Twice in the same week, I found myself running for my life. Again.

Galesong roared around me, stretched to the limit of my ability to play its most basic form. The lashing gusts screamed through the trees. They threw me forward, sending me tumbling and spinning through the air above the swamp. Below me, I watched the ocean of sun-stained red and green leaves blur past.

And I spotted it. The monster.

It was a splotch of shadow, zipping through the forest. Below me, barely visible between the gaps of the treetop crowns. Black tendrils slung it forward and skittering legs tore through the ground as it chased. Dozens of eyes blinked along its body. Watching me. Eyes belonging to insects, dogs, and even birds watched me sprint over the trees. I sped up, the fear in my chest soaring like firewood-fed flame.

Each featherlight step sent me bounding forward from tree to tree, but it wasn’t enough. The creature was catching up, and I had to do something to slow it down.

I grit my teeth and clutched the bansuri tight. Mid-leap, I turned to it and blew a sharp note into my instrument. The sound screeched out—the wind turned angry. An invisible mass of steelwind descended and pummeled into the dark thing below. Dust and marsh water exploded up from the ground. Leaves blew outwards. Trees shook.

And the creature’s shadow flashed out of the dust cloud unharmed.

I found myself paling. Was this thing immune to harm? That wind would have broken all the bones in a troll’s body! Sweating, I played steelwind song, sending solid hammers of air crashing into the trees. It toppled them. Crashed them, barring the creature’s way. Dust plumed out—magic pummeled the swamp.

And still, the void creature chased.

It smashed through half the falling debris and leapt over the rest. Chasing. Unrelenting.

My knuckles white against my bansuri, I raked the wind through the trees. The gusts peeled the leaves off the branches. Brought them up to me, where they became a storm. A maelstrom of green teeth rasped around me, swirling, hiding me from sight. The storm only grew as I sprinted through the swamp, stripping the trees bare. It cast the world below in shadow and caused my fingers to ache. An exhaustion I didn't think I could feel began to fill me; spreading from the tips of my fingers to the rest of me. Despite the breath Galesong filled my lungs with, it was not enough. My chest was fire. The song dragged the energy out of me even as it was replaced. My ability to play strained under my overuse.

I knew I wouldn’t last much longer if I kept this up. So, with a final screech of Galesong, I imploded the windstorm around me.

Leaves blasted outward. Hundreds of thousands of them.

I turned mid-sprint, and before my weight returned to me, I shot away west. The flurry of leaves masked my escape. I whispered under my breath, singing softly. Imbuing jittery Galesong into my voice.

My control was terrible, still. But it was quiet. Quieter than my bansuri.

I pushed through the treetops and landed atop the branches of a massive white oak. I crouched among the leaves, panting, trying to regain my breath. My eyes stared into the distance.

There, hundreds of thousands of leaves lazily drifted down from the sky, blanketing the shallow water below. I spotted the creature among them, its eyes watching the drifting leaves in interest. I frowned at the sight. The thing wriggled in excitement, tendrils snatching up the falling leaves around it. It chased them. Plucked them as they fell, draining them of color, then bundling them into a ball in the center of its mass.

Whatever it was doing, I doubted it was good. I knew what this thing was. My sixth sense was screaming the same thing as back when I was exploring Avnlasce with the cloaked man.

This thing was a creature from that plane. That void.

And when I had stepped through the door to this world, it had followed me through. Right now, it looked nothing more than a swirling mass of thick ink. Like a hybridized mixture of slime and flesh. And along the length of its many shifting arms and legs were eyes from different animals, watching the world around it in alien curiosity.

When I watched one of the tentacles dart out to catch a bird and swallow it whole, I gulped down a bead of nervousness.

This thing was bad news.

I wasn’t responsible for it, was I? No, of course I was. I was the idiot that let it through. Rather, the moral conundrum here was whether or not I had to be the one to get rid of it. Surely, other people could handle it, right? There were Riftwalkers for this sort of thing. Maybe there were even other immortals that specialized in hunting monsters like this down.

Leave the leading to the leaders, as they say.

What did I have to do with it other than…

The creature in the distance writhed, and I stopped. Apparently satisfied with the leaves it was collecting, the creature’s mass bulged outward on the left side. I watched in horror as black slime turned into white bone. Then red, twisting flesh, creating muscle and sinew and vertebra. Fur. Brown and white.

I watched a wolf’s upper body coalesce out of the creature’s side.

