《Eldritch Fantasy》


 Chapter 1 - The Star-Eater

    Hannah drifted silently, her massive body swimming through the nothingness surrounding her like a fish through water. Her many eyes scanned the surroundings for any threat or prey, finding none for the moment.


    Her radar pinged something. She angled her body sideways, aiming towards the source. It only took a few minutes for her to find her target, a school of planet-sized whales feasting on the light emanated from a star.


    She did not hesitate. A twist of her will had her whole body suddenly turn invisible, and she stalked forwards. She was only a few hundred kilometers away from the whales when she abruptly sped up, space itself twisting to allow her to reach her targets in an instant.


    The whales reacted immediately, letting out horrifying screeches that caused Hannah''s flesh to boil away. More flesh immediately replaced it, however, and then she was upon the first whale.


    A million limbs the size of mountains tore into the whale even as it tried to flee, suckers and barbs anchoring Hannah to her fellow abomination. Her mouth opened wide, and with a single bite, she tore out a massive chunk of flesh.


    Lasers of all colors and shapes tore into her, the whale''s companions not taking her attack on their companion well. She responded by deploying her shields and deflectors around her, and almost immediately, the attacks stopped landing.


    Another bite. The whale let out a half-roar, half-screech as oceans of blue blood escaped its body. Hannah weathered the sound attack with ease, and once more, she tore out another chunk even as spines grew out from her serpentine body, piercing into the whale and sucking out its insides.


    The battle did not last long after that. The rest of the pod was reluctant to escape, but after Hannah successfully trapped yet another of their numbers, they finally broke and escaped.


    Once alone, Hannah allowed herself to relax, even as her sensory organs within ran overtime, ensuring that no scavengers were lurking around, waiting for an easy kill. A hundred more necks grew out from her body, massive mouths attached at the end. Within minutes, both whales were consumed.


    Hannah had already long since absorbed anything of value from the whales. Their DNA, souls, essence, and psychic imprints were of no value to her, only their flesh.


    As she waited for said flesh to finish being digested and stored away within separate dimensions for safekeeping, Hannah drifted closer to the real reason she had attacked the pod: The star.


    Hannah could, unlike many of the monsters within the Void, still remember a time when she had thought the stars in the skies to be endless.


    Nowadays, however, a decently-sized star was the ultimate prize for many of the creatures residing within the Void, and Hannah was no exception. Her body stretched and split, going from vaguely serpent-shaped to looking more like a seastar.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    Her tentacles thinned and stretched, covering as much surface as they could as she worked to envelop the star. Almost instantly, the massive amounts of light being emanated from it began to be absorbed by her, causing her energy stores to skyrocket.


    Sure, she could turn matter into energy, and Hannah did so quite often, but matter was a precious thing. Hannah was of the opinion that having a healthy reserve to draw upon in case of injury was key to survival, something that had served her very well during the many millennia of her existence.


    Speaking of reserves, after running a few dozen more scans and finding nothing close by, Hannah took the opportunity to draw out the rest of her body from the various dimension it was safely hidden away in.


    Almost immediately, her body swelled to well over a thousand times its previous size, going from planet-sized to larger than stars in less than thirty seconds. Her flesh writhed as absorption panels grew out along her skin, the entire star having been now surrounded by her body.


    Hannah stayed there for over a month, absorbing as much energy as she could even as tendrils snaked out from her and pierced deep into the stars at times, drinking deeply from it.


    During that entire time, Hannah utilized the energy available to her well. Tens of thousands of mountain-sized brain structures birthed themselves into existence within her, running incredibly complex calculations as the abundant energy available allowed them to do so without worry.


    DNA samples, souls, strange objects, and many other things kept in storage for years were analyzed in moments, every single possible factor was examined, re-examined, tested, mulled over, and simulated as Hannah let loose.


    It was only when the star started going cold that Hannah finally deactivated and re-absorbed the brain structures back into herself, their consumption simply too high to maintain casually.


    Having sucked the star dry of most of its resources, Hannah finally undertook the last step. Her body compressed itself, its expanded bulk crushing the star underneath itself as mouths and suckers ferociously tore into it, absorbing and digesting massive chunks of it in rapid succession.


