I was weightless, suspended in a void of blackness that was fractured by pillars of swirling silver light. The light would split and revolve like threads in a loom, until finally separating into finer and finer strands. Ultimately, each ended in bright points like stars swimming in a galaxy submerged in moonlit water.
The light refracted like thick, grainy smoke. It clung to me, flowed around me like I had my own gravitational force. It entered my lungs with each breath only to be released moments later.
I extended my arms to touch it, but the light was immaterial. It clouded my vision giving everything a fuzzy haze.
Far beneath me, half hidden in light and fog, was a lush island of trees, grass, and rivers that would end in waterfalls – pouring boundless mist into the void. At the center of this island sat an elaborate marble palace adorned with gold and topped by ivory towers domed in brass and silver.
It was beautiful, and something about it struck me as familiar. I had seen it before, perhaps in a dream, a scene from a fantasy long since forgotten but not yet gone from my mind. It pulled at my attention, and it took me a few moments to reorient myself and to take in my more immediate surroundings.
Four granite pillars stood around me, curving inward to join at the top and create a circular roof with a wide oval opening in its center. Carved leaves and vines adorned the pillars and wrapped around them until blooming into intricate stone flowers that wreathed the open dome ceiling.
Opposite me sat a chair atop a long red rug that was set on nothing but the void. It was made of a rich, dark wood with a high, arched back. It was padded with a quilted cushion made of deep crimson leather. Sitting in that chair was a man shrouded in shadows. Only his eyes were visible, a deep blue almost glowing with reflected light.
"Hello, Gus." The voice was deep and inviting. Its familiarity was comforting and immediately put me at ease.
"Dad?" I asked. "How are you here? Where am I?"
I stood unspeaking for a moment, but my confusion quickly slipped away as the man spoke once more.
"Oh, Gus," he said. "Haven't we had this dance before?"
He quietly stood and quietly crossed half the distance between us, revealing a face similar to my own. "This is a universe upon itself, made up of thought and whim. A brittle chrysalis for what may come. It is your mind, a portion of it. Or should I call it ours?" The creature's laugh had none of the warmth and humor of my father but was instead thin and wheezy.
"And yet," it said. "This place is more. So much it sings to be. A dreamscape, a place connected to the multitude. Layers of light and dark, each speck a weary eye closed in quiet wonder. The dreamers stir and when they wake what better place to be? The wake do not see what lies with me."
I stood there for a moment as the creature walked back to its chair. As it sat it beckoned with one hand.
"Please, sit," it said. A duplicate of the chair the creature sat in appeared next to me.
"You're my companion, the Fisher?" I said ignoring the offer of a chair. "Why have you brought me here?"
"Brought? No, sheltered you. You swim through darkness, bait caught and tangled on the line. You must cast free, take back the sky else..."
"Else what..." I said, for it had paused and I grew impatient.
"Else you don't," it said with an exaggerated shrug. "And drown, bait lost to bigger fish. And I, swallowed back not to die, lost in thought and forgotten to memory."
I sat watching. The Fisher had a strange way of speaking, but it was clear it meant I was in danger. "What does all this mean?" I asked. "I'm tired of puzzles and vague prophecy."
"Prophecy?" it said with a gentle laugh. "Is it prophecy to call the snared hare caught? No, but let me show you..."
The creature stood, casting its chair into the void where it disintegrated into silver dust before disappearing into nothingness. As the creature stood it grew to enormous heights and spread its arms wide.
"This is just theatrics," I yelled. "Show me what you want me to see or send me back to my friends."
"Your friends are cast in dark waters beset by dangers," the creature said. Its voice was loud and thunderous as it echoed through the void. "And you must aid yourself if you wish to free them from this peril."
Between its massive outstretched hands, a round plane of silver light began to form quickly growing darker until an image formed on its murky surface.
I peered into the plane and I saw myself within it. I was being pulled through water, everything moving slowly as if the water was sluggish and thick.
The image was dark, but the filtered moonlight was enough to barely make out the dense cord of flesh that was wrapped around my right ankle and up my calf and thigh. The boot was missing, leaving only the thin jumpsuit as a barrier between my skin and the dark tumorous flesh of the tentacle that bound me.
