The Cult Fiction Series

In the abyssal depths of the Pacific, where light dared not linger, R’lyeh slumbered, its cyclopean spires clawing at the void. For eons, Cthulhu, the Great Dreamer, lay entombed, his dreams seeping into the minds of the mad and the forgotten, whispering of chaos and dominion. But in 2025, humanity’s hubris cracked the ocean’s crust—not with prayers or rituals, but with a nuclear inferno.

It began with a covert test. The United Nations Security Council, fractured by mistrust, had greenlit Operation Abyss: a 50-megaton warhead detonated in the Mariana Trench to assert dominance over contested waters. The blast was meant to be a warning, a flex of power against rival nations probing the deep for resources. They didn’t know what they’d awaken.

The detonation tore through the seabed, a fireball hotter than the sun vaporizing ancient stone. Shockwaves fractured R’lyeh’s prison, and the Great Old One stirred. His eyes, vast as collapsing stars, snapped open. The ocean boiled, tsunamis surging toward distant shores. From the epicenter, a psychic scream shredded the minds of every sailor within a thousand miles, their screams drowned by the churning deep.

Lieutenant Maria Voss, aboard the USS Resolute, a nuclear-armed submarine, was one of the few who didn’t succumb. She’d been monitoring the test from a safe distance, but the moment the warhead flared, her dreams filled with visions of tentacled horrors and drowned cities. Her crew wasn’t so lucky—half clawed their own eyes out, babbling in tongues older than humanity. Maria sealed herself in the command module, her hands trembling over the missile controls.

Above, the world scrambled. Satellites caught glimpses of something massive breaching the surface—a mountain of flesh, tentacles coiling like living storms. Cthulhu’s presence warped reality: clouds bled black ichor, and time stuttered, hours looping in maddening fragments. Coastal cities fell silent as millions stared skyward, entranced, before walking into the sea.

The Pentagon, desperate, authorized a second strike. B-52s dropped a 100-megaton payload directly onto the entity. The explosion lit the Pacific like a second dawn, but when the smoke cleared, Cthulhu remained, unscathed, his form shimmering with unearthly geometry. The blast only enraged him. Islands sank in his wake, and his psychic howl turned entire air fleets against each other, pilots weeping as they fired on their own.

Maria, alone in the Resolute, made her choice. The sub’s nuclear arsenal—ten warheads, each 20 megatons—was her only card. She dove toward R’lyeh’s ruins, guided by the alien whispers now clawing at her sanity. The sub groaned under the pressure, but she pushed deeper, evading tentacles that crushed steel like paper. At point-blank range, she armed the missiles, aiming for the heart of the city where Cthulhu’s essence pulsed.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, unsure if she meant it for humanity or herself. She fired.

The warheads struck true, detonating in a cataclysm that split the ocean floor. R’lyeh burned, its non-Euclidean towers melting into slag. Cthulhu roared, a sound that shattered Maria’s mind even as the sub imploded. For a moment, the world held its breath, believing the nightmare ended.

But in the silence, the sea churned again. Cthulhu’s form was gone, yet his presence lingered, seeping into the earth’s core, poisoning the winds. The bombs had not killed him—they’d only scattered his essence, a cancer now woven into reality itself. Crops withered, skies darkened, and the dreams grew louder.

Humanity survived, but at a cost. Nuclear arsenals were useless against a god who was no longer bound by flesh. In bunkers and ruins, the remnants prayed for salvation, unaware that their weapons had ensured none would come. And in their sleep, Cthulhu whispered, eternal, waiting for the stars to align once more.