[ WP ] Not all eldritch horrors from beyond the normal edges of space-time see you as a snack .

`` So, I'm not going to remember any of this after I wake up?'' 
 
 `` That's correct.'' 
 
 `` And I'm not dreaming right now? I'm totally wide awake,'' he said, not quite sure if that last bit was a question or a statement. 
 
 `` Sure.'' 
 
 That was a little confusing to him, as the thing hovering over his recliner in the living room was most certainly a nightmare. It had glided through the darkness and around the corner from the hallway only moments prior, a frigid pair of ice blue eyes dug into a pale ceramic head which floated impossibly in the air because it possessed no real body. Instead, its bleached white spine dangled from the base of its skull like a balloon string, a monstrous and only half-human length of bone and yellow sinew which ended in a single venomous barb about as big around as his index finger. He had screamed, he had cried, he had made some mad and very conscious attempt to shit himself because hey, that's what people do, and after several moments in which the abomination simply watched him, he righted himself on the couch and remained stupidly frozen. Perhaps if he did n't move, the creature could n't see him. 
 
 Its name was Harold. 
 
 Even now that the thing called Harold had coaxed him into some strange form of polite conversation, he wrangled against the urge to engage in some as yet unexplored and ultimately stereotypical fear-driven response. Maintaining such perfect, unrestrained horror over tea was every bit as exhausting as he never imagined it could be. 
 
 `` It's nothing to get too worked up about. I've explored this very scenario a billion different ways in a trillion potential realities all wrapped up in half the time it took for you to stop making a fool of yourself,'' Harold explained. `` You'll come to no harm, although I'm eating your eyes in a neighboring dimension right about now.'' 
 
 `` You're... you what?'' He spoke with all the clarity of a man who had just pulled his head out of an oven. 
 
 `` It's how we say hello where I'm from. I consume some vital part of you, and in return you may recite a passage of your choosing from the Ravaged Verse in order to absorb the essence of my infinite will. There is no potential reality in which that makes sense to you, however, so you are most perfectly incapable of common courtesy. No wonder your species is so riddled with such base parasites.'' 
 
 `` Puh-p-'' 
 
 `` Parasites. Infirmities. Basic and absolutely curable illnesses which your kind just can not seem to transcend. War, lust, ignorance, famine, the DMV. You know, plagues.'' 
 
 `` I suppose that makes sense. So you're not going to eat my eyes?'' 
 
 `` Not this time, no. I've come here for something much more important. It's a very serious situation, I'm afraid, can not be ignored, must be attended to, the eternal wellspring of your spirit hangs delicately in the balance like a plump fruit just waiting to be severed.'' 
 
 Harold watched an expression of deep concern slide over the young man's face. 
 
 `` Young man?'' 
 
 `` I -'' 
 
 `` Young *man? *'' 
 
 ``... yes?'' 
 
 Harold paused. The young man squirmed. The tip of Harold's barb secreted a single dark droplet of venom, a sweet and otherworldly substance with a faint aroma of fresh honeysuckle and the consistency of syrup. 
 
 `` Have you found Jesus?'' 
 
 The young man stared blankly as Harold erupted into laughter with a thousand different voices which all at once filled his head like a black, seething ocean. Before he could speak, Harold was rising into the air again, the barb arcing behind his head like a scorpion's tail, and then there was a vicious python's strike and an electric whip of pain. The world snapped off like a light, and then right back on again. 
 
 He stood up, arched his back and groaned, unconsciously raising a hand to a small red spot in his neck he would ultimately never notice. 
 
 *Man*, he though to himself. *I really got ta stop falling asleep on the couch. *
