Banished Divinity: Learning to be Human

A note from B.R.LEE:

Main story continues in the next chapter, so feel free to enjoy this fun side moment! & Thank you all again for your love & support!!

I did not know it was the theme song. I thought it was just a particularly dramatic piece of background music. But then the vocals kicked in, and something strange happened.

It was called "Soda Pop."

The title appeared on screen in bubbly, brightly colored letters that contrasted violently with the show's dark aesthetic. A montage began—Rina and her team, apparently having a moment of levity between demon hunts. They were dancing. Badly. On purpose. Laughing. Spinning. Throwing their arms up like they didn't care who was watching.

And the music.

The music was... bouncy.

That was the only word for it. Bouncy. Bright. Upbeat in a way that felt almost aggressive. A thumping bassline. Horns. A singer whose voice was pure, unfiltered joy.

My shoulders moved.

I didn't mean for them to move. They simply... moved. As if they had been possessed by something far more powerful than any demon I had ever encountered.

I stopped them.

They moved again.

I tried to hold them still. It was like trying to hold back the tide. My shoulders had developed minds of their own, and those minds apparently wanted to bounce.

"Uh," I said.

Mina was watching me. Her pencil had stopped moving. Her eyes were very wide.

"Sera," she said slowly. "Are you... are you dancing?"

"I am NOT dancing. I am... adjusting my posture."

"You're bouncing."

"I am NOT bouncing."

"Your shoulders are MOVING, Sera. In time with the music."

"That is a coincidence."

"It is LITERALLY ON THE BEAT."

I tried to stop. I really did. I clenched every muscle in my upper body, locked my spine into rigid immobility, and sat like a statue for approximately four seconds.

Then the chorus hit, and my shoulders bounced anyway.

This was an outrage.

I, Seraphyne, daughter of the Empyrean Choir and the Abyssal Court, had faced down celestial tribunals and survived a fall from the High Heavens. I had commanded armies of lesser beings and negotiated treaties with ancient forces that had existed before time was time.

And now, I could not stop my mortal shoulders from moving to a song called "Soda Pop."

"No," I said out loud. "No. This is not happening."

"It's definitely happening," Mina said. She had pulled out her phone and was pointing it at me. "It's happening so hard."

"Put that away."

"Never. This is going on the family group chat."

"What is a family group chat?"

"A place where your humiliation will be immortalized FOREVER."

I grabbed for the phone. Mina pulled it back, cackling. The song continued. My shoulders continued their treasonous movement. The red-haired woman on screen was now doing what appeared to be some sort of victory shimmy, and I hated her with a passion I had previously reserved for the Celestial Tribunal.

"I am a celestial being," I said, trying to regain some dignity. "I do not dance. I do not bounce. I do not—"

"You're literally bouncing right now."

"I am VIBRATING with celestial energy."

"YOU ARE BOUNCING TO SODA POP."

The song reached its peak. The singer belted something about "fizzing up my heart" and "popping to the rhythm." My shoulders, now joined by my head, moved in ways that felt both deeply wrong and strangely pleasant.

This was a betrayal of the highest order.

"I demand," I said, my voice strained, "that you turn this off."

"Turn what off?"

"This... this auditory assault. This musical manipulation. This—" my foot tapped. My FOOT. "This is an insult to my celestial dignity."

Mina was crying with laughter now. Actual tears were streaming down her face. She had abandoned any pretense of watching the show and was fully focused on me, her phone still recording, her body shaking with barely contained hysteria.

"You," she wheezed, "are LITERALLY—"

"I am not listening to you."

"—moving every single body part—"

"I said I am not listening."

"—you are FULL ON grooving—"

"CEASE THIS SLANDER."

"—to a K-POP SONG."

I froze.

"What?"

"The song. It's K-pop. From the soundtrack." Mina wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Oh my God. Oh my GOD. The celestial being is vibing to K-pop."

"I am not 'vibing.'"

"You are absolutely vibing."

"This is... this is a physiological response. A reflex. Something to do with the mortal body's reaction to auditory stimuli."

"Uh huh."

"It doesn't mean anything."

"Sure it doesn't."

"It does NOT."

Mina stopped recording. She lowered her phone, her grin still firmly in place, and looked at me with an expression that was almost fond. Almost.

"You know," she said, "this is the most normal I've seen you act since you woke up."

I blinked. "What?"

