Woven

I crossed by mistake.

A velvet blanket of silver moonlight illuminated my path, the cool moss dampened my bare feet, and the dark forest beckoned me with a crooked finger. I walked until I found it. The spiderweb from my dreams. Iridescent, adorned in a smattering of dew drops, and much too big. Each delicate thread was like the rung of a ladder, growing more viscous as I climbed. I reached the center, laid my body across its sticky surface, and waited. 

I heard it before I saw it. A chilling composition of soft, quick clicks. I tried to turn my head to see it, but couldn’t break the hold of the silken strands that gripped me. My breath quickened, I changed my mind, I needed to get down. But it was too late.

One hairy, skeletal leg reached over me. I let out a scream so guttural, so primal, that I was sure it would be heard back in the village—faintly on the wind, perhaps, and no one would pay it any mind. Two more legs, black as night and sharp as spears. Then its hideous face. Eight glossy eyes peered into my two for a brief moment, and I saw my horrified reflection staring back at me in them.

The creature wasted no time as I trembled uncontrollably, every muscle in my body contracting involuntarily with the need to get away. It unsheathed its enormous fangs and plunged them into me, stealing what little breath I had left in my lungs, my scream caught tight in my throat. One fang was in my stomach, the other was lodged between my ribs, cracking them like twigs to dig in deeper.

Why did I come here? 

I felt each drop of burning venom it injected into my bloodstream, my body felt like it was set on fire from the inside, and then… nothing. Numbed almost to the point of insentience. It withdrew its fangs, and began wrapping me in its silk. It moved with impossible, grotesque speed and within seconds I was entombed in utter darkness… and liquefied. 

I don’t know how long I existed in that state, but eventually my gelatinous remnants began to pulse and flow, growing into something new. I writhed there in the silence of my woven sarcophagus, until I grew too large for it. My limbs were stiff and jagged, the walls strained against me. An overwhelming pressure pushed in on me from every side and I feared that I would implode from it. But then I heard the crack, and a waterfall of light came pouring in, washing me of my fear and pain and confusion.

I stretched one leg out to feel its warmth, followed by  another, and another. Eight in total, black as night and sharp as spears. I crawled out onto my web and spotted a girl on the ground. Marta. She stood, soaking wet and shaking, next to a crumpled exoskeleton. She looked up at me once before she took off running. Back to our village, I suppose, but I can’t imagine she was welcomed back warmly. She still donned her eight glossy eyes. 

It was my turn to call the dreamers. Their turn to cross.