, tugging at hair and dress. The city below blurred into a mess of grime, rust, and twisted metal. She leapt.
A crackle of electricity snapped in the air.
Before she could meet the pavement, a figure clad in gleaming white armor caught her. A Saint of Floria. Effortless, immovable, gleaming, the kind of being that made mortals wonder if heaven had dropped someone to remind them of their own insignificance.
He held her like a kitten for a moment, then dropped her unceremoniously. Dirt puffed in tiny clouds around her, sticking to hair and clothes.
"You got really arrogant up there," the Saint said, voice amused. "Letting you die might've been a good lesson."
He leaned closer, and the dark undertone of his voice made her flinch. "But that'd be bad for my image."
A card flicked into her hand. Thin, white, edged in gold:
Miles Phillips – Third Saint of Floria.
Then he walked away, cape billowing, armor catching the last light of day, halo-like but false. Melissa did not call after him. Did not curse him. Did not shout. Her smile vanished.
Her fingers clenched the card until paper ripped the skin. Blood welled, warm and metallic. "You should've listened," she whispered, voice soft, deadly, meant only for herself.
She walked through the slums of Floria, the city beneath the towers and temples. Alleys reeked of ammonia and rot, water black with oil trickling along cracked concrete. Rusted pipes groaned with each gust of wind, some spewing smoke or steam, others silent and broken. Feral children gnawed at bones picked clean, dogs growled and lunged for scraps, neighbors pretended not to see her, eyes fixed on the ground or far-off horizons.
The Saints did nothing.
They chased myths and ghosts while the cold-blooded Imp slashed through the Trials like a living executioner, unseen, unchallenged. Melissa scoffed. They should have noticed her. They should have felt her presence, the coming storm of a God walking among the weak.
She passed broken marketplaces and shuttered shops, their glass windows spiderwebbed, merchandise stolen or rotted. Birds circled overhead, black shapes against the bruised sky. Every step she took carried the weight of prophecy, though none but she seemed to notice.
At last, she reached her home — impossible in both scale and geometry. Marble walls gleamed even in twilight, towers that shouldn't exist twisted toward the sky, stairways that seemed to fold upon themselves. A palace forged not by wealth, but by sheer will. She slammed the door behind her; the echo ricocheted through empty halls, stirring dust motes into fleeting golden storms.
Inside, she retreated to the heart of the mansion, breathing steadying. Her shadow stretched long against the walls, tall and sharp, mimicking the figure of a child and something far older. She approached a mirror.
Her reflection twisted and shifted.
The girl remained, small, vibrant, blue-haired. But something else emerged: ancient, terrifying, timeless. Eyes that had seen civilizations rise and crumble blinked back at her. A presence older than the city, older than bloodlines, older than gods.
"They should have paid more attention to a God," she murmured. The words were heavy, laden with centuries of judgment, yet soft as a whisper. The mansion's impossible geometry seemed to pulse with that sentiment, walls bending slightly as though leaning in, listening.
Melissa's fingers traced the edge of the mirror, nails scraping the frame. The sound was faint but filled the silent house like a scream. She closed her eyes, drawing in the cold, heavy air of the halls. Every breath reminded her of mortality around her, of weakness, of the foolish Saints who had already failed to notice her.
She remembered the card in her palm. Miles Phillips. She crushed it momentarily, blood blending with paper. Her mind's eye saw the Third Saint already gone, already arrogant, already blind. A lesson would be delivered — not by fate, not by chance, but by her.
She moved through her home, past rooms that defied logic: a library that folded space, shelves that stretched impossibly high, books older than the city itself. Each step carried authority, the inevitability of divinity in motion. The air smelled faintly of ozone and incense, a contradiction only she could reconcile.
Finally, she stopped before another mirror, smaller, personal, closer. She stared. The child and the god, intertwined, separate, impossible to untangle.
"They should have paid more attention," she whispered again, this time louder, voice echoing through the marble corridors, bouncing off angles that should not exist. "They will see me."
And somewhere, far off in the city, the wind carried the faintest laugh.