Wholly Undead 166 Just who are you?

"Same look as the last time you came through, though it isn't far from the second time either... This makes... What the fourth time I've seen you."

"...Just who are you...?" Jack finally asked from his bewildered state.

"I am your father." The Black Skeleton said with a solemn voice.

"...What?!" Jack blurted out.

"Hahaha! Just like the last time! Priceless!!! That's three times you've fallen for that!" The Black Skeleton laughed nearly uncontrollably, "For the record, I am not your father! Hahaha, No testing needs to be done!! Hahahaha."

"...That's kind of fucked up..." Jack spoke without thinking.

"I know, but it's such fun to be able to pull the same joke on someone that many times... That's the only problem with what I do is mortals always forget, but I have to get fun somehow, right?" The skeleton laughed for a moment.

"Alright, alright... How do you want this to play out? Like the first time we met, the second time we met, the third, or should I treat this as the fourth time, which it is indeed the fourth time."

"...That's not really explaining who you are, but... Have we met before?" Jack asked rubbing his chin while looking up, after collecting himself again.

A black tentacle-like tongue slithered out and licked the Black Skeleton's left eye socket, before retracting quickly... Going unnoticed by Jack.

The Black Skeleton then began to talk animatedly again, "Sure have. I remember the first time you came by... Damn mad, and full of rage. Was hilarious! You wouldn't stop cursing and you were mad in every sense of the word! You even had the balls to call me, ME, a bitch ass fucker. Bahaha, I laughed for while on that one. I couldn't talk to mortal humans for a week because of it. Every time I saw one, I just started to laugh, after all, every one of them looks the same to me, Bahahaha."

"..."

"Oh, hmmm... Got to get serious." The Black Skeleton shook his head and loosened his joints while shaking his hands as if warming up to play a piano.

"Alright, there. This should be proper of what you mortals like when you think of me."

"...Are you death...?"

"Am I death? Well... No... I mean, I'm not the one that goes around killing mortals. I mean you guys do that just fine on your own." The Black Skeleton laughed a few more times.

"...Do you have a name?" Jack continued to fish for something. This guy rambled!

"Well, I have many names. Some folks call me King Yama, others call me Chiron, some others like to think of me as the ferryman. I remember one race of mortals calls me the Lurker at the Threshold. Ha! Didn't even give me an actual name, and just a reference... What kind of shit is that?" The Skeleton demanded to know.

"...You're Yogg Sathoth... The Key and the Gate."

"Was Howard from your world? Smart man... Though a bit deranged... Then again, he looked beyond the veil and knew of my kind, soooooo I guess I would be the reason for that." The Skeleton shook his head.

"At any rate, that's right, you did a stretch on a human world where Ole Howard was born and died. That makes things a lot easier, though he didn't get everything right. He was way paranoid. You would think with knowledge of the veil lifted, he would have made more of himself." The Skeleton shrugged.

Jack looked all around him, and then back to the skeleton, tilting his head slightly.

"What?" The Skeleton asked.

"Where are the tentacles, and all the eyes... The cosmic horror that's described."

"Well... I mean, if you want to look upon the closest visage of my true look, I don't mind being an exhibitionist, but I don't really want to melt your mind and soul. You've been fun to watch, so it would be a shame if it ended... Wait... You read the book, didn't you?" The Skeleton asked as if he just remembered something.

Jack remembered the book he read long ago when he first went to his Library. The things that laid beyond the light, and the constant pressure of knowing just how things beyond the veil were... What his end goal was...

"Falling silent... It seems you changed your goal from the first time we talked."

"...Yeah, I read the book, and you know what my goal is... Why aren't you bothered?"

"Well... Let's talk for fun, right! Let's say that you somehow manage to kill me. It doesn't change anything. I'm more of a force of nature than an entity. Think of me as more of a process that gained sentience. Kill me if you can, is what I say. I'm damn bored. I'd think it fun to watch you try! The last mortals to try wanted to lure my body into their world to trap me... They only succeeded at starting their own apocalypse. No one could handle what they saw, haha! It was fucking gut buster! A brain smasher, if you like!" The skeleton held his sides shaking.

"..."

"Though, I believe that my brothers and sister wouldn't be as receptive of the idea." The skeleton wiped the corner of his eye socket as if there was a tear from laughter.

After a brief pause, the skeleton mentioned, "You've become silent again... Is the prospect of challenging the indifferent cosmos that daunting? Giving up already?"

"No... I'm just thinking up a name to call you because I'm not going to drop Yogg Sathoth in casual conversation."

"I mean you don't re-"

"Yoggi... I'm going to call you Yoggi." Jack interrupted.

"...Yoggi... Well, I've been called worse, I suppose." The Skeleton tilted his head at an angle to stare at Jack slightly disturbed.

"What...?"

"You've gotten a lot stranger than the last time we met... What happened to all the reverence and the hysterical? In fact, you are taking this way to easily, and you're killing my vibe."

Jack scratched the back of his bald head, "I don't know... I could give a fuck less really. My only question is... Am I dead?"

"That is the question, right? Dead? Alive? Undead? Dead-Dead? Alive-Alive? What does it mean to be any of these, right? I mean... Here you are in a realm beyond your reasoning talking to a hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional being. Are you alive now?"

"Alright. Let me ask this. If I'm here, it means I've transitioned from a state where I was considered "Sentient" in the realm I'm from to where I am now..."

"...You've become such a fun suck... Just... Suck all the fun out..."

"Ah."

Jack began to pace back and forth on the spot while thinking aloud, "If I think about it... Then I used too much power... I called on something to make me stronger, and it broke me down! Yeah, it caused me to die, and here I am... You've said you've seen me before, and you're the guy that sees dead people, que the sixth sense, and it means that I've died before, and forgotten."

"Yoggi" watched Jack pace back and forth while monologuing... His eye sockets narrowed on his skull distorting the bone appearance into a more evil look.

"Keep talking it out." "Yoggi" encouraged.

"If I've come through before, it means I can go back to the living world. How do I get back?"

"But you just got here!" "Yoggi's" skull face went back to normal before Jack could see any difference.

"Yeah, I mean I don't mind shooting the breeze with you, but at the same time, I'm sure things aren't running smoothly with half my capital city in ruins."

"And the woman, ahem... Women." "Yoggi" laughed.

"Yeah... There are the ladies I'm worried about." Jack admitted freely.

"How is it to finally have women? I mean... After you're first love in your first life, you haven't had a woman in three other lives... What a loser of a mortal, am I right? Bahaha."

"...I don't see you with a harem of women..." Jack thought out loud.

"Pfft, my wife is a naughty fertility goddess with a thousand young... Who do you think made those young? They didn't get birthed like the Creator, let me tell you. I was the one laying pipe."

"...How do you even know that reference?"

"Actually, you should ask what I don't know!" "Yoggi" laughed again, then stopped while looking at Jack from a bent angle from laughing. He straighten himself and walked over to Jack with only half a meter between the two.

"How would you like to play a game?" "Yoggi" asked, in a tone that was half sinister and half amused.

"...You're not going to chain me up and make me saw my leg off, are you?"

"Not, this will be much more fun... Fun for me..." "Yoggi" rubbed his hands together.

"What is it?"

"You get to ask me three questions. I will answer with the truth for one, I will lie for one, and I will tell a half-truth for another. I won't tell you which, and you can figure it out which is which!" The jaw hinges of "Yoggi" moved up on his skull as if it wasn't bone moving to give the sinister look of a smiling skull.

Chapter end