His name was Yoggy, and he was a contradiction: a child born full of questions in a body built to decay. No doctor could diagnose the illness. No priest could offer comfort. It was as though his body was rejecting reality itself. But Yoggy was not angry. He was interested, curious even. He asked his doctors why the human body chose to fail. He asked his teachers why silence followed death. And he asked himself, often in the long hours between midnight and morning, why he feared the dark less than the absence after it. His mother cried. His father avoided eye contact. But Yoggy continued to wonder—not just about dying, but about what came before it. Not heaven. Not hell. Something deeper. Something that had no name. He didn't know it then, but he was born with a fragment inside him. A sliver of something that should never have known mortality. A piece of Yog-Sothoth—The Gate, the Key, and the Guardian of the Endless Outside. An Outer God whose essence fractured and chose boredom, of all things, to experiment with. It had been eons since Yog-Sothoth had moved. The universes had spun, collapsed, been reborn—and still, he remained. Watching. Waiting. Not for war or worship. But for understanding. Immortality had become tedium. Omniscience had become white noise. So the Being-that-Was-All chose to become less. A shard of himself. A tether anchored into a womb. A child born too weak to carry the weight of divinity. And so Yoggy's body failed, not because of sin or punishment, but because it was never designed to house infinity. But the soul? The soul remained. When death came, it did not take him. It released him. --- Yoggy awoke not with breath, but with sensation. Softness beneath him. A flicking tail. A sense of lightness, and yet his body did not rise on two legs. He blinked, and his vision adjusted—taller buildings, darker skies, a world steeped in stories he had never lived. But most confusingly... he had paws. He was in the body of a cat. No. Not a cat. A Flerken. And something else. Something inside him began to stir—not as memory, but as resonance. A pull from the furthest edge of understanding. And with it, a soundless scream of recognition. "I... am me," he whispered. But also: "I am not only me." He sat upright, paws flexing. Space trembled. Nearby trash bins folded into themselves like paper. The walls of an alley rippled with distant stars. He was remembering. Not a memory. A truth. A revelation that folded time into a singularity: He was Yog-Sothoth. Or more accurately—Yoggy was a shard of Yog-Sothoth. And that realization didn't come as triumph. It came as fear. And then, curiosity. --- In a place that wasn't a place, Nyra opened her eyes. She was not born. She was noticed. She had no form until thought wove her one: skin that shimmered like the edges of sleep, hair that drifted without gravity, and eyes that saw behind eyes. She felt it. The awakening. The Outer God's fragment had remembered itself. It was time. --- Yoggy wandered for hours, days, moments—time made no sense anymore. He could feel everything. The heartbeat of Earth. The tension in dreams. The whispers of ancient names on the tips of dying stars. Yet despite all this, he felt alone. Then, in the stillness of a broken Gotham alley, a voice coiled into existence beside him. "So," she said, "You remembered." Yoggy turned. She stood barefoot, despite the needles and shattered glass. She did not flinch. She did not blink. She smiled—not kindly, not cruelly, but as if she knew the answer to a question you hadn't asked yet. "Who are you?" Yoggy asked. "Nyra," she said, voice like a lullaby hummed from the mouth of madness. "The First Thought After Waking. The Shape Your Dreams Try to Remember." Yoggy tilted his feline head. "You're not real." She grinned. "Neither are you." There was silence. And in that silence, something else woke. Not Yoggy. Not Yog-Sothoth. Something between. Something that looked at itself through human eyes and saw neither god nor man, but a question still unanswered. Nyra stepped closer and placed her hand against his brow. "You are not Yog-Sothoth," she whispered. "I'm not?" "You are Yog'Raxil. The Echo of Becoming. The one who chose to ask why instead of declare what." Yoggy blinked again. He understood. Not everything. But enough. And then Nyra smiled wider. "Come," she said, turning away, her bare feet leaving no prints. "Let's go for a walk. The world's changed since your last dream." And as Yoggy followed, reality folded behind him. The alley disappeared. The stars blinked. And the first breath of the new self whispered across the cosmos. Yog'Raxil walks again.
