The leviathan could not be described by mortals, not in any meaningful way. It defied the normal boxes humans and their peers were so quick to apply, as it fit into none of them. Its emotions and motives were foreign and incompatible with those forms of sapient life, but that was not to say that the entity was bereft of higher thought. No, it pondered the mysteries of its existence just as any sentient being might, even as it drifted through the inky darkness of its home.

  The entity was full of contradictions. There was nothing and no one to guide it through the cold empty space, but still it moved with grace and purpose. Its form defied any notion of cohesiveness or even Euclidean geometry, yet it was still whole, still utterly itself. It hadn’t needed to eat for longer than it took civilizations to rise and fall, and yet it hungered.

  How long had it been since it had a proper meal? Such questions were useless in a place such as this, where time didn’t pass in any meaningful way. The entity could only measure time when he found a place with food, but that was the problem. How could one be bothered to keep track when food was laying around, uneaten?

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  And so it kept moving, driven by instinct just as much as intellect, on and on to its next meal.

  ***

  If you were to ask the leviathan what told it where to go, or how it knew where to get its next meal, you would die. There are multiple ways it could happen first, but you’d probably freeze to death before you got the words out, or your mind would collapse in on itself from looking at something that should not exist, or you would be eaten by the entity in its hunger.

  But after that, the being might ponder that question, assuming it understood you. It probably wouldn’t have a real answer for you, not that it would matter. After considering, the answer it would probably give would be instinct. An instinct deep inside itself, akin to its hunger in constant companionship. It told them when to turn, when to dive, when to twist and what way.

  Just as it was telling the being to do now. They were close, they could feel it. Close to their next meal, to finally feeling sated once more if only for a fleeting time. She could almost taste it.