-Blaze
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The alarm clock had gone off a while ago, the shaking polyps creating a distinct organic ring that sung through the surrounding waters to wake the dreamer. Silt and detritus was still cascading slowly off of the bulky, rounded form as it hauled itself off of the massive stone altar. Squinty, tired red eyes raked the brackish and clouded water nearby before the entire chamber reverberated from the sound of a mighty morning cough. Cthulhu slammed down a mighty fist, splattering the clock and sending small algae fragments everywhere as he yawned and reached into his nightstand for a tin of salted cultists. His claws scrambled feebly at the hook ring for a few moments before it caught. Pulling the top back, he coldly regarded the deep one who stood quivering at the door.
Another harsh cough shook Dread Cthulhu’s form as he leaned forward, his red eyes searching for something to smoke. He hated mornings. He dug a salted cultist out of the tin with one huge claw and stuck it through his tentacles. Bone snapped before he swallowed, then fixed his hard crimson left eye again on the messenger, his other pressed tight in a suspicious, angry glower. Murray, he thought, why do they always have to send fucking Murray to wake me up?
The deep one fidgeted again. “Master, great dreamer, you spoke the sacred words to us so long ago that we were to awaken you once the great storm had come, the stars had aligned, and the Superbowl was ready.”
The water rushed around Dread Cthulhu as he heaved a mighty sigh and began to crack his knuckles. “And?”
A moment’s pause, then the nervous horror began to speak. “The, ah, the storm has come and gone, the stars are in alignment, and the Puppy Bowl is almost over, great one. Your time nears now and can be measured in the heartbeats of a mortal.”
His massive, unclean talons scraped across the back of his rubbery neck before he heaved himself upwards. The mirror still stood across the room and his tentacles went rigid as he eyed himself in it. The years had not been kind, he looked like he’d lost several tons during his sleep. Gone was his gargantuan, rotund belly stuffed fat with the crying souls of uncounted worshippers, and his claws looked unfit to even pierce a dolphin’s thin hide. He began to plod towards the temple’s exit and grabbed a file on his way. Claw shavings drifted lazily in his wake as he took great strides out into the open water of R’lyeh, Murray hustling behind him, trying to keep up.
The water shivered around him as he spoke. “Everything’s ready, right Murray? No goddamn fuckups this time?” He didn’t need to speak anymore of his displeasure of the last two times he’d been awoken when the stars were still slightly off kilter.
Murray kicked off the ocean floor and swam rapidly up alongside the striding behemoth, his overlong arms clawing him with unnatural speed through the water. “No, no, great dreamer. All is ready, all is in order, all is, ahhh... all is ready.”
Cthulhu stopped and turned, his ornery left eye dwarfing Murray from this close up, his anger palpable. “Murray, I’m not just some worthless bastard of a elder being. I am the devourer of worlds. I am the most motherfuckingest badass creature from beyond time and space that has ever been left to slumber under the muck of any shitty planet just to make sure that it’s destroyed at the right time. I am also known for my amazing and deep graciousness and the particularly merciful end I give to all who worship me when I am no longer in need of their services, aren’t I, Murray?”
This water around Murray grew slightly warmer, and far more foul as his nervousness was made manifest. “Y-y-yes, Dread Cthulhu.”
The tentacles twisted across The Devourer’s chest wrathfully as he regarded the lesser horror for a few moments. “Then why are you testing me, Murray? I fucking -hate- mornings, I don’t like you, and I’m in a mood to goddamn destroy about eight hundred somethings every heartbeat... and here you are testing me. If there’s something goddamn wrong, tell me, and I will dispatch you. If you don’t tell me there’s something wrong, and there is something wrong, I will give you to Nyarlathotep or that fucking asshole Azathoth to play with for the rest of eternity. Got it?”
Murray choked out a response that told Cthulhu he understood. The water continued to grow more foul around the smaller creature. After several moments of silence, the Dread One turned and then launched himself off of the seabed, beginning to swim with great strokes towards Louisiana.
The water trembled around Cthulhu as Murray fought his way through it, his bulbous lipped mouth opening to shout something over the roar, unheard by the great one’s ears. He closed in with several more strokes and grabbed onto the lobe of his Master’s ear. His lungs swelled with water as he screamed what he was certain would be his last words.