    Within a day, the entire star was no more, and Hannah had grown significantly. This wasn''t the first star she''d eaten, but considering how rare they were in this place, it wasn''t a surprise that Hannah was so satisfied.


    Her body compressed and stretched, resuming its previous serpentine shape even as she shuttled the vast majority of her body back into over a thousand separate dimensions, each one locked behind hundreds of metaphysical walls to prevent attacks from reaching it.


    Satisfied, Hannah resumed her journey, her body once more swimming through the void even as space itself shrunk and twisted automatically to allow her to move as efficiently as possible. A new application of the space-control ability she''d fought the whales with, and one that she''d spent quite a lot of energy devising. Considering how much faster she was now able to move and how much energy she could conserve, that alone was worth the investment. The battle applications were just icing on the cake.


    It was far from her only evolution or advancement, but Hannah could confidently say that it was her favorite. Despite her faster-than-light speeds when traveling, Hannah still found the distances she had to cross to get anywhere stifling. Now, all of her calculations pointed that her new ability would significantly reduce that.


    Except... her calculations could not account for everything. As space once more pinched itself together, allowing her to cross it in an instant, she sensed a spacial anomaly appear. She did not even have time to do anything as the void around her, and in the surrounding dimensions, abruptlyshifted.


    And so it was that Hannah the Star-Eater escaped the Void... by complete accident.

 Chapter 2 - Encounter

    Hannah had gone through many things in her life. Death, rebirth, transformations, evolutions, fights to the death... There were few things left in the world that could still surprise her.


    Being kidnapped and ripped away because of an anomaly whose probability to exist was so low as to not even be reasonably possible was definitely one of those, however. As her body was sucked through the spatial tunnel, she fought desperately to hold on to the rest of her body still hidden in separate dimensions, knowing full well that she wouldn''t be able to escape.


    Finally, after both an eternity and an instant, she was ejected out from the damned anomaly. Her body tumbled through space for a few seconds, scars and tears the size of the grand canyon riddling her body. They healed in moments as she brought in her extra mass, and as her various sensors launched a full scan, her metaphorical jaw dropped.


    Stars. Light. Planets. The universe around her was so... full. The ever-present nothingness of the Void was... gone. She ran her scans again, just to confirm it, and when the results came back the same, she did so five more times as her disbelief mounted.


    She knew the Void as well as the back of her hand, and despite her own multi-dimensional nature, that place had been the ultimate trap. She had her own theories on it, but in the end, all she knew was that escape had not been possible for her current arsenal.


    She twisted her body, millions of eyes growing everywhere as she drank in the sight of freedom. It was a dream come true, but perhaps, that was why she was so cautious. Nothing good ever happened without some backlash, and Hannah had lived for far too long not to prepare for such an eventuality.


    She shut off the spatial manipulation array within her, unwilling to use it when it had already landed her in this mess, and utilized her old tried-and-true method of travel: Momentum.


    She launched herself at the closest star that she could sense, her sensory organs pinging constantly as she moved. Meteors, comets, debris, smaller planets...


    If Hannah had still been human, her mouth would have watered. She took several detours from her main destination, swallowing up anything and everything within reach, crunching down several meteors and other space junk.


    By the time she arrived at the star, she''d eaten the equivalent of almost 1/5 of her own massive weight. Considering that she would have had to spend years randomly traveling in the Void or be massively lucky for the same results, Hannah was rather pleased with herself.


    Now, as Hannah eyed the massive celestial body in front of her, she estimated that she''d break that record several times over. The star was quite a bit larger than the one she''d previously eaten, and as far as she could tell, it was far from the largest one that she could sense.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    With a flex of her will, she began to stretch out her body, pannels growing out along the edges once more as she repeated the previous process.


    However, before she could completely surround the star, her radar pinged something. She paused her devouring, not recognizing the signal.


    With a growl emanating from several thousand mouths, she ran a scan through her databases for any similar information on the foreign ping. She was severely disappointed when the results came back empty.


    Retracting her body back to her serpentine body, she deployed the several mountains'' worth of brain structures hidden deep within her alternative dimension storages in order to analyze the ping. A million theories were formed in an instant, each one analyzed, tested, and discarded as necessary.