The hound’s head began sniffing at the air. It took three tentative sniffs, the rest of the black thing scanning the forest with its eyes. And then the wolf’s head paused. Caught a scent.

it turned straight towards where I was hiding, and I met the voidling’s many eyes.

“Oh, hell.”

The creature launched itself towards me again.

I jumped down from the branch. Landed below. The splash of water and mud sprayed around my knees. A wet splat slapped itself against the tree above—the creature, exploding against bark. Black oozeflesh began dripping down and coalescing back into the form of my pursuer. I turned and brought the bansuri to my lips; Galesong, once again. Forced out in desperation, and it showed. The notes dribbled out of it, unsteady and weak.

My mind felt muddled, now. Like it was getting harder to focus and reach for the notes. But still, the song answered me.

Wind took my weight away. Pushed me forward. I dashed towards the trees and—too late.

A black tentacle closed around my ankle.

The world seemed to slow at that moment, as I felt my body tilt forward, my momentum arrested against the sudden halt. I lost my grip on my bansuri and the winds carried it away, throwing it far ahead. It landed in the water with a plop, disappeared into the thicket.

Galesong ceased, and there was a splash. Me. Against the mud and the shallow.

I brought my arms up from under me, turning, whirling to see the voidling blur straight towards me. I flinched—closed my eyes and prepared for pain. For death.

But it didn’t come.

The wind rushed past me and the mass of eldritch darkness landed with a splat. Then shifting. Shuffling movement, moving around me, past my prone form. I opened my eyes in confusion to find the thing rushing past me, before disappearing behind a group of trees in the distance.

“Huh.”

I was alive.

I stared at where the monster disappeared—more dumbfounded than anything else. What exactly was this thing trying to do? And as if to answer my question, I watched it come back. Slowly, writhing out of the trees as a mass of limbs and rotating eyes.

It stopped in front of me and a tentacle gingerly placed my bansuri down onto my lap. Like some dog, playing fetch with its owner. Then the creature worbled and spat out the leaves it collected, spraying it over me as if it were a gift, wriggling around in some sort of celebratory alien dance.

I stared at it. Three dozen assorted eyes stared back.

Hm.

This thing was actually kind of cute.

Watcher let its new pet pick up the stick toy.

The animal held it in his two hands, blinking at the instrument, then up at Watcher. He looked confused in that stupid, adorable way that animals in this world did. Cute! Watcher would have pet him, if it knew what petting was. Instead, it just did what it could. In an attempt to communicate, Watcher croaked out a frog sound, mixing it up with bird calls and howls.

They emerged out of Watcher’s main mass, from a mouth that was several layers of skin flaps, fangs, incisors, and molars.

Animal-friend winced at the sight, and Watcher reared back as if burnt. Friend didn’t like the sounds! Watcher wriggled out an apology, waving its tentacles at the man-friend. Watcher hated the idea of scaring him so soon. After all, it was indebted to man-friend! Even if it was a little stupid, Watcher still owed it for leading it into such a pleasant world.

So Watcher worbled out an apology with as much sincerity as possible.

And it worked!

Seemingly pacified, man-friend sighed and started making sounds at Watcher. Some form of communication it didn’t yet understand. Watcher’s many eyes blinked at the man-friend in confusion.

Perhaps reciprocating the sound would be appropriate?

Watcher reconfigured the vocal cords in its mass, twisting them into a form that could better replicate the man-friends sounds. When it felt the flesh click into place, Watcher worbled in satisfaction. It wriggled its tentacles at its new friend, copying its sounds.

“Can you understand me?” it said, speaking in the exact same voice. The tilt in the tone of his voice was similar to some animal sounds. An unsure sound. An inquisitive remark, perhaps?

Man-friend looked disturbed. Watcher’s eyes widened. Stupid Watcher! Of course a question had to be replied to with an answer!

“Can you understand me!” it cried out in what it hoped was an apology, but man-friend only looked more troubled at the sound. Watcher deflated, its mass melting down into a black blob in the middle of the swamp. How frustrating! Truly frustrating. Usually, Watcher only had to eat things to learn how to communicate with them, but Watcher only had one man-friend!

It couldn’t eat the only one it had! It would have no one to talk to if it did!

Watcher felt an animalistic emotion come out from the thought. Something hot and spiky and itchy, balling up in Watcher’s nonexistent heart. Watcher didn’t like it at all. Its eyes narrowed, and its tentacles slapped at the ground, trying to dispel the annoying feeling. Frustration? Anger? Poutiness? Watcher didn’t know what it was, but it hated it!

Stupid animals and their stupid animal sounds!

