It began with forms.
Stacks of them.
White. Beige. Color-coded in ways that implied someone had tried very hard to make this process humane.
I stared at the top sheet.
POST-TRANSITION SUMMARY
Please complete within 48 hours.
“Is this a joke?” I asked.
“No,” the Archivist said, not looking up. “Jokes are shorter.”
I sighed and picked up a pen.
Somewhere in my head, a part of me had expected divine aftermath to involve thunder, omens, or at least a strongly worded prophecy.
Instead, I was rating emotional volatility on a five-point scale.
Across the room, the Analyst was already typing.
She worked with the quiet intensity of someone who trusted numbers more than people — not because she disliked people, but because numbers didn’t lie accidentally.
“Do belief metrics actually change this fast?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied. “People adjust quickly when no one is watching.”
“That’s… depressing.”
She paused, then corrected herself.
“That’s efficient.”
I wasn’t sure which was worse.
The Archivist shuffled papers with practiced ease.
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“These records matter,” he said, tapping a folder marked AMATERASU. “People assume myths fade naturally. They don’t. They’re maintained. Reinterpreted. Misquoted.”
He slid another folder beside it.
ODIN.
“This one,” he muttered, “will be cited aggressively.”
“By whom?” I asked.
“Everyone who wants to feel prepared without doing the work.”
That sounded uncomfortably familiar.
Ms. A passed through the room, collecting documents, answering questions without stopping.
“This job feels like it exists to disappoint people,” I said.
She considered that.
“It exists to prevent worse disappointment later,” she replied.
That didn’t help my morale.
By lunch, the office felt smaller.
Not physically — emotionally.
Everyone was quieter.
More deliberate.
Even the Analyst ate slowly, eyes unfocused, like she was running simulations in her head.
“So,” I said, because silence made me nervous. “Is it always like this?”
The Archivist snorted.
“No,” he said. “Sometimes it’s worse.”
That was not the reassurance I was hoping for.
Later, I found myself rereading my notes.
They didn’t feel real.
They felt like summaries of conversations that should not have fit inside a building with a break room and a faulty kettle.
And yet—
Here they were.
Filed. Labeled. Archived.
I had spoken to gods.
And the thing that bothered me most was that they required follow-up documentation.
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
The ceiling had now survived:
- unemployment
- divine retirement
- and my handwriting on official forms
I thought about how easily the day had slipped back into routine.
No miracles.
No signs.
Just people doing their jobs carefully.
The ceiling did not object.
Which made me wonder if belief wasn’t what changed people.
Maybe it was responsibility.
Sleep came quietly.