The God Complex
Science-Fiction / 3400 words
PREFACE: No, this isn’t about God. But it is about the nature of godhood. Sort of. A topic I also covered in my novel “Everlife,” by the way. And there might be some symbolism tossed in there... Somewhere... Maybe... You tell me ;)
The engineer’s screams echoed through the ship’s halls as his body was torn to pieces by an invisible force.
“Look what you made me do!” shouted the stranger.
The three surviving crewmembers watched in horror as what was left of their friend slumped to the floor.
“You didn’t have to do that!” roared the captain.
The madman turned his narrowed red eyes to him. Pointed an accusing finger.
“I warned you, didn’t I? But no, you had to resist. This is on you, Hines.”
While the two talked, Renard was still trying to process everything that had just happened. He would never have thought rescuing a drifting pod would have such dire consequences. Had they only known what evil they were about to unleash...
The man had not seemed unhinged—at first. He looked so feeble, as if the pod’s systems could no longer sustain him. Flick had studied the alien machinery. Said it’d been dead for years. How its occupant had survived regardless was a mystery.
It had been the first clue, one they had all decided to ignore.
And now Flick was dead. Just like the rest of the crew.
He’d told them his name was Urak, that he remembered nothing from his past. Things went downhill fast when his memories started flooding back.
His booming voice drew Renard back to the unfolding horror.
“I am a god!” The red-eyed stranger stared at them with contempt. “Do you believe me now? I do not want to harm you. All gods need worshippers, after all. I shall be magnanimous if you’ll just bow your heads and be servile as one’s faithful should be.”
“If you’re a god, then what were you doing in that pod?” asked the captain.
For a brief moment, Renard glimpsed doubt in the stranger’s eyes, but then his expression hardened.
“Do not question me again, Hines, or you will fast rejoin your men.” He motioned toward the scattered limbs without looking at them.
Renhall Renard did not believe in gods, but what they had witnessed since this guy’s arrival had been enough to make his skin crawl. How could they stop someone like that?
From the corner of his eye, he saw Gorim motioning to him as she slowly backtracked toward the closest hall. Urak was so focused on Hines, he realized this would be their best shot to get out of there without getting turned to pulp.
Following her example, he slowly made his way toward the exit, never taking his eyes off the two. He felt bad for the captain, but there was nothing they could do for him—not against a creature like this! Besides, there was no saying he’d kill Hines.
He frowned when he realized he’d thought of the stranger as a ‘creature’ rather than a ‘man,’ but it seemed appropriate. While Urak looked human enough—despite his unusual height and silver-blue hair—his behavior was anything but.
Having reached the hall, he turned. Gorim grabbed his hand and pulled him behind her.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Hurry! We need to get to the control room.”
“To do what?” he asked in disbelief, though he followed her willingly enough.
“We have to throw him off the ship.”
“And how are we going to do that?” But even as he asked, realization hit him and he gaped at his partner while they ran. “We can’t do that! It’d kill Hines too!”
“He’s already dead, Renhy! Don’t you see? There’s no way he’ll survive that conversation. You know him as well as I do. God or no god, he’ll never bend a knee to that maniac. We don’t have a choice.”
She had a point. Danwell Hines was one of the most stubborn men he’d ever met. Which was part of what made him such a good captain—that and his no-nonsense approach to conflicts and crises.
An explosion from behind sent them sprawling to the floor.
Alarms wailed.
The ship had four types of alarms—critical systems, external threats, nav and comms, and crew-related issues. All of them had just gone off. At the same time. Which was not something that happened. Ever.
“What the hell is going on?” shouted Renard as they both got back to their feet.
“I don’t know!”
They bolted down the hall as Urak’s voice rang through the ship, even louder than the alarms.
“You will bend before your savior!”
The two partners shared a glance as they ran.
“How does he keep doing things like that?” yelled Renard, his voice barely audible over the blaring sirens.
“Maybe he really is a god!” screamed back Gorim.
No, he thought. I can’t accept that. There are no gods. Humanity has come too far for me to believe in such nonsense. If gods were real, we’d have seen evidence by now.
He said none of that out loud, knowing all too well how his partner would have reacted. She would have stated that this was the evidence. But he was not ready to accept that.
