Disclaimer: I don't own Don't Starve or any of the characters

Murky bubbles of gas ruptured across the surface of the swamp, sending up fetid clouds of putrefied air to choke and plague those unfortunate enough to be caught in the area. Each one rose from the primordial soup like a corpse breaking free of the grave, slow and unrelenting in their ascent.

The vile stench that clung to every part of this rotting place made life exceedingly difficult for the group of survivors. There was no escaping it. There was no running from it. It was everywhere and everything. Each step forwards was bought with coughing fits and roiling guts as the sickening assault on the senses wormed its way into their bodies.

"We're getting closer at least…" Wilson commented, doing his best to distract them all from their mutual discomfort. His words were met only with mumbled grunts from those behind him who didn't dare to open their mouths for fear of inviting more of the entropy-born fumes into themselves.

No more disheartened than he'd expected to be, the scientist turned himself to face ahead once again. The noise from the divining rod was a sure sign that they were on the right track. That at least, couldn't be masked by the stench of rot that hung so heavily around them.

Despite the oppressive weight of his surroundings, he wasn't able to fully block out the sound of his own thoughts.

He'd been trying his hardest to ignore them. The feeling of power he'd experienced when unleashing his armaments still brushed across his consciousness as his hand gripped the shadowy blade. It was simply irresistible. He wanted something to use it on. Something to face, to cut down, and to vent this pent up energy on.

Wilson was no fool. He could recognize the signs of addiction. Whatever force lay behind the weapon in his hand and the shroud draped across his shoulders wasn't benign or innocent. It was trying to work its way into his mind through the use of these powers. He could recognize that very easily.

The only problem was, he didn't know what he could do about it.

The easiest solution would be to simply discard the knife right away. Quit cold turkey. He could probably do that easily enough given his surroundings. Just rear back his arm and throw. When it sunk into the muck, there's be next to no chance of finding it again.

Sadly, while that route was both straightforward and simple to initiate, it wasn't an option. This thing was a weapon. Just as Willow's staff, Wendy's book, and Wolfgang's hammer were. They were fighting a war right now, and throwing away a valuable tool would be tantamount to suicide.

That left him only one other choice. To endure.

He had to keep control. The shadows made him reckless. Made him feel invincible. He'd been exceedingly lucky during their fight with the machines to have gotten away as intact as he did. Had the others not stepped in when they had, he'd likely have been ground to a pulp, magical armor or no.

It was for that reason that he had to stay absolutely focused. It was for that reason that he had to keep his cool. And, ironically enough, it was for that reason that he was so focused on internal threats and failed to see the external one right in front of him.

Too caught up in his silent vigil to actually see where he was going, Wilson didn't notice the massive spider web until he'd run face first into it.

"Gah!"

Feeling the sticky substance smack against his body, he instinctively tried to draw back. It became immediately apparent that the action was a mistake.

Pulling away from the web caused the elastic bands of silk to be dragged taut, resulting in a slingshot effect that yanked him back forwards and caused him to get even more tangled up in its slick fibers.

"Wilson? What happened?" Willow called, approaching from somewhere behind him. "Did you see something?"

"Stay back!" He shouted, causing the group to halt in their tracks immediately. "It's a web. Don't get too close. You guys are going to have to find a way to cut me down. I can't move more than a couple inches."

His arms and legs shuffled around in their white prison to emphasize the point. He was well and truly stuck against a massive web stretching between two large trees. Judging by size alone, this one would have to belong to a spider at least as big as a dog.

"You know…" Willow pondered. He could practically hear her tapping her chin thoughtfully from the tone of her voice alone. "I can think of a way to get you down from there really easily."

"I swear to science, if you set this on fire while I'm stuck in it I'll come back to haunt you for the rest of your life!" Wilson warned hastily.

"Calm down there tough guy." She chuckled. "I'm just saying it's an option is all."

"Well, find a better one." He grumbled, knowing full well that the other three members of their entourage were watching the whole thing with stupid grins on their faces. Maybe not Abigail given her lack of a face, but if she had one she'd probably be grinning as well.

"Just hold tight for a minute." Willow said, as though there was anything else he could hope to do. "We'll see what we can do about getting you down. It's times like this that I wish you hadn't hidden Wendy's ax back at our original basecamp."

Rolling his eyes, Wilson was forced to simply sit quietly as the others looked for a way to free him. Sure there were worse things he could have walked into, but to be caught like some kind of common housefly was nothing short of humiliating. Given how the webbing was stretched across one of the few mostly clear paths through the swamp, it was almost like it had been put there specifically for them to come across.

Wait.