Watcher threw a tantrum.

For the sake of man-friend, however, Watcher forcibly reined the feeling back. Man-friend looked bothered by its little tirade. Was that emotion a bad thing? Or was the tantrum bad? Watcher stored the information away with the rest of its observations, rising up from its deflated state into a more cohesive blob of eyes and inky flesh.

Man-friend made sounds at Watcher again. The eldritch abomination wriggled in agreement.

“So you can’t understand me,” Watcher repeated.

“Okay. You can’t. Let’s start with something simple, then,” man-friend said. He pursed his lips and pointed a finger to himself. “Rowan.”

Watcher tilted its mass to the side and replied with a questioning tone. The same one man-friend had used.

“Rowan?” it asked.

Man-friend nodded. Pointed to himself again. “Rowan.”

Nod: agreement. Acceptance. Correct answer. The thoughts came to Watcher as a conclusive statement, and something inside Watcher bubbled up at the feeling. It just learned something without eating! How neat!

“Rowan! Rowan! Rowan!”

Watcher called out in excitement, wriggling forward, its tentacles poking and coiling around the man-friend—no. At Rowan.

It knew now! Watcher truly was intelligent beyond compare.

Caught off guard, Rowan reared back, slapping the tentacles away.

“Hey, calm down! Stop!”

Watcher noted the sound of distress and stopped. Did Rowan not like the touchies? The animal instincts Watcher had absorbed told it that physical intimacy was a core aspect of socialization, but perhaps Rowan was different. He was a different type of animal, after all. Watcher nodded respectfully at its friend’s request, pulling its tentacles back into its mass.

“Stop?” Watcher asked, and Rowan sighed in relief.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Stop.”

Yes. Sound for agreement. Stop, to cease current activity. Watcher bobbed up and down, copying Rowan’s nodding. It was approving itself! Watcher stared at the man-friend, relishing in the feeling of learning. It was learning the sound-things!

If it learned enough, maybe it could even have a conversation with Rowan one day!

The thought made an emotion bubble up inside Watcher.

A nice, fuzzy feeling. Warm and cozy. It was the best emotion Watcher had felt so far; definitely far better than that stupid feeling from a while ago. Resolving itself to learn more about… well, everything, Watcher watched Rowan with a quiet determination. It watched his movements, growing more eyes along its mass to see him from more angles.

Rowan looked troubled by that and Watcher hurriedly closed the eyes.

Its new pet sure was troublesome! Hating so many things that Watcher did. Sheesh. It was like dealing with a wolf cub! All needy and dumb. But cute. That was fine, though. Rowan could be as stupid as he wanted! Watcher was going to take care of its new friend regardless. It was tired of being alone, after all. All these animal instincts it absorbed suddenly made Watcher’s solitary life in the void seem terrible!

Watcher couldn’t believe it spent that much time without a companion. Never again. Rowan started making sounds at Watcher again, and the eldritch creature practically bubbled with excitement.

Watcher listened to his every word. Learning. Understanding. All the while, it instinctively reached for things it hadn’t consumed yet. Watcher digested the grass and the plants. Then the wrigglers in the soil beneath. Rowan looked disturbed at the sight again, but Watcher ignored him. It couldn’t relent on everything! It still had to learn, after all. Watcher was a growing... thing.

And it was doing this for Rowan, too! To talk! Watcher looked forward to talking to its new pet-friend more than anything else. At the sight of it eating, Rowan seemed to pause.

He pointed to Watcher, and Watcher wriggled its arms in curiosity.

“C’thaami,” Rowan said. Watcher blinked its eyes.

“C’thaami?”

He nodded, and after a moment, Watcher finally understood. Rowan was giving it a sound-thing! Like Rowan! C’thaami stared at its friend, touched beyond sound-things. It repeated the sound, muttering it, engraving it into its memory. And then it looked up, tentacles slowly wriggling, slithering forward.

Rowan seemed to realize what it was about to do. He turned to run.

But C’thaami was faster.

It tackled him, warbling out excited sounds as it hugged him with the tentacle arms. Good boy! Good pet, you cute thing, you! C’thaami smothered his screaming, and the animal instincts it absorbed approved. Rowan was difficult, but it would get closer to him yet. All it had to do was be the best owner ever! And give plenty of snuggles!

Watcher pulled away and worbled on top of him, cackling eldritch slime-giggles into the sky, even as Rowan screamed at the eyes all around him. C’thaami relaxed, looking to the nice, pretty sky in satisfaction.

Today was the best day ever.