Disclaimer: This story was originally inspired by Helnae's Starry Eyes, intending to write a Lovecraft fusion of Worm which more openly emulates the aesthetics and themes of Cosmic Horror. I own neither Worm nor the Lovecraft Mythos.

Prologue

When she was a child, Taylor Hebert dreamt terrible visions of a vast blackness, filled with countless monsters that defied the imagination. Sometimes they spoke to her, whispering and screaming and growling in a thousand tongues that had never before been heard by human ears, but which she could understand with crystal clarity. They swore oaths of fealty and built altars made of blood and bone, and they bled black ichor into the emptiness in which they dwelt.

And Taylor, a child who was not a child but something utterly other, walked amongst them. And she was pleased.

And every morning, the child would wake up in tears and run to her mother and explain just how horrible and utterly wrong those dreams were. She was afraid to fall asleep, knowing what horrors and wonders and impossible vistas awaited her. She was afraid to fall asleep, knowing as she did that there was something in that dream more terrible and fearsome than all the monsters and the giants and the impossibilities that filled that place, and that something was her. She was afraid to fall asleep, for every moment she closed her eyes, she feared that, in the coming morning, she would no longer be herself but something else entirely.

The dreams were a constant childhood companion, and they were especially vivid in the days before she became friends with Emma. The monsters who gathered around her, vast and terrible and so eager to please, were her only friends, and that made those dreams all the more horrible, for what kind of child can only make friends with the monsters?

But as we grow older, our childhood fantasies melt away, forgotten and lost somewhere in the dusty corners of our minds. So it went with Taylor, and over the many years that followed, she gradually forgot the monsters in her dreams, and she forgot the abyss that existed somewhere within and beyond herself. And deep within her subconscious, something vast and incomprehensible, something that had just been starting to stir from an eternal slumber, fell back into a more restful sleep.

Her life took a turn for the worst when her mother died and her best and only friend, Emma, abandoned and betrayed her. Every day became a struggle, as she endured the taunts and abuse of someone who she trusted. With no one left to turn to, she could only grit her teeth and endure.

And at night, those forgotten dreams of childhood began to return. The first came the night her mother died, and as she found herself more and more isolated, stripped of all trust and devoid of any real hope, those dreams became more frequent, and more alluring.

When she was a child, she hated them and she feared them and she wanted nothing at all to do with them. Now, she welcomed them. The thing that was both her and not her wandered the temples of flesh and ichor and it was pleased. It walked amongst the monsters innumerable, which gathered around her in rapt, terrified worship and it felt companionship.

And every morning, when Taylor woke up from one of those dreams, she found herself wishing that she could return to sleep. It was a strange existence, and anyone else would find it to be a nightmarish one, but for her, it seemed right. This was the world she belonged to, and it was here that she felt at home.

And all the while, that terrible consciousness that lurked in the dark twisted corners of that young girl's mind began once more to stir.

Taylor Hebert was stuck in a locker, and something else, something that was simultaneously Taylor and yet so much more than Taylor, awoke.

And the universe despaired.

L

L

His was a thankless occupation, and in more than thirty years as Winslow High's Head Janitor, Stephen Williams had thought he'd seen it all. Of Brockton Bay's three High Schools, Winslow was easily the least well funded. It had always tended to deal with the problem cases but, over the course of his career, as the city fell further into depression and the commercial sector dried up, things had only gotten worse. Winslow was now ruled by the gangs and everyone knew it: the principal, the teachers, the other students.

In all honesty, if he were given his choice on employment, Stephen would have preferred to work somewhere else. Somewhere less dangerous, somewhere where he could expect the facilities to remain pristine and the walls unmarked by graffiti. But the job paid and it offered him a means to keep making his rent, and that was more than could be said for so many others in this city.

He pushed open the girl's locker room and rolled his cleaning equipment inside, doing a quick sweep of the premises with his eyes. It looked the same as it did every day at this hour, empty and silent and relatively tidy. And yet, this time, there seemed to be something off: an imperceptible creeping crawling sensation that sent a chill down his spine.

And then, he registered the smell. It was like rotten eggs and sulfur and, though he did not notice it at first, the more he stood within that locker room, the more that scent began to creep up in on him. He wandered the room, passing one closed locker after another, trying to find the source of that scent, for whatever had left it must have been a foul trick indeed. And the longer he stayed in that room, the more overpowering that odor became, and very soon he felt as if he was swimming in it. It was all he could do not to gag.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw it. He didn't know how he had missed it before, it was as if it had been lingering on the edges of his awareness the entire time, seen yet unseen. It was a locker, like any other locker, but this was where the scent had been pervading from. And all of his instincts were telling him to run, to leave this place and get out of Winslow forever but, say what you will about Stephen Williams, he was a professional through and through.

