The Tuesday Morning Apocalypse

The coffee in the mess hall of Fort Atropos didn't taste like coffee. It tasted like burnt tires and despair, with a subtle aftertaste of iodine.

Sergeant Jax "Jinx" Miller stared into his metal cup, swirling the black sludge. "You know," he said to the empty air, "I think the beans are actually shrapnel from the last breach. We’re drinking recycled war crimes."

Across the table, Corporal Kara "Dead-Eye" Vance didn't look up from her datapad. She was methodically cleaning her rifle, a massive anti-material weapon that looked too heavy for her wiry frame. "Stop whining, Jinx. It puts hair on your chest."

"I have enough hair on my chest," Jax grumbled, taking a sip and grimacing. "I want serotonin. Is that too much to ask from the United States military? Just a single molecule of joy?"

"You're in the wrong line of work for joy, sweetie," Kara grinned, finally looking up. Her eyes were sharp, green, and terrifyingly alert for 0600 hours. "You signed up for the Abyssal Tear. We get hazard pay and dental. Joy is extra."

Jax looked at her. He’d been looking at her for five years, ever since boot camp in the Nevada desert. She had a smudge of grease on her cheekbone that he desperately wanted to wipe away. He didn't, of course. That would be weird. That would break the sacred covenant of "Just Partners."

Instead, he pointed at the window. "Look at the sky. It’s bleeding again."

Outside the reinforced plexiglass of the mess hall, the sky above Sector 4 was a bruised plum color. Clouds swirled in impossible, non-Euclidean shapes, occasionally dripping a viscous red liquid that sizzled when it hit the perimeter shielding.

"Pretty," Kara noted.

"It’s horrifying," Jax corrected. "It defies the laws of physics. Clouds shouldn't have arteries."

Before Kara could respond, the base klaxon screamed. It wasn't the standard *whoop-whoop* of a drill. It was the bone-rattling, teeth-vibrating bass note of a Breach Alarm.

*“ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL,”* the intercom buzzed, the voice of the Commander sounding bored. *“CLASS 3 ENTITY DETECTED IN SECTOR 4. PERIMETER COMPROMISED. MILLER, VANCE, YOU’RE UP. BRING THE BIG NET.”*

Jax slammed his head against the table. "I hate Tuesdays."

\---

Sector 4 was affectionately known as "The Breach." It was a canyon where reality had thinned to the consistency of wet tissue paper. Rocks floated here. Gravity was a suggestion. The air smelled of ozone and, inexplicably, vanilla cupcakes.

Jax drove the Containment Rover—a hulking, armored beast of a vehicle that smelled of sweat and old french fries—while Kara manned the turret.

"Target at twelve o'clock," Kara called out over the comms. "It’s... pulsating."

Jax slammed on the brakes. The Rover skidded to a halt in a patch of blue mud.

They disembarked, weapons raised. Jax checked his grenade launcher. Kara adjusted her scope.

"Alright, you ugly cosmic horror," Jax muttered, stepping over a floating boulder. "Let's get this over with so I can go back to my terrible coffee."

They crested the ridge and froze.

It wasn't a Shoggoth. It wasn't a Mind-Flayer.

Sitting in the center of a crater was a blob. It was about the size of a golden retriever, translucent and shimmering with iridescent colors. It had six large, watery eyes and a multitude of small, wriggling tentacles.

It looked up at them and shivered.

* Mew?* it made a sound like a wet balloon rubbing against glass.

"Oh my god," Kara lowered her rifle. "It’s adorable."

"It’s a Class 3 Entity," Jax warned, keeping his finger on the trigger. "It probably eats faces. Don't look at it directly, Vance. It’ll lay eggs in your retinas."

"Look at it, Jax! It’s shaking. It’s cold." Kara walked forward.

"Kara, wait! Protocol!"

Kara ignored him. She approached the blob. The entity retracted its tentacles, trying to make itself smaller. It shifted form, mimicking the shape of a puppy, albeit one with too many eyes and a gelatinous consistency.

"It’s a Mimic-Spawn," Kara diagnosed, crouching down. "A baby. It must have fallen through a rift."

"Great," Jax sighed, lowering his launcher. "A baby eldritch horror. Can I blow it up?"

"No!" Kara snapped. She reached out a hand. The Spawn sniffed her fingers with a tentacle, then nuzzled against her palm. It purred, a sound like a cat purring underwater. "We have to take it back to the lab. Command will want to study it."

"Command will want to dissect it," Jax said. "And I signed up to explode monsters, not babysit a calamari platter."

"Jax," Kara gave him *the look*. The one that could stop a tank. "Get the crate."

Jax groaned. He knew that look. He was powerless against that look.

"Fine," he muttered, trudging back to the Rover. "But if it eats me, I’m haunting you."