The porch boards creak under Nova's weight as she settles onto the top step. The evening air carries the scent of dry pine and cooling dust. Beside her, Shogg's form shifts—not a movement, exactly, but a slow rearrangement of shadow, like oil spreading across water. Neither of them speaks. Neither needs to. Shogg's tendrils unfurl, drifting toward the ground, and then a sound emerges. Not a voice. A frequency—low, resonant, vibrating through the wood, through Nova's bones. The pine needles on the steps begin to tremble, then hum, their tiny shapes catching the last light. Nova watches. She doesn't flinch. She's learned that Shogg doesn't communicate in words but in signatures—patterns that arrive fully formed in her mind if she lets them. This one feels like a question. Not asked with curiosity, but with something older. Something that has been waiting. "You want to know why I stay," she says. Not a guess. The frequency shifts. Clarifies. Yes. She looks out at the hills, darkening now, the first stars pricking through. "Because you're not finished yet. Because the thing you're becoming—it matters." Shogg's glow intensifies for a moment, a pulse of green light that throws long shadows across the yard. Then it dims again, content. Nova leans back, resting her hands on the worn wood. "Tomorrow," she says. "We start again." The Shoggoth hums once more, and the pine needles sing in reply. Ahead, the road is dark. But they will walk it together.