***
By the time they reached the control room, they were out of breath and half-deaf.
“Can we stop that?” shouted Renard.
Gorim had jumped on the dashboard, her hands running all over the dials.
“Start vacuuming the air while I try to shut down the alarms!” she cried out in response.
He reached the other end of the board when everything suddenly went quiet.
“You did it!” he said with a grin as he pressed on some of the buttons.
Nothing happened.
“I didn’t do anything.”
He heard the bewilderment in her voice.
“What do you mean? Damn, this thing isn’t working.”
“But that’s just it, Renhy. Nothing is working. Look! It all shut down.”
He stepped back and stared at the panel. All the lights were off.
Everything had gone very quiet, too—except for the ringing in his ear.
“Did he do this?”
She gave him a look. “What do you think?”
“Damn it! There has to be a way to—”
“There is.” She pointed at the dashboard. “But we need the controls to make it work.”
“Alright. So we just need to fix this.”
“You think you can pull that off?”
She sounded dubious.
“I don’t know, but I’ll try.”
He went to the back of the room, knelt, and pried the maintenance panel open.
“If I can just find the right ones,” he muttered to himself as he rummaged through the cables, “I could short-circuit the system and maybe, just maybe, kick-start it back to life.”
The ringing still bugged him, and he rubbed his ears with a grunt before pulling some of the wires out.
“By all that’s holy!”
“What is it?” Renard asked distractedly.
“You gotta see this, Renhy! I can’t believe it.”
He glanced over his shoulder. Gorim was pointing at the window. Turning, he finally saw what had so shaken her.
Something massive floated before their ship. It was black, oval-shaped, with faint red streaks at the top and bottom. Its shape was fluid, shifting slightly as it moved, ever so slowly.
And it was coming straight toward them.
***
They stared at the mass.
“You don’t think...”
Her voice was barely a whisper, but he heard it clear enough.
Renard glanced at her.
“It sure looks like it, doesn’t it?”
“I’d only ever seen pictures.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
There was a touch of awe in both their voices.
They were abruptly brought back to reality when the dreaded voice boomed again.
“You will kneel before me and beg for my mercy! You will be my servants. There is no one left but you now. There is no choice. Nowhere to run. Come to me, my children, and I shall forgive all your sins.”
The partners looked at each other, then back at the approaching ship.
“How do you want to play this?” he asked.
“There is only one solution,” she said hesitantly.
He nodded.
“But nobody has ever been on a Yedeni before.”
“Except Endreke.”
Renard scoffed. “No one takes his work seriously. Too many of his claims have been debunked.”
“I don’t know. Just because it sounds impossible doesn’t mean it is.” She glanced at him again. “I mean, what will people think when we tell them about Urak?” She pointed at the window. “Or that.”
“Come on. According to him, it was in the shape of a boat in an underground lake. That thing is a spaceship, Adora! And does it look like a boat to you?”
“Maybe it can change its appearance. Look at how the edges keep shifting.”
Renard grunted, glancing back over his shoulder.
“Either way, we need to do something before that lunatic storms in here.”
“I don’t think we’ll need to do anything at all, Renhy.”
Her tone was serene now, as if all the stress of the last few hours had suddenly drained out of her.
“What has gotten into you?” he asked as he turned to look at her.
She smiled and pointed. “Look. It’s coming for us.”
The Yedeni was nearly upon them.
“We’re going to collide!” he said in panic.
“No, Renhy. It won’t hurt us. Look.”
The ship was so close now it had blotted out the stars. There was nothing left to see on that screen but darkness.
And then, the darkness seeped into the cabin.
Renard lifted his hands in disbelief.
Everything had darkened.
And it kept darkening.
And darkening.
Until all that was left was darkness.
***
And then there was light.
Nothing but light.
So bright it blinded him.
Renard fell to the ground, shutting his eyes.
“Please! Make it stop!” he shouted.
As if someone or something had heard him, the light dimmed.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Gorim standing next to him, holding out her hand, smiling.
“We’re with them now. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“With who?”
“The Yedeni.”
“How can you know that?”
“You saw it like I did, didn’t you? Where else would we be? Look.”
He did.
And all he saw was white. Was it even a room? Were there walls? If there were, they were just as white as the ceiling and floor. No doors, no furniture, nothing but white.
