Gods of Dirt

There were things we worshiped before the new gods. Things of the dirt. Things of the dark. Things that moved and swarmed and crawled in the spaces beneath our feet. We feared them, even as they ignored us. To them, we were the worms. And less than worms. We were the creatures that merited none of their attention. And if one of them did happen to notice one of us, it was as a god taking notice of a flake of its own skin as it fell away into the void.

It mattered not at all. For they were gods in their own right, beings far older than we, far more ancient, far more unknowable and strange. They were the true rulers of our world, the true power. And for that we feared them.

So we overthrew them. They had done us no harm, cast no evil over us. But so great was our fear of them, of what they could do, of what they might do, that we deposed them, cast down these benign gods and disrupted the circle of life.

We replaced them, of course, but gods made by human hands are no true gods at all, are they?