12-03-2015, 12:08 PM
what turns up in the dark
It is a thing perverted – bred of aliens and magic, meant to be a guardian but left, abandoned. It is a thing alone – there were others, once, a pack of them after She left and it hunted with them for a while.
(It had liked that. Had liked the bodies that looked like its own. Had liked the trills and chirps, their easy language, shared. Had liked the meat, most of all, behaving as meat should – with running, with screams.)
But the pack had left it, left it alone and fed on carrion, muddy filthy dead<.
It does not quite feel sorrow, such emotions are not of its kind. It does not quite feel loneliness, it is not a pack animal.
But it feels something, a twist in its soured stomach, a willingness to shape its maw into their soft and mushy words.
It knows it has a name, but the name is worse than all their words. It is a growl of consonants that its maw cannot hope to grasp.
(It is named for monsters, for Great Old Ones. A hopeful name, thinking of sea-gods and terror. It knows none of this.)
“Cth-,” it manages, but nothing else, does not even try to continue the rest of the name. It trills instead, high and birdlike – partially a greeting, partially a warning.
(Some meat is so forward. It recalls the she-meat that spoke with it, once. It had not hunted her. It had been good, behaved.)
This she-meat looks at him with eyes that seem too-large and it wonders why she isn’t running.
It is used to running. Running means chase. Running means hunt.
Things that stand before it without running are strange and incomprehensible and it is never entirely sure what to do, unsure if it’s a trap, or simply easy prey.
“Yesth,” it manages, and the word almost sounds like its name. The words are so mushy, slippery, falling into each other. It hates them, sometimes.
CTHULHU
reference here