The drive to the clinic was hell. I felt like I was truly losing my mind as I tried to subtly push and scratch invisible cobwebs off my skin. Layer after layer of silken thread built up under my fingernails—each scratch, another layer pushing against the last, trying to pry the nails from my hand.
I wanted to scratch deeper, harder, to the nerves if I had to. Fucking Joey had to be here. The spider webs continued to coat me as the car drove, pinning me to my seat. My breaths were hasty, and I didn't dare close my eyes for fear of the webs sealing them shut.
There are no cobwebs on my skin because there are no spiders. There are no spiders because I'm in a car. There are no spiders large enough to make a web like this. There are not enough spiders to build a web this large.
I wasn't crazy. There had been no signs. I'm not crazy.
I feel spiderwebs on my skin.
But there are no spider webs.
My body felt irritated and hot. I didn't trust a single word to come out of my mouth. The sensation stayed with me through the short drive. My clothes weighed pounds more as I struggled to peel myself out of the passenger seat.
Joey walked beside me into the clinic but broke off in the waiting room. After I was done giving the figure at the receptionist's desk my details, I joined him.
"Thanks for the drive."
"Of course."
I wished the silence between us hadn't grown so awkward—that it could just be how it was before, with banter about nothing and jokes about anything. We didn't say anything else, and only a nod was given to one another as I was called back to see the doctor.
He was a towering man, one who barely fit into the room even when he was hunched over. His heel touched one end of the room, and his back pressed against the ceiling as he stared down at me. The normal-sized clipboard looked like a toy in his hands.
The normal questions were asked. Medical history, how often I drink, how often I smoke, what brought me in today.
I, of course, told him about the throwing up and the blood. I can't pin the exact expression on his face, but I know it twisted and his skin churned into a worried expression.
He looked me over with various tools, some of which I recognized and others I didn't. The most striking device was a bronze disk that he asked me to bite down gently on.
After the examination, he frowned but told me there was nothing wrong. No signs of bleeding, trauma, unfocused eyes, or signs of stroke. The only noteworthy thing he told me was that I should stretch more, but I couldn't exactly tell him I was so stiff because of all the spider webs.
I gathered Joey as I left, and only when we were already on the way to dropping me off did he speak, "So?"
Oh. Right. People want to know things. Thankfully, all the silence let me think of a decent lie. "False alarm. Bad nosebleed in my sleep blocked my airways. Doctor recommended to sleep on my side for now, but to come back if it doesn't get better."
Joey let out a relieved breath—fingers that I hadn't known were clutched onto the steering wheel, loosening.
Our conversation flowed more freely after that, and he dropped me off in front of my apartment building with a wave.
Once I closed the door to my apartment proper, I ripped every layer of clothing off in a tangled mess of fabric and limbs—an effort that took more time than it saved. I ran to the shower, blasted frigid water, and struggled not to collapse from exhaustion as the pellets of cold shocked my system.
'Factory Reset' was what my family called it. Whenever we felt overwhelmed due to an argument, school, a relationship, or life, it called for a Factory Reset. I took the soft sponge, coated it with soap, and gently wiped down my body.
With shivering arms, I held the sponge underneath the faucet to slough off the gathered webs from my skin before starting again.
In total, I was in the shower for half an hour before I exited, feeling refreshed. With a fresh set of clothes, I pulled the storage box from underneath the bed and began to read.
It made me confront the fact that I may not have been mad. The notebooks were filled with references to The Endless Dream.
Boons: Benefits conveyed while in an Instance.
Restrictions: Limitations placed while in an Instance.
Titles: Completely alters how you interact with Instances.
Stats:
Lucidity:Assimilation:Identity:ContinuityPresence: A measure of raw power, a type of currency.
I hadn't seen those terms before tonight. Not before I entered my dream, and I hadn't read this passage before. I let the floor hold me as I couldn't help but laugh. I didn't want to, but every time I tried to force down the sound, a sob threatened to replace it. So I layed on the floor and laughed until the air in my lungs grew stale.
I rose to my knees and retrieved the box. Three of the stats were blank, but maybe there were hints. I put one of the old VHS tapes into my old TV, letting the static serve as background music as I got to work.
The sun peeked in through my blinds, and I blinked the sting that came with it away. Bleary-eyed, I stood and stretched. I hadn't slept yet. Reading the journals was still disheartening and unpleasant, but now I had a reason to push through the discomfort.
My brother had never been crazy—I was sure of it.
What left no more doubt in my mind were the "Instances." Pockets of The Endless Dream where monsters resided, with one in particular catching my eye.
[Mission: The Strangled Kings Court]
[Objective: Uncover the fate of the missing nobles]
[Location: Maplewood Ave, near campus]
[Mission Type: Extraction]
[Completion: In progress, 8th attempt. (Cap out at ten)]
[Boons: Two can be activated]
[Restrictions: Four will be activated]
[Initial Investigation:
Starting with low Presence causes you to be trapped in a cocoon at the beginning of the instance.
If you talk to some of the nobles on campus the Presence for this specific storyline increases significantly.
The area is covered in webbing so thick it may as well be a wall. Pushing through the webbing is impossible and alerts the smaller spiders in the area.
Burning the webs attracts the larger spiders. Those are comparable to a doberman. They will chase you out of the instance if provoked. They have some way of traversal I'm unaware of. They beat you to the exit.
The insides of the buildings appear to have been stripped clean out. There are tunnels under the ground, several of them both in and outside of the instance domain.