"All that celestial being stuff. The banished from heaven stuff. The demanding water and calling Mum a peasant stuff." She shrugged. "But this? Getting embarrassed because you can't stop moving to a catchy song? That's just... sister stuff."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"Sister stuff," I repeated.

"Yeah. You know. When you were normal. You used to dance to everything. Commercials. The microwave beeping. You once did a whole routine to the sound of Dad snoring."

"That sounds like something I would not do."

"You filmed it, Sera. It's on YouTube. It has seventy thousand views."

I stared at her.

Seventy thousand views.

This mortal body had apparently been living a life I knew nothing about. A life that involved dancing to microwave beeps and uploading the results to the internet for public consumption.

"I need to sit down," I said.

"You're already sitting."

"I need to lie down."

"You're already lying. You just haven't realized it yet."

The credits rolled. The red-haired woman had saved the world, defeated the demons, and shared a heartfelt moment with her found family of fellow hunters. It was, Mina informed me, "peak cinema."

I had stopped bouncing approximately halfway through the second episode. But the song—that cursed, infectious, undeniably catchy song—had lodged itself somewhere deep in my brain.

I could still hear it.

The bassline. The horns. The singer's voice.

Soda pop, soda pop, fizzing up my heart...

"This is a problem," I said as we walked back to our rooms.

"What?" Mina asked, scrolling through her phone.

"The song. I cannot stop hearing it."

"That's called an earworm. It's normal."

"It is not normal. It is an invasion. A violation. My celestial mind is being assaulted by mortal music."

"Welcome to having a brain."

"I did not have this problem in the High Heavens."

Mina looked up from her phone. "What did you have in the High Heavens?"

"Silence. Peace. The gentle hum of celestial energy that did NOT have a bassline."

"Sounds boring."

"It was DIGNIFIED."

She grinned and disappeared into her room, calling over her shoulder, "Good night, your majesty. Try not to dream about soda pop."

I shut my door.

I lay down on my bed.

I closed my eyes.

Soda pop, soda pop, fizzing up my heart...

I sat up.

This was not happening.

I lay back down.

Every day with you is like a party that won't stop...

I pressed my pillow over my face.

The song continued.

Not a single moment of rest. Not a blink of unconsciousness. I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling, while that infernal tune looped through my mind like a curse designed by the most sadistic of demons.

At two in the morning, I considered incantations of mental cleansing.

None of them worked. Because, as I was forced to remember every time I tried to summon celestial flame, I had no powers.

At three in the morning, I tried to replace the song with something else. Anything else. I mentally recited the entire Codex of Celestial Conduct, all four thousand verses.

The song played over it.

At four in the morning, I gave up and simply lay there, defeated, as the music played on.

Soda pop, soda pop, you make my world go pop...

"This," I said to the ceiling, "is an insult to my celestial mind."

The ceiling did not respond.

Not the stylish, dramatic death that Morvath Elir probably embodied. Not the cool, mysterious death that appeared in Mina's television shows. I looked like the kind of death that had been hit by a bus and then asked to fill out paperwork.

My eyes were ringed with dark circles so pronounced they looked like I had been punched. Twice. My skin was pale—paler than usual, which was saying something—and my hair had achieved a level of chaos that even Mina's morning mane would respect.

I shuffled into the kitchen.

Dad was already there.

He stood at the counter, his back to me, humming something under his breath as he poured coffee into a large mug. He was wearing his usual morning attire—a rumpled polo shirt, sensible trousers, and slippers that squeaked when he walked.

"Mum made pancakes," he said without turning around. "They're on the table. I already put syrup on yours because I know you like—"

I reached past him to grab a mug.

Dad turned.

Dad saw me.

Dad screamed.

It was not a manly scream. It was not a dignified scream. It was a scream that belonged in a horror movie, the kind that happened when someone discovered a body or encountered a ghost or accidentally stepped on something he shouldn't have.

Dad screamed like a girl.

He stumbled backward, his coffee sloshing over the rim of his mug, his eyes wide as dinner plates. The mug hit the floor. Coffee everywhere.

"SERA!" he gasped, one hand pressed to his chest. "SERA! YOU—YOUR FACE!"

"What about my face?" I asked, my voice flat from exhaustion.

"It's—it's—" He took a deep breath. Then another. "You look like a ghost. A literal ghost. I thought you were a ghost."

"I am not a ghost."

"You're not even blinking!"

I blinked. Slowly. Deliberately.

"Better?" I asked.

"No. No, that was worse. That was definitely worse."