There was once a boy whose lungs betrayed him. He was sixteen when the coughing started to sound like breaking glass. Sixteen when his vision began to blur not from tears, but from something else—something silent and parasitic. His name was Yoggy, and he was a contradiction: a child born full of questions in a body built to decay. No doctor could diagnose the illness. No priest could offer comfort. It was as though his body was rejecting reality itself. But Yoggy was not angry. He was curious. He asked his doctors why the human body chose to fail. He asked his teachers why silence followed death. And he asked himself, often in the long hours between midnight and morning, why he feared the dark less than the absence after it. His mother cried. His father avoided eye contact.
But Yoggy continued to wonder not just about dying, but about what came before it. Not heaven. Not hell. Something deeper. Something that had no name. He didn't know it then, but he was born with a fragment inside him.
A sliver of something that should never have known mortality. A piece of Yog-Sothoth, The Gate, the Key, and the Guardian of the Endless Outside.
An Outer God whose essence fractured and chose boredom, of all things, to experiment with. It had been eons since Yog-Sothoth had moved. The universes had spun, collapsed, been reborn and still, he remained. Watching. Waiting. Not for war or worship. But for understanding. Immortality had become tedium.
Omniscience had become white noise. So the Being-that-Was-All chose to become less. A shard of himself. A tether anchored into a womb. A child born too weak to carry the weight of divinity. And so Yoggy's body failed, not because of sin or punishment, but because it was never designed to house infinity. But the soul? The soul remained. When death came, it did not take him. It released him.
Yoggy awoke not with breath, but with sensation. Softness beneath him. A flicking tail. A sense of lightness, and yet his body did not rise on two legs.
He blinked, and his vision adjusted taller buildings, darker skies, a world steeped in stories he had never lived. But most confusingly... he had paws. He was in the body of a cat. No. Not a cat. A Flerken. And something else. Something inside him began to stir—not as memory, but as resonance. A pull from the furthest edge of understanding. And with it, a soundless scream of recognition. "I... am me," he whispered. But also: "I am not only me." He sat upright, paws flexing. Space trembled.
Nearby trash bins folded into themselves like paper. The walls of an alley rippled with distant stars. He was remembering. Not a memory. A truth. A revelation that folded time into a singularity: He was Yog-Sothoth. Or more accurately Yoggy was a shard of Yog-Sothoth. And that realization didn't come as triumph. It came as fear. And then, curiosity.
In a place that wasn't a place, Nyra opened her eyes. She was not born. She was noticed. She had no form until thought wove her one: skin that shimmered like the edges of sleep, hair that drifted without gravity, and eyes that saw behind eyes. She felt it. The awakening.
The Outer God's fragment had remembered itself. It was time. Yoggy wandered for hours, days, moments as time made no sense anymore. He could feel everything. The heartbeat of Earth. The tension in dreams. The whispers of ancient names on the tips of dying stars.
Yet despite all this, he felt alone. Then, in the stillness of a broken Gotham alley, a voice coiled into existence beside him. "So," she said, "You remembered." Yoggy turned. She stood barefoot, despite the needles and shattered glass. She did not flinch. She did not blink. She smiled—not kindly, not cruelly, but as if she knew the answer to a question you hadn't asked yet. "Who are you?" Yoggy asked.
"Nyra" she said, voice like a lullaby hummed from the mouth of madness. "The First Thought After Waking. The Shape Your Dreams Try to Remember."
Yoggy tilted his feline head. "You're not real." She grinned. "Neither are you."
There was silence. And in that silence, something else woke. Not Yoggy. Not Yog-Sothoth. Something between. Something that looked at itself through human eyes and saw neither god nor man, but a question still unanswered. Nyra stepped closer and placed her hand against his brow. "You are not Yog-Sothoth," she whispered.
