Abnormal vision into future

Part of Flash Fiction February 2023, prompt was “abnormal vision into future”.

Great Cthulhu leaned back against the walls of the underwater cave it called home, tentacles flapping and folding as they slowly squatted down to the ground causing tremors around them as they did, upsetting the catch of a far-above fishing vessel in the aftershocks.

Cthulhu was used to having visions of the future, but they were typically more apocalyptic and awe-inspiring. This had been positively mundane, which disturbed Cthulhu’s body, filling it with the existential dread of the potential future.

For aeons, Cthulhu had waited for the stars to align, for the time to be right to bring about the new order to the corrupt world above. Cthulhu had lost track of how long they had been waiting, a few Millenia were pittance to a great old one. Meaningless in the grand scale of the plan. Cthulhu kept themselves busy sending visions to dedicated cultists all over this pitiful world, but in truth, they were waiting. Waiting for those cursed dots in the sky to get on with it.

This vision was different. It showed Cthulhu that they were wasting their time. The stars were never going to align. They had overlooked great Cthulhu’s plans. How dare they! Now Cthulhu thought about it, where had this plan even come from? When had they concocted it? It had always just felt “right”, but none of the other Great Old Ones had ever actually confirmed it as a good idea. Cthulhu guessed that was the problem with instilling mind-bending fear into all and sundry. No one ever questioned anything you suggested.

Cthulhu pulled out the metres-long star charts again and unfurled them across the damp floor, studying them for the fifth time since the vision. Those stars still looked an awfully long way apart. Cthulhu was starting to believe the vision was true.

What could Cthulhu do instead? What prospects were there for a Great old one as old as time itself who had only worked remotely for countless millennia, sending out visions to believers but with little actual “hands-on” experience.

Cthulhu slumped down against the cave wall, tentacles flapping aggressively, causing a passenger ship hundreds of kilometres above to capsize. Now they were just depressed. Cthulhu didn’t want to relocate or find a new home. This cave was dank and miserable, but it was their damp and miserable cave. They may never get the world-flattening apocalypse they’d hoped for. Still, the hundreds of thousands of cultists causing mischief around the world was enough satisfaction, wasn’t it? Cthulhu thought of Azathoth and the King in Yellow jealously. They got out and about a lot and had plenty of “face-to-face” time with those who worshipped and feared them.

Cthulhu sighed. They were too old and set in their ways to change now. But no one else needed to know that the plan was doomed, did they?