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Mystica · (10-17-2013)

Out there in the pitch black, any normal person would have lost their mind. The typical human being is so fragile -- not only in body, which is easily broken with proper force, but also in mind. The consciousness is much like an egg. So much potential in one oblong, off-gray shell. But it is ever-so-easily cracked open, and the stored potential energy is expelled onto a hot sidewalk, where it fries in the heat of an unforgiving sun. Yes, the lights spiraling down from everywhere and nowhere, bobbing in singular occulation, as it is blocked by a monolith of non-Euclidean shapes, all writhing and pouring over themselves, like souls reaching up out of Hades. Any ordinary person would have been reduced to a dribbling sack of flesh and blood.

But Mr. Supernova was no ordinary person.

Staring up at the non-material, yet oh-so-clear abomination of all science and philosophy, Nova wasn't quite sure what to feel. There was the lurking spectre of suspense again, biting at the back of his brain, trying to claw out and free the true reflection of the immaterial being before him. But that would have killed him on the spot. He knew now that what he was facing was much more than simply a voice in David Martin's head. It was something far, far more grandiose and unimaginable.

The thing shifted with each passing second, taking on new forms as the colourless, ever-changing conglomerate of all things unholy melted into itself and then back out, forming new appendages from the library of creature anatomies no one had ever seen before. Even in his age, Nova could not recognize many of the body parts that ebbed and flowed amidst the pseudo-skin of the creature. This, more than anything else about the creature, frightened him to the core. The unknown has always been the greatest fear of any living creature. It is why grown men fear the dark of the night after they switch their bedside lamps off. In the dark, you never see the one monster from the deepest parts of your imagination before [i ]it[/i] sees you.

"This body of yours is resilient," the eldritch monstrosity said, the chorus of a thousand screams that was its voice agonizingly sounding out the words it spoke. "More resilient than that of the souls I have enveloped."

"You'll find that I am much more than meets the eye," Nova replied, his voice cracking halfway through his sentence. This was more than he had anticipated. This...thing towering over him was not catalogued by any sentient creatures he had encountered. That was the fear: he knew nothing of the horrible thing, let alone how to solve David's problem. This problem was several stories tall and older than time itself.

"Indeed," the amorphous gathering of unknown origin replied. "Though I know so much, I must have a closer look."

Much to Nova' horror, a number of small bulbs of what looked like moving fat issued forth from the thing, growing in size until they burst with the sickening sound of what he could only describe as flesh ripping. The bulbs tore outward like a flower in bloom, and from the center of the sores came slithering appendages much like tentacles, minus and suction cups. But what was apparent was that they were prehensile, as the feelers danced erratically through the air and along the "ground" of the scene, quickly advancing on Nova. Before he had time to even react, the clapperclaws had wrapped themselves about his limbs and lifted him into the air with seemingly no effort whatsoever. They drew him closer, reeling him in like a reluctant fish, until he was brought within a few feet of the slimy, seemingly breathing mass of non-matter. The surface of the creature bubbled once more, and from the vile pod emerged a massive, human-looking eye, perfectly white of cornea and terrifyingly blue of iris. The eye stared at him for what felt like an eternity before the screaming chorus of inhuman and human voices spoke.

"Partially nightwalker," the behemoth said, turning Nova over in its tentacles, examining every inch of the spaceman. Most disturbingly, when he was turned completely on his head, being held by the heels, Nova could not sense the pull of a gravity force. There was no pull downward. No blood rush to his head. Even upside-down, he felt as though he were perfectly upright. This place was beyond the laws of time and space, he realized with a chill of terror running down his spine.

"But more so something else," it continued. Then, after a slight pause: "Ah, yes. We have met before, spaceman. The third moon of Delphi Alpha."

Mr. Supernova ceased struggling as he scoured his brain for a memory of something that might have resembled the horrific thing before him on some faraway moon in a fairly unexplored, semi-colonized sector. Nova' eyes grew wide in sudden remembrance as he addressed the semi-physical form of Mystica.

"The infection," he said somberly, glaring now at the massive eye. "Delphi Alpha was barely a society! You killed the entirety of the colony! Transformed them into those...things."

"You act as though it were a conscious effort on my part to welcome them into my embrace," Mystica replied in its thousand-scream voice. "I could decimate this Earth with the same effort it would take you to swat a mosquito on your arm. It is insignificant. As was Delphi Alpha and its inhabitants. They were blessed to be turned into something so glorious as my form. They worshiped me until their last breath, praising the name attributed to me that no mortal tongues should be able to speak. But that was so very long ago. The work of an extension of my infinite consciousness, ever-sleeping. A coma that will last until the stars are right."

