It was so beautiful. Even though I didn’t understand what the words meant, they sang to me. It was a song of freedom and release, of overwhelming joy and individuality. When it ended, the silence came back and I felt emptier than I ever had before.

“Phrgl’nuima krafhys per’cluim nahnk’pui!” The song came back suddenly, longer and more triumphant! It was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. The voice of an angel.

“SGN’WAHL! SHA’SHOGG! THROD! CTHULHU’AI!”

The ground shook again. I was so lost in that most beautiful of songs that once again I fell to the stone. I peered up from the ground… and marveled.

The ocean itself opened up below me, and rising from it—a vision in glistening emerald—was a gargantuan creature most people might call monstrous. Even through the mist, I could make out what looked to be huge, grasping squid-tentacles upon its face and enormous wings unfurling from its back. Its muscled body was like a man’s, but strange and green-hued in the distance. Yet for all of the peculiar features, its eyes were the most strange and wonderful of all.

They were black but not black. All colors and no colors. Shining and lightless, warm and cold, loving and hating, good and evil, joyful and sorrowful. It was like looking into two glistening orbs of eternity, except on a cyclopean creature of wonder.

Crash, crash, crash!

The creature waded through the ocean with slow thighs, its eternity orbs focused on tiny, little me. Over the rolling sea, it towered above even my magnificent cliff. I watched with bated breath as it grew closer, closer, now close enough to crouch down before me and stare, sizing me up.

There was suddenly a burst of light and wind that knocked me to the ground. My eyes flooded with flashes of color as I tried to look before me.

Oh. Oh my.

On the stone, standing above me, was a boy. Or he looked like a boy, but how could he be? How could someone so perfect be a mere human? He had long, unkempt black hair, so black that it glistened almost blue in the misty light. It whipped about in the wind like a dark flag. He looked down at me with intense green eyes… eyes that seemed strangely familiar. Behind him, the monster was gone. Where was it now?

“Human,” he muttered at me. His voice seemed to echo from everywhere at once… and yet it came from nowhere but him. “Why art thou upon this isle? Art thou a servant of Azathoth?”

“I…” I began, but my voice was caught in my throat. He was so intimidating… and yet…

My eyes made a trail down his lean, muscled chest, following droplets of water down his strong body. He’s like a Greek god…

“Answer me, mortal!” he roared. I winced.

“No, no!” I squeaked nervously. “I don’t even know who Aza-moth is!”