Every Body

This was a writing prompt for round 1 of the 15M competition on r/writingprompts. I got first place in my heat! :O

Horns blared in a catchy jingle while the camera flew around the theme park. The view crashed through the front door and stopped.

"Weeeelcome!" said the host, "To the best game show on any other planet..." the crowd chanted along, "Every Body is Looking for Some Thing!"

His million dollar smile dazzled the crowd, "That's right, folks. It's the only show around where you get to see some Thing look through the bodies of everyday people! Your body! Yes you! Because Every Body is Looking for Some Thing!"

His indoor sunglasses gleamed in the stage lights as he scanned the crowd, "Now... whose body is going to be the lucky guest tonight I wonder?"

People jumped out of their chairs waiving their hands to catch the host's attention. One person in a chicken outfit clucked and laid a fake egg. A person on a pogo stick pogo'd. Another person ripped off her shirt and was escorted away.

The host pointed to the front row, "You! Yeah you! Get on up here!"

The chosen one was wearing a T-shirt with the host's face on it. The host smiled at it with an identical grin, "Well well well. Looks like I've got a fan!" The crowd laughed, "What's your name?"

T-shirt guy looked nervous and excited, "It- It's Eric."

"Well Eric you're in for a treat tonight!" He snapped his fingers; the lights dimmed and the crowd went quiet, "It's time for you to meet your Thing, Eric. She's a 'bute, let me tell you."

The spotlight landed on a curtain. A dark wellspring of pure malevolence was beginning to seep out from under it.

"Descending from space or somewhere more distant, this Thing is known for her role as the Mother to her Thousand Young; that's right, it's Shub-Niggurath, black goat of the woods!"

The curtains opened to reveal a twisting knotted mass of blood and bone tied together with strings of tendons, growing into the area as way of movement. A haunting melody of psychosis seeped from her pores, wrapping around the mind as a chorus of madness. The lens of the camera itself bent concave at the sight of her like a withering flower, forcing the focal point of the picture onto her grinding symphony of gnarled hate.

Into, onto, and through the stage she moved inexorable, the expanse of her flesh ripping and tearing and growing anew to accompany thousands of new forms. An eternal rising crescendo of unyielding apocalypse wafted out of her mouths, promising.

"Give it up for Shub, every body!" The host did a flourish with his hand, and the crowd cheered on queue. Festive game show music played. He held up the mic to one of Shub-Niggurath's gaping maws, "Tell me, Shub, what brings you to this neck of the woods? The ones back home getting lonely after your Thousand Young left for college?"

The black goat of the woods writhed in seething contempt.

"What a card!" The crowd laughed, "Well Shub, we all know the rules. Eric here has decided to be your body. Go wild ya' old hag."

The Great Old One orchestrated her attention upon the one called Eric, paralyzing him with a song of fear so perfect it could only have been preformed by a composer who had practiced forever. With deliberate chaos, a wild slow precision, she presented Eric's mind with her thrice cursed benediction.

Silence borne of a ritual older than itself suppressed the senses and misdirected assumptions. Eric yielded to the pressure immediately.

A throat-rending scream pierced the veil as Shub-Niggurath left her current body and entered Eric's, leaving nothing but a dark stain on the stage where once was a panoply of rot. He fell to the floor clutching at his eyes howling for long minutes. Soon even that sound stopped, leaving him bent on the floor, whimpering and holding his eyes shut.

"Give it up for Eric!" Said the host, gesturing to the prone body. The crowd cheered the cheer of the recently entertained.

The host put the mic in front of Eric, "Can you tell the crowd how you feel, Shub-Eric? We're all waiting on bated breath here."

"...hurts."

"Well, yeah. Obviously," said the host, "But what else? Can you stand up yet?"

A trembling bloodied hand removed itself from an eye, revealing a blackened and red abyss whose gaze bore a hole through the stage, the ground, and into the vast emptiness. The other hand followed, and both landed on the floor to support the shaking body upwards. Standing upright Eric's body looked around slack-jawed.

A mic found its way, "Shub-Eric, how do you feel?"

Jerking motions brought up a hand and flexed it, Eric's face contorted into fear, relaxation, then fear again. "This is wrong," he said, as if his tongue weren't under his explicit control.

The host turned to one of the close up cameras, "What we are seeing right now is Eric's mind battling for control over ol' Shub. I wonder who will win," he flashed a grin, "Spoiler alert: it won't be Eric."

Eric, or at least his body's throat, made a guttural low sound. In a halting cadence it said, "Three warnings- ugh- passed- no- and yet you fail. No no no..."

The body lost all tension, going limp while standing. It worked its jaw and turned its drilling gaze towards the host.

"Awwww," said the host using a finger to trace the path a tear would take on his face, "So sad. Sorry folks, it seems like Eric isn't with us anymore." The crowd laughed.

"You. Cease this," said Shub-Niggurath without the slightest inflection.

"Whoah crabby!" Said the host, making the crowd whoop, "I do all this for you, and you don't even thank me? How rude."

Shub-Niggurath turned and walked backstage. The host made no motions to stop it. Instead he turned to one of the cameras and said, "Well, that's all for tonight folks!"

The audience cheered before the host snapped his fingers. Through the resulting silence they got up and left the building in neat single-file lines.

He bowed at the camera, and when he came up his indoor sunglasses were off. Eyes like embers burned with manic intensity as he looked straight through the camera, "You will come here next week," he spoke with precision, "Until then, I've been your host, Nyarlathotep. Good bye!"

The camera moved backwards out of the stage, through the hall, and out the door, panning over the vista of the amusement park the stage was based in. Catchy game show music played, and the logo appeared:

Every Body is Looking for Some Thing!

Tune in next week! :D