No more pics

Renee was a little surprised. Staring at the stranger with a certain astonishment, he was a charlatan, or so she thought, a charlatan with the worst possible story. But still, she had already gone far enough with this; all she had to do was wish for something, see it fail, and then banish it. She took a moment to think, what else worried her now? She thought about the people laughing at her, taking pictures, sharing videos of her. She thought about the websites and files that recorded her misfortunes. She thought about how she wished it would all disappear into thin air.

Filled with a strange determination, almost wishing it were all true, she looked at the stranger and said with a certain coldness in her voice.

"You say you know my story. If you really are an ancient god returning to Earth, I hope you've caught up on modern technology, because what I want is for you to erase all records of the humiliations I've suffered. Any website, file, photo, or video." When the stranger didn't respond immediately, she gave a slightly smug smile, "So? The great god of storms and whatever else can't do anything?"

Right then she heard thunder outside the window. Moradin stood up and walked over to her cell phone, which had been left within easy reach. Moradin held the device with a certain reverence as the sounds of thunder grew louder and the sky around them seemed to darken. Renee couldn't help but feel scared by the situation. What was this stranger trying to do? Moradin spent some time looking at his cell phone.

"I am a craftsman, Renee. And a good craftsman. I have closely followed the growth of human technology. I have been very proud and very sorry for what has been done to it. I admit that, in my youth, I thought fire would be a blessing for humans. But every technology in human hands is a double-edged sword. The fire that warms is the fire that burns villages, the swords that protect also take innocent lives, the energy that illuminates is the same that devastates cities. What you ask of me is noble in my eyes. Perhaps you yourself haven't noticed, but you asked the first craftsman to cleanse some of the bad works of a technology."

The lightning and thunder intensified, Moradin closed his eyes as an intense yellow light shone from the palms of his hands, enveloping the cell phone he held. Suddenly the thunder stopped, Moradin opened his eyes as the light in his hands vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

"Search wherever you want. The world no longer has any record of what happened to you," said Moradin, handing the cell phone to Renée.

The redhead cautiously took her cell phone from the man's hands. She briefly searched for her name on the phone's browser; the site that hosted her photos and videos was empty. She then ran to the computer in her room, spent some time searching; local news portals no longer had the articles that portrayed her. She returned to her cell phone, searched social media, and instead of people sharing photos and videos where she might be being ridiculed, she saw people blaming the networks for the sudden disappearance of all this material.

It was real. Moradin was indeed a powerful being. A being who was willing to collaborate with her... but how, after all, could she be useful to him?