Why would he risk playing her game? He wasn't sure.
He had spent the last decades lying down, and he knew it wasn't time to step up, but, surprisingly, his body refused to listen to reason.
Because he was shorter and smaller, the distance between him and the window seemed to widen, and he asked again, dazed.
"What is it?"
His voice was that of a young, naive child.
And her's tender and silky.
Two voices who would normally belong to people who wouldn't be able to cause any harm, even to a fly.
"... You..."
His mother didn't respond right away; the doubtful expression on her face made it as if she had just noticed something.
"Have you been here for so long that you've forgotten what the Voice of God is like?"
The Voice of God.
How long has it been?
When he was still able to roam freely in the world, long before he was confined to the tower, he had used it too, being a god himself.
'But it didn't look like this.'
The Voice of God he remembered was different, bloodier, richer, and dangerous. Some even had to offer sacrifices to hear it, and others paid with their sanity after God's words were conveyed.
There was none of that.
No murmurs of death, killed for him.
No traces of stains, blood offered to him.
No smoke of incense, which accompanied most rituals.
Just a harmless blue square.
What he had in front of him was completely different. There was no feeling of dissonance or, in his case, the turmoil that manifested in the world whenever he used it.
While the latter might be because of his current weakened state, the former couldn't be hidden. And sure enough, as soon as the window was within his reach, he felt the vibrations in the air around it.
Like that of a beast being held back.
In the space where it flew through the air like a vacuum, he felt his own sweat being pulled in.
Only something like the Voice of God could be this greedy, to be so daringly stealing a god's power.
But that wasn't the problem.
"... You want me to see it?"
Whatever would've prompted her to put such power near him, even if he wasn't as strong as he once had been?
His mother's voice purred, "Of course, even a prisoner deserves a carrot once in a while."
A carrot, she said.
What exactly would he earn from watching another God's power manifesting on the lower floors?
He would still be confined to this palace, unable to do the same.
The Voice he couldn't manifest.
It was the same as flaunting new shoes in front of a crippled man.
Her eyes curved like two crescent moons.
"Of course, my child."
'So it is merely amusement.'
Deciding that it was only his mother's desire to see him envy something he couldn't have, he set his eyes on it.
The child breathed in.
On the screen, a frail man fought for his life.
His movements were staggering, almost as if famished. His limbs trembled with little to no energy, and the kick he managed to compose had no real strength behind it.
A truly pitiful sight.
Even the back of his head, blood on his lips, and the cuts on his arms made it look disgraceful.
A caged animal's meaningless attempt to break free.
He saw himself in him.
And immediately knew what his mother wanted him to see.
'This is you,' is what she wanted to convey.
He felt disgusted at the realization, but didn't allow his expression to show it.
His blood boiled with anger, but he dared not show it.
Not yet.
Instead, he watched silently.
The back of his head was burning under his mother's gaze, examining his very expression.
He faked boredom.
So what if that human is fighting? He is going to die anyway.
On the screen, he saw the man give up. Probably having lost consciousness after the other man's attack.
Or so he thought.
The man ever so lightly turned his face in the direction of the wall, where what seemed to be a surveillance device stood firmly.
Once again, he thought of himself.
An act of survival.
He suddenly felt interested.
'... Would someone come save him?'
The man surely seemed to think so, making him doubt what he thought would happen normally.
Maybe saviours do exist to some.
But they were both betrayed by their expectations.
Of course, if it were that simple, then he would've been rescued decades ago.
But life didn't allow hope for either gods or men.
The device completely changed its course, purposefully avoiding the scene.
"...hah."
The chuckle left his lips without his consent, too immersed in the feelings of betrayal on behalf of a lesser being.
"You're enjoying yourself?"
The child looked up, his mother's gaze still as unforgiving as it had been moments before when he was punished for simply resting in his abode.
Because every breath he took was sinful.
And every moment he was alive made her go mad with rage.