Realization hit him with the force of a train, sending all thoughts of wounded pride fleeing for cover as dozens of alarms went off in his head. Wilson opened his mouth to shout a warning just as he spotted the first signs of movement out of the corner of his eye.

"Ambush!"

An explosion of movement turned the seemingly dead bog into a mass of black chitinous bodies. Swarming out from behind fallen logs, skeletal trees, and mounds of swamp muck, spiders of all shapes and sizes descended on their unwary prey.

Trapped as he was, Wilson could only look on helplessly as the mass of arachnids charged, both skittering across the treetops above and wading through the murky waters below.

"Get back!" Willow ordered, ushering the others behind her with a wave of her hand. "I've got this, just stay behind me."

The scientist strained to look over his shoulder in an attempt to see what she was going to do. His efforts were rewarded with a glimpse of crimson as she readied her staff. Drawing the mystical weapon back like a baseball bat, she intended to sweep it across the approaching hoard and immolate the whole lot of them in one go. It would have been a brilliant plan had she not overlooked one key detail.

"Willow!" Wilson cried out, feeling his stomach drop upon noticing the mistake. "Stop! You ca-"

His warning came too late. Her arms already in motion, she wouldn't have been able to stop the swing even had she known what the result would have been. A cascade of hungry flames poured forth from the gem-tipped staff, eagerly leaping towards the mass of hairy creatures.

And promptly ignited the very air as the thick fumes being given off by the swamp caught fire.

Wilson was fairly used to being assaulted by monsters at this point. They'd been through too much for him not to be. The fear of facing them was still present, but it had slowly faded over time into something manageable. Seeing a wall of flame racing towards him however, was something else entirely.

Unable to do anything else, he opened his mouth to scream in terror as the inferno blasted through the atmosphere only to close it when his common sense kicked in. If you were going to get a face full of anything, molten flame or otherwise, Keep. Your. Mouth. Closed.

He didn't have time to see what happened to the others. He didn't have time to see, period. The crackling lights of the quasi-explosion dominated his senses, giving him only a brief second to brace himself before it washed over his body like a volcanic wave.

The heat was unbearable.

Scorching, burning, indescribably hot. It scoured every inch of his exposed body, racing across skin and hair with ravenous energy, determined to peel every ounce of meat from his bones. The shroud of darkness around his torso did a surprisingly good job of protecting the covered areas, but his head and limbs were left to the mercy of the roaring fire. He could feel himself boiling in his own flesh, rippling waves of white hot agony tracing every lick of flame until the bindings holding him in place suddenly released. The heat had become too much for the silken restraints, causing them to snap as their fibers were burned away.

Without warning, gravity asserted its dominance over the hapless young man, yanking him downwards away from the blazing air. He had just enough sense left to hold his breath as the surface of the swamp rose to meet him.

His body was plunged into the brackish waste, submerging him in liquid relief as the flames consuming him were snuffed out on contact. Though the water was likely filled with all manner of infectious parasites, he couldn't bring himself to care. He'd take a serious illness over burning to death any day.

Wilson didn't allow himself time to relish in the relief of the water's embrace. Kicking off the bottom, he rose back above the surface in a rush.

What awaited him was a vision of Hell.

The trees. The spiders. The surface of the water itself. Everything was ablaze with molten fury. Crimson snakes of fire raced across the top of the murky liquid, unable to penetrate beneath as it devoured the toxic components across the upper layer. In places, the flames began to shift in odd colors as they ignited gas pockets, turning green, purple, blue, and even white.

In the murderous dancing light of the chaos, Wilson barely managed to pick out the forms of his friends.

Wendy it seemed, had been saved by quick reflexes. She broke the surface moments after he did, apparently having ducked beneath the water as soon as she'd seen the flames. Though alive, she was far from unscathed. Her clothing was badly charred, and scorch marks lined her back where she'd been too close to the surface. In one hand she cradled the now waterlogged magical book, while the other held her sister's flower, telling him that Abigail hadn't been lucky enough to escape the brunt of the firestorm.

Wolfgang was in much worse shape. His entire upper body was blazing red, all of the clothing above his waist having been burned to ashes. In addition to that, most of his hair (with the mysterious exception of his trademark handlebar mustache) had been scorched from his skin. The strongman was wildly swinging his club to keep spiders at bay while he pawed at his eyes which were streaming tears from the damage they'd endured, effectively blinding him.

Willow was the only one to remain untouched. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised at this point, but she stood entirely safe in the center of the roiling blaze. She swung her staff to and fro, cracking it across the black armored bodies of the spiders that had survived the blast. She didn't dare try using its powers again, for fear of hurting her friends further.

