AN: Another day, another chapter. This one is a commission for one of our big fans, R3D4K73D. It's been a busy week for us of Scrimshaw, but we are proud to keep up posting interesting ideas and stories for our loyal readers.

Also announcing that of the commissions remaining is a chapter of One Who is Many. You heard it here folks, Ophelia is coming back to town.

As always we'd like to thank our subscribers, our loyal readers and friends who help us keep writing no matter how trying times become.

Now then, enough with the sappy. On with the reading!

Lady of the Spiders - Commission

Taylor wasn't happy. In fact, she'd go so far as to say she was very, very, very, unhappy. One could even say that she was a bit close to being the subject of the next Slayer album. And not for the usual reasons either. If it was Emma being a bitch or Sophia being a psycho she'd have been able to handle it. The main problem was that neither of them hadn't done anything since she broke the track star's nose last week.

But this was different.

Four random dudes, she wasn't even sure if they went to Winslow, were taking turns trying to discreetly watch her as she stood in the parking lot, waiting for her dad to pick her up.

And, when they broke up, sliding into the crowd of bodies emptying out of the school, it was enough that she decided now was the time to move. 'Of course this happens when the guys are upstate for Wicker Night. I should have gone with them, I could have brought beer and they'd have called it even if they paid for my ticket.'

Her friends weren't there and there was no way to get back into the school at this point - she could already see teachers locking up now that the last of the kids were out.

'They didn't do a damn thing after the locker crap, no way they'd care enough to let me in on some random suspicion.' Everyone knew girls didn't get grabbed on school grounds. The ABB was polite enough to wait until you were walking home. 'No way in Hell I'm giving one of these freaks a chance to get close.'

There was the chance that they'd just do something stupid and try to grab her. Give her a chance to scream and fight back or grab people's attention, not that her usual outfit didn't already do that - being that she wore a massive, spiky belt buckle, allegedly a family heirloom, jeans that looked like they'd seen one too many mosh pits, and a shirt with a man covered in snakes on it. They could also inject her with something, stab her, or put a weapon to her back. And this was Brockton Bay. Even if she wasn't pretty enough to warrant much attention from anyone that wasn't Greg Veder or important enough for the gangs to take notice of, she was still female.

Sometimes that was all it took to get the worst kind of people to notice you.

'Of course today of all days everyone is heading home early.' People were actually starting to already thin out, meaning she was running out of witnesses. 'Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. What do I do?'

She knew she could make a run for it. But there was also the chance they knew where she lived. Because she could think of at least three people who knew that and probably had a few reasons to sic a bunch of creeps on her and that was starting to seem more and more likely, considering none of the Trio's butt buddies had actually come outside for pick up. Very, very conspicuously.

Her dad wasn't here, she was running out of people nearby, and she didn't have a cell. There was no use on pretending she had one either. They probably waited to see if she was gonna make a call, check the time or whatever people used cellphones to do these days. And when she didn't, they took it as carte blanche to wait for her to leave and grab her.

Probably were starting to lose their patience right now.

So the moment there wasn't anyone looking, they would probably rush her.

Dad still hadn't arrived either.

Breathing slowly, she tucked a lone strand of hair behind her ear. Time was running out.

Her best chance was to make a run for it before they noticed. If she was lucky she could make it to the Boardwalk where the enforcers were more likely to step in. She could try and stay in other, public areas or try and find a cop. For all the good it would do her.

People in Brockton Bay liked to steer clear of trouble. A teenager could get dragged into a van in broad daylight and the most people would do was call nine one one. Who would drag their feet getting to the scene, assuming they bothered responding at all, because they were either corrupt or just useless.

Then again… Taylor wasn't sure what she would do in that situation either.

Bouncing on the balls of her feet, she gave the group a side glance.

Best case scenario? Dad was just down the street and would pick her up before they ran her down. Worst case scenario…?

Not worth thinking about.

