“What the-- you can’t be serious.”
The Lovecraftian horror huffs, and the tentacles at its mouth twitch. It’s playing some sort of shooter, you see, when you peer around to glance at the television, before you redirect your attention to the creature..
“Yeah no. Too many worlds, man. Gets exhausting. Do you know how much time and energy it takes to completely demolish a planet and its population? Oh, and don’t get me started on the resistance.” It shakes its head pitifully. “It’s amusing at first, but then it gets annoying. And I promise you I’m not as immune to nuclear bombs as people make me out to be. Like, it’s not a challenge ever, but see, that’s the problem. I’ve lost track of how many universes and worlds I’ve swallowed up, left to burn in eternal damnation, or whatever. And the reason I’ve lost track because it’s all the same shtick.”
Cthulhu’s character dies, and the creature burbles unhappily and leans back. You can hardly feel your shoulders, or really anything else in your body. This abomination of all of nature and creation lives in an apartment (your gaze shoots to the window: it looks like chaos out there, like you’re in between dimensions). It’s wearing a Rush T-shirt (good taste) and cross-legged on the floor in front of its couch, surrounded by empty chip bags and crushed energy drink cans.
“You can’t be serious,” you reiterate. Cthulhu sighs in clear exasperation, pausing its game and scratching in between its tentacle beard.
“You ever work at a Target or a Walmart for ten years? Yeah. It’s like that. You’ve seen everything and nothing phases you anymore. And I mean nothing. They’re yelling about the discounts, or the children you’re about to eat, and you just smile and nod and politely explain, ‘it’s just company policy’ before you get slapped, or they fire harpoons at your wings.”
“You want meatballs?” Cthulhu stands with a grunt, feet trailing through various wrappers of empty food as it stands and pads around the couch to a small kitchen (was that there before?). “You’re here now, may as well treat you for your trouble. Or takeout? I know a place, I can call.”
Initially, the two of you eat in silence. Well, rather, Cthulhu eats-- you pick at your food, all while staring at the abomination. The noodles it munches on add to the numerous, impossible to count tentacles aligning its face, more writhing, cylindrical shapes. Eventually, you have to speak up-- you can’t have come here, after everything you went through, for Chinese food.
“I just-- I don’t understand. World domination, it-- it had to have been lucrative work, right?”
Cthulhu barks out a laugh, before returning to slurping up its noodles. You sit waiting in silence for its answer.
“Were you planning to pay me? You found the Necronomicon, you found my cult following, you waited for the stars to line up just right-- were you thinking, ‘oh sure, I should pay my good ol’ pal Cthulhu for his hard work after everything I went through to find him!’“
Fuck. It had a point. “You’re good at what you do, Cthulhu--”
“And I’m tired of it. I mean... okay, it’s not like I’ve got my own community, and getting Wi-Fi in this hell-void isn’t as easy as I make it out to be. Does it get lonely? Sure, yeah, but that’s what Xbox Live is for. The ‘your mom’ jokes are lost on me, anyways. Like, it’s-- it’s just temporary retirement, okay?”
“Temporary retirement-- well, how long are you planning on being out then?”
“Oh, a couple... hundred thousand years?”
“Wha--!” You choke out the word indignantly. “You think I’m gonna be around for that long!? I need your help now!”
Cthulhu furrows its brow, and places its head in its hand with an exasperated sigh. “Look, why do you even want to destroy the world? Some girl dump you?”
You grind your teeth together. “No.”
“Fired from your job, lost your house, crippling illness?”
The monster drops its noodles and chopsticks. “Okay, then what is it, then? What could possibly encourage you to take such drastic measures to extract revenge on--”
“It’s not about revenge, it’s about mercy.”
And that finally brings a motion of surprise from Cthulhu. Many monstrous eyes blink, head jolting back ever so slightly. The tentacles around where its mouth would be move to speak, to respond, but you continue first.
