25 Mar 2019
Today’s prompt: “Pick a country, and imagine we’ve been at war with it for fourteen years. Write a love story set in that world.”
Most Americans hadn’t even heard of the Federated States of Micronesia fourteen years ago. But now the whole world knows all about those four island states: Yap, Chuuk, Kosrae and Pohnpei.
Frickin’ Pohnpei.
Pohnpei is where they first appeared, of course. R’lyeh is located in the South Pacific, about as far as you can get from any other land mass. It’s about 5,100 miles from Pohnpei, but when Cthulhu and his bloodthirsty brethren woke up, that’s where they went.
Pohnpei used to be known for its waterfalls, coral reefs, ancient ruins, a few species of birds, and a thick, sludgy drink called sakau made from the kava plant. It was called Ascension Island by Europeans, and ruled by the Spanish, the Germans, the Japanese and the US before the FSM was formed. Now, Pohnpei is known for being the stomping ground of the Old Ones – the island of their ascension from the watery depths. It’s where Nyarlathotep masses his followers. It’s where Hastalÿk, The Contagion, sends his infections on the winds to neighboring lands. And it’s where Abholos (Devourer in the Mist), Lexur’iga-serr’roth (He Who Devours All in the Dark), M’Nagalah (The Devourer), Sheb-Teth (Devourer of Souls), Shuy-Nihl (The Devourer in the Earth), and Ialdagorth (The Dark Devourer) set up an all-you-can-eat human buffet.
The entire world has been at all-out war with Micronesia for 14 years. Or at least, those inhabitants of the world who haven’t already been zombified, compromised or driven mad. Almost everyone thinks it’s hopeless, although there’s always some hawk who points out we were able to kill Ithaqua by firing a few mortars. No one wants to say aloud that none of the other Old Ones have been that vulnerable.
Love stories in this world are like soap bubbles. They all end in fleeting goodbyes. You and Paul were in the remobilized 104th infantry together, the Nightfighters. He had a smile that almost made you forget the world. You traded each other bites from your MREs, and he told you about his life before the war growing up in Nebraska surrounded by cornfields. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much of a love story. A few shared beef stew packets, a smile, a conversation. But in a world like this, you take love where you can find it. You grab it by the throat and you don’t let go.
You and Paul shared a bunk for five glorious nights. And then, death from above. No, not a bomb; not a strafing attack from an airborne division. This isn’t that kind of war. You were attacked by Groth-Golka, the Demon Bird-God, a kind of toothy pterosaur. He dove toward your platoon and seized you in his beak, flew skyward with you, shook you like a rag doll and dropped you. Paul rushed to your side, but there was nothing that could be done. He choked back tears, and you placed your hand over his, and slipped away into the dark.
Paul still takes your dog tags out of his pocket from time to time, but a little less frequently now. He still doesn’t smile as much as he used to. The war goes on, year after year after year.
24 Mar 2019
Today’s prompt: “The next sound you hear and what caused it”
Pop-pa-pa-pop-crack-crackle-cra-bash!
That is the sound a tree falling in the forest makes even when nobody’s around to hear it.
You’re kind of an authority on this. Being a ghost that has haunted this forest ever since the Black Brotherhood kidnapped you, dragged you out here and ritually slaughtered you to please the Old Ones, you’re about as close as you can get to being a nobody. I mean, you literally have no body. You watched the maggots and other insects devour it months ago. And it’s not like you’re really around, except in a metaphysical sense. But you still hear those trees.
23 Mar 2019
Today’s prompt: “What’s stored in your closet?”
The skulls of all of your victims, bleached after each kill you made to venerate the Old Ones and stacked on massive shelves, first neatly, then all stuck in helter-skelter, until the day an earthquake hit as you were adding your most recent kill to the closet and buried you under the bones of your victims.
22 Mar 2019
Today’s prompt: “The toy you most treasured”
AAAHHH-aahhh. AAAHHHH-aahhhh. AAAHHH-aahhh.
That’s the sound your plastic robotic Cthulhu made as it marched one leg forward after the other.
CH-RONK. CH-RONK. CH-RONK.
That was the sound it made when it chomped down on the little plastic humans you fed to it.
You loved your robotic Cthulhu. Your parents tell stories about how when you were five, you insisted on bringing it with you when they took you to the mall. They had to wait for enough AAAHHH-aahhhs to pass for them to scoop you and plastic Cthulhu up so they could move on to Sears or J.C. Penney’s.
When dread Cthulhu came, he didn’t come with an AAAHHH-aahhh, AAAHHH-aahhh. He came with the sound of cities being crushed underfoot, of sheetrock shearing, of concrete crumbling. And when dread Cthulhu devoured you alive, it wasn’t with a CH-RONK, CH-RONK. It was the sound of flesh rending beneath massive molars. Sort of a squi-ritch? Yeah, something like that.
21 Mar 2019
Today’s prompt: “Three objects in your childhood bedroom”
Your parents raised you to be a good cultist. You had a plushie Cthulhu, a “See Cthuhu Devour” board book, and a pop-up book version of the Necronomicon. And it’s true, you rebelled when you became a teenager – even threatened to become an Episcopalian a few times – but they’d be so proud to see you now: dutifully marching toward Cthulhu in line with the other cultists, head held high, eager to be devoured first as is your right for helping bring him into this world.
20 Mar 2019
Today’s prompt: “A powerful Hollywood agent’s personal to-do list”
Schmooze
Schmooze some more
Book Skyler Richards on entertainment segment of “R’lyeh Talk” to promote her role in “Meet Cute”
Follow up with Rolling Stone about cover photo shoot for Mormo
Bury rumors about Skyler murdering strangers as sacrifices to the Old Ones to retain her youthful good looks
Bury body of [insert-your-name-here], Skyler’s sacrifice
Remind Skyler to be a little more discreet next time
Tell CNN they underestimated Mormo’s death toll at Bonnaroo. Her fans love a high body count.
19 Mar 2019
Today’s prompt: “The general manager of the New York Yankees’ personal to-do list”
From the Desk of Harold George Steinbrenner III:
To-Do List:
Buy up all the good players.
Swim through vault of money like Scrooge McDuck.
Bask in the hatred of all who surround me.
Make sacrifice to the Outer Gods who keep our family in power from generation to generation.
Take a baseball bat to the head of that fucker [insert-your-name-here] who shows up at games with signs saying “Steinbrenner sold his soul to the Outer Gods.”
Go to sleep, dreaming of money.