Under her unmoving eyes, he shrank even more.
"... Nwo," the child responded.
He covered his mouth with his hands, as if to not let another sound ever leave his mouth.
The gown he wore, now way too big for a child his size, fully covered his hands and hung around the floor, gathered like a blanket underneath his feet.
"Good."
She used her hand to firmly hold his head and make him watch the screen.
And he kept looking, because she wanted him to.
'Not yet.' He reminded himself.
The knot on his throat tightened.
And he heard a murmur of a prayer.
"Please... Someone..."
That human.
He felt it was a pity, but there was nothing he could do.
He wasn't sure he could even do anything.
"...!"
And then he saw the man's face clearly for the first time.
Because that human looked directly at him.
The purple eyes, maybe for some coincidence of the universe, met his own mirror sockets.
He knew it was impossible for the human to know he was looking at him.
And yet.
His pupils directly met his eyes.
As if he recognized him.
-Rattle.
"What are you...?"
The child didn't know why, but he spoke.
"Not yet," he said.
He couldn't die yet.
It wasn't the voice of a child, even though the face delivering such words was.
No, it was the voice of someone older.
Someone more perilous.
'Whatever it was that made you keep fighting. Whatever hope made you pray to Gods you didn't even know of.'
He had looked at him.
And he saw the shade of purple his mother was trying to replicate in vain.
Because it wasn't the saturation that made them so vividly, fiercely, and daring, even on the brink of death.
Those were the eyes of a prisoner who dreamed of freedom.
Something his mother would never even begin to understand, but he surely did.
Those were his own eyes.
"You dare!!!"
Her mother's power manifested in a second, along with her roar.
The bracelets on each of his wrists shone with a golden light and tightened with tremendous strength.
Suddenly, they weren't bracelets anymore.
The chains dug into his skin and made his black blood spill.
They enveloped him like vipers, prompting him to hit the marble floor, with his gown now covered in black stains.
The pain was immeasurable.
The chains not only restrained his physical body, but he could feel his divinity depleted. What was left of it, what he could save up after years of silence and Soledad between the same four walls.
And before the chains could devour it completely, he poured it all out.
Directly to that man.
-Rattle.
"Fight," he said.
The smell of burnt flesh filled the throne room.
-Rattle.Rattle.
"Survive."
Hundreds, no, thousands of red markings covered his skin, darkening with each passing moment.
"Live no matter what."
The golden light was nowhere to be found; instead, both the man and the woman were covered in shadows.
But he could still see her pale purple eyes in the dark, brimming furiously.
The System window retracted, and he could no longer distinguish it. But he didn't need to.
He felt it absorb everything he had given it.
And realized two very important things as his eyes were ripped off once again.
First, he could still use the Voice of God.
Meaning, he was still powerful enough to be considered a god. Unfortunately, his mother also knew of this.
Fury washed over her, who had just been defied by the carcass of a man she had thought to be weak, and he unleashed her power to slash his skin open, burn his arms, sever his throat, and more.
She would make sure to weaken him for at least another thousand years.
But there was one thing she didn't know.
Something only he could have noticed because he knew her too well.
That man was a clue.
The opportunity he had been looking for.
The child, now a baby who could barely sit straight, endured all of his mother's punishment.
He waited, and waited, and waited.
Gods were nothing inside the tower. They also had rules to follow.
For every slash the woman caused, causality spilled all around her, making her weaken, not enough to fully stop her, but just the right amount for him to inquire further into that clue.
And when he saw an opening, maybe because she was exhausted and remembered she still had many enemies and couldn't afford to become too weak, he spoke.
The child had no eyes, but his vacant gaze still looked straight ahead and met her eyes.
And the voice that left his lips was not that of a human who just learned how to talk.
It was vicious, old, and calm.
"Aphrodite."
It said.
The woman froze, stunned, and her furious gaze was changed to one of anxiousness and horror when looking at the infant questioning her, unharmed.
"Who was that?"