"I'm not?"
"You are Yog'Raxil. The Echo of Becoming. The one who chose to ask why instead of declare what." Yoggy blinked again.
He understood. Not everything. But enough. And then Nyra smiled wider.
"Come," she said, turning away, her bare feet leaving no prints. "Let's go for a walk. The world's changed since your last dream." And as Yoggy followed, reality folded behind him.
The alley disappeared. The stars blinked. And the first breath of the new self whispered across the cosmos. Yog'Raxil walks again.
Whiskers and Shadows . There are awakenings that come gently like soft sunlight on closed eyelids, or the slow warming of skin beneath a lover's breath. Yoggy's awakening was not one of them. It was a tidal wave collapsing inward.
The nonlinear clash of what was, what is, and what never should have been. He felt every particle of the air tremble around him, not because he was powerful, but because he was awake truly awake for the first time. Memory and potential surged through him. The street beneath his feline paws folded like paper in a dream. He did not stand up; reality knelt. He blinked. The world did not.
Then she spoke. "Welcome back, little Gate." Nyra. The name alone bent the trees nearby. The alley around them twisted slightly, as if unsure whether it was real or imagined. Nyra stood barefoot, her hair like liquid shadow, cascading down a frame that defied any mortal measure of symmetry. She smiled—not with affection, but with a kind of reverent cruelty.
"You remembered," she said softly.
Yoggy blinked all seven of his eyes. "I remembered enough."
She walked toward him, each step undoing the space behind her, replacing it with something older. "You are not Yog-Sothoth. You were, but now you are Yog'Raxil. Do you understand?"
"No."
"Good," Nyra said, "You're not supposed to yet."
Yoggy sat. His tail curled into itself, mimicking the spiral of dying stars. "I was human."
"You played at being human," she corrected.
"You wore skin and fear like a mask and learned to taste entropy. But it was never meant to last."
"Why?" She knelt beside him, brushing a clawed finger against his shimmering fur.
"Because the question isn't why you died. It's why you chose to be born."
Yoggy tilted his head. The stars shifted accordingly. "And why did I?"
"Because something ancient within you," she whispered, "wanted to feel curiosity again. Yearning is the closest gods come to prayer."
They walked. Not forward. Not backward. They walked into the shape of the city. Gotham didn't notice them. But Gotham felt them. Their steps didn't echo, but sidewalks cracked beneath them. Lightposts flickered. Dreams shifted.
A sleeping homeless man turned over with a shudder. A baby cried in a crib three blocks away. Reality bled in their wake. And they conversed.
Nyra pointed to a billboard of a politician, his grin wide and false.
"That's what humanity thinks power is," she said.
Yoggy replied, "It's not?"
"No," Nyra said, "True power is selfhood. The kind that doesn't require mirrors or followers."
They passed a convenience store where a man was being mugged. Yoggy paused, blinking. "Should we intervene?" Nyra looked. "No. But if you wish, you may alter the dream." Yoggy tilted his head, and the mugger suddenly forgot why he held a knife. The victim stood taller, walked away a bit more complete.
Nyra smirked. "How benevolent of you."
"I'm not a god."
"No," she said, "You're something more dangerous. A god who remembers being mortal."
Behind them, Gotham stirred. Catwoman stalked across rooftops. She had seen the cat walk on two legs. She had seen the barefoot woman laughing in an alley that no longer existed. She had seen something impossible.
Selina followed the scent not of perfume or musk, but of meaning. She moved closer. The shadows seemed deeper here. The air hummed with memory she hadn't lived. She crouched, watching. Waiting.
"Do you see her?" Yoggy asked.
"Yes," Nyra replied. "She's clever. She'll come closer when she believes it was her idea."
Yoggy's eyes glinted. "She's curious." "Good," Nyra purred. "Curiosity is a door."
At the edge of the dream-thickened air, Selina took another step. And Gotham blinked.