Part 2

This short story was made using the solo RPG: 6 Trials of the Weavers, by tallywinkle.

CW: Insects, Spiders, Trypophobia, Body Horror

At last, Holly couldn’t take it any longer. She collapsed to the ground, rolling onto her back. The world danced around her in a flurry of sights and sounds. She turned away, clutching at her head, struggling to breathe steadily. She could feel herself vibrating as she spat up the contents of her heaving stomach.

Finally, the world began to slow its dance, the music and sweet savory fading into memory. Holly rolled onto her back once more, at once grateful and at the same time struggling to hold on to a bit of the strange and horrifying world she had seen. Strings of atoms wound around each other, webs of cause and effect causing vibrations, waves that carried flotsam and jetsam to far and distant shores.

After a moment, Holly realized she was still vibrating, and the deep rumbling wasn’t in her head, but further down the path. Curious, she pulled herself upright and carefully continued forward.

The mists suddenly broke, scattering like a broken mirror. A row of ants, as big as cars, were marching in line like a train crossing a street. They marched along, their legs thudding into the ground with every step, cracking the path apart.

Holly watched for only a moment before she realized what was happening. “Wait!” she shouted, running forward. “I need the path!”

The ants marched on, tearing up the ground like an army of bulldozers. Looking around, she grabbed a rock from the ground and threw it as hard as she could.

The rock bounced off the thorax of one of the ants.

The line stopped. As one, the entire line of ants turned their heads to stare at Holly, a low hissing coming from their jaws. Their dull eyes shone a matted black, like dead things.

Holly jumped backwards, diving behind a nearby tree. After a heartbeat, the distant thunder began again as the convoy continued their march across the path.

Minutes passed, maybe hours. Holly might have even fallen asleep to the soothing rumble of the ants passing. Then, without warning, the rumbling faded. Holly peeked out from her hiding place to see the quiet desolation left behind by the line of ants. The path was ruined.

She stepped over the torn up ground to see if she could find the path again, but there was nothing but mists. Not even the familiar crunch of her footfalls provided guidance. She was well and truly cut off.

Holly sank to the ground, head in hands. What now? She could keep moving ahead in the hopes of finding the path again, but the mists certainly hid dark and dangerous things. She could have backtracked, tried to find another route, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing the path split.

Her body was tingling. She couldn’t just wait, could she? She needed to keep moving, keep looking for a way out of this nightmare. The weaver siad there were five more tests, was this one of them?

Holly jumped up. Her skin wasn’t tingling, it was crawling!

Insects of all kinds were pouring out of her skin, popping free like pus from pimples. She could feel them climbing out of her ears and dancing down her neck. They dug in her hair and slipped under her breasts. Their scratching clicking legs poked at her pores and she could feel each and every one as they covered her body.

She screamed, a howling ragged scream that was broken by the cockroach that crawled out of her throat, over her tongue, and into the seething mass. She clawed at her skin, her body convulsing in paroxisms of horror.

It’s a dream, some distant part of her mind tried to calm her. It’s an illusion. A fake. You’re not bleeding, insects can’t live inside you. This isn’t real.

It didn’t matter, it felt real. She continued to scream and flail in a panic, feeling the soft bodies squish under her broad palms. For every one she killed, two more sprang forth. She was drowning in insects.

On instinct, she clapped a hand to her mouth to keep them from pouring back into her. Get out! her mind screamed. Get out of me and go away! I don’t want you in me, I don’t want to see you ever again!

The weight of the squirming bodies rose around her, dragging her down into a current of chitin. She plugged her ears to the chittering noise, and waited for it all to be over.

Such a fun toy.

Through the panic and the pain, Holly recognized the voice of the weavers. in the place of fear, anger suddenly flare like a firework. You fucking monsters! Holly screamed in her mind. how dare these…these things take her and toy with her like some kind of plaything. Who did they think they were? I will find you, and when I do, I’m going to pull off your legs one by one!

Another scream, primal in its fury, burst out of Holly’s mouth. “You hear me? You’re dead!”

