The Puppet Show – Microfiction

 

The air hung heavy with cigar smoke. Empty glasses
littered the mahogany table, remnants of expensive liquor and even more
expensive promises. 

    “You know, Donald, for all our
differences…”

     “Differences? We’re playing the same game, Joe. Just
different costumes. And the people believe we fight for them. For their
votes. They believe what they need to believe. Keeps them
distracted”.

He gestured vaguely towards the window, where the city lights
twinkled like fallen stars. A storm was brewing, the sky bruised purple
and green. Neither man seemed to notice. They were too busy playing
their parts.

The first tremor passed almost unnoticed, a subtle
vibration through the floorboards. Then the lights flickered, plunging the
room into momentary darkness. Trump remained eerily still, his eyes fixed
on the window. The storm had arrived with unnatural speed. The wind
howled like a banshee, whipping the rain into a frenzy against the
glass. And then they saw it. A colossal silhouette blotting out the
city lights, an impossibly vast darkness edged with an unholy green
glow. 

    “What in God’s name…?”

Even Trump seemed momentarily
speechless, his bravado forgotten. The window shattered inwards, driven by
a force beyond any earthly wind. The room filled with a cold, damp stench
that spoke of the abyss, of things best left undisturbed. And then,
through the shattered window, something began to rise.

It was not flesh and blood that clambered through the
shattered window, not in any way that the human mind could truly
comprehend. Tentacles, vast and slick as oil, snaked into the
room, each one tipped with razor-sharp claws that scraped across the
polished floor. 

    “Foolish mortals. You thought you played your games of
power for yourselves? You were but puppets, dancing on strings you could
not see”

 A single, baleful eye, larger than any man, opened in the
darkness, burning with a cold, alien intelligence. Cthulhu. The name,
whispered in ancient texts and forbidden lore, rose unbidden in both men’s
minds. The creature, if it could be called that, towered over them, its
form shifting and roiling like smoke from a nightmare. They were facing a power
beyond their comprehension, a force that rendered their petty squabbles
meaningless.

Cthulhu extended a tentacle, the tip splitting open to
reveal a grotesque parody of a human hand. It hovered over the table,
long, bony fingers brushing against the surface. And then, with a speed that
defied its size, it struck. The creature’s touch was not violent, not in
the conventional sense. But it was invasive, violating. It was as if a thousand
ice picks were driven into their brains, not to harm, but to control.
Biden screamed, a high-pitched, strangled sound. Trump’s eyes widened, a
flicker of understanding, of horror, crossing his face. The world
dissolved into a kaleidoscope of light and sound. Images flickered past at
impossible speed- stock tickers, news feeds, social media streams. Cthulhu
was no longer just a monstrous presence in the room; he was everywhere, his
consciousness woven into the very fabric of the digital world. The internet,
that vast network of information and communication, was now his to
command. And through it, he could control the flow of information, could
shape the thoughts and beliefs of billions.

The images faded, leaving behind the lingering taste of
ozone and a bone-deep chill. Biden and Trump remained where they were,
their eyes vacant, their bodies slack. They were no longer in control, if
they ever truly had been. They were vessels, puppets dancing to the tune
of an ancient, unknowable power. The game has changed, his voice echoed,
not just in their minds, but in the very air itself.

    “The rules are mine to
write now”. 

    And with that, he was gone. The storm subsided as quickly as it
had arrived, leaving behind an eerie silence. The two men remained,
puppets with their strings cut, their faces blank slates upon which a new world
order would be written. A world order dictated not by human ambition, but
by the whims of a cosmic horror beyond human understanding. The question
was, what would that order be? And what role, if any, did humanity have left to
play?

This entry was posted in Creative Writing, flash fiction, Horror, Lovecraftian, micro fiction, Microfiction, short fiction, short story, Writing. Bookmark the permalink.

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