What Lies Above

It had been at least seven Earth days since Azzie, an infant Starspawn, found himself trapped beneath the bed of a human child.

While he would one day grow to be an unfathomable horror, capable of shattering the psyche of any poor soul that gazed upon him, in his current state Azzie was simply a cute ball of flesh and tentacles. The cosmic equivalent of a dust bunny.

Azzie quaked with fear as he hid in the far back corner beneath the bed, nestled between a dust-covered board game and a toy gun whose batteries had long since been drained.

He could hear the door creak open ever so slowly. The muffled voices of adult humans clashed with the shrill tones of the child.

He didn’t understand their language, but what little he had seen of the child terrified him beyond imagination. The human was impulsive, chaotic, unpredictable. Azzie often looked on in horror as the child tore apart their toys, revealing their interiors with an almost demonic delight.

Azzie feared his fate would be the same if discovered, and so he hid, day in and day out.

The sun had long since fallen on that seventh day, basking the bedroom in merciful darkness. The child lumbered towards the bed with an uncertain gait, and Azzie watched with bated breath as it climbed onto the structure above.

As the child fell into a peaceful slumber, Azzie ventured out upon uncertain limbs. He stopped to gaze upon the moon through the child’s window, and he thought of home. His thoughts ventured to the night that brought him here.

***

7 Days Earlier…

“Go on, Azzie, we’ve all done it. If you’re a real Starspawn, you’ll do it too!” Nurath said, shaking all of his eyes in a sarcastic manner.

“Yeah Azzie, open the portal and go through. Don’t be a scaredy ghoul!” Yog said, joining in on the fun.

Azzie turned towards the dimensional gateway, an impressive structure of ancient stone and forbidden magics. It was a right of passage to step through into the human world, spend a night there, and then come back. At least, that’s what all the cool elder things were doing those days.

Azzie wanted so desperately to fit in. He was scared of the prospect of running into humans, but hoped dearly that the others would accept him if he gave in to their demands.

“One night, right?” Azzie asked.

“Yeah, of course! We’ll open the portal one Earth day from now, we swear on the Necronomicon.” Nurath said.

“Okay, open it.”

Nurath and Yog activated the gateway. Azzie’s tentacles tingled as the stone archway lit up with a series of glowing runes. The empty space in the center swirled with a hazy image of a child’s bedroom, a place foreign to Azzie.

Azzie turned back to the other elder things.

“I swear to Cthulhu, if you two are messing with me, I’m going to come back through here with an army and slaughter your entire families.”

Nurath narrowed all of his eyes. “Sure thing, Azzie, we’ll see you soon!”

Azzie stepped through the portal.

***

Present day:

As the sun started to rise on the eighth day, Azzie scurried beneath the bed. Though fear had taken hold in the last week, Azzie was slowly becoming more and more enraged at being stranded on Earth.

He would make due on his promise to Nurath and Yog, and he would start with the child in the room that had become his prison.

Even in his infant state, Azzie knew that he could influence humans, especially one as young and impressionable as the one sleeping above him. All he needed was courage to face his oppressor.

When the child arose for its first meal on the eighth day, Azzie bolted out from beneath the bed. The child spotted him almost immediately. A grin crossed its face, and before Azzie could dart back beneath the bed, the child grabbed him and picked him up.

Azzie wasted no time in beginning the incantation. The child reacted almost immediately, falling into a deep trance. Its eyes became cloudy. Azzie could feel himself tapping into the child’s thoughts. They were simple, rudimentary, but it was enough.

Azzie commanded the child to place him in the pocket of his pajamas. He rested comfortably as the child walked outward into the home. He waited until it climbed into a chair before slinking out of his pocket to assess the new surroundings.

The adult humans were enraptured in their own conversation. Azzie instructed the child to begin eating like it normally would. He climbed up a leg of the table and reached the surface. Across from the child’s meal were two other meals. Beside them, Azzie spotted metal tools, one of which looked sharp enough to be used as a weapon. A knife it seemed.

Azzie commanded the child to wield the weapon. As soon as it took the knife, the adult humans ceased their conversation. Azzie panicked as they walked towards the table, commanding the child to use the weapon against them.

It did so without question, driving the knife into its father’s hand. Something changed inside Azzie as he watched blood emerge from the wound. A deeper, more carnal aspect of his power awoke.

With a single, forbidden word, Azzie immediately took hold of the adult humans as well. Everyone froze in place. All of their thoughts, their feelings, their desires, rushed into Azzie’s mind, filling him with knowledge.

Azzie saw how the humans warred with one another. How they used strange weapons to exact their will. Azzie was intrigued, and he found himself fantasizing about using those weapons on Nurath, Yog, and the other elder things that did this to him.

And so, Azzie decided how he would enact his revenge. Three humans wasn’t much of an army, but it was certainly a start.