She'd probably be dead or worse depending on what Sophia told them to do.

She was the type to try and outdo herself every time.

'And where the Hell is Dad!'

Taylor took a deep breath.

"Ok. Do or die time."

Moving as calmly as she could, adrenaline making her hands shake, the young woman prepared to do what she needed to do in the most logical manner she could think of.

First, she slipped her backpack off, reaching into her pencil case and pulling out a pair of scissors. They weren't very sharp but they were metal and rigid. Slipping them up the sleeve of her hoody, she hoped that they didn't notice.

'That damn truck still isn't here.' She double checked, glancing up and down the street, even scanning the parking lots near the school. 'And no one around here would piss on me if I were on fire. Wait. Eww. Taylor, why did you think that.' The joke fell flat. Really flat. 'Alright. No more hesitating. Go.'

Now she pulled the straps tight, making sure the pack wouldn't bounce around too much.

Her footsteps took her towards the end of the line, where there two vehicles loitering. So, acting like she was heading towards the rear most one, her footsteps remained even. But, when she suddenly turned aside at the last moment, Taylor knew there would be a very small window of opportunity to break their line of sight and possibly get away.

Not daring to look back, she kept walking, trying to bluff her way out of this situation.

'Ok. Cross the road, don't wait for the light.' Not that it was particularly dangerous, there was still enough traffic through the area that buying those ten seconds was a small gamble. 'Ignore the nice old lady flipping you off and honking. Just keep moving.' At the very least she was able to pick up her pace, justifiably crossing the rest of the street at a higher speed.

Her heart beat like a drum.

Chest burning as she didn't bother looking back.

Because now wasn't the time for that. It wasn't the time to let nightmares build and press and push. That would make her afraid, make her prey, just like Sophia wanted. And even false bravado would keep her steps light, her lungs a little bit stronger. In that moment she thanked God her dad had insisted she take boxing up again because that conditioning was the only thing letting her move.

Inbetween some buildings, Taylor made a choice. She could either run straight, hoping to rely on raw speed, which was unlikely to be even close to enough, or she could try and be clever.

Odysseus won out over Achillies and she jerked left, dodging down a side alley.

It wasn't much, but there were no fences, just dumpsters and crap, and, as she launched herself down another sudden turn, she knew that all she needed to do was get far enough away that they couldn't see her when she ran into a store.

There was no time for thinking, no time for speaking to herself, no time for anything but pushing her body to squeeze out just a little bit more speed. She still hated this city, so lazy it would let a girl get grabbed and do nothing just to avoid trouble. She hated the gangs and the petty tyrants that thought they could carve up those that were beneath them. She hated the Trio all the more for their pettiness and pointlessness.

And then none of that mattered.

A heavy weight slammed into her from the side, knocking her off her feet and sending her careening into the side of a building.

"I got her!" Dirty fingers closed around her wrist like a vice, the man who'd slammed into her calling out as he leered at her.

Taylor's heart sunk.

They were planning to cut her off from the beginning.

She didn't give herself enough time to panic, enough room to doubt and think and scream.

Rolling over, she unlatched her book bag and, holding it by a strap, swung it right at his face. The weight of the bag was enough to knock him over, even if the bag itself was sent flying, and she took off again, morale buoyed by the small victory.

Not that it mattered in the end. The ten seconds that confrontation had taken was enough for the rest of the group to catch up. And while she'd been able to get and keep a not insignificant lead on the group, she still wasn't fast enough to get away when they were running full tilt and she was at a standstill.

Once more acting she immediately began sprinting anyways.

Right there at the edge of the alley, with the sidewalk inches from her last step, she was tackled. Screaming, lashing out, scratching with her fingers she fought like a wild animal.

Two more of the men were on top of her and dragging her into the alley when she went for her weapon.

Lashing out, Taylor jerked the scissors out of her sleeve, stabbing it into the man's face. Barely missing the eye as he shrieked in surprise, hands flying up to shallow cut, blood pouring through his fingers.

