Prompt: The first convergence happened years ago. Children’s books began to leak into our world. Years have gone by with the emergence of other genres from high fantasy to dystopian sci-fi. We have managed to learn the next one will appear, Lovecraftian Horror.
We never understood why or how it happened, but we learned to accept and live with it. At first it wasn’t so bad — worlds and what they contained leaked from children’s books. Brightly colored animals, landscapes, candy and toys and cheery, accepting slogans that only made us feel nostalgic and warm. Then, as though whatever this thing was, moved from one aisle in the library to the next; other things began to leak out from other genres of literature.
The next was fantasy. There were trolls shouting, elves carrying bows and arrows; there were knights and warriors and vikings screaming blood-calls while they held their massive weapons high above their heads. Their worlds came with them, ones with lush, massive forests; mountains that groaned and moved and eclipsed the sky; swamps that bubbled and boiled with life dwelling in their depths; valleys and plains that seemed to shimmer green when the wind blew…
Then science fiction came to life with ships zipping into the depths of space; cyborgs and humans modified by technology that allowed them to teleport and speak foreign languages and see through walls and fly. There were giant things that had probed ears and wide, oval gray eyes and slits for noses; short, stubby things with only one ruby eye and wide mouthes that seemed to stretch endlessly; small, cute things that tittered and weaved around the air…
These were all acceptable. We learned to live with them and they, too. We built zones and fences and other things so each place could have their own section of the world. They were intelligent enough to understand, intelligent enough to allow separation between worlds… But from what the genretists have discovered, the next genre to come to life was not one we would be able to accept, one that will not accept us.
There was an author by the name of HP Lovecraft, who wrote stories about titanic, uncaring gods that are far, far older than time and space itself. These gods will come to life. These gods will not care who or what we are, or what we have tried to build or tried to do. They will cause madness, they will cause the end of times, the end of reality as we know it. Gods with inhuman names that feel wrong in the mouth, with names that when spoken it feels more like vomiting than speaking.
But, we’re preparing by reading Lovecraft’s work, by understanding the impossible, by hollowing out the earth and building bunkers and the like. These gods may care so little for humanity that they may ignore us, they may see the world as empty save for the specks of life in the earth and drift to another planet or cosmos.
We can only hope, for that is all we can do. Our minds are the only things we truly have since the genre-leaking began, and if we lose that, we’ll lose everything.
Read my previous prompt, “The Muttering Man.”
Purchase my work on Amazon.
Micah Castle 