The spiders had suffered a fair number of losses themselves. Many of the frontrunners had been incinerated, leaving only those that had taken shelter in the swamp water alive. The survivors now approached much more carefully, weaving in between the rapidly growing gouts of fire racing across the surface of the bog. Though slowed, they were still closing in with disturbing swiftness. Very soon there wouldn't be anywhere to run.

Thinking fast, Wilson raced forwards. His burns screamed in protest, but he forced those lances of pain into the back of his mind much the way he'd done with the shadows' unwanted probing. He couldn't afford to let himself get distracted right now.

"Everyone follow me, quickly!" He shouted, desperately trying to be heard over the roaring flames. "We need to get out of here right now!"

He didn't bother waiting for any kind of response. Reaching out his free hand, he pulled Wendy forcibly to her feet before grabbing a hold of Wolfgang's shoulder. Thankfully the strongman seemed to recognize his presence and didn't turn to smash him thinking he was a spider.

"Let's go!" He exclaimed, yanking the giant of a man. Though he wasn't physically strong enough to move him, his efforts were enough to communicate his intentions. Wolfgang obediently backpedaled as the scientist directed his movements, Wendy and Willow following close behind.

As far as chases were concerned, it wasn't exactly high speed. The waist-deep muck had far too much material too it for them to move quickly, and the spiders themselves weren't nearly as eager to attack as they'd been initially.

The fire however, kept things going.

It was only by the fickle hand of Lady Luck that they could progress. The flames cascaded in seemingly random paths, following the trails of debris floating atop the mire. Those areas with the densest concentration were the ones that ignited first, while the lesser areas took their time. The result was a gauntlet of flames that wreathed everything in a demonic glow, tormenting the group's every step with the possibility of being cut off and trapped.

"Up ahead!" Willow called, slapping Wilson on the back to make sure she'd gained his attention. "That looks like dry land! We can move faster if we head that way!"

He would have agreed with her, but a sudden inhalation of putrid smoke nearly caused him to double over in a coughing fit. Despite the way his body tried to force the fetid substance from his lungs, he forced himself to remain upright.

It looked as though the spiders had the same idea. They'd given up trying to pursue the humans through the maze of molten heat, and had instead opted for the much safer route of fleeing for their lives. No doubt they'd be back eventually, Maxwell's creatures hadn't given up easily so far, but it bought the survivors precious time to save their own skins without fighting back a hoard of homicidal monsters.

"The door!"

Wendy's smoke-chocked voice cut through the deafening roar of the inferno like a beacon of deliverance straight from high heaven. Though nobody could have heard it over the flames, the divining rod had been growing increasingly energetic during their flight. The wall of fire had directed them across the swamp and right to the doorway.

Which just so happened to be located in the middle of an enormous spider den.

Giant mounds of webbing were piled up on either side of the escape route, and scores of the oversized creatures were already pouring out of their nests to bar the way. The encroaching flames had stirred them into a frenzy, and their instincts for self-preservation battled with their need to defend the hive.

"Just keep going!" Willow urged, pushing them forwards. "We don't need to fight them! Just make a break for the doorway!"

She was right. In the chaos of the wildfire, the spiders were having trouble organizing any kind of a reaction, much less a defense. Most of them simply ran about in mass confusion, their minds unable to figure out how to combat the burning, crackling threat that had presented itself.

Wilson and his friends reached the edge of the webbing mere moments before the fire did, racing in an all-out sprint now that they were no longer bogged down by the swamp. Those few arachnids that tried to stop them met a swift end as the scientist's sabre cut them down in a flash of pure midnight.

Elation tugged at his heart as they neared their goal. This was it. The fourth world. They were about to break through to the final stretch. No more than a hundred yards away was the key to their escape, flanked by twin towers of spider silk, like some kind of disturbing, incomplete archway.

He smiled in adrenaline-fueled relief as they neared the exit.

His smile faltered as one of the piles of webbing began to shudder.

His heart dropped as it started to stand up.

His expression turned from one of joy to one of terror as eight massive eyes locked onto the rapidly approaching group.

His terror increased ten thousand fold as he saw the black armored talon raise for a strike.

Time slowed to a crawl. In the mad rush for freedom and the total madness of their surroundings, the others hadn't spotted the gargantuan spider queen. Their eyes only just began to register the threat as its razor sharp limb arced towards them.

"MOVE!"

Even as he yelled the warning at the top of his lungs, he knew it had come too late. There was no time to dodge. No time to run. He could do nothing.

That moment was one Wilson would remember for the rest of his life. No matter how long he lived, or how far he came from that instant, the sound of that singular event would continue to haunt him.