“The world is dying already, with or without your help. The oil industry is polluting the air, but what most people don’t know is that the fashion industry is just as horrible. The fields third world country farmers work give them cancer from the pesticides, their children born with defects that are a death sentence all on its own. Factory collapses, on top of that, kill thousands more, and that’s just fashion, not to mention whatever doesn’t get worn gets thrown away, adding to the ever-growing trash heaps clogging up the pores of the planet. Nevermind the economy in general throughout the world is made only to lift up the rich and to oppress the poor; lack of health care, decent living environments, an inability to buy enough food, and tainted water sources are making them sick. That’s no life to live. And it’s only going to get worse. Even if, by some miracle, the next president wasn’t a Cheeto with legs held in the greasy fingers of white supremacists and Neo-Nazis, despite dwindling resources, the population is growing. Booming. You of all people should know the world’s population doubled in just the last 100 years. Over thousands of years of human evolution, and only now are we breeding like rabbits, now that we are losing everything that makes modern life sustainable.”
You point to your fingers as you ramble further.
“Racism, sexism, bigotry, ableism-- we’re separating ourselves based on what our bodies are physically capable of, not our minds, our hearts. The kindest child of his grade gets bullied and killed because he has a facial deformity, or maybe he’s wheelchair-bound, or he flaps when he’s excited. The most brilliant little girl is raped and sold to the sex industry because she’s black, from a run down community, and no one will miss her. An activist, the leader of her town’s union, shot dead, because she has a girlfriend. Don’t you get it? We’re fucked anyways, humanity. We’re fucking ourselves, with an iron cactus, nine feet long. All of us!”
Your fist slams down on the table, and Cthulhu jumps. When you unclench your hand, it is shaking. Your voice is shaking.
“I don’t hate anyone. I love my planet. I love humanity, and the creatures on our planet, and the forests and the mountains, the oceans, the valleys. But we are our own worst enemy, becoming our own parasite. And nothing is going to change. Not in time, at least. The-- the quicker I can make the end come, the less we have to suffer. I-- I know it will still be brutal; your methods always are. But a week of destruction and death at your hands is the most merciful and absolute end I can think of that is in my power to try and bring about. I can’t change the stars, or summon a meteor. I could cause a nuclear apocalypse, but that doesn’t guarantee everyone will die. Humanity has run its course, and I know where the future will lead if we continue on the way we are. I can’t stand by idly when there’s something I can do to spare centuries of a slow, painful demise, not just to my people, but if we survive long enough to travel the stars, to other peoples of other worlds.”
Cthulhu hasn’t moved from its seat, even as you lean forwards, almost right in its face as you grind out, word for word:
“I. Need. Your. Help. Please.”
The creature stares at your face, into your eyes. Flashes of other worlds it has destroyed dance in the corners of your vision as it does so. The images don’t faze you; you do not cringe, or back away. Then, slowly, Cthulhu stands, and makes its way to the fridge. It reaches up, pulling down a small black box-- small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.
“Here’s what I want you to do,” Cthulhu says. “First off-- how old are you?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Right, you’re right. Listen-- I want you to go back to Earth, okay?” The monster places the box in your hand, and closes your fingers around it, holds your hand tight in its own. “I want you to go back to Earth, and live out the rest of your days doing what you can to fix all of those things you said was wrong with it. And the things you can’t do alone, support those who are trying. Bring together people who are fighting for the same cause by themselves. Walk home the little girl who’s all alone at night, donate money to the wheelchair fund for that sweet kid with the science project, give your lesbian friend resources, apps to help people know where she is, who she’s with, what she’s doing. Find out what you can do, in your power, to make changes that maybe you won’t see the result of in your lifetime, but you know it will change something for the better.”
You try to speak up, to state your case again, but a sharp tilt of Cthulhu’s head silences you.
“And, if in your last breath, you still believe humanity is beyond saving, if you can’t see any possible chance of a bright future for your people... open the box. I will come, whether I want to or not. It’s a portal, don’t ask how I’ll fit, but I will come.”
Cthulhu releases your hand, and takes a step back. You feel, rather than see, a portal back to the cave just outside of your town open behind you. You stand still, but you can feel the portal warping around you. Swallowing you, against your will. A certain sadness seems to prick at the corners of Cthulhu’s eyes as you begin to leave.
“I understand why,” it says. “I understand why you think this is the only outcome. But if you actually care about humanity like you claim... you know it’s not. You know.”
The portal closes. A shiver runs through you as the chill of night rushes into your bones again, and the markings you’d lovingly carved into the ground-- for the sake of humanity-- flutter away like ashes. You step forwards, as if doing so will take you back to that cozy apartment in the void, but all your foot comes into contact with is an empty energy drink can.
[Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16742017]