The commotion brought Mina running. She appeared in the kitchen doorway in her green "oval shapes that look like some sort of fruit with happy faces on them" pajamas, her hair somehow even more chaotic than usual, her eyes still puffy with sleep.

"What's happening?" she demanded. "Is it a burglar? Did Dad leave the stove on again? Did he burn Mum's favourite—"

She saw me.

She stopped.

And then, with the kind of slow-building recognition that precedes an explosion, she began to laugh.

Not a polite laugh. Not a restrained laugh. A full-bodied, bend-over, grab-the-doorframe, wheezing, tear-inducing laugh that went on for so long I started to worry she might actually stop breathing.

"YOU," she gasped between heaves, "LOOK—"

"I know what I look like."

"—LIKE YOU GOT HIT BY A TRUCK. AND THEN THE TRUCK BACKED UP. AND THEN—"

"Yes, thank you, I am aware."

"—AND THEN THE TRUCK'S BIGGER BROTHER SHOWED UP—"

"Mina."

"—AND THEY TOOK TURNS—"

"I SAID I AM AWARE."

Now Mum came running.

She had clearly been in the middle of something—there was a dish towel in one hand and a strange object in the other. It was a long handle, pale in colour, attached to some kind of bristled head that flared out like a scrubbing weapon. White plastic. Stiff, spiky tendrils radiating outward in a circular explosion of what appeared to be some sort of weapon but yet it looks harmless. I had never seen such a device in the High Heavens or the Abyssal Court.

It looked like something you would use to defeat a very small, very dirty monster hiding in a dark corner. Her face was flushed with alarm. Her bathrobe had come untied on one side, and her slippers were on the wrong feet.

"WHAT HAPPENED?" she shouted, skidding into the kitchen. "Is everyone okay? Did someone get hurt? Is the house on fire? DANIEL, DID YOU LEAVE THE STOVE ON AGAIN?"

"I'm right here," Dad said weakly from the corner where he had retreated. "And I didn't leave the stove on. I was just... startled."

"Startled? You screamed like a—like a—"

"Like a girl," Mina supplied helpfully. "He screamed like a girl."

"I did not scream like a girl. I screamed like a man who was surprised."

"You screamed in a register that dogs could hear."

Mum looked at me.

Mum took in my pale skin. My dark circles. My unblinking eyes. My hair, which I now realized was standing up in approximately seventeen different directions.

"Sera," she said slowly. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

"No," I said.

"Why not?"

I closed my eyes. Took a breath. Opened them again.

"Because," I said, with all the dignity I could muster, "of the song."

Mina's laughter, which had subsided to a wet giggle, erupted anew.

"THE SONG?" Mum asked. "What song?"

"Soda Pop," Mina wheezed. "From Demon Hunter. She couldn't stop hearing it. It was in her head all night."

Mum's expression went through several phases. Confusion. Concern. Dawning understanding. And then—betrayed by her own face—a smile that she was clearly trying very hard to suppress.

"The K-pop song," Mum said.

"YES," I said. "The K-pop song. The one with the bassline and the horns and the singer who will not stop talking about carbonated beverages."

"Soda pop, soda pop, fizzing up my heart—" Mina sang.

"DO NOT."

"—every day with you is like a party that won't stop—"

"I WILL INCINERATE YOU."

"You can't even make a fireball!"

Mum set down her cloth and her weapon. She walked over to me. She put her hands on my shoulders. She looked me dead in the eye.

"Sera," she said gently. "You have an earworm. It happens to everyone."

"I am not everyone."

"You are right now." She squeezed my shoulders. "Now sit down. Eat your pancakes. And try not to think about soda pop."

She walked away.

And behind her back, I saw her shoulders shaking.

She was laughing. They were all laughing.

My family. The peasant who hit me with a slipper. The magworm who screamed like a girl. The tangled menace who had recorded my shame for posterity.

They were laughing at me.

And somehow—somehow—I didn't entirely mind.

I sat down. I picked up my fork. And I ate my pancakes while the song played on in my head, and my family laughed around me, and the morning light streamed through the kitchen window.

Soda pop, soda pop...

Maybe being mortal wasn't so bad.

Maybe.

...fizzing up my heart.

...I was still going to find a way to destroy that song.

💖💖 If you’re enjoying this story, please click on COMMENT OR FOLLOW my page &/or RATE my story👍🏻 — as it really help stories and authors like myself to be discovered. 💝💝 Main story on next chapter.