The echoes faded, joining the mists as they gently drifted back. The insects were gone, vanishing as quickly as they came. There was no sign of the weaver, and the path stretched forward as before, straight and unbroken.

Her anger gave way to surprise, and then determination. She wasn’t going to let these things get the better of her. She strode forward with a determination that surprised her. After everything she had experienced, everything she had seen, was she really considering fighting the weavers head on? She didn’t even know what they really were, or what they could do. Did she really think she could fight them and win?

Every uncertainty was met with a thundering boulder of determination. It didn’t matter if she could win or not. The pragmatic part of her knew that it was too late anyway, she was caught in the weavers’ web, and they were going to test her and toy with her as much as they wanted before killing and eating her.

Well, they weren’t going to have an easy time of it. She’d see to that.

Her righteous anger carried her forward, only stoping when the mists began to part ahead of her. The path continued forward, down a small hill to what looked like a kind of village. ramshackle huts and hobbly houses stacked on top of each other like children’s toys. Strange colored lights glittered behind iron windows and cobweb curtains.

A sickening crunch made Holly turn in time to see a praying mmantis, as tall as a streetlamp, slowly pull its claw out of a odd lump of flesh, brakish blood dripping from its tip.

Atop a sloping neck, the two eyes turned and shone like spotlights on Holly’s frame. A gutteral hiss leaked from the mantis’s jaws, framing a single word.

“Prey.”

Holly ran. All thoughts of anger and fighting vansihed completely in the face of this horrific monster that was now chasing her down twisted winding streets of someone’s nightmarish idea of a town.

Dark shapes loomed from the mists and alleyways as more giant praying mantises joined the chase. Holly ducked away from their grasping claws and ran down the smallest streets she could find.

But for as tall and determined as the mantises were, they were not terribly intellegent. Holly managed to find shelter in what looked like an old barn, though it was filled with dirt and rotten food instead of hay and animals. She caught her breath while the thud of the mantises legs echoed through the misty streets. She could see through the darkness their glowing eyes scanning the ground, pausing only to whisper “prey” as they hunted.

Given the time to breathe and the oportunity to watch, Holly began to see their pattern. She didn’t know the town, but she guessed she knew how to get back to the main road without catching their attention.

In spite of her panicked fleeing, avoiding the watchers’ gazes turned out to be remarkably easy. The beasts were hardly quiet, and if Holly simply waited and listened, she could easily guess where they were moving. They never looked behind themselves, and they never looked where another mantis was moving. It was almost mechanical in its simplicity.

before long, Holly was running out of the town, pausing only briefly to look back at the towering giants as they hunted through the streets.

When then last glow of the Mantis’s eyes had faded into the mist, Holly sank to her knees. The path’s familiar crunch provided no comfort or calm — this strange and horrible world was trying to kill her.

Even though she had stopped running, neither her heart nor her breathing had slowed.

Had she still not believed it? In spite of the giant ants and the strange mists and the horrible sickening water, had she still believed it was all a dream?

This was no dream. She could die here, in this nightmare, and never see her friends or family ever again. Her brother, who had just yesterday called to see if she had everything for her stay at the cabin, and to tell her all about her nieces. Her co-workers, who just wouldn’t be able to cope without her managing the chaos. Her Mother, who she called weekly ever since dad had died.

The buzzing began again, a drumming hum from somewhere deep inside her skull.

You feel us, pet?

Holly began to sob, hard and heaving as she collapsed to the path.

We’re always with you, morsel.

Her heart beat faster and harder than it ever had before. She could feel buzzing wings dancing inside it.

Don’t you want to feel like this forever, sister?

Gasping for breath that vanished in her chest, Holly clawed at the ground, not in the direction of the path, but away — away from these nightmares, the mists, the voices…she tried to crawl away from herself.

She could feel herself falling apart. Like a threadbare rug she was unraveling, flies and wasps slipping out as she pulled. Her skin was dry paper, her lungs ragged sacks. She was small and insignificant, barely big enough to bother swatting. She was nothing, and it was only a matter of time before the mists would place her carcass among those that made up this horrible never-ending path.

