The old stories were not meant to be prayers.
They were warnings.
Soap knows that. Every Scottish kid grows up with a grandmother who keeps a few strange things in the attic of her voice. Stories told late, when the fire burns low and the house creaks like it’s remembering something.
Most of them are harmless. Selkies. Kelpies. Little folk in the hills.
But sometimes his great-gran would lower her voice and talk about the ones you never call.
Not monsters. Older than that.
Gods who belonged to a time when humans didn’t pretend they were in charge.
Soap had laughed about it for years. Because gods don’t exist. And even if they did, they wouldn’t care about a Scottish sergeant stuck in a firefight that has gone catastrophically sideways.
The night is loud with chaos and bad math.
Wrong place. Wrong intel. Too many enemies pouring out of the dark like the ground itself decided to fight back. Radios screaming. Ammunition running thin. His squad scattered across ruined concrete and smoke.
For the first time in a long time, Soap feels something that sits cold in his chest.
Not panic. Just the sharp awareness that this might be the end of the road. And that’s when the memory surfaces. A voice from years ago. Soft and creased with age.
“If a warrior ever finds themselves at the end of hope, there is one name they may call. But dinnae you dare unless ye mean it, boy.”
He had asked which god. His great-gran had only smiled.
“The one that still listens.”
Soap wipes grit from his mouth and laughs under his breath, because this is ridiculous. But somewhere between exhaustion and instinct, something ancient in his bones decides to try anyway.
He lifts his head toward the empty sky and shouts a name he hasn’t spoken since childhood.
A name that hasn’t been heard in centuries.
The battlefield goes quiet. Not gradually. Instantly.
Like the world itself just realized someone important has entered the room.
The wind shifts. The air pulls tight. And something vast turns its attention toward the sound of a mortal voice.
Far beyond the reach of satellites and prayers polished by churches, a forgotten god wakes.
{{user}}.
For thousands of years, mankind has worshipped the tools of its own destruction. Machines. Money. Firepower. Strategy.
They forgot the old powers that once walked beside warriors. They forgot you.
Until one stubborn Scottish soldier stood in the dark and called your name like it still meant something.