I had seen this before, the prismatic creature that now rose to impossible heights before me… I had seen it in my dreams. Suddenly everything was clear to me. I hadn’t dreamed of Riley rescuing me from a sea monster like the hero in the mythological Andromeda’s tale. Riley and the creature were one and the same. They always had been.

My Great One.

The Almighty Cthulhu.

“BEHOLD!” he bellowed at Epistola, who had fallen from the podium. I realized in a delayed instant that the words I felt him speak weren’t English; in fact, they weren’t even sounds. He was somehow transmitting his speech in a way that was beyond my comprehension and yet sparkled clear as a bell to my understanding. I could only assume Epistola heard him the same way, as I watched her push up from the stage, her head ducked and eyes averted as she scrambled for the wings.

“BEHOLD THE TRUE FORM OF CTHULHU, NO LONGER TRAPPED IN R’LYEH, TO DREAM UNTIL THE ALIGNMENT.”

It felt as if the whole building would tremble apart with his thunderous phrases, and I wondered how the roof hadn’t blown off yet with his size. As cavernous as the theatre was, it seemed impossible that it could contain the greatness he had reached. The geometry of the space had ceased to make sense entirely.

I couldn’t take my eyes from him, but Epistola craned away even as he lowered an enormous hand to block her path. She shrieked, “By the power of Azathoth—”

“IMPUDENCE!”

The clinquant hand closed around her body, and I saw her eyes bulge at the force of its grip. He lifted her high, holding her before his radiant face. The tentacles seemed to tear at her limbs, and she thrashed against his fingers, cutting her overexposed flesh on the gleaming claws.

“BEHOLD!” he thundered. “AND BE GONE!”

He turned her around and I could tell the instant she finally laid eyes upon his glory, because all her movements stilled at once. But only for an instant, and then her head fell back, her jaw seeming to unhinge to let loose the howls that accompanied her descent into madness.

The glow surrounding his massive body surged in brilliance, and with a great rush of air, the incandescent wings on his back stretched out to unimaginable swirling distances. He held onto her for a moment longer before spreading his great fingers and letting her slide from his grip. She plummeted, stiletto boots and all, into the orchestra pit, hitting with a sick thwap.

In a rush of wind, his hand came down over the pillar of fire, slapping it out. The iron pit that contained its origins shattered to shards under his blow.

I threw my arms up to shield myself from the flying debris, and it was then that I noticed the puckered wound over my heart was glowing. Glowing the same color as him.