6 Trials of the Weavers: Part 3

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; the deep rumbling wasn’t in her head, but further down the path. Curious in spite of herself, she pulled her aching body 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 thundered 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 jackhammers. 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 were matted black, like the eyes of 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 said 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 only 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 flared 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 certainty. She wasn’t going to let these things get the better of her. She pulled herself up and strode forward with a confidence 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 caution 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 the sharp 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 straw 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 Mantises’ 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.