Matilda Plum woke up. She did not know where she was.

Panic held her. Where was she? How had she gotten there? What was happening? Why was the bed a different shape? Why were the sounds of the street outside different?

She thrust out a hand for her nightstand, and the little orange plastic bottle that was there, sitting on the corner next to her glasses. It wasn’t. Neither was the nightstand. She rolled over to the other side of a bed she couldn’t remember ever being in her home, and her hand hit the corner of a bedside table. She fished around, touched a plastic water bottle and the smaller orange one. She grabbed both, popped the screw cap off the small bottle, and shook out two round pills. Matilda swallowed them dry – she’d never noticed it before, but they tasted like chalk - and chased them with water.

Deep breathing and memories came next. Who? Matilda Plum. Where? First Haven. When? She’d come in late last night, on a shuttle from London. Why?

Because she’d become a god.

She stopped there as her memories joined her body in a state of wakefulness. She’d woken up yesterday and the world had been, well, not different. But sharper. Focused. And fragile. She’d rolled over that morning to slap the snooze button on her alarm clock, and struck it hard enough to crack the glass clock face. She’d been thinking about how she would replace it over breakfast when there -

There was a knock at her door, and she had to hurry to untangle herself from her sheets. Putting on her glasses, she walked to the door and rested her ear against it.

“H-hello?” She said.

“Wake up and get ready please. We’ll be heading to Grayhall in five minutes.”

Matilda didn’t say anything, but she heard the person – a Caretaker, they’d been called – leave with her now-keen hearing.

Matilda threw on the clothes she’d been wearing yesterday – a thin sweater, jeans, well-worn sneakers, and a light, short coat because she tended to chill easily. She had been deliberately ignorant of the specifics regarding godhood. She’d assumed that she would be able to return home after a short talking to, and as such had packed only a light travel bag of toiletries and a change of underwear. She hadn’t expected to be taking up new residence. She would need to have the rest of her belongings shipped to her by post.
She started to leave but stopped at the door, resting her forehead against the wood. She took a few slow breaths, hand hesitating on the doorknob.

There would be people out there. Other gods, like her. People she would be, likely, expected to get to know and communicate with. What would they think of her? What would she think of them? Could she make it through this first day? This first hour? She checked the pocket of her coat, to make sure the little orange, white-capped bottle of pills was still there.

"I can do this."

-----

She couldn't do this.

Matilda had known it would be hard. But she hadn’t known, hadn’t considered the scale of what the Bestowal entailed. She’d assumed, again, something on an individual basis, akin to an interview. She might have been able to deal with that.

Instead she’d been shuffled into the eponymous hall, with dozens of other gods. People all around her, so close she could hardly breath. It was too much. She couldn’t handle this. She heard her heart beating in her throat. 

She hadn’t showered. What if her hair was messed up? Did her glasses have smudges on them? She knew she was very tall for a woman. What if they didn’t like that?

[i]Easy[/i], Matilda told herself, [i]you just need another dose. Turning into a god must have affected how the medicine works. Just take another dose, and you’ll calm down.[/i]

She put her hand in her pocket to take out the pill bottle, and -

What if they saw her taking the pills? What would they think of her?

Her hand seized in her pocket as “What-If” ran its course like a fever. What if the pills didn’t work at all? What if she wasn’t allowed to have them?

She looked at the god closest to her, a man around her height with a generally disheveled appearance. He looked like he’d been on the business end of a cat, and one of his fingers was in a splint. If he turned to look at her right now, what would happen? Would he smile? Sneer? What if he laughed? What if they told her she couldn’t be a god, that they didn’t have a place for her, didn’t want her?

What if the demons attacked First Haven, right then and there?

Matilda thought she could feel the synapses in her brain fizzing like soda bubbles. She swayed, and put a hand on the shoulder of her splint-fingered neighbor to steady herself.

“Sorry. Excuse me.” She said. She felt beads of sweat work their way down her brow, and her stomach roll.