    In the end, it only took her a minute to decode the ping for what it was: A communication signal, and it had originated from one of the asteroids orbiting the star.


    "Leviathan spotted. I repeat, Leviathan spotted. Requesting immediate support from any nearby stations." It read, and Hannah actually had to pause for an instant.


    In the Void, there was no communication. There were no words. Not even the pods of space whales or other such pack creatures truly communicated, they simply stuck together. They were simply not intelligent enough to do so, or had no wish to.


    Hannah had not spoken to anyone or anything for millennia. Hadn''t even tried to, really. It had mostly been out of a desire to not waste energy on something that she knew would never get any results. However, a part of her had always felt a sort of longing for genuine contact.


    She eyed the asteroid as it continued to send out distress signals, her emotions feeling rather mixed. She had an opportunity for real, genuine contact right in front of her, but...


    She was well aware that not all contact could be good. She was well aware of how she looked, and she doubted that it would end peacefully should she encountered whoever these signals were being sent to.


    In the end, she really only had one option.


    She swam towards the asteroid, activating one of the arrays within her. Instantly, the communication signals being sent out stopped and distorted, effectively shutting down the asteroid''s ability to receive help. Then, after running a few scans and finding no living within other than some rather well-hidden machinery, she lashed out with her tail.


    The asteroid practically disintegrated in front of the planet-destroying power of her attack. It felt... anticlimactic, really. Nonetheless, after running a few more scans to ensure nothing similar was lying around, she returned to the star.


    It was clear to her that, with more resources around, there would be more competition. She had seen it in the Void, where the more food to be had, the more vicious her fellow abominations became.


    As her body wrapped around the star, a sort of longing began to form within her. She did not want to fight, not really. She had been doing that for millennia now, a constant cycle of kill, eat, evolve, repeat. She did enjoy it.


    Despite that, she also knew the dangers of unpreparedness. Hence, as energy began to surge into her, she once more deployed the massive brain structures that served as her research centers and set them to analyze all the data her scans had gathered regarding the asteroid and more.


    She had once been a human, and that part of her desired to simply go out and meet with her fellow sapients. However, she had also lived far, far longer within the endless Void, and that part of her demanded caution.


    Hence, as barbed tentacles began to dig into the star like cosmic mosquitoes, she decided that she would do both.

 Chapter 3 - The Visitors

    "Why are we here again?" Mark asked as he sank into his chair next to Sarah, who was currently in the main seat of the starship, driving it. She gave him a side-glance, her expression showcasing just how thoroughly unimpressed she was with his current attitude.


    "Oh, I don''t know." She mocked. "Maybe because one of the drones suddenly went offline for no reason? Or maybe because we were ordered to?"


    He rolled his eyes at her bitchy tone. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. The dumb thing probably broke down again. I honestly don''t know why the director hasn''t decided to bring them up to date." He groused in annoyance even as he started to type away at the holographic keyboard that popped up in front of him.


    Sarah kept silent, inwardly fuming at the fact that she''d been saddled with this idiot. When the director had called for her and given her the assignment to go check on a random probe in the middle of nowhere, she hadn''t been very happy. She''d been even less happy when it had turned out to be a two-person assignment, because apparently their group had ''lacked cohesion'' or some nonsense.


    As a graduate of the Imperial Academy, Sarah could professionally say that it was a load of bullshit, and that her boss was just being pissy because she had refused to offer him ''favors''. The fact that her family was powerful stopped him from being overt about it, but it was clear this was a punishment.


    As for Mark... Well, Sarah had no idea what his deal was, but she would bet her socks on the fact that he''d offended some higher-up as well. Working for the Science&Exploration Department tended to be like that, unfortunately. Politics, politics, and more politics, with little actual science being done.


    Not that Sarah minded all that much, since the only reason she''d gotten in was due to her mother''s status, and it practically guaranteed her a position in the government once she got through her apprentice years, but she still felt obliged to at least pretend to be against its corrupt nature.


    The rest of the two-hour-long journey was spent in relative silence, with Sarah ensuring the ship''s AI didn''t fuck anything up, and Mark doing his own thing. They didn''t really chat any further, both content with ignoring the other.


