I've promised a couple of friends of mine that I'd take a stab at writing more of this. So I did.
A young woman sat in the chair that had been provided to her, surrounded by the trappings of mundanity. There were certain qualities of the room the leaned towards opulence, such as the fine mahogany wood of the desk before her, and the surprisingly comfortable cushioning of the chair currently supporting her, but in all other respects her eyes told her that she currently resided in an ordinary, albeit high class, business office of some kind. Perhaps normally occupied by some sort of favorably placed upper management type.
Her brain, however, informed her that things were not quite what they seemed, picking out small details that didn't quite fit, despite her eyes insistence to the contrary. The way that every third day on the wall calendar read "Floop", in place of the appropriate day. The way that the photographs, lovingly arranged on the desk, all featured fish or dogs, but never the same fish or dogs as the last time she had looked. And most telling of all, the fact that there appeared to be no exit from the room. The door she vividly remembered entering through only minutes before was now conspicuously absent, and the impressively large window in the rear of the room, the variety which often lead to a balcony of some sort, seemed to be firmly attached to a very oppressive and extremely solid looking brick wall.
And yes, she reasoned, what was the point in worrying? She had brought this upon herself, after all. She was the one who had answered the mysterious wanted ad. She was the one who followed the instructions that were sent to her soon after. She was the one who had stepped through the impressive and awe inspiring Vortex of Darkness that had been waiting for her (their words, not hers), and she was the one who had politely refused a complementary beverage.
Her musings were interrupted as the world around her suddenly stopped.
...Well, perhaps stopped wasn't the appropriate word. "Hitched", or "stalled", might have been more apropos. The phenomenon came and went so swiftly that she might not have noticed at all, were she not in the midst of blinking when it happened. There in between the states of blink and blunk, a transition which normally occurred instantaneously, the woman found time that should not be. Phantom seconds. A moment which, under more typical circumstances, would exist as little more than a sensation, now artificially inflated to such an extent that it became memory.
...and then it was over. Time resumed. The darkness between seconds fading into the recesses of her memory as vision asserted itself once more. And all was as it should be. Except, for the figure now seated across from her.
Her eyes insisted that the individual before her was a man, and nothing more. But she couldn't quite confirm that for herself. There was a general fuzziness to his being. A slipperiness. While she could glean the general impression of an average, yet respectable man, she found that she could not manage the act of actually observing him. Any attempt to look him head on was met with resistance of her own making, as her eyes simply slid over him and found other things to focus on. A wastepaper basket, an antique cuckoo clock, the absolutely exquisite chair he currently resided in, but never the man himself. It was a strange and alien sensation.
"Now then, Ms...Human", he spoke, glancing at a small manila folder, which she was fairly certain had not been there previously.
"That's not my name." She replied, somehow finding it within herself to be puzzled in spite of everything.
"It will do." He said with an air of indifference. She had the distinct impression that he had waved dismissively towards her, but her eyes insisted that nothing of the sort had occurred.
"I disagree." Her eyes narrowed, familiar feelings of annoyance bubbling up, pushing through her discomfort. "You put together a file on me, and you couldn't even get my name right? What kind of operation are you running here?
"The kind that doesn't care what you think" Came the surprisingly snippy reply.
"This" He tapped the folder, "Is nothing. All of this." He now gestured to the room around them, "Is nothing. This is a construct, made to put you at ease."
"It's not working." She replied, dryly.
"How tragic." Her teeth clenched at the blatant mockery. "But as I said, it matters not. You not even a name to me. Your kind, even at the best of times, are useful tools, a means to an end. I will not grant your short, pointless existence the dignity of being remembered."
"And yet..." She growled, "In spite of all that, you were the one who put a 'Help Wanted' ad on Greg's List."
"Under duress." He hissed.
For a time they simply sat there, her glaring in his general direction, with the distinct impression that he was responding in kind.
She took a deep breath, hoping to calm herself. She needed this. She couldn't allow herself to get too emotional at this stage.
"So why..." She began at last, voice trembling only the slightest bit from her repressed anger. "Do you need me then?"
She felt something resembling a sigh coming from the being. Her vision began to swim as images rapidly began to play before her.
"I am a being older than thought. Ancient, even as sapience first began to spread throughout the galaxy."
She focused as the sensory assault intensified, only able to glean the slightest impressions from the montage. Widespread destruction. Planets burning. Suns being extinguished. And underlining it all, terror, both intense and primal. It horrified her. It sickened her. But, to a degree, it also thrilled her, a reaction even she had not expected.
"My purpose and pleasure is to consume. The emotions of you lesser beings are especially delectable. Your fear, your anger, your anguish. They sustain me, both literally and figuratively. And so I go where I please, take, what I please, and then I move on to the next world to do it all over again."
