The Narrator

"..."

Hovering quietly, lone eye squinting, the Narrator curled into an inky ball trying to be as small as possible, starring intensely at the being below him as he made himself obfuscated.

Lifting a single long digit, the Narrator gestured to be silent with a finger to his toothy maw.

"Shhhh," the Narrator hushed pointing towards the subject of his observation.

Something unbelievably ancient and powerful was stirring there.

 

Many, many centuries ago...

He rose, his power crackling and surging, his sweet and pleasant dreams chased away by boiling anger.

The creatures under his benevolent protection were not embracing his will, his love... instead abandoning him for lesser gods.

Vile and perverse creatures that hung on like parasites, too weak to face his magnificence directly.

The craven cowardly and weak lesser creatures should know their place and their foolish worshippers would taste only agony and death before their pathetic patrons.

He would tolerate no others, no other was as worthy as he to claim this world, this world and all in it belonged to him.

Smooth etherial pale skin wriggled and wrinkled as he pulsed displeasure, many-layered veins of thought twisting ceaselessly in the vast entities gargantuan mind.

He would spare no heretics.

The essence of reality, warping and stretching to accommodate him, he drew himself towards the highest concentration of his disloyal heathens.

Arriving unseen as little more than a shade or shadow, he looked down on his followers with barely contained disgust, two days and nights passing as if no time at all to the powerful entity.

What he beheld did not ease his ire.

The tiny and woefully inadequate creatures were trundling back and forth in their daily and meaningless patterns, most not even stopping to offer tribute or prayer at his shrines, instead, exchanging shiny chunks of metal and wooden figurines.

Crude likenesses of some of his most hated rivals, a form of worship.

'UNACCEPTABLE,'

There would be no more mercy for the unrepentant heretics, violently punching a hole in the fabric of space he made himself known, pale gleaming body manifesting in a cloak of dazzling light.

His startled and loyal monkeys stared at their savior, their god, and called out in joy, some looking enthralled and in awe, while others stared disbelievingly, their jaws slack with shock.

But all soon began to call out to him, praising his magnificence and power, the slackjawed fools more with desperation than genuinity.

He stared with disdain at these wretches with distaste.

'HOLLOW DECLARATIONS.'

Unmoved by his loyal monkey's outbursts, he spoke, his voice quiet but everywhere.

"VERILY, DOTH MY PEOPLE KNOW ME?"

The loudly chanting monkeys went quiet, uncertain what their god was saying.

He looked at the uncertain monkeys from every possible angle.

'DISBEILIEVERS.'

Faces furrowing, he cast his displeasure over the monkeys, his voice low and menacing.

"NAY... MANY TURN AWAY FROM ME... TO FALSE AND SINFUL IDOLS "

His monkeys shifted uncomfortably, glancing at each other with wary or distrustful eyes.

He did not need the monkeys to search to know that already many had forsaken him.

Turned to the depths and unsavory pits.

He felt it in their pathetic, greedy, dark souls.

Anger spilling over into his amplified grand voice, he spat.

"YOU BEINGS UNDER MINE WINGS HATH COMMITTED GRIEVOUS SINS."

The monkeys looked extremely uneasy, some were even backing away, beginning to split and run.

"FOOLS," He hissed, flicking his limbs effortlessly, the fleeing monkeys were hit with a pure white light, turning the fleeing humanoids into charred corpses.

Unperturbed by the smoking remains he continued, the remaining monkeys either looking scared or exultant.

"YOU HATH LET THE DARK AND TAINT SPREAD UNCHECKED, ITS VILE INFLUENCE CORRODING THE HEART OF MAN EVEN NOW."

Hearing his words the more fearful monkeys looked around desperately, searching for an escape.

There would be no escape.

"ON THIS CYCLE AND EVERY FROST HENCEFORTH A GREAT PURGE SHALL TAKE PLACE, ONLY THOSE WHOM HATH FAITH IN THEIR LORD SHALL BE SPARED."

He flexed a limb, the material plane warping and buckling like wet paper.

The land writhing and twisting, nightmares crawled, slithered, shambled, and jerked, falling from the shifting tears in the sky to land among the monkeys.

As the nightmares raised their misshapen mouths and disproportionate bodies, the screaming began.

"ONLY THE FAITHFUL SHALL LIVE."

Staggering and lumbering toward the people the monstrosities attacked, tearing the populace to pieces, only those on their knees praying, were passed by.

The very first frost purge had come to the world and many more were to come.

 

The Narrator

"...."

Silently the Narrator slipped back into his own pocket realm, being careful to not make any rapid movements as he slowly phased out of the physical world, he did not want that thing to spot him.

Glancing around with his single eye suspiciously before whispering, the Narrator spoke, the paired orbs all around him watching intently.

"Sorry my readers, I have to be stealthy when recording these entities, they are a tad dangerous, even to me."

Now feeling he was no longer in danger, the Narrator, straightened up with a toothy grin, addressing his patient readers happily.

"Welcome to the second volume my readers, I hope you had pleasant holidays-"

Before the Narrator could finish the little speech he had planned to welcome the readers back with, a powerful and thunderous voice boomed.

"WHO DARES TO LAYETH EYES ON ME? SHOW YOURSELF WORM!" 

The Narrator's eye widened as the fabric of his very own pocket realm began to flicker and bulge beside him.

"Well... that's unexpected!" the Narrator frowned in a bemused tone of voice, the many watching eyes beginning to fly about in a flurry of confusion.

He had not thought the overweight and bloated creature would be so quickly on his trail, but having little time to ponder this the Narrator shrugged before turning to his panicking observers.

"I will see you next chapter." the Narrator shot out, quickly beginning to weave two new portals, one for him, and the other for his readers to escape through.

"Although for me that might not be in quite some time," the Narrator whispered to himself forlornly as he sadly glanced at the rapidly deforming space he had called home for a time, the star-like void slowly being turned pale and white as the chasing entity encroached on his turf, tendrils of its influence converting the realm.

"THOU CANNOT ESCAPE WORM, TREMBLE AND AWAIT JUDGEMENT!"

"No time to tarry," the Narrator said hastily before calling out one last thing as he stepped towards his conjured portal.

"Be sure to see yourselves out, I would not like my precious readers to get.... lost..."

Following the Narrator's advice, many of the rolling eyeballs and jittery orbs zoomed towards the second portal, only a few curious, brave or foolish pairs remaining behind.

Seeing this the Narrator said while shaking his shifting flowing head, "Well Don't say I didn't warn you then my readers." 

With a suave wave and a flourish, the Narrator stepped into his portal, just as a tidal wave of white purity bleached the realm alabaster, the unreal force of an ancient power annihilating that space of the Narrator's influence, the few eyes that had not already fled through the second portal hurriedly shooting into it in a panic once they saw the wave of white, the portal sealing just as the last pair of eyes escaped.

White.

Empty.

Hollow.

The space-like environment was now bleached out, painted over, only a rising bubbling pool of pure white liquid that gurgled and slurred present in the altered reality.

"CRAVEN WORM FLEEING AT THE MEREST HINT OF MY PRESENCE, YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE!"

The bubbling ooze sank into a whirlpool that manifested before dematerializing with a wet squelch.