    Finally, they arrived. As the ship left hyperspace, Sarah nudged her unwilling companion with her elbow. He jerked up in surprise, giving her an annoyed glare, one which she returned in force. "We''re here, dumbass. Go activate the scanners while I bring us... closer..." She trailed off, causing Mark to raise an eyebrow. In lieu of responding, she pointed a trembling finger at the system''s star.


    Mark stared, his jaw falling as well. "What... What in the Emperor''s name is that?" He whispered.


    The entire star had been covered by a massive sheet of writhing flesh, tentacles and eyes dotting its outer shell. Giant gaping maws formed great canyons through the monstrosity, opening and closing a few times before melting away.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    Sarah swallowed, feeling her throat suddenly tighten. "We need to get out of here." She said. Mark nodded frantically even as his eyes refused to leave the impossibly large monster.


    "Y-yeah. We should do that." He spoke, his voice quivering. Sarah hurriedly punched in the necessary codes for an emergency escape, inwardly sending a prayer to the Emperor for them to live through this.


    She wasn''t sure what that thing was, mostly because she''d never really paid attention to her space creatures class. However, even she knew that Leviathans were bad news, and that thing looked mighty big.


    She waited anxiously for their vessel to enter hyperspace, but as the seconds trickled by and it failed to happen, she got progressively more and more nervous. "Why the fuck aren''t we moving!?" Mark hissed out.


    "I don''t know!" Sarah hissed right back, worriedly typing away at the console in front of her. Warning signs had started flashing, and as she read through them, she couldn''t help but despair. "Fuck! It''s using some sort of space manipulations to block us." She exclaimed, her hands suddenly feeling horribly sweaty.


    "Shit! I''m not going to die like this!" Mark cursed even as he threw himself away from his seat and ran towards the interior of the ship, ignoring Sarah''s shouts.


    "Hey! Come back here, asshole!" Sarah shouted, but it was no use. She could feel the tell-tale effects of space twisting as her ship was unwillingly dragged towards the writhing monstrosity.


    She could see tentacles the size of mountains reaching out across space towards her, coming closer and closer by the second.


    Even as she heard the escape pod being activated, she desperately tried to salvage the desperate situation. Feeling a flash of fury, she punched the ''deny'' button. "If I''m dying here, so are you..." She whispered angrily, feeling tears coming to her eyes as tentacles began to wrap around the ship.


    She was only 20 years old, barely an adult, and she was going to die because she''d refused to let her boss have sex with her.


    Gritting her teeth, she tried one last gamble. Tearing herself out of the driver''s seat, she ran across the main room towards a specific corner, even as the ship groaned and began to give under the strain the star-eating abomination was putting it through.


    She desperately punched in the secret code, waiting anxiously as each moment passed by as though it was an eternity until finally, the emergency teleporter activated. Sarah felt a rush of relief run though her, only for it to be quickly replaced by anxiety.


    She was probably going to die if she went in, but it was better than being eaten alive. She took a deep breath, reminded herself that she was going to die anyway if she didn''t, and punched the ''activate'' button... Or at least, she tried.


    "Fuck you! You don''t get to escape!" Mark screamed as he suddenly shoulder-checked her out of nowhere. His eyes were bloodshot, and as Sarah let out a piercing ''No!'', he activated the teleporter for himself, vanishing in burst of light. Sarah had only a moment to regret everything before the ship''s walls finally gave.


    A literal wall of flesh surged downwards around her, filling every inch of space available and smothering her in an instant. She screamed and thrashed as she was locked in place, only for something to pierce her skin, and her futile and desperate struggles tripled as darkness began to close in around her.


    Unfortunately, it was all for naught, as consciousness quickly began to leave her. Her last wakeful thoughts were a mixture of hatred for her boss, Mark, and a desperate plea for her mommy to save her.


    And as all of these thoughts ran through the space-faring woman... Hannah watched, mildly miffed, as chunks of the man''s body appeared several light-years away, the teleportation beacon having drastically failed due to her own spatial interference.


    Then, her many, many eyes focused back on the woman in her grasp, and she pondered.

 Chapter 4 - Conversation

    Sarah woke up slowly, her mind feeling as though it was filled with mud. Her head pulsed painfully, spikes of pain running through her brain every few seconds. She let out a pained whimper, instinctively rubbing at her temples as she pushed herself up.


