"When you are losing your grip on reality-(Solo)

-cobwebs are welcome for traction."

In the air there lay a haze. Or was it clear? It was hard to tell these days.

He walked, or floated with slight bumps of up and downs interrupting his smooth glide, forward through a garden. It was a garden with walls. Off, but the world was a strange place these days anyway.

Scattered throughout the soft reddish walls and white ceiling of the garden were thick cobwebs. He wandered about them, touching a pretty plant here or there, brushing the sticky webs to the side if they crossed his path.

There was an air of alarm in the atmosphere; was that his heart pitter pattering rapidly like the drums of a frantic tribal dance? Why was it so? Was he terrified, or exhilarated?

His hand caught something in the wispy little flytraps floating about as he brushed a swath to the side.

Oh, it was his heart! He could tell, of course. Just as one could pick ones own child from a crowd, he knew the sight and feel of his heart. He placed it back in his chest, but oddly enough, wound in web like that, it still felt empty.

As he journeyed forth, the web grew thicker. Did he catch sight of great arachnids sneaking from sight as he forged onward? It hurt him that they hid. Perhaps the flutter in his chest was derived from that?

The garden gave way to a mess of tangled silk. It was difficult to continue, but he tore through them anyway; he couldn't help but move forward. The drums in his chest demanded he march.

He was stuck. The webs became sticky, and he tried to pull free, ensnaring himself more and more as he struggled. Soon, he gave up, even as the pumping beat became faster and faster.

The ceiling and walls were gone. The sky was a soft grey, a great neutral palette to paint upon.

The image that appeared was one of a great hand reaching up from below. It caught a table top and used itself up pull up the soft, pale body attached to it.

Giant, her feminine form rose up before him, bare as the day she was born, staring down with intense and interested eyes at the small bug caught in the scattered cobwebs beneath a cupboard. He peered at her form as she started to reach up toward him, transfixed by her gaze. Her pink hair framed her face neatly, and on it rested a small, satisfied smile.

She looked kind.

Her hand reached him and opened up as if to invite him into her warmth. In spite of the panic he felt welling up in his chest his hands reached out for hers as well. Finally, it arrived, a welcome ship to port.

At that moment he answered the question. Was he terrified or exhilarated? Both. So, so much of both.

Were sound something that existed, the world would relish in the squeal of joy he would emit as she gently crushed him to death.


* * *

Gregory Sampson awoke from fitful slumber to the sound of his phone ringing. A buggy hand shot out to grasp the communication device, smashing in the answer button.

"Speak."

He paused to half listen as he tried to remember the dream he was having and make sense of some of what he recalled. It had been such as nice dream, hadn't it? Or was it a nightmare.

The man on the phone informed him that his weapons sales operations were officially defunct. He apologised, explaining that he'd tried everything he could, but he had to skip town and lay low or the east side gang was going to kill him like they had so many of his men.

Roach hung up mid explanation, and slowly sat up in his bed.

He spent the next three hours staring longingly at the cobwebs in the corner of the room.