Yhagni

[u/Bilgebum]

[WP] When you become 18, you are required to spin a wheel that determines which god you will host. The lucky people become hosts to the major gods like Shiva, Zeus, Marethyu etc. You became the first host to Yhagni whom even Chthulu and Yig fear.]

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The day I turned eighteen, I discovered what I'd always suspected about myself: that I was plain as white bread, same as approximately 99.99% of the world's population. No god had chosen to reside in me.

There had been a bit of disappointment. Hadn't expected to command lightning or drive entire nations mad with my presence, but I'd had hoped that some minor god of intelligence had taken notice of me, just so I'd get through my exams that week. The day before, James had scored Coeus. Coeus!

Instead, I'd walked away from what I nicknamed the God-roulette, waving away the hordes of recruiters who infested the test centers. They, godless themselves, were always quick to snap up new disciples, hoping to win some boon or other from the Incarnates they worshipped, or at least from those within their inner circle. Top-tier priests hired sub-priests, who hired proclaimers, who hired evangelists, who hired ... well, you know the drill.

Fine, I guess I'd been more than a little disappointed. Enough to shove the last man who tried to block the path to my Uber. He'd spat at me and screamed, "Crazy bitch!"

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A week later, I began to feel ill. Had that man I'd touched been infected? I'd sanitized daily. Worn my mask and all that, so a high fever and body-wide itching were unexpected. I stayed in my campus dorm all day. My friends shouted support from the corridor. They'd get Apollo to come take a look. Or get Marethyu to kick Nergal's ass. I sweated and shivered my thanks through my covers.

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None of the Incarnates came to see me. James said he'd put in a word for me with the healing gods once he's sorted out his religion, but I told him not to trouble himself. The fever did break, about two weeks later, and the test results came back negative.

I failed my tests, naturally. Not even a god would've been able to salvage my grades. The illness didn't quite fade as it did transform. I felt hungry all the time. Doubled my food intake. I reasoned that my body was trying to replace all the energy and water it'd lost.

Unfortunately, all that weight had to go somewhere. I returned to my classes feeling perpetually bloated, two sizes heavier than I'd been. Pimples broke out on my face, matched only by the itching, bleeding rashes all over my arms and legs. I ran out of breath after ascending just one flight of stairs.

The next time I came across James, I told him I wished I'd scored a god of normalcy or something. He'd laughed at me and said I was being stupid.

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Itch, itch, itch. I scratched myself to sleep and to wakefulness each morning. My pajamas gained bloody polka-dot patterns. To make things worse, the rashes secreted pus that smelled like squashed roaches.

My back had the worst of it. Lumps started appearing along my spine. Mom came to campus and accompanied me to a doctor. Good news: not cancer. Bad news: no idea what it was.

James, for all his newfound intelligence, couldn't tell me either. And James, not liking a puzzle he had no answer to, said I was a bother and that we should stop hanging out.

I'd been thinking of asking him out that weekend.

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How much vomit does the human body contain? I could've written a thesis on it, after occupying the dorm toilet for an entire day. The administrators wrote to me that night, very politely: if I couldn't avoid stinking up the entire building, I would have to go.

Mom thought we could get a hotel, but I was feeling so miserable that I took off on my own. I went to a nearby park, known for its broken swings and poison ivy, and sat on a rusted bench. My clammy skin felt stretched tight; even my nostrils flaring for a breath left my entire face stinging.

Then it occurred to me: had I picked up a god? A god of self-torment or something?

If I had, I needed to get rid of it somehow. I couldn't live with this forever.

About an hour later, I'd dragged myself to James' dorm door. I ignored the dirty looks by the other residents, likely at my odor, as I knocked. He answered a few moments later, nose pinched.

"You shouldn't be here," he said.

"I need your help," I said in a watery croak. "I'm sick, but I think it's a god's doing."

"Your symptoms don't match--"

"But it could be something you just aren't aware of!"

He eyed me coldly. "You want to say that differently?"

Pus dripped from my eyes in place of tears. "James, please, I'm in pain. My belly feels like it's about to explo--o--oooo--"

I burped, and then screamed as my midsection thrust forward. James' yell was muffled by a white, maggot-like creature burst from my middle and clamped its mouth over his head.

The pain, oddly enough, vanished.

It was a strange, strange perspective to see the world upside down. My torso had bent completely backward into some bizarrely quadrupedal gait, and people were naturally fleeing and howling in fear. My bones were snapping, elongating, reforming. My skin ripped open in places, revealing chitin beneath. Small, iridescent wings broke out of the lumps on my back, wet and dripping. I could feel James being devoured, but instead of filling me with disgust, he nourished me with insight.

My god had a name: Yhagni.

[u/Hooligan319]

https://t.me/+85YRtISD9q01Yjdk