“Look.”
He followed her gaze and noticed thin red lines moving, slowly forming a rectangular shape.
“That’s the way out,” she said. “Come.”
She grabbed his hand and he followed.
Part of his mind wondered what had happened to Urak. Was he here too? He’d have to be.
He frowned.
“Adora... I don’t know about this... Couldn’t that madman be messing with us?”
“No one can control the Yedeni, not even him.”
“How can you be so sure? Besides, even if it’s true, what if he just made us see that thing, but it never was really there?”
A look of doubt flickered across her features, but she quickly dismissed it with a shake of her head.
“No. This is real, Renhy. Don’t you feel it too?”
All he felt was fear.
Fear of the stranger when he’d find them—as surely he would—but also of this ship, assuming that was where they were.
“And what if Urak is powerful enough to destroy the Yedeni?”
They reached the rectangle and he realized it was a door.
“That’s impossible,” she muttered, reaching out for the knob.
She opened the door, and he did not resist when she pulled him through with her.
***
What they found on the other side left him speechless. It was like something out of a Mathias Endreke history book—flamboyant and absurd.
The walls and ceiling were weaved of bright colors—disparate oranges and yellows, fluorescent greens and agonizing reds. The furniture was lush, with velvet couches, scarlet rugs, and sculpted busts. A gorgeous, amethyst-encrusted dresser was covered with odd trinkets that looked like they’d come straight out of a holofilm set in pre-Pyrean days. Two white satin sofas faced each other, a low table between them. The latter seemed so trivial that it clashed with the outrageousness of the setting.
The air teemed with acidic, honeyed scents, intertwining in a joyous frenzy that intoxicated the senses.
Renard stared in disbelief.
“What is this place?”
“Look!”
She let go of his hand and rushed to a corner of the room he had not noticed yet. It was behind them, close to the door they had come through. There was a metallic cot there, barely long enough to accommodate the form that lay within.
He paled when he recognized the face of the man with the silver-blue hair.
“Adora! Come back!”
But she did not listen, nor did Urak move. His eyes were closed, as if he were sleeping. And she just stood there, staring down at him, with awe in her eyes.
Hesitantly, Renard moved next to her.
The stranger’s eyes popped wide open.
“Urak. Not. God.”
The words drifted slowly, with long blanks between each. The voice was distant, hollow—as if it came not from the man’s body, though its lips moved all the same.
Renard jumped, startled by the sudden declaration. But his partner, inexplicably, fell to her knees with tears of joy in her eyes.
Adora Gorim was a strong-willed, resourceful, sharp, and smart woman. He had known her for close to a decade. The two had traveled to the far reaches together. Explored hostile and exotic worlds. Fought in wars. Helped crush alien empires. They had fallen in love under the twin moons of Gamurra, while they dethroned the Tyrant King.
He adored her—that was something he often said, because the pun amused him, but it also was the plain truth.
But in all the time he’d known her, never had he seen her behave so strangely. This was not the woman he knew, and it unsettled him.
And there she was, kneeling by the man who had slaughtered their shipmates, their friends, caressing his cheek longingly, almost lovingly.
She glanced at him over her shoulder, a big smile on her lips.
“Look! It’s them!”
He was looking, but all he saw was a monster and the woman he loved acting like she had just unraveled the greatest secret in the universe.
He frowned when he remembered where they were.
Perhaps she has.
It was a jarring thought, but he could not dismiss it.
And then his mind finally processed what Urak and his partner had said. What it all implied.
He stared into the stranger’s eyes but saw no life in them, only the depth of infinity.
They’re no longer red, he thought to himself. But there’s a yellow tinge now.
He wasn’t sure what it meant—or if it meant anything at all—but it troubled him.
“If not a god, then what?” he finally asked.
“Rissl.”
The word came quickly—and though it was unfamiliar to his ear, it felt loaded with meaning, like it carried the weight of the universe.
“Sick.”
This one he knew, and it cut through his soul like a razor.
All these meaningless deaths because of some stupid virus?
He felt so small at that moment, so insignificant in the face of eternity.
“Can you cure him?” he asked.
There was a long silence, as if whatever entity was responding through the man’s lips was trying to find how to summarize a complex thought in a single word...
“No.”
... only to give up trying.