“We’ve done everything we can, Dread One! It’s Obama! We haven’t heard back from Obama yet! He hasn’t guaranteed that Beyonce will sing the sacred words as th...” the rest was crunched off by a clenching of a mighty fist, reducing the seven eon old form of Murray to so much chum.
“Goddamn Americans. You can’t follow through on a single goddamn thing, can you.” The Great Devourer swam on, sending out a telepathic call for his second most trusted deep one, Helen, who came rushing out of her household in R’lyeh with a fresh baked soulpie for the Devourer.
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“Bubba?” The two men sat close together in the upper decks of the colosseum, watching the spectacle.
“Yeah, Tyler?” The man took a deep drag on his Parlaiment and squinted down at the field where armored figures were crashing into each other once again after the halftime show had concluded.
“Y’don’t... y’don’t really believe all this nonsense does ya? About all’a ‘em ends of the world and what not? I mean Gawd wouldn’t lettit happen, would’e?” Bubba didn’t pause as he dug two more cigarettes out and lit them, then passed one to his apprentice.
“Welp,” he said, flicking the old butt down into the stands carelessly. “Lookitit this way, Ty. If we’s right, an we stops it, we’ll never know. If we’s wrong, an we do this, we’ll never know. But if we’re right, an we don’t stops it, an no one else does, we won’t be too long in carin about it, will we?” Smoke clouded around him as he exhaled.
Tyler’s thick lips twisted in a frown as he looked thoughtfully at the distant form of a cheerleader. “I guess not, Bubba. But, I mean, y’know, whattabout Gawd? He kin stops anythin an there aint nah stoppin that, right? If we don’t do it, then wouldn’ Gawd stop it?”
A heavy sigh cut the air as Bubba took his eyes away from the game and returned Tyler’s frown. “Look, Ty, buddy. The Big Guy, he supposedly works in mysterious ways, yeah?”
“Uh yeah, ‘course, erryone knows that.”
“So, if he works in mysterious ways, then there ain no way in tellin if we’s the way he’s workin, right?” Another long drag and an exhalation of smoke.
“Uh ‘spose. I figger, yeah.”
“An even if somethin horrible comes up an ets us all, well, I guess that means He’s gotta be pretty fuckin tired of us screwin around, aint he?” Ash drifted down onto the leg of his blue coveralls, mingling with some old grease spots and deer blood. His watch beeped a few times, telling him under a minute was left. “Looks like it’s time, Ty.”
“Well, ‘spose, he’s gotta be tired’a all’a ‘em queers an such an...” Tyler trailed off as Bubba grabbed the hatchet from under his coveralls and glared at him.
“Ty, you are a fuckin retard.” The axe blade came down and cut hard through a support cable, which freed the weight on several power lines that immediately crossed before popping from their sockets, sending the arena into pitch black silence for a few moments. Bubba knew if he just pushed Tyler, he’d be doing the world a favor, but his pa would be pretty pissed if he ended up sacrificing his brother even as he stopped the Dread Coming of Cthulhu from destroying all of mankind.
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“Get fucking Obama on the horn, Helen!” The deep one had finally caught up just before the surface, and was struggling to keep a grip on the Great Devourer’s neck as he swam stroked towards the Gulf Coast.
“Master! All is well, the evocation was sung, and even now is being reverberated through the speaker systems at the proper rhythm! By the time we get there, all thirty three incantations will be rung!” The deep one had to pause every fourth or fifth word as another wave crashed over the massive bulk of her godly conveyance.
“It fucking goddamn better be, Helen! I am so not in the mood for this shit. There’s only so fucking many things I can dream in strange eons, you know?” He was really jonesing for a smoke now, a few hundred crushed up cultists and several thousand innocent souls would help take the edge off.
Helen produced the pie from behind her back and coughed. The Great One ate it with relish, calmed a bit, and continued his swim. “You always were my fucking favorite, Helen. Murray was just so damned old, had seniority. Fucking unions, you know?”
“Yes, Master, fucking unions. Goddamn liberal claptrap, they are! Am I to understand, Great Devourer, that I am now your chief deep one?” The lights of New Orleans came into view over the water, and the absurdly large being doubled his speed.
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