Oliver
I have seen the dark universe yawning
Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded,
Without knowledge, or lustre, or name.
The monster didn’t follow him. By the time he got to the parking lot, he was hyperventilating, his eyes blurred with tears, his legs weak and shaky with the knowledge of his own near-death. The thing could have killed him at any point. He still didn’t know why it hadn’t. He tottered over to Amrita’s stolen bike, the only quick way out he had left. It felt like a betrayal to take it, but she wasn’t coming back. When he bent to pick it up his knees gave way, and he thunked down into the dust and dirt, tears of fear and relief making little mud pancakes next to the gently-spinning front wheel. The Kraken couldn’t protect him. Amrita was dead. If he wanted to survive, he had to learn more about what was really happening and start to fight back.
“How do I kill that thing?”
MY KIND HAVE FOUGHT THEM FOR AEONS.
“Can you fight it?”
NOT YET. I AM ADAPTED TO YOUR PHYSICAL FORM NOW AND CANNOT LEAVE IT. IN TIME WE WILL DEVELOP MORE CAPACITY TOGETHER. IN THE SHORT-TERM, WE CAN USE MORE OF THE LITTLE ONES. HAD ENOUGH OTHERS BEEN NEAR, THEY COULD HAVE INVADED ITS NERVE CENTERS AND BROUGHT IT DOWN.
“I’m never going anywhere without a bunch of them in my bag.”
THEY HAVE OTHER PURPOSES AS WELL, BUT THAT IS A REASONABLE SHORT-TERM SOLUTION.
“Hey, dickweed, you trying to walk off with the bike I stole?”
Oliver jerked up, his heart stuttering. Amrita stood at the trailhead, clothes and hair wet, a mocking half-smile on her lips. He scrambled to his feet and rushed across the lot, crashing into her and wrapping his arms around her as hard as he could. His eyes were blurry again.
“Bro, take it easy,” she laughed, squeezing him back. “Ever heard of playing hard to get?”
“I thought you were dead,” he whispered. “I thought they killed you.”
She pulled back to look at him, a joke already half-formed on her lips, but when she saw his face, she went serious. “I’m okay, Olly. I promise.”
“Where did you go? How’d you get past that huge thing?”
She sighed heavily and picked up the bike. “Tell you as we go. Come on.”
He followed her, unmoored from reality by her sudden return to life. He wanted to ask a million questions, but she seemed anxious to leave, and he had to agree it was a good idea. They walked the bike along the verge of the weedy highway, one on each side, her holding the handles. He wanted to reach out and touch her, hold her hand, assure himself that she was real, but she looked too troubled and thoughtful to risk the gesture. A pregnant silence grew as the trailhead got further behind them.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he offered.
“Yeah, me too. I wasn’t sure at first.” She sounded distracted.
He gnawed his lip. It wouldn’t get any easier to say the further they went. “I have an alien inside my head, and it’s started talking to me.”
She stopped walking, jolted out of her thoughts. “Say what now?”
THIS IS UNWISE.
“Shut up, I have to!”
Amrita frowned and raised an eyebrow.
“Not you,” he assured her. “It’s… I don’t know. My dad told me all about it. It’s part of the whole thing that’s going on.”
“Your dad’s not exactly the coolest. You sure he’s for real? Sounds more like maybe you need some meds.”
“No, it’s for real. I saw the x-ray.” He tapped his forehead. “It’s, uh… it’s a squid thingy.”
I AM NOT A SQUID.
“I know you’re not a squid,” he sighed. “It’s the best comparison I’ve got.”
He started walking, not wanting to see what expression Amrita was making. After a moment she caught up, the bike still between them.
“Is this new?”
“My dad says it’s been there since I was a baby, but I only found out last night. That’s when it started talking.”
“Shit.”
“And I’ve been coughing up little black things that look like it, too.”
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
She sucked in a hissing breath. “Little leggy suckers? Fast movers?”
“Yeah. How…?”
She stopped again, looking as if she was steeling herself for something unpleasant. “I was on top of that big shoggoth back at the Pond.”
Olly’s brain felt like it was grinding between gears. “What?”
“I was controlling it.”
He felt frozen, thinking of the tentacles slamming down all around him, the sobbing fear of hiding and being found, of the sure knowledge that he had been about to die. “Why… would you do that?”
“I didn’t know it was you!” she said, reaching out a hand and then letting it drop. “I swear to God, all I knew is that somebody was attacking and then this little thing nearly took us down, and I could only see through its eyes and it’s like having on glasses when you don’t need them. As soon as I figured it out, I backed off and made it go home.”
“Oh. Okay.” He couldn’t sort through the jumble of his thoughts, so he started walking again.
“I am so sorry. I promise I didn’t know.”
He latched on to the smallest fact he could make sense of. “How did you control it?”
“As soon as I touched it, I could feel it.” She shook her head and laughed in disbelief. “It was actually really goddamn cool.”
“So you spent the whole night playing with your new dinosaur pet?”
“No, it was… a little more complicated than that.”
“I missed you at lunch.” It felt petty to say it, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Yeesh, sorry. And after I made such a big deal about it.”
“So what’s the complicated part?”
“Uhhh, so…” She took a deep breath. “My dead grandma isn’t actually dead; she turned into some kind of fish-frog and she’s in charge of a whole city at the bottom of the pond and she dragged me under and showed me the whole thing.”
Now he was the one that stopped. “That’s a lot.”
“No shit.”
“And that’s where you met the dinosaur thing.”
“It’s more like a manta ray under the water. It’s like a guard dog for their temple. To Cthulhu.”
The being in Oliver’s head twitched. THIS ONE BELONGS TO THE ENEMY. SHE ADMITS IT.