The guards in the tunnel do not appear to attack unless a threshold is crossed.
You have to be invited in. They appear to understand human speech. They keep you under guard and take you directly to a "Lord." The Lords are massive, about the size of a house. Some of the missing nobles are wrapped up in the hall. They choke out whispers from their cocoons. Need to have a good reason to be there, they attack if you do not.
There is a Royal somewhere. The spiders have an advanced political dynamic and are not all on the same side.]
[Key Observations:
It's times like this I wish I took the key instead of the lantern.
The spiders act with purpose. They are surprised to see me and are not aggressive. ]
It was located on Maplewood Ave. The route Joey had taken us down yesterday, and even crossed my path to school with "Webbing so thick it may as well have been a wall."
There's no way I could have known what he'd written before reading it. He wasn't mad. I wasn't mad. It had been real.
When I read those words I let out a breath of triumph, but the temporary catharsis of that was short-lived. It was real. I had felt my neck tear apart—I was helpless in the face of a body that no longer obeyed me.
And every time I slept, I'd go to that world. I frowned, considering that. I had no reason to believe that. It could've been random for all I know, but somehow, I know that it wasn't. That no matter what I do I will always go back.
The image of spiders crawling across my window or a sea of them scuttling around my floor until they took notice, crawling over and into me. I didn't feel any cobwebs here, but that didn't mean they weren't here or something worse. Thoughts like those kept me from falling asleep. I'd need to sleep eventually, though, which meant I had to do it on my terms.
Apparently, the campus had a lot of different instances that weren't too dangerous and gave a lot of Presence—the currency of the other world.
Practically everywhere was manageable except for the dorms. The journal also specified that no entity could interrupt the tutorial unless a Visitor allowed it.
I remembered the other reward I could have chosen.
[Alternate Reward]
[Open the Door]
I would've jumped at the option if the voice hadn't grayed out those words.
As long as I slept during morning math class, I could finish the tutorial and then see what these Instances were about. I thought for a moment, the idea blurring in my mind as I reconsidered my decision and grabbed a hammock instead. There was no reason to go to class.
I took an alternate route to school, not wanting to feel the cobwebs on my skin all day that I wouldn't be able to wash off. If I took that route, would I wake up in the other world covered in webs?
I didn't want to risk it, so instead, I took the long way around. I focused on getting to campus more than anything. The exhaustion of 48 hours without sleep (I refused to count the few minutes I got during the tutorial; in fact, that should add time) had long since set in. My sight was foggy, my head was aching, hell, I even thought this whole thing was a great idea.
I considered not setting up the hammock, just lying on the ground and cocooning myself there, but decided to keep some dignity. It took only a minute to set everything up to which I groggily crawled into the hammock and was out before I could get comfortable.
The strangest thing I noticed about the dream world at first was that the fatigue and mental fog immediately dissipated. It was uncanny, like waking up too fast. I found myself curled in a carved wooden chrysalis, staring up at a shattered night sky. Jagged edges cracked the night, fading purples, piercing greens, and golden yellows seeping from each line endlessly. But as I looked closer, I realized the fractures weren't cracks at all. They were woven. A vast, tangled web of interlaced stars, impossibly intricate, impossibly close together. As though something had stitched the fabric of the cosmos into cloth.
The air shrouded around me, soft and warm. Every breath I took was unnervingly crisp. Every breath echoed by the tree I was in, resonating and almost synchronizing with my inhalations.
Then, a shadow covered the sky, and I was face to face with a white-winged creature. Its wings spanned the height of a redwood. There were no feathers; instead, there were tufts of cotton-like fuzz that went from birch twig-esque talons all the way to moth-like heads.
Three beady eyes stared at me as I came to.
The journals hadn't mentioned anything about this.
[The world is in flux, Visitor.]
The static formed in my eye and turned into a voice in my head.
[Let me in]
The creature's head was that of a faulty clock, tcking back and forth. I shrank back into the chrysalis a few inches, the creature following a few inches forward.
[Let me in]
[Choose a reward]
[A key to no lock - "Hold onto this. You'll need it."]
[It feels important, but you'll never find the door this belongs to. You will be followed.]
[Let me in]
[A flickering Lantern - "Light to Guide your way"]
[Fails at the worst time – when you've already been spotted and they know where you are.]
[A Map of Familiar Places - "Find your way back"]
[See above. Just don't follow the dotted lines.]
The rewards shook me from my catatonic state. I wanted to pick the map. The ability to see and know my surroundings could be invaluable. But my brother had mentioned in the Strangled King's Court that he wished he had chosen the key—and it hadn't been the first time.
[A Key to No Lock.
I thought in my head.
The last shard of a path, that someone must tread.
A means not to fall.
I search for a lock.
Like my brother before, now lost to the knock.]
[Let me in]
[You have gained: Key to No Lock]
[You have gained a Boon]
[Boon: Open the path*]
[*: Boon is one time use]
[You have gained a Restriction]
[Restriction: Stalker.]
[Identity: 55 -> 57]
[Continuity: 10 -> 12]
[Congratulations on your first item. I'm sure it will help in the times to come–]
[Let me in]
[Shut up. I'm talking to the Visitor.]
The creature reeled back as if struck, curling backward and puffing the fuzz across its skin. It made a strange, thrilling purr before giant gusts of wind lifted the creature into the air and out of sight.
What the fuck?