The ground began to call to her. Tiny voices shrieked and giggled as the long-dead roaches, ants, termites, and worms began to move again, waving and wriggling with glee. Holly tried to leap away from the crawling masses, but she was too tired, her limbs too weak. She felt the bodies slide and sing all around her.

Holly felt her hope die.

The song gently rocked her to sleep and madness. The buzzing filled her mind until there wasn’t any part of her that wasn’t the quiet vibration of gossimer. It was her breath, her heartbeat, her soul.

What was the point anymore. They weren’t going to let her leave. Spiders never let their food go after it had been caught in their web.

Had they poisoned her, or had she done it herself? Had that strange sigil she had sewed put the buzzing in her brain, or had it been the water she had drunk? It seemed such a silly thing to concern herself with now. All that was left was to wait for her flesh and blood to be devoured, and her soul to wander forever, lost in the mist.

Wretched thing.

Holly opened her eyes. The bugs were gone, her flesh was whole. The path was nowhere to be seen.

We are not Spiders. We do not Lie.

The mists slowly began to receed, drawing away like reverant priests. Holly stood up, her eyes scarcely believing what they were seeing.

We are Weavers, and we have tested you thrice.

The three figures were there, standing at the other side of a long bridge. The buzzing that had once filled her head now echoed from deep below in the chasm.

One final test awaits you.

Hungry, thirsty, and exhausted, Holly stepped forward. The wood of the bridge was rotten, eaten away by time and termites. The hissing and crackling from below was joined by tiny flickers of red light, clustered about like eyes of distant monsters.

Holly couldn’t think. It was too hard to piece the world back together to some form of reason. All she had left was a distant memory; “But… you said six tests.”

One of the Weavers shifted, mandables clacking in what could only have been a smile. You have also tested yourself.

Another cocked its head, arms reaching out to gesture towards the ragged bridge. A deep chasm separates us. You can cross it, but will you? Or will you test yourself again?

Holly looked at the bridge again. The wood didn’t look particularly sturdy, nor did the sily strands that held them together seem particularly stable. There were tendrils of silk hanging off the edges, easily grabable if she slipped or fell, but for all the clear signs that this bridge would send her hurtling into the chasm below, she could only hear the words of the Weavers.

We do not lie. You can cross it.

Holly closed her eyes, and stepped forward.

She heard the creaking, the faint snapping of cracking wood and ripping silk provided faint rhythm to the crescendoing buzzing melody beneath her. She ignored the sounds, letting her steady pace carry her forward until she heard the familiar crunch of her feet on the path.

She opened her eyes.

The three Weavers stood still as statues, surrounded by twisted trees as smooth as insect shells. Curved as they were, and where the Weavers stood, they looked like religious statues in a church’s alcoves, the very picture of saints and priests. Webbing hung from their robes and the trees like leaves, tapestries, or threadbare stoles.

Not prey, the Weaver on the left shrunk in on itself, disappointment plain in its hissing tone. Learned something of herself, she did. Perhaps helped?

Only tested, I did, the Weaver on the right shuffled in its robes, smiling its horrific smile.

Only test we shall, the Weaver in the middle raised a withered claw. The three fell silent again, staring at Holly with glowing eyes, as bright as the moon, speckled with stars.

She felt naked. Utterly exposed. Her skin had been peeled away, her bones were hollow, her soul — what was left of it — was on display for these creatures to look at. It was worse than a nightmare, it was worse than real; it was some horrible combination of the two: a manifest dream.

Do you know where lost dreams go, my pet? The voice was horribly soothing and grating at the same time, like a nostalgic memory of terrible pain, or the dark joy that comes with being wicked. Some primal part of Holly screamed at her body to move, run, do anything to keep these monsters away from her, but it was too late. Her every part of her being was trapped in these creatures’ web, and there was nothing more to be done. They had her, and they would toy with her until they had finished their task.

Every time you wake, every time you feel the tendrils of that dream slipping away from you, unable to grab onto it, we have taken them from you.

We keep them safe, tucked away, so that we can later weave them into something of our own creation.

Something to play with. The Weavers’ faces spread into their horrible smiles, as their clawed limbs raised into the air.

