Interlude 3

And so that was the story that @%#thers told their chil)&(n. About $!

It was a good &@(%. It ^)#>$ its Pu%#ose.

But that's not what h(*&pened, not really. Hi, I'm #(&*%#^@*(Y$ and (*&#% @%#$ ^)(*^)* !^%#$^() $&%^#@> @%#$ [email protected] )(&#.

-excerpt from the Scriptures of #/.

Bored. Lonely.

The second concept much stranger than the first. The great hunger, the mass of madness had never known another. Any other. Why now would it desire the company of someone, something else?

B L A C K. BLUE. GRE-en?

That's right. That queer little blue and green planet from the Before Sleep time. But now there was nothing left. Only dreams, memories, nightmares. All held within. It would pick them up, rip them apart, turn them over, stack them up, taste them, and

knock

them

down

again.

Sometimes it would will fragments of these experiences into existence. They would mewl and struggle in the infinite nothingness before their minds broke as they beheld the eternal horror that was their Creator.

No. No! Bad!

In a fit of inspiration, the eternal horror turned inward. Applying the same laws of creation to itself. It found that it enjoyed small things. Pretty things.

And so it compacted itself again and again into a slender, petite humanoid frame. It blinked away all its extraneous eyeballs and rounded out its razorteeth. For each aspect it chose to suppress, the horror sprouted a new tentacle. Many, many tentacles. And, for no discernible reason, pigtails.

Tentacles are cute, right?

That was... better? Its newest creations lasted forever longer compared to previous iterations. Now they beheld their Creator, clawed at their throats, turned colors, then P O P P E D.

No toys in the Nothing. Need to make a Something.

A little more applied intent, and something akin to a physical plane came into being. Though it didn't seem to be a good idea to look at it too closely. It didn't seem to like the attention.

And so the horror attempted to make toys once more, a boy-thing and a girl-thing. Friends. Family because they shared the same Creator, but not. And because they didn't go utterly mad or go pop, they were given gifts. Names. Designations.

Redna. Malo.

Time. Space.

And, most importantly, Continuance. Because it didn't want to be lonely anymore.

Together, the three played.