Some of it had splashed onto her skin.

Going for another blind stab her luck ran out. Someone else caught her arm and jerked it back, smashing it against the ground with enough force to tear the skin off of her hand. Taylor refused to let go, even as the stench of sweat clogged her nose as another man covered her mouth.

She bit him for his trouble.

And screamed for help again.

It didn't matter who found her - someone! Anyone! So long as they heard her.

That was when they started choking her. One of them put his forearm across her throat and put his weight onto her as she squirmed and gasped, still trying to escape as darkness started to seep through the corners of her vision.

Then he let go and the world came back into focus.

A sick crunch echoed in her ears as a tire iron of all things hit one of the man holding her down.

There, right in front of her, was a very familiar face, warped in fear and anger as he pulled back his lanky arm. Raw hate powered the blow that struck one of the other men on the side of the head, dropping another thug. Still attacking, his attack sent him stumbling forward as Danny Hebert sent the creep to the ground in a heap of pain and screams.

For a second, it looked like things were going to turn out ok.

Almost like this was a story and her daddy would come in to save the day.

But this was Brockton Bay.

Snarling, the thug she'd stabbed with her scissors leapt at her father from behind, the glint of a knife shining in his hand. And then there was blood everywhere. Several sharp thrusts from the man had slashed open her father's stomach and chest and Taylor screamed in rage.

Thrashing about she broke free for a moment, managing to rake her fingers across another man's face, stab the last idiot holding onto her, and leapt at the dead fuck who'd stabbed her father.

As it turned out, knife beat scissors.

He was faster, quicker with his blade, and buried it in her stomach. She managed to get him again but the blunt metal scraped off his ribs and her attacker's blade punched into her gut.

"Oh."

Falling to her knees as she was stabbed again and again, Taylor reached a hand down to her stomach, finding a dark patch spreading on her favorite Alice Cooper T-shirt. And the oddest thing was that her belt buckle was glowing.

"Huh."

Touching it, what happened next was a blur of screaming and heat and tearing metal.

And the last thing she saw was a monster of fire and flames, towering above her like a great metal beast, and then, looking into an eye that was as big around as she was tall, the world fell away.

She hadn't expected to wake up.

When Behemoth of all things crawls up out of the ground under you, you don't really have the time needed to contextualize things. Never mind that she was already bleeding out. But, with the pain in her gut gone and the taste of ash in her mouth, Taylor Hebert opened her eyes.

"Daddy?"

Her voice was weak and scratchy, like it hadn't been used in a long time. It was still clear enough to somehow echo into the distance of where she'd woken up. Somehow, this wasn't what she was expecting. Though, perhaps, it was unfair to say she even had expectations. After all, the last thing she remembered was dying. And there simply hadn't been a way to not die in that situation.

Not hearing a response of any kind she climbed to her feet, still not sure what was going on.

"Is this… Hell."

Danny's body was gone. So were the thugs and the crap in the alleyway and everything that hadn't been on… or in her.

The blade of the knife that had stabbed her was sitting on the ground, underneath where she'd been laying. Her stomach, at least, was fully healed - perfectly smooth skin lacking even a scar. But that was a cold comfort.

Taylor was standing in some kind of low valley. Exposed, black, volcanic rock lined the walls while ash lazily drifted through the air. It was almost like snow, only inverted in every way possible. It singed her skin slightly, an uncomfortable heat lingering when it touched bare skin, and she zipped up her brown hoodie trying to escape its touch.

There were only two directions she could go. One, behind her, seemed to widen out while the one in front of her narrowed. The whole of the valley itself was covered in a thick, grey fog but, off in the distance, there seemed to be a massive volcano, spewing lava and smoke and occasionally chunks of fiery debris into the sky.

Her knees went weak.

She wanted to fall to the ground.

Instead she simply stared.

Because, far into the distance, even more distant than the volcano, was an eye.

