#rlyeh

by Ivan Palma

South Pacific XII. On the reef.

They sleep

Fragmented thoughts, not dead, barely conscious, away, Beyond knowledge, unknown, deep under the oceans Into the abysses, into the dark chasms In the sunken city R'lyeh, they sleep and lay.

/* Pencil doodle on A6 sketchbook -  Porte-mine sur carnet A6 /

When is uncertain, for it was before time and space and matter, but once the shell shattered in the blinding light of plasma symmetric, and it was Chaos, Nu, Tiamat, it would know many names but it would always be at core The Azathoth, for it was the Primordial Chaos, The Deep Dark Sea from which all sprung, The Big Bang that tore creation the Black Tapestry.

When the Chaos of Nature Cooled, twins became of it, The Milky Mist In The Void and The Darkness Between The Stars, and with their birth, Creation became a realm threefold. At the center was chaos-born Azath, and from it came the Dark Realm of Shogg and the Material World of Shugg.

From the Mist In The Void would spawn Yog-Sothoth, who is all of Time and all of Space, who is the All Encompassing Lurker At The Threshold, for Yog-Sothoth is the Key, Yog-Sothoth is the Gate, Yog-Sothoth is the way to see the Beautiful and Horrible Truth of Creation.

From the Darkness Between The Stars, Life Mother Shub-Ningkuratlh would spawn who would birth a Thousand Young in her image.

With the spawning of the Life Mother, Chaos Changed. The Original Chaos of Nature grew, expanded, and from a fissure was born The Dream Walker, The Crawling Chaos of a Thousand Faces, Nyarlathotep, Father of the Lucid Dream-Realm of Shagg. It would walk amongst the whole creation where there was life, a more personal chaos than its originator.

From the union of the Shub-Ningkuratlh and Yog-Sothoth were born twin blasphemies, Yeb The Black Flame of Whispering Mists and their twin, Nug The Torch of the Force of Mind. Unto Yeb would become the Gaseous Stars, unto Nug would become the Planetary Spheres. Unto them would be given the power to wipe clean, the Furnace to ignite the Torches and scorch at the whim of The Chaotic Azathoth.

From Yeb would birth Tsathoggua, the Sleeping Seal of the Dark Night-Stars in N'kai.

From Nug would birth Cthulhu, Sleeping High Priest of Deep-Sunk R'lyæxh Who Is To Come And Rise Again, for his sermon is Truth, and Truth is unavoidable. The Truth of the Stars was sealed once in those ancient days, but it shall rise in full again, seeping through cracks where Wandering Nyarlathotep travels.

The Literality matters not, there need not be a shucked oyster at the center of the galaxy for there to be Chaos in Nature, and Nature in Chaos. There need not be a three legged shapeshifter for there to be Dreams and the Chaos Amongst The Crowds. There need not be a 13 Irridescent Sphered Entity for there to be time or space, and there need not be a literal giant goat-adjacent monster for there to be Life, just as there need not be for a man with attitude issues and a cool beard to give and create thunder.

The story remains true, for there is life, and they simply Are. Life Is, Time and Matter Are, Chaos in Nature Is. It Is, They Are, and that is all they need to Be.