“It’s not that simple,” he whispered.
IT IS.
He looked away from Amrita, talking furiously in a low voice. “You said yourself you’ve just barely figured out how to even see the world. Trust me on this one.”
I DO NOT.
“Then at least be quiet for a minute and we can talk about it later.”
Amrita was looking at him oddly. “That’s messed up, you talking to your little cancer friend. You sound like a crazy person.”
“I know. Trust me, I know.”
“Olly, what the hell? Seriously, all of this, every last goddamn thing we’ve seen together – what the hell?”
“I guess the world’s a little weirder than we thought.”
“Gran said those little black things are the enemy. Invaders.”
“My dad said Cthulhu is a fallen god that wants to kill us all.”
“Yeah, but your dad’s a dick.”
“And your grandma’s a frog.”
She barked out a laugh. “It’s so ridiculous. She says I’m supposed to lead them.”
“Yeah, I got the same line.”
“Can’t we just burn down some more houses instead?” she said wistfully.
“I think they’d all say yes, but I don’t think they’d agree on which ones.”
She kicked a stray rock. “Screw ‘em all, then. Let’s just leave. Go somewhere else.”
“We talked about that already,” he said wearily. “This Cthulhu stuff, Yog-Sothoth—”
DO NOT GIVE HER HIS NAME.
“—shut up, I told you. Like she even cares!” He turned back to Amrita, shrugging in apology. “This stuff is buried deep, it’s all over, and it’s been going on a long time. Like longer than we can imagine.”
“If they’re telling us the truth.”
“The evidence certainly speaks in their favor. I don’t think there’s anywhere to run.”
“I don’t like that.”
He jammed his hands in his pockets, feeling miserable. “Me neither.”
They reached the entrance to Edgewood Trailer Park. She jerked a thumb back toward her house. “I gotta go let my parents freak out at me for a while.”
“You going to tell them what’s up?”
She chewed on a fingernail. “I guess? They deserve to know. I’m a shitty kid sometimes, but not telling them feels like pushing it.”
“I need to talk to my dad more, too.”
“It’s not gonna, like, bust out of your skull, is it?”
He blinked. “I… don’t know. Hadn’t thought about it.”
“You take the bike. We both need to figure out more about this whole shitshow.”
“But then let’s talk.”
“Yes,” she said fiercely. “Just because they’re fighting doesn’t mean we have to.”
“That doesn’t mean you can keep standing me up for lunch, though.”
She laughed and shoved the bike into his hands, taking him by the collar and kissing him. This time he was ready for it and could enjoy the soft, sweet sensation of her lips without his mind going totally blank in animal terror.
“Tomorrow,” she promised. “We’ll figure this out.”
“Absolutely,” he said, grinning like a fool. He stepped onto the bike, the weight of the world lifting from his shoulders.
“Hey, you know I mean it, right? I’m sorry about the thing in the forest. I like you. I wouldn’t hurt you on purpose.”
He leaned over and kissed her again, reveling in his own boldness. “I believe it.”
He floated home on the bike, hardly seeing anything as he thought back over their talk, the feel of her against him, and those otherworldly kisses. Yes, there were some serious problems that he had no idea how to deal with. But with Amrita on his team, he had no doubt they’d sort it out.
YOU WISH TO MATE WITH THE ENEMY.
“That’s… not exactly how I’d put it. I mean, at some point, maybe, but if I tried that now she would one hundred percent kick me where it counts. It’s more complicated than you think.”
SHE DESTROYED A LITTLE ONE. WE CANNOT RISK HER PRESENCE. OUR JOINING IS TOO IMPORTANT.
“Why?”
YOU CANNOT CONCEIVE OF THE EFFORT THAT WAS EXPENDED TO CREATE ME, A BEING COMPATIBLE WITH HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY, AND THEN ACCURATELY SEND ME ACROSS A DISTANCE SO LARGE YOU HAVE NO MEANINGFUL WORDS TO DESCRIBE IT. I COME TO PROGRESS THE PROGENITOR’S PLANS, AND YOU WILL HELP.
“Do I get any say in this? I don’t want to help. That thing nearly killed me before Amrita realized what was up.”
ALL THE MORE REASON TO KEEP HER AT A DISTANCE. SHE IS ANATHEMA.
“She’s not! I don’t know how it works with you guys, but humans are good and bad at the same time. Once she realized she was doing harm, she stopped. She saved me. If I’m part of something so important, doesn’t that make her good?”
YOU ATTEMPT TO INJECT UNCERTAINTY.
“That’s because I’m uncertain! Amrita’s cool. She’s the one good person I’ve met here.”
INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE.
“You’ll see. She won’t hurt us. I told her about you and she didn’t even freak out.”
YET.
“So let’s wait and see, right?”
I DO NOT WISH TO.
“Yeah, well, you can’t move me around, so you’re gonna have to deal with it.”
…FOR NOW, THIS IS ACCURATE.
Oliver didn’t like the sound of that. “What happens to me when you get bigger? Is having you in my head going to kill me?”
NO. WE ARE INTERTWINED, AND WE WILL GROW AND CHANGE TOGETHER. NEITHER OF US WILL SURVIVE WITHOUT THE OTHER.
He frowned at the pavement as he pedaled into his neighborhood. He’d hoped that he might get rid of his cranial intruder at some point, whether by surgery or some other means, and the thought of growing and changing together filled him with a vague horror. Still, if the thing was telling the truth, at least his head wasn’t going to crack open like an egg. That was enough to be going on with for the moment.
Then he arrived at his house and found a gap in the street like a missing tooth. Where his home had stood was nothing but a heap of smoking rubble.
