The profound, grumbling quiet of the abyss was broken only by the soft, rhythmic click-click-click of Chiari's chitin pajama segments as she shifted on the uneasy pillow. The luminous sand beneath her glowed with a slower pulse, as if drowsing. Mr. Fin's immense form was a cut-out of deeper darkness against the void. For a long moment, he was motionless, a monument to cosmic impatience.
Then, his dorsal fin gave a single, minute twitch. It was a small gesture, but in the stillness, it was as loud as a shout. The water around it rippled, sending a gentle wave that lifted a few strands of Chiari's hair and made the tufts on her wrist-antennae flutter.
From the jagged peaks of his fin, a soft, shimmering membrane began to peel away. It wasn't something he produced; it was something he allowed to separate from himself—a veil of concentrated shadow and abyssal steam. It drifted down, silent as a falling feather in zero gravity, and settled over her curled form. It had no weight, but a tangible pressure—the comforting, inescapable pressure of deep water. It was cool at first, then radiated a profound, geothermal warmth that seeped through the shrimp chitin and into her bones, smelling faintly of volcanic silt and safe, dark places.
"Badtime story," his voice began, not as a roar, but as a rumble so deep it felt like the bubble itself was purring. It was a sound felt in the sternum, a vibration that gently rattled the carapace of her pajamas. A stream of bubbles, not explosive but languid, escaped his gills. They didn't pop. They coalesced, merging and darkening in mid-water until they formed a chain of floating, obsidian-dark kanji that hung above her like a mobile made of ink and ancient night:
[BADTIME STORY: THE FISH WHO ATE THE MOON].
As the first character shimmered and began to dissolve into motes of shadow, the gelatinous blob, which had been a puddle of worried jelly at her side, stirred. It oozed upward with a purpose, its body thinning and stretching into a vast, translucent screen against the bubble wall. Upon it, it projected a flickering diorama—silhouettes cut from light and memory. A cosmic carp, scales like swirling galaxies, moved with impossible laziness. It opened a maw that was a yawning warp in space and consumed a shimmering, pockmarked moon. With each swallow, scales sloughed off its body, disintegrating into a rain of hard, bright stardust that drifted down. Some motes landed near Chiari's face. She sniffed in her sleep, and the dust burned her nostrils with the sharp, clean sting of white pepper and ozone.
The shark's narrated rumble continued, a bedrock beneath the visual spectacle. "Once, a fish so vast its shadow cooked entire civilizations to the bedrock before its stomach ever knew their flavor..."
The STAUST display, half-buried in the sand where it had fallen, flickered feebly.
[WARNING: LULLABY NARRATIVE MAY INDUCE COSMIC HOMESICKNESS. SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDE: TEMPORARY GRAVITATIONAL NOSTALGIA, TASTE OF LOST ATMOSPHERES.]
As if triggered by the warning, the diorama stuttered. The cascading stardust, for a brief, jarring half-second, coalesced not into light, but into a familiar, scowling arrangement of features—her uncle's face, rendered in pinpricks of cold, white light. It hung in the air before her closed eyes, silent and disapproving, before dissolving back into harmless, drifting bioluminescent plankton that faded to a soft blue glow.
"szzz..." A soft, shrimp-clicking snore escaped her. In the depths of sleep, her dream absorbed the story and made it her own. She dreamt of the giant fish, yes, but it was a she, a glorious, gleaming sister-fish, and Chiari was a tiny cheering shrimp on a cosmic podium. Go sister fish! You can do it! Eat that moon! I bet he deserved it! The dream-moon was bland and arrogant; the sister-fish was magnificent and hungry. It felt deeply, intuitively just.
The dreamscape morphed, fueled by the scent of her pajamas and the rhythm of Mr. Fin's voice. The void became a dancefloor. Shrimps in glittering carapaces waltzed on currents of warm brine. Crabs with seashell cymbals and anemone microphones sang bubbling, rhythmic songs that vibrated through the water in visible, colorful waves. It was a festival under a sea that had no surface, lit by the gentle glow of a thousand friendly, blinking eyes in the comfortable dark. Under the sea with the cthullu...
Mr. Fin's dorsal fin developed a faint, persistent tremble. Whether it was suppressed laughter at her dream-cheers, cosmic indigestion from narrating a cautionary tale that had become a pep rally, or simply the strain of maintaining the warm shadow-blanket, was a mystery lost to the abyss.
The gelatinous blob, sensing the deepening of her sleep, relaxed its diorama duty. It spread itself thinner, a living, breathing security blanket that gently draped over Mr. Fin's shadow-veil. From its edges, it extruded fine, filament-like pseudopods that wove a second, ultra-thin membrane over her. This one smelled distinctly, comfortingly, of childhood—the plastic-and-dust scent of a nightlight's warmth, mixed with the salty, tangy aroma of pickled plankton from a long-forgotten lunch.
Far above, the lingering psychic impressions of User NightSnack's thousands of eyestalks finally began to dim. Their intense, focused hunger blurred into a vague, sleepy curiosity. The static whispers faded, not to silence, but into the very fabric of the bubble's membrane, absorbed like salt dissolving into a rich, dark broth. The last of the drool-smudges evaporated with a final, soft pfft of scented steam.
STAUST, nearly buried, used the last of its charge to flicker a weak, fond message into the sand by her cheek:
[DREAM FEEDBACK DETECTED: SHRIMP DANCE SEQUENCE - 78% ACCURACY. CRAB MELODY - SUBPAR. CONTINUING CALIBRATION.]
And in the center of it all, the whalebone mortar bowl cradled its prize. The single, perfect portion of star-scorched rice pulsed. Not randomly, but in a slow, steady, lub-dub rhythm that had perfectly matched her panicked heartbeat during its creation. Now, it seamlessly synced with her sleep-slowed, peaceful pulse. With each soft beat, the golden glow within would swell and gently fade, casting the chamber in a rhythmic, amber light. And with each pulse, the long, distorted shadows cast on the bubble's curved walls weren't static. They shifted, elongated, and swayed—forming elegant, silent silhouettes of dancing crustaceans and softly waving sea ferns, a silent, shadow-puppet ballet enacted by the heart of the meal she had poured her soul into.
Cocooned in layers of shadow, jelly, and warmth, dressed in clicking shrimp-armor, Chiari slept. Guarded by a grumbling cosmic horror and a loyal blob, serenaded by the heartbeat of her own emotional artifact, she dreamed of dancing shrimp under a sea of stars. For the first time since the discount grocery aisle, she was not just surviving a void.
She was, in her own weird, defiant way, at home in it.