Impossibly vast, it blotted out the horizon, a single red orb so massive that the sky darkened, the sun disappeared, and only after it had passed over the far horizon did she realize she'd wet herself.

Humiliation and terror and confusion filled every inch of her body. Disgust made her cringe but there was no way she could remove her clothes and expose herself to the burning ash.

Indecision, however, was a drug. Once indulged in it was almost impossible to reject. But, somehow, deep inside of her, there was a tiny, screaming, desperate creature that wanted to live. That wanted to find her father. Because if she was in Hell, maybe… just maybe her father had come with her. And if he was out there, hurt worse than she was, alive or dead or… worse, then she had to do anything she could to help him.

Or this could all be a giant fever dream and she was stuck on some hospital bed in a coma.

She'd honestly take Hell over that.

So, with nothing but the clothes on her back and a knife blade crudely wrapped with her hoodie sleeve in hand, Taylor considered her options.

Forward or backwards?

Was she even sure which was which? Not that it mattered, she didn't know where she was going, besides trying to find her dad. She was dropped on the middle of the path, so if he'd ended up here too, her best chance of finding him was to check the whole thing.

Plus she didn't want to head in the direction the giant eye had gone.

"Backwards it is."

Trying her best to ignore the fact the entire world had been reduced to a red-tinted shadow by a massive eye blotting out the sky, she turned her back to the hellish landscape.

But that had the unfortunate side effect of removing her distractions.

Meaning her thoughts went back to what happened.

'Sophia was a bitch, sent a bunch of assholes after me. Dad came in swinging and we both got stabbed.' That seemed like something normal enough to focus on. It was almost mundane for someone to get knifed and bleed out in an alleyway.

At least in Brockton Bay.

Nevermind the fact that Behemoth of all things sprouted from underneath them. And was probably stomping his way through Brockton right now like it was one of those cheap knock off cities from old Godzilla movies.

Maybe Sophia already got squished.

The image did brighten her mood, for a given value of "brighten".

It made the long walk easier and the burning sensation of ash in her hoodie a bit more bearable. She could use the distraction. And anything was better than walking towards the active volcano and the who-knows-what watching her.

Or so she thought.

Because the road eventually had to end.

And it did end as the fog parted around her to reveal a massive chasm. A hole on the ground so eerily perfect it seemed as if it had been carved there. Light fading into darkness as her eyes followed the drop.

Worst, though, was what was down there.

Once again, she was unsure how much time had passed, but Taylor had been forced to stare in apathetic defeat at what she saw down there. Horror, disgust, revulsion, all of those things were human words. And what she saw could not be described with human words. The only adjective the English language had that could possibly begin to encompass what violated her mind in that moment was "wrong".

Its size was wrong.

Its shape was wrong.

The sounds its body produced were wrong.

And on the most fundamental, basic level a lizard proto brain chunk of think meat could process… its very existence was WRONG.

Twisted, twisting, twined. Flesh and bone and metal and rock and pulsing, writhing life. A living, moving, squirming thing that was a blot of darkness on the tableau of existence itself. So black was it that it seemed more to devour light and was so very, very painfully clearly wrong.

Taylor woke up again later, an unknown distance away from that gash in the landscape and after an unknown amount of time had passed. All she knew was that the day had grown darker. Both literally and in the sense that the very ash seemed heavier, hungrier, as if it was trying to smother her.

She didn't bother looking behind herself.

No.

Utterly, totally, completely shaken… she began walking.

Walking and walking and walking.

Her footsteps continued to push through ash and scrape against raw stone as she marched forwards. Never looking back. Never speeding up or slowing down. Never making more noise than she absolutely needed to. Even breathing through the front of her shirt, Taylor tried to keep them quiet and never, ever, ever spoke.

But that too passed.

Eventually, after walking enough that her legs had started to burn almost as much as her throat, she reached a point where the path had narrowed so greatly she had to clamber up onto the almost sheer sides of the crevasse.

