“You brought me here to grovel and to stammer, then lose my mind at all the possibilities, all the realities that make up existence. To see that from the center of it all, my life is just a stitch in the fabric of a garment clinging to life from a hanger, that could easily fall and be trampled under your feet. You brought me here to see that everything is at your mercy, everything hangs on your whim. You are the Mindless God, supreme above them all.”
I realized something as I smiled at Azathoth. Even though he had taken me far from the Dreamlands, I was still sleeping, just like Ala said in the desert of the Earth Gods. I was only in the Dreamlands because I was asleep, and it was only possible for me to stand before Azathoth at the center of all things because I was still in whatever form my body had taken when I tumbled from the sky and into the Dreamlands. And if it was still my dream, then my body, my form, could be anything I imagined.
“But, supreme Mindless God, this display of yours only confirms what we both know. That we are one in the same. I am Azalaan, the Idiot God. I am Azathoth.”
My body became a mirror of his and we did poses across from one another in perfect sync for a long time.
“You are a simple human,” Azathoth said as we posed. “There is only one Azathoth, only one at the center.”
“And that one is me,” I said, after mouthing the words he had said as he said them. “Azalaan, the bumbling chaos to inconceivable complexity that is tamed by hapless accidents. Azalaan is the chaos at the center.”
“Azathoth is at the center!” he shouted.
“Azalaan!” I shouted back.
“Azathoth!”
“Azalaan!”
“Azathoth!”
“Azathoth!”
“Azalaan!” he said, and when he did, he looked pained as though I had wounded him. Then Azathoth began to shrink.
“All hail the Idiot God,” I said as Azathoth shrunk to nothing.
I laughed and then it was over. I woke up in my hospital bed.
Azalaan Emerges
Azalaan held a press conference upon his release from the hospital. He stood on the steps of the hospital even though reporters had preferred to speak over the phone or by email, and he made the reporters yell questions at him while he stared down at them. After a few minutes of the small crowd yelling over one another, he raised his hands and quieted them.
“What happened to me was a tragedy,” he said, looking into the one news camera that was present. “I will not be deterred in my mission, though. I came to this university to obtain an education and achieve success that has historically been denied to people who look like me. I will not let the hate of a few stop me. I will rise, and one day soon, I’ll be in charge of that institution that failed me so that something like this never happens to anyone else.”
From there, he went straight to his college newspaper to see how much of his writing they were willing to print. Azalaan had a plan.
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