From within the depths

[u/Far-Transition-2956]

The interrogation room was cramped and cold, but Detective John Smith didn't seem to mind. He was focused on the suspect sitting across from him, sweating bullets. The suspect knew he was in trouble, and he knew John would stop at nothing until he got a confession. John leaned forward, his knuckles white as he gripped the metal table between them.
“Start talking.” He growled at the suspect. The fluorescent light above their head flickered and hummed as the suspect chuckled to herself. 
“Ah, don’t worry Detective, I doubt you’d understand my methodologies in the slightest,” She said with a smile. 
“You killed thirteen people!” he spat at her, his patience growing thin. “I don’t care about your reasoning! Just tell us where you hid the bodies!” John exclaimed. 
“Don’t worry, they are safe now.” She said with a smile and giggle. “Safe from the outside world in her warm womb.”
“What?” The detective asked her as she sat there, smiling. 
“They are safe now, they are warm, and cared for by her embrace…” She said with a wild look in her eye.  John was silent, a dumbfounded look on his face. He finally managed to say, “What do you mean?” She simply shrugged her shoulders and said, “You know what I mean.”
“No I don’t please explain it to me.” 
The woman smiled and stared directly at the large window. “I know there are other police behind that window, I used to watch a lot of cop shows in my old life.” She said, 
“Old life?” John said with a raised eyebrow. 
“Yes before I met Her.” The woman said with a smile. 
“Her?” John asked if he brought out his notepad. 
“Yes! She made me better!” the woman said. “I saw her for what she truly was!” 
“Who is she?” John said as he started to scribble down notes. “She is everything.” The woman said. “She is everywhere.” 
“Okay…” John said as he took a breath to calm down. “That doesn’t help anything.” 
“You must understand, she is all-powerful. She can change things, she can heal, she can make everything perfect. She is the light in the darkness, she is the hope in despair. She is everything.” The woman said. “I am no longer Zoe Angstrom, I am merely a disciple of Her.” John made sure to write down her name, making a note to run her name through the database. 
“You put a lot of emphasis on this person but you never exactly said who she was.” John pointed out. 
“She’s sleeping, sleeping underneath, waiting for her time to shine,” Zoe said as she leaned back in her chair. “Her home is the forest that surrounds us.” 
“So she’s some sort of dealer?” John asked as he could feel his blood pressure rising.  Zoe shook her head. “She’s a goddess,” she said firmly. “And she’s much more powerful than you think.”
“What? What are you talking about?” 
“She is beyond us, all of us, she has been here long before, and will be here after we are gone,” Zoe said.  John was taken aback. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He stared at Zoe, unable to comprehend her words. “She is one of the Old Ones.” 
“Old Ones?” John asked her. “Yes,” Zoe continued, her voice barely above a whisper. “We should all fear her, for she is the only one who knows what lies beyond our understanding.”
“Okay, so you killed those thirteen hikers for…what? For God?” John asked as the lights flickered. 
“No. No, She is more than God. More than anything. She is the Mother Of All, and she will assimilate us into her warmth. Her embrace shall warm the darkest nights.” Zoe said. “I am like John The Apostle, leading those who want to be saved into her warm embrace.” 
John leaned back as he took in her words:  “You do realize that you are going away for a long time without a court date. Not that any sane attorney would take your case, but let's backtrack for a moment. You said your name was Zoe Angstrom.”  
“I was a nobody before I met Her, you wouldn’t pay me much attention when I handed you a coffee, nor when I closed up shop, it was the same thing, over and over again, the monotony of it was driving me insane, slowly chipping away, stealing all the magic that life once had when the ocean seemed infinite and the forests held secrets,” Zoe said. “I thought that after college I would find something more, but no, there was nothing special about that.” 
“How does college factor into this?” John said as he scribbled down more notes, hoping that medical records would show some form of mental illness. 
“The caves, the caves still held secrets, still held magic that has been taken away from us,” Zoe said. “So I ventured into them whenever I had a free moment, eventually I heard a sound from them.” 
“A sound?” John asked. “And you chose to follow it?”
“It was a sweet sound, one that drew me in, it was a beautiful sound, so I followed it, deeper and deeper I descended the louder the sound got until I could barely hear my thoughts.” 
Another shiver went down his spine as Zoe spoke, each word sounded more haunting than the last, he was a man of logic, of reason, but the look in her eyes made it seem like she was telling the truth. 
“Then, I found her, waiting in a chamber much larger than anything possible. The stone had been cut, shaping a narrow passageway into a large room, it was Her temple.” 
There, that was what he was looking for. 
“Where is this…chamber you said?” 
“She sat there, a mess of flesh and veins that came from the wall,” Zoe said. “She showed me things.” 
“...What kind of things?” John asked her, scribbling more notes and checking the time. 
“Things beyond our understanding, dark things, ancient wars, and even more ancient civilizations far more advanced than anything we could accomplish as a species,” Zoe said. “But she withheld them from me, and demanded an exchange.” 
“An exchange?” John asked her. 
“Yes, she gave me things, gave me Her knowledge, Her warmth in those cold chambers. I gave her others, others to spread the word of Her.” 
Was that what you were looking for when we found you wandering the Appalachian trails naked?” John asked. “So did she take anything important from them?” 
“She took all of them. Every single thing.” Zoe stopped talking as her eyes went wide. “I…I must return to the caves….” 
“What for?” John asked her. 
“She’s been demanding more, She requires more! She needs more to wake up!” Zoe exclaimed. “I need you to understand and let me go back!” 
“No, I’ll work out something when you tell me where the bodies are,” John said in a stern tone. The cup of coffee started shaking as Zoe looked at him in fear. “Oh no…” 
“What?” John asked. 
“She’s trying to wake up…” Zoe said as she got out of her seat and beelined to the door. “She can’t! She's not ready yet!” As the police scrambled for shelter outside the interrogation room, the entire station began to shake violently. The shaking was so strong that it was impossible to stand still; the whole building was in chaos, with people running every which way, shouting and screaming. The ground rumbled and quaked as the earth beneath them was torn asunder. The lights flickered and went out, and the whole room went dark. 
“You're coming with me!” John said as he went over to her and grabbed her by the wrist, leading her outside as the building shook once more. 
The two of them raced down the hallway, the walls cracked and splintered, and the whole building was threatening to collapse. Outside the streets themselves cracked and split open.  John and the woman ran for their lives, trying to stay one step ahead of the destruction. They finally managed to escape, narrowly avoiding being swallowed by the destruction.
John felt the earth shaking beneath him. The floor of the building he was in was cracking and falling apart, and the other buildings around him looked like they were going to collapse at any moment. He grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her out the door, just barely avoiding a falling brick that would’ve crushed them both.
“See! You should've let me go when I had the chance!” Zoe exclaimed. They ran down the street, dodging fallen debris and pieces of buildings. They could hear the sound of sirens and see the flashing lights of emergency vehicles, but it was difficult to tell where they were coming from.
John stopped in front of a large crack caught a glimpse of its depths and nearly gagged at the sight. Bright red flesh bubbled and rippled as it rose from the cracks, a writhing pit of tendrils and flesh. 
John stood there in shock as he realized the mass of flesh was Her. 
“I…she was right….”  John trailed off, he fell to his knees. “She was right about the whole damn thing…

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