Her palms were scraped even through the cloth of her rapidly deteriorating hoody but, at the very least, she'd managed to wrap the knife blade somewhat securely and store it in a pocket.

Taylor wasn't eager to think about what might have happened if she'd slipped and sliced herself open on it. Even if she was in Hell, she'd read enough of the Divine Comedy to know that there were plenty of levels.

And going lower was definitely not in her best interests.

She would brave the volcano and lifeless wasteland instead. The much saner option.

"Hah. If I even get back home I'm gonna scalp those bitches."

There were wet streaks down her cheeks. But she was smart enough to lie to herself.

It was just ash in her eyes.

Always and forever.

Feet pounding against the ground, arms pumping, she ran.

Taylor ran with every scrap of strength she had.

Never mind the fact the cave was pitch black.

Never mind the fact she could only see the barest hint of light in the distance.

Never mind that each and every muscle in her body was screaming at her to slow down.

Because she heard them.

The twisted, malformed things that had been dwelling in the caves. They were behind her, their uneven gait slapping against the ground again and again as they pushed ever closer. Stumbling, she fell, badly scraping her hands. But that didn't matter either. Scrambling to her feet she ignored the ugly, heavy breathing, audible even over the roaring winds about her, of the things that were still coming.

Because she knew if she looked back… she wouldn't have the strength to keep running.

And then, just as suddenly, her feet found air. Falling, screaming, she flipped over as she fell down the side of the suddenly sheer cliff.

In that moment, as sunlight kissed her skin, the damned girl finally saw what had been chasing her. It had too many eyes, set on long, thin stalks, and a large, clacking beak set in the middle of a squat body, and disturbingly phallic bulbs hanging off the least destroyed part of it. The whole thing was stomach turning in how its melted, disease infested body lunged after her.

Lashing out, one of the stalks wrapped around her, its giant, baleful eye somehow screaming into her mind. And so she did the only thing she could.

Jamming the knife into the monster's eye, it screeched and she fell, once more tumbling through the sky. But that was ok. If she was about to be crushed on rocks hidden by the waves then Taylor was truly, truly happier with that than whatever had waited for her within those tunnels.

Hitting the waves she blacked out, the sudden force of the impact knocking her unconscious.

All too soon, though, the freezing cold of the water revived her.

Blinking salt water out of her eyes, and ignoring the stinging of her scrapes and scratches, she flailed about until she was righted, staring once more into an alien sky, where an alien sun was starting to set.

Shivering, teeth chattering, the burning need to live pushed aside the horror of her situation once again. Focusing, she spun about, trying to identify the nearest piece of land that she could reach. Where she had come from, fortunately or not, was all sheer cliff face. No real way up, not without equipment and training at least, and no beaches or even raised platforms she could seek shelter on.

Other than that, it was only in the distance that she saw both an Island what looked like a beach.

Starting to swim, and body definitely starting to shake from the cold, she pushed against the current just long enough to realize struggling was pointless. There was no way she'd be able to make it to the wide, sandy plains. Not with the strength she had. And not before….

Something had bumped her.

Something rough and long had grazed against her leg.

Floating there, doing everything she could to not move, to not even breathe, the lost, scared, confused human girl simply drifted with the currents. She was bumped a few more times in the however long it was she bobbed there. Enough that she wondered if it was another thing toying with her. But it was only when whatever it was breached the water, yard after yard after yard after yard after yard of grey, mottled flesh showing in the dull evening light, that she realized just how massive the thing she had been struck by was.

Reaching deep, deep inside, her heart thundering in her ears, she snuffed out a cry before it could crawl up her throat. Instead, she prayed. She prayed and hoped and prayed again and again that whatever it was wasn't interested in her. Because her injuries were still stinging, still smarting, still leaking into the freezing cold waters around her.