    "What the fuck happened..." She murmured to herself as she opened her eyes, wincing slightly at the bright lights surrounding her. Painfully slowly, she started to recall the previously transpired events.


    It felt like an ice-cold bucket of water had just been dumped onto her. Her eyes shot wide open as she desperately looked around, only to find herself in a pure-white room with no doors or windows present.


    She fought to suppress her rising panic, the feeling of being smothered to what she''d thought was her death still mighty fresh in her mind. "Am I dead?" She asked out loud, her fingers instinctively reaching down to her thighs, only to stop midway through as she suddenly felt the lack of tightness signifying the presence of her gun strap.


    "No." A voice answered, seemingly from everywhere around her. Sarah flinched slightly at the reverberating tone but made no further moves as she swallowed down the lump in her throat.


    "... I see. Where am I? How did you rescue me?" She asked, voice soft yet tinged with carefully placed gratefulness. In response, the walls themselves rippled as though they were made of water, and from them, a humanoid figure stepped out.


    Sarah''s words died in her throat as a terrible suspicion arose in her mind at the sight of this. The humanoid figure looked... terrifying. It was completely white, with no facial features and far too long limbs. It stared at her with a tilted head before abruptly shifting, the white stone-like skin of the creature crawling disturbingly as it rearranged itself.


    What came out of the transformation was what Sarah was fairly certain was meant to be a copy of herself, and yet, it looked so... wrong. Sarah couldn''t pinpoint what exactly made it so, only that it was, and it made her skin feel as though it had been covered by a swarm of angry ants.


    "Do not fear." Her copy whispered with her own voice. "I do not wish h-harm upon you. Only... Peace. Yes. Peace." As she spoke, she started walking towards Sarah, who scrambled back, desperately throwing herself to her feet as she retreated.


    The alien figure paused, staring at Sarah with empty eyes. She suppressed a tremble, forcing her breathing to slow down once more as she struggled to speak. "D-don''t... Don''t come any closer, monster!" She shouted with a bravado that she most certainly did not actually possess.


    Her copy tilted her head slightly. "You are already... inside me. Distance does not... matter." She spoke slowly, and as if to demonstrate, Sarah heard a sound behind her. She whirled around, only to come face-to-face with yet another clone of herself stepping out from the wall.


    Sarah grit her teeth, fear and panic churning inside her. "Why am I still alive, monster? Do you enjoy my fear?" She sneered even as she desperately prayed that, yes, it was enjoying her fear. It was far, far better to be a toy to a sadist than to be dead, in her opinion.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    "No. I do not wish... harm. I attack because... not yet. Need time. Evolution. Yes." Her copies spoke simultaneously, the emotionless tone of her own voice causing shivers to run down Sarah''s back.


    Sarah let out a breath, suppressing said shivers with the sheer force of her desperation. "Fine, then if you really do not want to hurt me, then let me go!" She shouted. A small part of her, the part that wanted to curl up into a ball and hide, whispered to her that angering the eldritch abomination in front of her was not a good survival plan, and Sarah desperately wanted to listen to it, but her emotions were making it difficult.


    Thankfully, her emotionless copies merely shook their heads instead of choosing to simply kill her over any perceived insolence. "No, no. No. Cannot. I want... talk. Yes. Talk. Cannot warn... friends. Allies. More come fight, if I release you." They whispered instead, their almost ethereal voices drifting across the white room even as Sarah slowly maneuvered herself so she could keep both within her eyesight.


    She desperately tried to not think about the implications that this whole conversation meant. Here was a Leviathan, a world-destroying threat that often meant the end of stellar empires, and it was... intelligent. Intelligent enough to talk, intelligent enough to think about consequences. And, perhaps, intelligent enough to interrogate her.


    "I..." She tried to say, but no words came to her mouth. She opened and closed it a few times, desperately wracking her brain for a way to escape. She was a science officer, the stereotypical government paper-pusher. She barely had any military training, so it was no surprise when, despite her best efforts, nothing came up.


    "Why must you... fight me so? I have not... hurt you." Her copies abruptly spoke, their emotionless tones failing to indicate whether the monster behind them was starting to get angry or not. Sarah waffled for a moment, unsure of how to even begin to respond to that.


