There's a flash of light. It surrounds everything. I shut my eyes until it all clears. What's going on?! When everything clears, I'm standing in a garden with about twenty other people.

Am I dreaming? I must be dreaming. Where am I?

Suddenly another flash of white appears above the garden and a man with a white beard floats down from it. He stands on a small podium.

"Hello new gods!" he says, "As most of you know, each one of you is immortal. One of you was born every century. I'm the last god that was still in charge for the last several centuries. All of the others have retired and now it's my turn to do the same. Now that all of you are here, you get to be the gods until there are enough new people to take over. Heaven and Hell are still going to operate, but one of you should probably take over the whole dead people thing pretty quick. The world you lived in is gone now, so you get a chance to start fresh and make a new one all your own. If any of you need me, you can just stand on the podium and tell it to send you to godly retirement. Good luck new gods! I know you'll do great! Now on to godly retirement!"

In a second he vanishes, leaving all of us standing in the garden in complete confusion. Wait, am I immortal? I didn't know that. This has got to be a weird dream. But, no. My dreams are never this vivid. But it has to be! This can't possibly be real! Can it?

"Hey Everybody!" someone yells.

I look back up at the podium and see a man who looks like he's in his fifties. He's fairly tall, but a bit fat. He has black hair and deep brown eyes with a slightly tanned complexion.

"My name is Damien, I'm originally from the 8th century, so as you can imagine, I've known for a while that I was immortal and that other people, well, they just aren't. I never knew the reason for it, but if we're supposed to be gods now we should probably get to work making a new world. At the very least we should pick a leader if we want to get anything done. I would like to fill that role for you people, if you will have me."

There are quiet murmurs of agreement. Someone else clears their throat from somewhere in the middle of the crowd.

"My name is Aaron. I was born in the 1700s. I would not presume to be a better leader, but I would like to offer my services as a second in command."

"That would be fantastic Aaron. Hopefully we can create a new world that was even better than the one we lost."

The one we lost. My family! My friends! Everything! It's all gone! It's gone forever! I can't believe this! I wonder if there's a way to bring them back. If I'm a god now, maybe I can make that happen. I hope I can. Would they even want to see me after everything. I guess I could make it so they don't remember what happened. That would be great. I could always do that when they were upset. No, no, that wouldn't be right. They would just have to forget the last thing that happened.

"Okay," Aaron says, "Damien and I are going to try to make a new earth and a new universe. We're going to see if we can speed up time to get to the fun part with all of the people in it. Talk amongst yourselves."

Right, I guess I should wait until they've got a new world set up. Then maybe I'll understand how this works a little better. Then I could really make it work. Maybe for now I'll just look around the garden.

I start walking away from the crowd of people. This can't possibly be real. The garden is full of beautiful flowers in all colors, shapes, and sizes. The grass is the most perfect shade of green you could ever see. There's a perfect blue sky above it, with just a few white puffy clouds. The air is sweet and clean. This place has never had any pollution in it.

I wonder how long this place goes on for. Maybe I could just keep on walking forever. I could just walk along through a beautiful garden for all eternity. That might not be so bad. If I'm a god now I might be able to just have things appear when I need them. I wonder if I'll see any angels out here. Or are angels just in heaven. I wish I'd gone to church as a kid. Maybe I'd know then.

Suddenly a black dog with gray and white spots comes running out of a bush.

"Michelle is that you?!" I say, kneeling down to pet it.

It is him. She happily licks my face and wags her tail. I hug her tightly. It's been so long since I last saw her. She looks just like she did before. I can make this better. If I brought her back, that means I can bring back everything. I should go back to the others and show them what I did. They would probably love this.

I walk back to the others to find Aaron and Damien are busy writing on slips of paper and talking to different people in the crowd.

I walk up to a woman who looks like she's in her sixties. She has pale skin and blue eyes, along with gray hair in a long braid. She's just a bit shorter than me and is standing slightly away from the crowd. Looks like she didn't really want to be involved.

"Hey," I say, "I stepped away for a minute, what's going on."

"They're assigning roles for each person right now. Damien figured out how to make a world and now he wants everyone to decide what they want to be the god of at least for now. They haven't made any people for it yet."

"Oh, what do you think you want to be in charge of?"

"I don't know exactly what I want. I don't especially want to be a god. My husband and I might be gods of family or something like that, but I wouldn't want anything more than that. Where did your dog come from?"

"I went out walking and I was thinking about my life before this started. I was thinking about how to bring back my family and everything and my dog just kind of showed up and came running to be."

"Wow, maybe you should be a god of animals."

"Do you think that's taken already?"

"Maybe, you should go ask Damien."

"Okay, My name's Ava by the way."

"Matilda, my dear. Good luck with the animals."

"Thanks. I hope you become the goddess of family if you decide you want it."

"Damien!" I say.

"Oh, hello there," he says, "What's your name?"

"Ava."

"Nice to meet you Ava, I see you found a dog. Where did she come from?"

"Well, I think I made her, I was out walking in the garden for a minute and she just kind of showed up and came running to me. I used to own her back on earth. Her name's Michelle. She used to always bark at the most random times."

"Incredible, so that means we can make anything in here. Good to know. Anyway's what did you need from me? Have you decided what you want to be the goddess of?"

"Um, yes. I think I would like to be a goddess of animals. Has anyone taken that yet."

"Aaron! Do we have any animal gods yet?"

"No, not yet," Aaron says.

"Great," says Damien, "You can be that if you want to. Have fun with it."

"I will, thank you," I say.