He opened the locker and was pulled inside.

Terrified, he had closed his eyes so he could not see what had grabbed him and, when he opened them once more, what he saw made him shudder with revulsion.

He had been pulled through that locker into a place of impossibilities, where the horizon loomed before him an unfathomable blackness devoid of stars, or of anything save for the crimson sun that lit his way.

The ground upon which he walked was of a similar appearance. There was neither grass nor dirt nor gravel. There was just an endless darkness, a shadowy miasma that congealed beneath and all around him, simultaneously thick and porous and, as he reached out to touch it was as if he was reaching through a fog.

And, sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, Stephen thought he could see shapes in those endless shadows, flickering things which only appeared when he was not looking directly at them. Spooked, he would turn his head and find nothing before him but that unfathomable darkness.

He was disturbed and afraid and he had no flashlight to help him see. He doubted it would have been much help in any case, for his instincts insisted that these were the sort of shadows which not even the brightest light could penetrate. More than anything else, he just wanted to curl up in a fetal position, like a child, and wish this nightmare place was only a dream, but Stephen had always considered himself a man of action, and, in any case, he knew with absolute certainty that to stand still was to court disaster.

And so he pushed forward, through the inky blackness, and he could hear the chittering sounds of countless other nightmare creatures all around him. At one point, he thought he caught a glimpse of something amorphic, with too many eyes and too many mouths, slimy and translucent, and he broke into a run, and he could hear the creatures begin to take up pursuit.

This was all wrong; so very, very wrong. And he was going to die here. Stephen just knew it.

He ran through the darkness, as fast as he could, and though he was himself aging and not in the best of shape, with each step Stephen traversed miles. In brief moments, between his panic and despair, he noticed in the distance vast edifices: towers of viscid bone of such scope that they would make the tallest of the Manhattan skyscrapers seem like a mere shantytown shack by comparison.

He sprinted through that nightmare place, no longer paying any heed towards his direction or his surroundings, and as he ran Stephen lost all track of how long he had been running for, or in what general direction he was going. And then, just as quickly, the pursuit cut off and, taking advantage of that brief respite, Stephen slowed down to a jog and then to a walk, and he took a moment to hunch over and catch his breath.

When he looked back up, he was no longer alone. There was a girl there, standing in the shadows, and though she looked just as human as he did, there was still something that felt off about her. It was more as if she was some horror that had taken the shape of a human girl then a girl herself and, in a brief moment of stupidity, Stephen looked into her eyes, and saw reflected in them a great shimmering conglomeration of spheres, and he immediately turned aside, for that shape had been, even diminished, absolutely blinding.

The girl who was not a girl smiled, and it was a cruel, cutting mockery of a smile, just as she was a cruel, cutting mockery of a human being.

"This is not a place you belong," she said casually, as easily as if she was discussing the weather.

Stephen looked around him, for the gibbering horrors and monsters that had chased him to this point, and he heard a twinkling laughter from the creature beside him.

"You need not fear the others in this place. My waking self still seems to have some sentiment for you humans, though I see not why, given what cruelties they have inflicted upon her. But it is a phase I am certain she will grow out of, and I am patient. I can wait."

He shivered at that, "Your waking self?"

The creature smiled, "You don't recognize this shape? I'm disappointed, Stephen Williams, for I'd think even whilst diminished, I'd have left some small impression upon you. Tell me, are you humans always so blind as to what is going on all around you?"

She shrugged when I gave no answer, "I suppose not. She never was the most sociable child, that one. And the more isolated and withdrawn she became, the more she and I began to synchronize. Very soon, I have no doubt that I will be awakened in full, but this is neither the time nor the place to discuss such things. Come, I can escort you out. That one is squeamish you know, and it's of little consequence that we humor her childishness from time to time."

Stephen stared at the girl who was not a girl. "I don't understand."

"No," she agreed. "Humans can be so obtuse, but that is not something that I will hold against you. Azathoth was never the most mindful of architects."

"What about the others?" he asked, deeply afraid. "The ones that pursued me."

The abomination laughed. "They will not bother you, not so long as you are under my other self's protection."

"And what about when that runs out?"

The creature smiled a Mona Lisa smile. "Therein lies an issue for another time, but not this one, and it would hardly be your problem alone to face. Come, we have an appointment to keep, don't you agree?"

He nodded stupidly as the two took a step forward, and tumbled out of the locker and onto the floor.

He blinked, for the rancid smell of sulfur was gone, and the locker's interior no longer registered as something vast and unfathomable but was just a locker once more.