    "I... Well, how do I know you''re not secretly implanting my brain with slugs to mind-control me?" She finally fired back, her anger flaring slightly, only to immediately regret it.


    Surprisingly, the monster''s answer wasn''t to rip her to pieces. Instead, it... laughed.


    "Haha. Haha." Her copies both deadpanned. "I... can scan your brain. Slugs... unnecessary. Inefficient. Amusing, however." They spoke, as if what they''d just said was perfectly normal.


    "Scan... my brain?" Sarah whispered faintly, wrapping her arms around herself as if it would ward off whatever the abomination was doing.


    "Yes... Non-intrusive. Needed information. Did not want to wait for... sedative, to run out." The abomination answered easily. Her two copies, who had remained perfectly still so far except for talking, abruptly moved, causing Sarah to jump slightly.


    "I am... making you uncomfortable?" It asked in the same emotionless tone, and yet, Sarah felt as though it had become slightly more expressive than before, even though as far as she could tell, nothing had changed.


    "N-... Y-yes? A... A little bit?" She almost lied, but after the earlier ''brain scan'' comment, Sarah wasn''t willing to risk it. She didn''t know if it was lying or not, but considering this was an actual intelligent Leviathan, she was more or less willing to accept anything.


    "Ah... That not good. Apologies. If want to talk... Call. If need something... ask. My name... Hannah." It said, her own voice sounding somewhat wistful now. Slowly, her two copies sank back into the wall, their features melting away as they did so in a thoroughly disturbing manner.


    Sarah could only stare, her initial terror having slowly faded away as she remained unharmed. In the end, she could only let out a whispered "What the hell..." At this insane turn of events.

 Chapter 5 - Destination

    Hannah was rather pleased with herself. While she hadn''t exactly been happy about her meal''s interruption, in the end, it had turned out for the better. Not only had she gained quite a bit of valuable information from ransacking the starship that had ended up in her clutches, but she now also had two new friends!


    Well, sort of two friends. One of them was dead, but she was working to fix that, so hopefully, that little issue would be resolved soon. Her still-alive friend was also sort of still terrified of her, but Hannah just knew that she would soon see the truth.


    With a crunch, the drained star she''d been crushing finally gave in to her not-so-gentle ministrations. As she began to absorb the now-useless star matter, she shut off her extradimensional brain structures.


    Despite having now eaten three stars in a row in less than two months, Hannah still found the energy costs of keeping her simulation centers far too expensive. Nonetheless, she''d already gained a lot of improvements and refinements, so she was far from upset about it.


    After all, she knew first-hand just how much easier it was to plunder information than to have to obtain it by oneself, as highlighted by her rapid evolution following her devouring of the starship.


    The weapons and scanning tools mounted on it were sort of pathetic, but its shielding and FTL travel was far superior to her own. Sure, technology didn''t exactly translate easily between an AI-controlled starship designed for humans and a massive star-eating monster, but to Hannah, it was easy as cake.


    With a flex of her will, Hannah shot off into the distance, space shrinking and extending to suit her needs once more. She''d set up various checks and scans to prevent incidents like the previous one from occurring again, as she damn well knew that the chances of her getting as lucky as she did previously were close to nil, and the chances of disaster far too high.


    Her body shifted slightly, adopting her more usual serpentine shape. Within moments, she had entered hyperspace. It was an interesting dimension, all told, and Hannah highly doubted that her soon-to-be friends truly understood the place.


    Hell, even she only had a basic understanding of it, and she considered herself an expert on dimensional studies, what with relying on them to hide the vast majority of her body. Nonetheless, she couldn''t deny its usefulness, as it allowed her to travel far faster and more efficiently than she ever did before.


    Then, as she started thinking about which destination to head towards, an idea popped up in her mind. The information she''d gained from Sarah''s brain mostly painted the universe as a still very much unexplored place, especially as their civilization had only been amongst the stars for less than a few generations.


    However, they had encountered a few primitive nations, ones who were still locked in their planets. While Hannah didn''t know the locations of the majority of these places, she did know a few, having been sent there on observation detail.


    Now, Hannah was faced with a somewhat difficult choice. She had energy and mass aplenty, devouring three massive stars did tend to do that after all, but she had begun to find diminishing returns from her simulation centers. They were massively helpful, but they were not omnipotent.