My face could not be seen, instead I wore a mask of eyes hiding in grey folded flesh and twisting limbs. It pulsed with a study rhythm, like bellows fanning a fire.
"That's me," I said. "What's happening?"
"The bait is taken," the creature answered. "But the catch has leapt the net. If you wish to break free you must become more than bait. Stop resisting what you are. Embrace the madness in your soul, and the dark gods that call out to you."
"How—"
"We are one, the Finn and the Fisher. What is such a mind if not mad? Do not call it weakness but embrace the strength it gives us – you. And I."
"I've already let you out," I screamed. "I won't give you control as well."
"Three words spoken, we have bargained."
"You can't take control of me that easily," I said. "Tell me your words."
"Listen. Speak them, know that you cannot lie to yourself. Not here in depths of your own soul. Speak, and believe."
As it spoke the words I found my mouth repeating them. Three words, repeated over and over. The words alone were not dangerous, it was the idea that they represented. And the truth I knew I spoke. We spoke.
There, alone in the void, I spoke aloud. No one was there to hear me but myself.
***
My eyes opened but what I saw was incomprehensible. My mind was not prepared to see in all directions and the sensory overload caused me to cry out as I slammed closed my eyes. All eighty-seven of them.
I reached out and touched my face.
The skin was thick, almost rubbery. Long limbs protruded in random directions, and as I touched one I realized how incredibly sensitive it was. I could feel the slightest change in texture, it was enough that I could visualize my finger prints just from touching my hand with a tentacle.
I could feel even the slightest vibration in the water, and despite my eyes being closed I began to "see" a massive form far ahead of me. This sight gave me no details, just a hazy outline of a misshapen ball that was churning the waters around it. I could feel the water as it was drawn into the creature and then expelled in a steady beat.
It looked like a massive beating heart.
Thick tentacles protruded from the mass of flesh, each pulsing and contracting in time with the heart beat of the creature. One of these arteries reached up through the water and ended as it wrapped around my leg.
As I reached out towards the tentacle, the flesh of my companion instinctively reached out as well- the tentacles intertwining. I worked to pull the flesh free, to unwind it from myself – instead it just grew tighter. It dug into my leg, and I screamed out.
I reached out once again, this time gripping the slimy flesh further up. I wrapped the limbs of my dark companion around the tentacle, but this time I pulled on a bit of eldritch energy to create teeth that lined the inside of the limbs, much like the teeth of a chainsaw. I twisted and pulled, sawing into the creature with each tug.
The teeth gradually bit deeper, tearing away bits of flesh as they did so. As it finally came free I heard a mind splitting screech ring out. The flesh that was wrapped around my head protected me from the worst of it, but I could still feel my teeth and skull rattle until the noise gradually subsided.
The new tactile sight I had gained showed me several more tentacles shooting through the water in my direction. They were moving too fast for me to outrun or to even dodge. I reached out for the eldritch energy that flowed around me, but it was much thinner than it had been on the surface. Too thin to create a dome or capsule around myself.
Instead I created several blades and sent them in the direction of the tentacles, hoping to impale them and buy myself time. I used my head tentacles, shuddering at the thought of what I must look like, to propel myself through the water towards the surface.
As I broke through the surface of the water I could feel cool air hit my "face." It was refreshing to feel fresh air upon my flesh. It brought with it a thousand new scents too intense to process. Each was both familiar and unplaceable at the same time.
I tried to use my new senses to find my friends – the boat I had created would not have survived and they were likely stranded halfway across the river. I wasn't sure how long they could hold out if more of those fish came, let alone against more of those tentacles.
Before I could move, however, a dark presence spoke to me from the back of my mind. It was not words, but a pulling of my focus. It was like an instinct, a desire and reflex that couldn't be ignored. I could sense injured prey, and a powerful urge to tear into its flesh overwhelmed me.
I fought it for a moment, but I found myself speaking those same three words. Repeating them as I gave in to the instincts of my darker half.
"We are one," I said as I dove back into the darkness.