In a sudden, violent flurry of motion a vaguely ovoid shape, visible only as a darkness under the water, darted towards her. Perhaps five or six yards in length itself, it launched up out of the ocean, spray falling, with a large, gnashing mouth coming straight off her.

Screaming, her sounds cut off when a massive, almost canine head rose out of the water. Swallowing half of the smaller monster with a single bite, three truly gargantuan grey worm-flesh necks rose up around her. Watching as these truly gargantuan mouths opened, each biting onto part of the now screaming, squealing, almost manatee like abomination, Taylor turned and started swimming.

As fast as her soaking, terrified, exhausted, injured body could manage, she swam.

Once more, as massive waves propelled her towards the island, as horrific screams echoed from behind her, she swam and swam and swam.

The scratches on her back hurt.

The bruises where she'd been grabbed hurt.

Every bump and scrape she'd picked up since coming to Hell burned from the salt water.

Eventually, once the water was still and screaming had gone, her thoughts began to drift to how she'd gotten where she was.

Those great hills had continued for what felt like miles, slowly crawling into the sky, becoming true mountains and blotting out the horizon. But that was only so much a challenge. What became worse was, when she was still walking, no longer able to see the base of the mountain behind her, as impossible as that should have been, she suddenly came to an area free of fog and ash. There, laid out before her, was a vista of thousands upon thousands of caves and warrens and burrows, stretching as high as the mountain went, and more.

And just as the terrain had changed, so too had the absence of life.

Shrieking, screaming birds had leapt from one of the higher ledges. When they got closer she would have sworn they almost looked like women fused with great, black crows, dirty and twisted by hate and whatever force had created them. Still, she'd already been running, heading straight for the nearest cave, and the flock had only managed to dive on her once.

Raking its claws across her back, Taylor's hoody thankfully offering her some protection, no matter how minor, the monsters were forced to hop along behind her inside.

Hop, however, didn't do justice for just how rapidly they moved. Using their wings they were able to clear meters at a time, only slowed by the fact they couldn't maneuver and, once the thin streams of light from the cave mouth were left behind, it was all the mortal could do to duck and weave.

Their screaming and squawking had attracted that second monster. And she'd ran. And ran. And ran and ran and ranandranandranandran. Taylor didn't stop when the screaming started, she didn't stop when she couldn't hear it, and she definitely didn't slow down when she realized she could still hear heavy, labored breathing somewhere behind her. No matter what, she kept moving.

And now she came to a stop, almost gently getting caught on a sandbar.

Her body ached and she coughed and spat.

It took far too long to get her hands and feet under her.

But, as the sun finally sat, she crawled her way up the beach. Maybe it was the fact she knew she was freezing to death - the cold had stopped bothering her, she almost felt warm - or maybe it was just the lingering adrenaline forcing her to move. Even when she saw the skulls and felt the bones, worn smooth by the passage of time and yellowed by the sun, crunch under her body she only cried out. Deep, deep down, somewhere buried under a day of pure, utter terror, she wanted to give up.

Somehow, she didn't.

Somehow, she climbed that mountain of skulls, dragging her body foot by foot, inch by inch, to a stone platform. There, at the end, she couldn't muster the strength to pull herself over it.

She was too cold and in far too much pain.

So, as the baleful starlight fell around her, she turned and looked up. In that great blue-black sky there was no moon. No white, shining, scarred Luna. Only a field of stars. Green and red and blue and purple and colors she had no name for, that seemed to crawl inside her head and twist and spin and devour each other.

Shivering on a field of bones, back pressed against cold stone, she sighed.

"At least I'm not hurting anymore."

Silver linings were always important to focus on.

Even if they were a lie.

Because now, in this moment, she was hurting deep, deep inside of her chest. Thoughts of her mother and her father and her friends were like knives skewering her insides. Tears didn't come. Maybe she was just too exhausted, maybe she'd used them all up, but utterly and completely lost… she couldn't manage to even cry for herself.