Chapter One

"Hello, old friend. It has been a long, long time since our last correspondence. As you might imagine, I was hardly surprised when I heard the news about our mutual acquaintance."

It tore through space.

Wrenching apart the folds of reality, its tentacles flailed in between dimensions, dodging and weaving around the hot lines that threatened to cut it apart. It had just wanted to float about in peace, and this galaxy had looked like a good snack; but the second It got too close, the hot lines had lanced into Its body, and the Angry Dots began to swarm, tearing up its form, rending it apart with their fury. One of the bigger Angry Dots—a speck hardly any bigger than a planet—had already sent a hot line through the first of Its many brains, and that hurt.

It had never known pain before.

A part of Its vast mind probed around the new feeling, while the rest of It worked on shoving Its weight through reality, watching the galaxy flow away as space bubbled around It, pressing against Its semi-corporeal mass. As It schlorped Its way into a new reality, It took a moment to relax, shifting its vast weight.

Finally, peace. No Angry Dots, just a cozy, blank void.

The laws of physics seemed to have changed, so It shook Its endless tentacles (and the tentacles attached to those tentacles), blinked a few billion of Its eyes, and got Itself adjusted to all the changes. The speed of light was slower here, so It summoned up Its Will and sped it up to a more comfortable rate. Much better.

A small galactic cluster wafted ahead, glittering in the darkness. Shiny—delicious. So, It started swimming forward, lazily opening Its maw yet again for a much-needed snack.

And then, reality split.

Angry Dots poured out from a bright, warped spot in space, rushing to swarm It yet again. Hot lines streamed into Its flesh. It roared silently in the void, shaking the folds of existence, tearing one of the Angry Dots in two. It whipped Its tentacles through all the dimensions It could think of—and It could think of a lot—and swiped at some of the smaller Angry Dots, spilling their occupants into the void like motes of sand into the wind.

But even those motes continued to move, manipulating space and time on a small scale and zipping about Its form, furiously ripping It to pieces, bit by bit, slice by slice. The pain grew unbearable—for all the eons It had spent consuming galaxies star by star, arm by arm, It had never known this feeling… this humiliation. This would not do. It had no beginning, and It was not about to have an end just because some Angry Dots decided It didn’t deserve a mid-millennium snack!

But It—It couldn’t fight back anymore. It felt tired, but not in the fuzzy way It felt before sleeping for a few trillion years. No, this was a different tired. The tired of a deeper kind of sleep. The tired of disappearing and going away. And it refused.

With all the Will It had left, It did something It had never done before.

It shrank.

The Angry Dots expanded at first, swelling into Angry, Wooden Spheres that dwarfed gas giants, before disappearing into the distance as Its mass compressed upon itself. For a moment, part of It started to collapse into a black hole, but It Willed the singularity away, choosing to arrange Its mass in Its own way. And just in case the Angry Things could see Its effect on spacetime, It cut all ties with gravity.

In Its absence, spacetime exploded with an immense whiplash, tearing into shreds—entire star systems rushed into the Void Between All Things and became nothing, evaporating like dust. The Angry Things rushed to the shreds and started tending to them, and It took that moment to sneak off into the nearest galaxy.

A lot of the stars in this galaxy didn’t seem to have appreciated the waves of gravity that had split the universe in two, and half of them had started collapsing on themselves, forming black holes.

Stupid black holes. They were itchy, and they didn’t even taste good.

As It searched for a decent hiding place, It sensed the Angry Things zip around the galaxy, searching for It. How had everything gone so wrong so quickly? Its many brains tried to process the trauma, but the galaxy kept spinning like a top, and It felt so dizzy, so much smaller than ever before. In a stroke of brilliance, It slowed Its sense of time. There. Now, things seemed much more manageable. Trouble was, with time moving so slow, It didn’t seem to move very fast at all. Now it’d take ages to reach the nearest star.

And that it did. 220,463 Standard Years passed before It reached a cozy enough star. And through all that time, the Angry Dots had continued searching, refusing to let up for a second. Whatever they were, they seemed dedicated at the very least. A few times, It had felt the urge to just Will the speed of light up again, but what if the Angry Things noticed It? How could such small things hurt It anyway? That wasn’t fair! Hardly anything had ever frightened It—just the Old Things and… Them—and at least they’d had the decency to be bigger than It. But now, even planets were bigger than It. It had chosen to become smaller.