Meanwhile, Adora remained crouched next to Urak, stroking his face. His unease turned to anger.
“What have you done to her?” he asked. “She shouldn’t be like this!”
Another longer silence followed.
He stared at Urak’s unblinking eyes, fists clenched, wondering if he shouldn’t just beat the pulp out of him. But deep inside he knew that while this would help him blow off steam, it would not resolve anything—much less give him answers.
Besides, if Urak was sick, how responsible could he be for his actions?
This thought, more than anything else, soothed him.
“Different.”
The answer came when he no longer expected one, though it did not help him understand. What did it mean?
He realized that if he wanted clear responses, he’d have to stick to yes-or-no questions.
“Will she go back to how she was before?”
“Yes.”
The word had come more quickly this time, and it gave him hope he might yet get some answers.
Except... Some mysteries could not be resolved so simply. How would it explain its nature, or even what a Rissl was, without going into complex explanations that were beyond its ability? And why was that, anyway?
He glared at the man, gnawed by frustration.
“Can you fix our ship?”
It was futile trying to ask what he most wanted to know, he realized. The Yedeni’s answers would only make him more confused. So he’d decided to stick with the more urgent and practical topics.
“Already.”
He assumed it meant their ship was fixed.
Couldn’t it just say yes or no? Damn it!
“What will become of him?” He pointed at Urak. “Wait. You can’t answer that.” He scowled, trying to find a better way to ask the question. “Will you keep him with you?”
“No.”
“Hey, hold on one minute, we’re not taking him back! I don’t want that madman anywhere near me anymore. You get that?” He grimaced. “I mean... Ugh. Are you putting him back on our ship?”
“No.”
It felt like a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He sighed and nodded.
“Great. And how do we get back to our ship?”
Even as he asked, he realized how difficult it would be to get an answer from the entity.
But before he could find another way to phrase it, everything around him went white.
Blinded, he fell to his knees, screaming.
***
When his sight returned, he was lying on the ground in the control room. He pushed himself up and saw Gorim stirring a few feet from him. Hurrying to her side, he helped her up.
She blinked as she looked around.
“What happened?” she asked.
“You don’t remember?”
She frowned. Pushing away from him, she walked to the dashboard and looked at the screen.
He followed her gaze and saw it drifting away. The Yedeni was only a small black dot now. A few seconds more and it would be gone, like it had never been there at all.
“It’s coming back,” she muttered. “By fragments.”
“You were different on there,” he said and grimaced when he realized he’d used the same word the entity had.
She remained quiet for a moment, and he wondered what was going through her head.
“Adora?”
His partner turned to look at him and he saw tears streaming down her cheeks.
“They spoke to me, Renhy. I could hear them inside my head. I mean, I could hear you too, but like from a distance—as if we were in different rooms. But I was not frightened. I felt safe. Like nothing could ever hurt me again. I knew they would protect me so long as I stayed by their side.” She paused, looking down, a slight frown on her face. “And now they’re gone.”
He walked up to her and grabbed her in his arms. She rested her head on his shoulder, letting out a sigh.
“You’re safe all the same,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
“It’s just... different.”
There was that word again. Why had she gone through all that and not him?
Then he remembered Endreke’s story. When he and his party had gone on board the Yedeni, they’d all been affected in different ways. The historian had assumed it depended on one’s personality and perhaps other factors that were beyond human comprehension.
He held her at arm’s length and looked into her eyes.
“You said it spoke to you? What did it say?”
She smiled.
“That they loved us. That we were their children.”
“What?”
Her smile widened.
“You don’t understand, Renhy. Today, I looked into the face of the gods.”
She turned away from him and sat at the controls.
Renard glanced at the screen, with a thousand questions going through his head.
But there were no answers there, only the stars.
If you like my writing, please consider buying a copy of my novel, upgrading to a paid subscription, or making a Paypal or Ko-fi donation. As an independent author, any of these would help a lot!
Want to check some other Sci-Fi I wrote? Check out these stories:
Beneath the Surface (a first contact story with a strange society of lizard-like aliens)
The Human Dilemma (the Orwellian tale of a man who discovers unsettling truths)
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Text (c) 2025 by Alex S. Garcia.
Header: royalty-free stock images, edited by me.
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