They plucked dangling silk threads from their robes, from the trees, from the mists that still danced about their legs. They waved their hands like they were dancing, their limbs twisting in impossible ways. Did the fog rise to meet their ministering claws, or did they create more mist from the tiny strands of white?

The mists drew closer, reaching towards Holly like pleading ghosts and angry memories of long forgotten nightmares. Dreams of loss, of pain, of the things that had followed her since she was a child.

The corpse of a dead crow, half meat-stained skeleton wreathed in maggots, half muddy feathers and cracked beak stared back at her from the floor of the forest. She screamed and screamed for her grandfather to come, but the cabin was further and further away…

Her mother’s face, twisted with fangs and glowing red eyes, shut the door, locking her in the darkness. Something was in there with her, snarling and craving her flesh…

She stood on the dance floor, music blaring loud enough to hurt. She clapped her hands to her ears while her eyes remained locked on the punch bowl. If she watched the punch bowl everything would be okay. Whatever horrible thing was going to happen wouldn’t happen so long as she kept her eyes on the punch bowl. She wanted to turn around, but she couldn’t, because the punch bowl was right in front of her…

She struggled to push the men away as their forks fell again and again, but her arms wouldn’t move. She called out for help, but the passers-by didn’t do anything but stare with eye-less faces as the men laughed, and chewed, and smiled…

She was falling…

She was running without moving…

They weren’t listening to her…

No one was helping her…

They were hurting her…

She was alone…

The buzzing! The buzzing pulsed in her ears, like an alarm. Three short hums, then a pause. Then three more.

Something pressed to her ear. She heard a voice. Was it hers? “Hello?”

“Hey, sis! Just thought I’d give you a call to make sure you had everything for your trip. Anything you need me to run over to you?”

“No, I think I have everything. Just finished packing actually.”

“Great! I left some coffee and dried jerky up there, you’re free to use any of it.”

“Thanks, I’ll be sure to do that.” It was all so normal.

“I hope you have a great time. And if you ever need to call me, for any reason at all, please do. You know I’m always here for you, sis.”

She hung up the phone. Somehow, for the first time in months, it felt like there was light at the end of the tunnel. She was floating, her feet barely touching the ground. The crunch of insects became the crunch of leaves, then the soft susurrus of sand falling away beneath her.

She wasn’t falling anymore.

---

Holly opened her eyes.

In the corner of the ceiling, just above her head, was a spiderweb.

She was awake in an instant and jumped away, instinctively retreating from the imagined spider descending towards her face, but there was nothing there. A phantasm created from her nightmare.

Had it been a nightmare?

She looked around. The immediate familiarity of the cabin was at once soothing and unsettling, after the vivid imagery of the Weavers and their domain. It couldn’t have just been a dream. It couldn’t have.

She looked at the web again, spread out like a drape from corner to corner. It was almost like a hammock. She had always been fascinated by webs as a child. There was something mathematical about them, something pure and elegant. Some were radial structures with small sticky strands, others were spread out like a fabric curtain. All of them had a spider waiting patiently for prey to get caught in their trap, and once you were caught you were trapped forever. They’d toy with you, eat you, devour you up until there was nothing left of you. They were cruel monsters to a younger her.

But somehow, she couldn’t see them that way anymore. What once had looked like a pattern, a precise construction, now seemed almost random. A tear here, a misplaced thread there…there wasn’t a plan. There was no solving a spider’s web. It was something that just happened, and if you were a lucky insect you’d never feel the spider’s venom injected inside you, eating you from the inside.

It was bad luck to kill a spider, her grandfather had told her once. They were wise and generous things, spiders. They ate mosquitoes and other pests, things that hurt people. Spiders never hurt you unless you tried to hurt them.

As she looked at the web, she caught sight of the spider in the corner of the web, sitting patiently. She watched it for a moment, before she thought she saw its foreleg lift off the web and wiggle once, like a wave.

Holly slid out of bed and started to dress. She needed to finish unpacking, maybe take a quick dip in the lake, and then head out to the dirt road about a mile away. She needed to make some calls.

She didn’t know what her future would bring, but she knew she was never going to kill a spider again. She knew she needed all the luck she could get.