The shame swelled within It as time passed. By the time It had reasserted a tiny fraction of Its influence over gravity to orbit the warm, yellow star, It felt a thousand times smaller than It had Willed Itself to be. This particular star looked so delicious and shiny, but It had no choice. Still sensing the Angry Things in Its periphery, It decided to lay low on one of the nearby planets.

Hmm. There were a few gas giants—tasty, but probably not too pleasant to nap on. It checked out some of the smaller, rockier planets on the solar system’s edge, but those looked a bit chilly and dull. But then, It spotted a nice, blue planet with a few glowing, green rings orbiting it. Looked cozy enough. It shrugged a few trillion tentacles.

As It approached, the atmosphere heated up around It, and It reveled in the new, fiery sensation. Maybe being small had some perks after all. When It hit the ocean, It sank like a rock, then nestled into the soft, squishy sand at the bottom. Yes, this place would do nicely for a nap.

Just one problem: It wasn’t sleepy.

Still feeling that awful pain from the hot lines, It tossed and turned in the deep, before finally giving up. Well. Wasn’t this just a fine mess It had gotten Itself in? Stuck in a tiny galaxy patrolled by Angry Things that simply refused to give up the chase. And now? It couldn’t even sleep. The one thing It had always had to lean back on, and It couldn’t even indulge itself. All that, and It didn’t even get to have Its snack. In spite, It started chewing on the glittery sand below.

Actually, not a half-bad flavor.

But still, this was unacceptable! And still, it could feel the Angry Things setting up shop in the galaxy, spreading their roots just in case It decided to reemerge. What utter jerks.

After a while, It decided It might as well explore the deep, if It had to be stuck here. But as It started climbing up the shore, it noticed hordes of strange things swimming around it. With its many eyes, it spotted microorganisms in the sand, microorganisms in the water—well, microorganisms everywhere. In comparison to It, these looked no bigger than the Angry Things had when they were just Angry Dots. At least that was a comfort—It could firmly say It was still bigger than something in this world. But then, a big… thing swam lazily overhead. Vaguely torpedo-shaped, with fins and a swishy tail, it scooped up some smaller swimming things in its maw and breached the surface, then dove down and let out a long, aggressively loud moan.

Some things never changed, It assumed.

As It breached the surface, It noticed some masses of land off in the distance. They looked a bit too far away for a lazy swim, so It casually shrank the space between Itself and the shore, then wriggled its way up onto the dry sand.

Curiously, some odd-shaped things with only four tentacles and two eyes stood upright on the sandy beach, gaping at It. It gaped back, wondering if all planets looked this detailed up close. Normally, they barely looked like specks of dust, but this place seemed huge. Funny what a change in perspective could do, It figured. These Upright Things were still a fair bit smaller than It, so It took some pride in that at least.

As It started squelching Its way up the shore, the Upright Things started making a loud shrieking noise, and It didn’t like that one bit. So, It shrieked right back at them, with all forty billion of Its mouths. The closest four or so of the Upright Things started clutching their tiny heads, and a strange red liquid started pouring out of their eyes. Eventually, they all fell prone and stopped moving.

What strange behavior.

All the other Upright Things ran off, so It took a moment to explore Its new surroundings. Some tall structures loomed in the distance, behind a few squat, sandy hills. Bright-colored rectangular cloths lined the beach, while some other cloths splayed out on upright metal frames gave some shade to some of the ground cloths. Perhaps the Upright Things didn’t like sunlight? Or sand? Well, those four lying in the middle of it, surrounded by puddles of red liquid, seemed to like the sand well enough. Perhaps they were odd ones out.

It squelched Its way up the dunes, before sliding down onto a black stone that seemed to stretch on forever. Flat, smooth, and painted with yellow and white lines, the black stone only seemed to emerge from the ground in a straight, narrow path, with a few curves. And what’s more, some more of the Upright Things were riding inside strange metal creatures up and down the black stone. A few swerved as It passed by, and It paid them no mind. What caught its eyes more were those massive, boxy structures in the distance. Dozens of them, sprouting up from the ground like unnaturally shaped trees, tantalizingly shiny in places. Yes, that would be a good spot for a nap.

Hello, friends! If you're enjoying Little Comforts, consider supporting me on Patreon! If you'd like more stories, I post new chapters to my mainline series every Monday and Friday, and I upload a new short story every other Wednesday! Below are some of my other stories.

The Old Brand-New: Lena lives in a lonely mansion, but one snowy night, a vengeful clone of herself comes to make her pay for the life she never got to live.
Little Comforts: The world ends, and two men, Dan and Andrew, must rush to the shore for safety, pursued by a vengeful soldier and the remains of her family.