I grabbed his grey FUBU t-shirt. “Then devour me!” I begged. “I can’t live now, not without you! You can’t possibly just leave now, leave me in this pain! Devour me so my life will at least serve some purpose to you!”

“Pain!” he snapped, jerking away from me, making me fall. “Speak not to me of pain, infinitesimal mortal. You are too trifling to understand the immensity of all the word can imply. You know nothing of pain, do you understand? Nothing!”

“That’s not true!” I yelled, sprawled out on the driveway, the agony burrowing through my veins preventing me from even getting to my knees. “If you have a shred of mercy in you, drive me mad like you have so many others! Consume my sanity! Or just go ahead and devour me whole! Whatever it is you do! But don’t leave me!”

“I must, itty-bitty one. I must return to the city of R’lyeh. I must sleep. The time is not yet right, but soon it will be, and all will end. And you with it. I cannot waste any more time here, nor is it fair of me to pain you or endanger you any more than I have. I…” He turned from me again. “I am sorry.”

“Please, drive me mad, kill me,” I pleaded. “Anything, I beg of you, just don’t leave me!”

I was crying openly, heaving onto the driveway, my fingers grasping at the strings of his Ray Ban shoes. “You can’t leave me…”

“I can, and I must,” he said. “I cannot expect your four-dimensional, microscopic mind to comprehend it.”

My mind. I hated it. Deep down I knew he was right, though. I was nothing next to him. But that understanding didn’t fill the gaping void that now resided in my chest, the place where my heart used to be…

“I would have you do me one favor,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

With great effort, I pulled myself to my knees on the pavement, looking up at him, my face wet with tears. His was stoic, cold, like the deepest part of the ocean.

“I would ask you… that you not do anything heedless or foolhardy,” he said. “I would ask that you not endanger yourself, in ways such as exposing yourself to those cultists, or standing in traffic, or hurling your tiny body from a high place with intent to harm it.” He squatted down before me. Even in his human form, he made me feel insignificant. Limited. “Can you do this for me, inconsequential mortal? Can you promise me this?”

I pressed my hand to my chest, to the gaping abyss. I tried to speak, but only sobs came out. “Please,” I whimpered. “Just kill me. My life is nothing without you. Drive me mad. Let me be your sustenance. Eat my soul. You’re… you’re tearing me apart!”