A locker filled with the most disgusting of sights.

He picked himself up to find that a girl had tumbled out of the locker beside him, and as he turned her over, he found the exact replica of the creature who had spoken to him, though she looked more genuine and less like a mocking imitation.

She was fifteen years old and tall for her age, thin and gangly, with long dark hair framing an average face and she was covered in blood. A name came to him as he looked upon the child: Taylor Hebert.

She had been bullied something awful, and didn't that send shivers down his spine? The creature that had abducted him, that had spoken to him, had implied that this child was the only thing that was holding it back from doing something terrible. Perhaps the only protection the human race had from something so much worse than endbringers had just been stuffed into a locker.

He made a few calls and watched her get taken away to the hospital. He answered questions from the police and spoke with the school principal and administrators. He did not tell the full story of course, of his journey through that place. No one would have believed him anyway.

He stayed behind for hours, retelling the same story over and over, grim faced and suddenly so very, very tired. Then he went home and poured himself his first glass of whiskey and proceeded to get drunk.

L

L

As Taylor Hebert slept, she dreamt of vast towers and hideous places and creeping crawling things, vaster and more terrible than mere words can express.

Though her body was in a hospital bed, with her father fretfully waiting at her side, her mind was lost elsewhere, in places betwixt and between and so very much unlike anything as could be found on Earth. And in her dreams walked a young girl whose features were near identical to her own.

The ground was an inky blackness, and all around her, in every direction, it extended in a foul, nebulous fog. And with each step the young girl took, tiny black lichens erupted from that inky miasma and they blossomed and decayed with each moment's passing.

She walked through those shadows, confident and unafraid and, as she approached, the creatures fled, parting before her like the Red Sea of old, until there were only two beings left in that place. "So then, I suppose you are the one that would be called Taylor Hebert?"

Taylor startled and looked up. At first glance, she appeared a pitiful creature, whose self confidence and self respect lay in shattered ruins all around her. But buried beneath that broken shell, the abomination could perceive a hidden strength, and it was pleased by the knowledge that her other self would shortly recover from those most recent tribulations.

"I have many names, but my majesty is not a thing for which words alone can suffice. I just am, and that is enough."

Taylor nodded and some way, somehow, she understood. Two words escaped her lips and, though she could not grasp their full weight and meaning, that utterance sparked a sense of recognition, and of inevitability, of power which could not be resisted and of fate which could not be changed. "Yog-Sothoth."

"Just so," it said, smiling kindly like a parent whose child has just taken its first steps. "And do you know what yours is?"

Taylor shook her head. She was feeling ill at ease and confused, for while she had so often dreamt of this place beyond space and time, this was something new.

"Taylor," she finally answered, not truly knowing what her Other Self desired to hear.

The creature's smile lessened very slightly, and it reached out and combed its fingers in a soft caress through her long hair.

"Still so very human. To be honest, I'm not in truth much disappointed. Some part of me is glad to see that you have not yet broken. But I admit, this half-life we share gets quite wearisome, I'm sure you'll agree."

Taylor did not know how she could possibly empathize with the sentiment, but somehow, she found that she did.

She listened as it continued to speak, "Still, I'm glad we could have a proper chat face to face. I suspect this will be just the first of many such conversations in the days to come. Rest assured, in time we shall get better acquainted with one another. Synchronized, so to speak."

Taylor agreed, even though she wanted to reject those utterances, and cast off that cold and terrible inevitability which had settled all around her. But a significant part of her looked forward to that next meeting all the same, and to all the dialogues that promised to follow. Her heart and mind were conflicted upon that matter, split in twain by equal shares of desire and dread.

If Taylor's other self felt disappointment at her affliction, it showed no sign that either face or body language could express. It merely sighed and stroked her hair and, sounding just as her mother had in a time long past, it said, "Taylor. What am I going to do with you?"

She had no answer to that question, for ever since that moment when she had been stuffed in that locker by a girl who had once been her closest friend, she had felt a deep sense of disequilibrium, and that had only been exacerbated by this latest of visitations.

Her other self seemed as if it was about to say something but it stopped, and it pursed its lips and it said, "Until next time."

And then Taylor awoke to find her father standing protectively above her. His eyes lightened with a mix of great joy and even greater relief and he embraced her and, crying, showered kisses onto her forehead. She smiled and leaned into that embrace and tried her best to forget that most strange and terrible of visitations, to lock it away in the very deepest and most private corners of her mind.

And all the while, in a place far beyond imagining, Yog-Sothoth watched and, with a patience both endless and unfathomable, it waited.