A dark, chilling chuckle reverberated throughout the room.
"I have designated your people as my next source of sustenance. Frankly, you should thank me for the privilege."
She tried to swallow, trying to ignore her heart hammering in her chest. "So I repeat, why do you need me?"
She could feel the frown emanating from the creature, and relished the small victory.
"I don't particularly care for that word. Need. It is unbecoming."
She shrugged. "If the shoe fits..."
Silence fell upon the room again, and the woman allowed herself a small smirk. A small part of her recognized that baiting the cosmic horror wasn't an especially smart move, but it was cathartic, and strangely life affirming.
"Until now, I have always taken the direct approach. I feed, you are fed upon. However, there are occasions when my prey manages to assert some semblance of resistance."
She winced as the flowing images now began to coalesce, forming a much clearer image. Two women, titanic in size, both beautiful and powerful, battling for dominance in the middle of a crowded city. One of them especially familiar to her."
"L-Leni!" She blurted out, and immediately regretted the outburst as the images stopped, and her surroundings suddenly grew oppressive and intense.
"Yes." He said after a time, the void receding, and the room reforming around her once more, a semblance of normalcy reestablished.
"Or at least, beings like her. They are called Gigants, the products of a civilization long past."
The smugness radiating from him left no uncertainty as to why that civilization was no longer around.
"This one..." She felt the frown return, "Is stronger than her predecessors, which has allowed her to best me."
"Twice." She blurted out, cursing herself for being unable to keep her mouth shut.
Another flash of intensity, this time mercifully brief.
"Which has allowed her to...twice...best me." He eventually conceded, grudgingly. "It vexes me."
Suddenly the room was back in full. The desk, the photos, the cuckoo clock.
"I need to evaluate this...anomaly. And for that, I must proceed with..." There was a pause as the creature struggled to complete the sentence.
"...Caution." He spat out at last, clearly unhappy with the admission.
"So where do I fit in?"
"I need resources. Normally I would simply take one of you creatures and acquire what I need by force. However..."
A grimace. "That battle..." A twitch of irritation. "Those TWO, previous battles proved to be surprisingly costly. It would be foolhardy to proceed without knowing what caused these...setbacks. Thus, I have decided to employ one of you to be my proxy."
"...And you thought the best way to do this was an internet message board?
"It was a passing amusement. Besides..." A smug smirk. "...it worked, did it not?"
She sighed. "Well, the economy's not great right now. Plus..." She twitched slightly as a rush of anger briefly bubbled up. "I'm not particularly fond of Big Green myself."
"Wonderful."
The woman flinched as a small, spherical object dropped into her hands, roughly the size of a baseball.
"This...?"
"Is an orb."
"Do space monsters not feed on creativity?"
A glower of annoyance. "I could always start now."
She swallowed. "Orb it is."
"Quite right." Smugness. "The orb is a device that collects and absorbs human emotions. I need you to go out and fill it up. The more base and negative the emotion, the better."
That sounded easy enough. Royal Woods wasn't exactly Sunshine City right now.
"Does this mean I got the job?" She ventured, trying not to sound too hopeful.
"It means you have a chance. Impress me, and I might have something more permanent for you."
"Fine." She sighed in resignation. "But I don't subjugate humanity for free."
There was that chuckle again. "Very well, I'll humor you. Complete the task to my satisfaction and I will arrange for payment. I believe it will be worth the amusement."
The woman climbed to her feet as the wall behind her began to contort, eventually forming the shape of a door. She started towards it, then stopped, hesitating.
"I feel like if I'm going to be working with you, I should have some kind of name to call you by."
"Your Eminence, has a nice ring to it."
"Maybe something that rolls off the tongue a little better?" She deadpanned, surprised at how quickly she had acclimated to conversing with the thing.
"How droll. Very well. To most, I am referred to as..."
The woman cried out in pain as a loud, wordless shriek reverberated throughout the room.
"Well that was delightful. If nothing else, I suppose you can serve as some variety of emergency rations"
She glared in the general vicinity of the eldritch monstrosity as he appeared to take delight in her torment.
"Fine, fine." He said, regaining his composure. "I suppose in your tongue, the closest approximation would be...'The Dark'. Though I believe, 'Darkness', would be a more fitting, given your grammatical conventions."
"It's certainly an apt description." She replied, dryly.
"Indeed." The door behind her swung open. "Now begone, Human."
The woman grumbled as she stomped towards the door. No turning back now.
"Make the check out to Fiona!" She called over her shoulder as she exited back into the world. The only reply was a loud hissing noise as the door slid shut behind her, then faded from view.