"'The stars are right...?" Nova questioned, his anger at the abomination's misdeeds of the last cycle growing with each word the creature spoke.

"When the ones who keep me asleep with their everlasting lullaby finally fall silent," it elaborated. "I shall awaken once more."

Nova resumed his struggle against the tentacles upon hearing this prophecy spew forth from the eldritch abomination. He could not, in his good moral fiber, allow this unspeakable crawling terror to be unleashed upon an unsuspecting planet. If it were able to mindlessly destroy a moon colony, what could be said for the earth, or the rest of the universe for that matter? Nova needed no further elaboration to know what it is that the Sleeping God had in mind for the fate of time and space itself. It would devour the fabric of reality itself, and even then, not be satisfied. There was no need to question why. This creature knew no morality; it knew only malevolence -- a burning hunger that would never allow it to be satiated. Chaos in all its forms was lingering here before him, taunting him with what he knew would be inevitable.

"Even now, my followers scour this planet, searching for the Singers. Their voices will fall silent as their throats are slit and their tainted blood falls upon my altar. None shall speak any further when my million eyes open once more. All voices shall be caught in sight of my form; all minds shall be lost of comprehension, grasping in vain for any semblance of what they define as rationality. Sciences will hold no comfort, for I am beyond mortal logic. I...and my brothers."

"There are more of you," Nova said aloud, speaking his train of thought. There came no sound of confirmation from the mass of scaled faux-flesh, but Nova did not require reassurance. There could be no comfort in this notion, even if Mystica had confirmed his conclusion. More of them. More indescribable, creeping terrors, all throughout the bounds of reality, watching in silent sleep as humanity as a whole toiled, unaware of their existence. More powerful than any mythological god, older than time itself, with an utter disregard for any living thing, which was insignificant to the immortal children of the Big Bang.

"This world knows so little. And it shall remain ignorant until the day this planet's sun shines upon my figure and blacks itself out in horror of my coming. Then, this dimension will understand my will, moments before it is ended forevermore. And you shall remember this all. I have seen to it. Be haunted by my memory, dear spaceman. Tell them all. They will not listen."

And with that, the tentacles wrapped around Nova's limbs and waist loosened, and he fell from a great height, plummeting downward...

Downward...

Downward...

He awoke with a start, violently kicking himself backwards, away from the huddled form of David Martin opposite him on the floor. With his back to a wall, Nova began to hyperventilate, trying to find a sense of control in the face of utter madness. Had it been a dream? Or had he actually spoken to the thing in David's head -- had a conversation with the thing that should not be? No, impossible. He placed a hand on his forehead as a massive pain began radiating through his skull. It was his mind trying to contend with a forbidden knowledge. He consciously made an effort to store the memory of the creature, but the biological function of his brain was performing the opposite: attempting to forget the impossible thing. His mind was warping, bending, distorting, trying in vain to make sense of the insensible. Almost immediately, a small trickle of dark blood flowed forth from Supernova's nostril and over his lips, creating a line from his brain to his chin, bleeding the knowledge of the impossible all across David Martin's office floor. With shaking legs, Nova climbed to his feet, a hand on the wall to steady his knocking knees. Without so much as a hint of cordiality, he turned to David and bade him a goodnight. Before David could muster a response, Nova had disappeared through the office door, taking off down the stairs and into the night.

Once outside under the streelight of the cafe, with his back to the brick wall, Nova continued his attempts to rationalize everything he had seen. Never before, in all his years of wandering time and space, had he come into contact with such an eldritch, terrible thing. With hands still shaking, Nova withdrew a pen and pad of paper from his pocket and scribbled a message out to David, explaining that he would return at a later date. He conpicuously left out that, for now, he needed time to cope with this new and horrid knowledge, or perhaps try to ignore or forget it. Not even his advanced brain could handle such a thing all at once. He plastered the note on the door to the staircase of the building and pulled the collar of his jacket up around his ears, shying away the cold of the night before he took off, shivering, down the dimly-lit small-town streets.

But it is unfortunate that he paid no mind to his shadow that trailed behind him, for if he had bothered to glance at the black mass, he would have seen that it did not reflect his actual form. His shadow had been distorted in the glow of the streetlamp, writhing around like one of the many tentacles that had held him in place not long before.

"And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
-Friedrich Nietzsche, "Beyond Good and Evil"

Threaded Mode \| Linear Mode The Spaceman & The Eldritch Abomination, Part Two: Dialogue With the Deadgod
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