Calamity

The murky fluids flowed across the earth in wiry rivers of oil and pitch, leaving a slimy trail in their wake. A rushing flow of lapping water oppressed the hearing of every person in a two-kilometer radius, as the flow slowly gathered in a puddle, then a pond, and then a lake of thick, opaque waters surrounded the walls of thin plywood separating themselves from the elements.

Derek quickly ushered her into her clothing for an effort to retain some modicum of decency, even in the face of an existential threat. There was no telling what untold capabilities awaited them within this new development of Azathoth's careless disregard of their existence, but he would meet his end with dignity, or not at all.

Sylvia desperately drew the clothes onto her body, as quickly as she could manage with fingers of helpless mangled exhaustion. She tried to fix the buttons on her blouse, but either the fear and panic, or the blissful exhaustion caused her to fumble regularly with this task. Eventually, she huffed so loudly at her inability, that Derek—now easily enrobed in his full regalia—sauntered over, and wordlessly fastened the buttons on her clothing for her.

The sight was so subtly intimate, that she flared up immediately with the urge to kiss him again. He registered her intent, but shook his head, and grabbed her hand, to urge her out the door. There was no time!

The sludge was lapping between the gaps of the floorboards now. Small splatters of inky spit flicked onto their feet and toes, and it was terribly warm to the touch—almost like a living being. "Eewwww, It's like dog slobber!" She cried, losing about 20 footcandles of arousal at the sensation.

"Come on, we have to get out of here before it gets too high to cross on foot! If we wait much longer, we'll probably need a boat, and I don't really have the best swimming form to tackle an ocean made of molasses." Derek grabbed her hand and tugged her towards the door.

"But wait..! My shoes!" She exclaimed, looking back toward the expensive footwear she had brought to see her darling Derek at his home, this morning. They were floating and stained midnight with the thick slimy texture of the surrounding fluid, as it curled and gnarled into writhing currents beneath the surface of the waters.

It looked to her almost like a living snake, or an eel, made out of the same substance it moved within. Then, just as quickly as she had the thought, a tentacle made of black slime separated itself out from the waters, and latched itself around her adorable pink pumps, and dragged them underneath into the unseen void below.

"Okay," she admitted, nodding. "Fuck the shoes!" The threat was real, the fluid was live, and it was hungry. The waters were almost to their ankles, and rising fast.

He inclined his head to express his agreement, and dove from the door with her hand in his. His shoulder had both of their bags thrown over. She was in no shape to be towing any heavy loads at the moment, he knew, even if his normal state was only barely better than her at her worst. He needed to give her time to recover.

It was his fault, after all.

He huffed and gasped in the exertion, as they trudged into the sticky, thickened fluid that now came up to their calves. She blushed at the gesture, as she knew this was not in the nature of this stick-thin bookworm with a sardonic attitude. Trailing behind him, she placed a hand on his shoulder, appreciatively. Then, she took her own bag, as if to tell him that she would never hold him back.

"Don't bother trying to look cool, okay? I can handle this much."

His ears burned, since she saw him struggling so easily. Even unsteady as she was on her feet, she had the time and energy to pity him. He couldn't stop her, though, as he knew that he'd been beat. They never would have escaped if he were trying to show off like that.

Tendrils poked out of the shimmering skin of oily precipitate like the spikes emerging from the surface of a ferrofluid, in regular irregular arrangement. These sharp points grew from peaks of a mushroom cap all the way to trees of height that rivaled an average sapling in the parks.

They waved tremulously on either side as they stepped carefully across the shifting terrain underfoot. It was a difficult task that took most of their attention. Wherever they placed their feet, a simple splash of black goo might turn into a cone poised to pierce the sole of your foot, if you put all your weight upon it. One had to watch to be sure that the languid surface wouldn't transform underneath you.

This posture of traversal while staring desperately at your feet was the primary reason that they hadn't realized the growing noise of ascending perturbation, as all those trees slowly wobbled their ways into one another, each growing in size from a branch to a bough, to a trunk to a mighty redwood, towering overhead.

They didn't notice until even the waters underneath their feet dropped back to the ankle levels once more. It had stopped raining, altogether. The glossy surface had gathered, and swelled beneath their feet until a burgeoning mass towered above them like a mighty tsunami. Two-hundred feet of water hung up into the air, poised to crash down across the entire town like a tidal wave.

"Oh my god," cursed Sylvia, looking up at the face of complete and utter annihilation. There was nothing they could do. There was nowhere they could go. There was no one to appeal, and no salvation to anticipate. All the mighty colossal collections of waters would need to do was fall, and their entire town would be wiped off the map in a violent splatter that would split the earth and demolish houses and mountains alike.

Derek was not so shaken, gazing up into the same representation of hopeless despair. He wouldn't die here. He couldn't! He had just begun to understand the beginning of the shape of god.

Wait! That's it! The shape of Azathoth was still freshly inside his memory, and he had yet to use it in any feasible manner. If he could imprison an Outer God in his mind's eye, then how dare this figment of Azathoth dare to threaten his mortal form?

He chuckled, "Oh, you're getting desperate, you bastard. How long have you been saving this energy to incarnate? Would you waste it all on little old me, and my nobody girlfriend?!"

"G-g-girlfriend?!" Sylvia stumbled, caught off guard at the notion. Of course, it was obvious that they had reached a new level of their relationship, considering what had transpired today, but they still had yet to actually use the word before. Her light blew out of proportion, actually causing ripples across the glistening flesh of this gelatinous presence. Derek smiled, noting the reaction of her concentrated aura on its semi-corporeal existence.

That gave him a devilish idea. "Yes, Sylvia, You're my girlfriend, now. Is that a problem?" The waters around her feet separated in a circle, as if held back by an invisible sphere of energy expanding from the same spot in her chest where the furies of love originated. They could see the grass beneath her naked toes, and not a single droplet remained.

Still, he wasn't done. "Don't you know I'm in love with you?" The light exploded out from her, like she went completely nuclear in his hands. Faster than sound, faster than hope, the impact zone expanded with the speed of a single thought. A dome of massless force impacted the mesa of fluid, breaking apart its unthinkable volume into a shower of flowing droplets once again.

All that water had to go somewhere, of course, and so a terrible fate awaited the unsuspecting populace in the valley beyond their blast radius. A volume of water large enough to rival all the trees in the forest came rushing back into their streets, schools, and homes. Untold destruction rained down upon the helpless populace.

There was nothing they could do. There was nowhere they could go. There was no one to appeal, and no salvation to anticipate. The town was doomed, and it was all their fault.

But they were safe. Derek didn't have time to care for the citizens of The Everglades. He was no government official, and he had no great understanding of the price of power used unwisely. He only had one thing on his mind, and always. His mother.

He smirked at the wanton destruction, and laughed at the form hanging up in the skies above. All the faithful masses, paying such careful deference to the great power that hung out in the void of space, were little more than ants to him.