    So, she could either continue as she was, eating stars for their mass and energy, or head towards one of the inhabited planets and hope for the best.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    Waffling a bit, Hannah mulled over her choices. On the one hand, she could go and see people! Well, alien-y people, but still people! And also gather some valuable information. On the other hand, she ran the risk of exposing herself, and while she doubted Sarah''s people could hurt her in any meaningful way, Hannah was certain that there were others out there who could.


    It was one of the first and harshest lessons she''d learned when she first emerged into the Void. There was always someone bigger, stronger, smarter than you, no matter how high you rose.


    Then, she abruptly brightened. She had a friend, she could just ask her for some advice!


    Projecting her consciousness within one of the hundreds of hidden dimensions where she stored her extra mass, she immediately manifested within Sarah''s little box. As a humanoid avatar formed, she watched as Sarah let out a long breath from where she''d been sitting, her eyes slightly too wide to be normal.


    "Hello." Hannah greeted kindly. "I require... Assistance. Yes. Suggestion." She explained, to which the human woman seemed aghast at for some reason.


    "Uh... I-I don''t know how I can help? I''m not, I''m just... Please help me, Emperor." She started, only to trail off and whisper at the end. Hannah tilted her avatar''s head, somewhat baffled at her friend''s attitude.


    "I have not... hurt you. I have fed, watered, and energized you. Am I not a good friend?" She questioned. The sputtered denials and reassurances, but Hannah still felt a bit skeptical. A quick brain scan did confirm that, indeed, Sarah was still terrified of her and that she thought Hannah wanted her soul, which to be fair, Hannah was a bit curious about.


    Still, it hurt somewhat. "How do I be... good friend?" She asked instead once the other woman had stopped babbling uselessly. There was a moment of silence as Sarah''s face went through several interesting changes and colors, and Hannah took the opportunity to gather some data on emotional showcasing. She was quite rusty, after all. Millenia of isolation tended to do that to people.


    In the end, it took several minutes for Sarah to find her words. "I... I don''t know? I mean, you could let me go?" She hesitantly offered, only to backtrack immediately for some reason when she looked at the face of Hannah''s avatar. "I-I mean, you don''t have to! I''d appreciate it and all, and, and... Uh, you said you needed advice, right?" She quickly asked.


    Hannah brightened slightly. "I require counsel, yes. I have been... deciding, how to go. Eat stars, or visit new friends?" She asked. The slightly lost and confused look on Sarah''s face forced her to further explain. "I need... information. Data. Diminishing returns. Your brain contained the locations of four inhabited planets. Do you... advice visiting?"


    She watched as Sarah digested the information. Her eyes kept darting to and from Hannah''s avatar for some reason, but eventually, the human woman settled for a slightly shaky smile.


    "I... I think you should totally visit! They''ll love to have you, I''m sure. I''m sure you''ll gather a lot of data there." She said, causing Hannah to perk up happily. "B-but, I think you should go to Heredia first! It''s one of the forbidden zones, so nobody will bother you, and the natives are super interesting, I swear!" She quickly added.


    Hannah tilted her head slightly, mentally pulling up a review of this... Heredia place. "Heredia. Planet of Gods. Space-faring civilizations are forbidden from interfering under the pain of death. The native population consists of a strange mix between humans, theorized to have been kidnapped millennia ago from their homes on Terra, and other inbred or otherwise kidnapped humanoid species. They possess a surprising mastery of psychic manipulation for a pre-FTL race." She surmised. For some reason, Sarah had started sweating and looking increasingly more and more scared the further she recited the review pulled directly from her head.


    "Uh, um... Y-yeah...?" She stuttered out like a broken record. Hannah ignored her human faults, after all, she knew that she too had once been a human, so she could totally relate. Sort of. It had been a while.


    "Thank you. It sounds... interesting." Hannah happily said. "We will... explore lots. Make friends!" She proclaimed before re-absorbing her avatar, leaving behind a despairing human.


    Re-orienting her body, Hannah began the relatively long journey that would take her to this ''world of gods'' place. Despite all of her brainpower, she never even suspected just how disastrously it would all end.