When he first rose from the seas to greet the fishermen on board in the darkest of nights, they screamed in such a horrible manner they almost blew his ears out.

"Don't be scared...wait, it's 'be not afraid'...," the tentacled monstrosity blurted out as he struggled mightily to read the words on his smudged cue cards, no doubt from the moisture. Did he manage to get his words out? He could not hear himself from the deafening screams of these humans.

One of the fishermen stopped his incessant shrieking to gawk, two hands firmly gripping his fishing spear, pointed in his direction. He raised a tentacle and pressed the spear downwards; he sensed a rude hostility and desired to push that down in favor of trying to speak their language. He had cribbed some words from a few of those flying eye-things who called themselves angels, hoping it could come in handy to resolve potential miscommunication.

"Stabbing fish with spears, it's so primitive and unrefined. I wish to impart to you better techniques." He slowly raised his hands and most of his tentacles (not all of them, after all, he still needed to keep a few tentacles in the water) in the air. Open, raised appendages is a sign of coming in peace, if he remembered correctly.

The fishermen seemed to understand. Teach us then, they said.

"And so that's all I did. I taught fishermen to fish better. Okay, I concede, I also handed out Amulets of Protection to a few favored followers. You have to believe me."

The monster slayer snorted his beer and brutally punched the creature clapped in chains before him. The creature spat out deep crimson blood onto the interrogation table and kept his steely gaze upon the slayer.

"Amulets of Protection my ass, you use those to brainwash people. You're a typical tentacled eldritch horror. I've seen and killed too many of your kind. I know what they call you, Eldritch Lord of the Black Seas. They say you drive humans insane with your incomprehensible cosmic revelations. They say you're evil and want to end our world and plunge it into the darkness."

"I merely seek to enlighten, for too long humans have lived on placid lands of ignorance in the midst of the black seas of infinity. You barely know what lies in the oceans and the seas of your own world. Surely, human's unfathomable curiosity could not be sated by what roams the lands alone, and will one day dive the depths of the waters to seek knowledge and power.

What you heard about me is nothing more than lies and slander. Innsmouth has grown from a village to a bustling city under my guidance." The creature opened his palms and tried to spread his shackled hands. It's a sign of peace, he told himself, the human should understand.

All he got was a hunting knife stabbed through the palm of his right hand.

"That's just rude," the creature said ruefully with a frown. "Who is the real monster here? The one who looks like a monster, or the one who behaves like a monster?"

"I'm not playing your mind games, eldritch horror. You are completely helpless and at my mercy chained with these magic nullifiers. When my crew is done dealing with your brainwashed followers, they will join me in tearing you apart. And I will enjoy hacking each and every one of those accursed tentacles of yours."

But little did they know, true divinity could not truly be destroyed, only shattered. But it still is a major pain in the ass to pull himself together when reduced to bloody gobs of messily hacked flesh.

He gritted his teeth. He wasn't going to cave in and start bawling in tears despite the agonizing pain. After years of receiving prayers from his followers, Elvari, Eldritch Lord of the Black Seas, silently prayed for the first time this dismemberment would suck a lot less than the first time he was shattered.

This was fun. Couldn't resist cribbing a bit of HP Lovecraft here.

Click here for the 1st prompt that inspired this series..

the 2nd entry, and sorta 3rd here

Been thinking if I should make my own subreddit and turn this into a legit short story series.