The shriek of the wind as the bladed appendage streaked towards them. The wet snap of tearing flesh, followed by the crack of breaking bone and the dull thud of the limb burying itself into the earth beneath their feet.

The earsplitting scream of agony that tore through his mind even as the image of its owner seared itself into his eyes.

"WILLOW!"

His own scream was lost in the maelstrom of noise and movement, becoming nothing more than another section of the hellish orchestra playing out before him. The spider's enormous limb pried itself free from the ground, raising back up into the air with the fire starter still connected to the end of it.

Willow was skewered through the shoulder, a steady trail of crimson streaming down to the needle-sharp point of the arachnid's leg. She spasmed on the end of the deadly implement, her mouth opening and closing in silent shrieks as her mind struggled to endure the trauma of being impaled.

Seeming to notice its baggage for the first time, the spider growled before shaking its leg roughly to dislodge the young woman. She was torn free from the appendage with a sickening sound of muscle being shredded apart. Falling the ten or so feet from her gruesome perch, she hit the ground like a broken marionette. She didn't get back up.

In that instant, the world around Wilson ceased to exist. There was no fire. No doorway. Not even Wolfgang or Wendy. There was just Wilson himself, the spider queen, and Willows fallen form.

In that instant, for the first time in his life, the scientist knew the meaning of true hatred.

The shadows felt his shock, his grief, and his unrestrained anger. They raced into his consciousness, latching onto the emotions and dragging them into the forefront of Wilson's mind. He could have resisted if he'd wanted to.

He just didn't want to.

Those burning feelings rebounded over one another, feeding into themselves and growing exponentially more powerful with every passing second. Through the red haze that descended on his vision, he could see the monstrous spider preparing for another strike. He didn't know who it was aiming for next. He didn't care. It wasn't going to get the chance to attack.

A wordless scream of rage and anguish tore itself from the scientist's throat as he surged forwards. The distance between him and his target was instantly reduced to nothing in his headlong charge, causing the beast to redirect its attention to the most prominent threat. Its pitch-black talon struck downwards towards his frail form, intent on piercing his body the same way it had done to Willow.

Wilson didn't dodge. He didn't so much as blink as the chitin spear fell. Whipping his blade upwards, he met the point of the limb head on.

And cut straight through it.

A shocked hiss of pain emanated from deep within the body of the enormous spider as it stared uncomprehending at its now severed leg. Before it even had a chance to process the loss of part of its body, Wilson was already swinging again. His sabre cut a bloody swath across its other front leg, causing it to roar out in genuine agony.

The spider queen tried to take pressure off of its newly maimed appendage by shifting its weight to the other side, only to remember that the other limb had already been sliced apart. All the while, the scientist moved in a blur of merciless fury.

Two more swings of the sword and two more of the spider's legs were cut at the knee, causing the bulky creature to tip precariously. Unable to keep up with its tiny assailant, it suddenly found itself doing battle with both the human and gravity as it fought to stay upright and out of his reach.

It was a losing battle.

One more diagonal cut and the spider queen lurched to the side as its body weight carried it to the ground. The walking nest hit the earth with a massive crunch, flattening the entire right side of the web-housing on its back as it cried out for aid from its many soldiers. The other spiders were thrown into a mad rush as they were driven to aid their queen only to be rendered unable to do so as the flames consumed their home.

Wilson saw none of this. All he could see was the exposed stomach of his foe lying before him. He launched forwards in blind anger, dodging the wild thrashing of the felled giant. Five bounds brought him within striking distance and he wasted no time in getting to work.

The sword in his hands was a blur of motion as he struck out with every ounce of strength he had. He slashed at the spider in a frenzied hurricane of blows, carving open flesh and exoskeleton with every attack. The dying wails of the towering creature only served to drive him deeper into his mindless assault.

In his madness he knew nothing else than the relentless swings that brought his weapon sinking into the flesh of his foe. He didn't notice as the struggles of the spider queen slackened and ceased entirely. He didn't notice as Wendy dragged both the blinded Wolfgang and the twitching form of Willow to the doorway, racing the approaching fires. He didn't notice as she pulled on the lever and opened the path to escape. He only became aware of a change when the hands erupted from Maxwell's door and began dragging him away from the savaged body of the spider.

He yelled out in frustration as the chains of darkness began to pull him from his victim. He struggled against them with all the strength he had left, intent on hacking the corpse apart until there was nothing left. Deep in the recesses of his mind, the part of him that was still sane screamed at him to stop, but its voice was nothing compared to the goading of the shadows in his head. They pushed him further and further from sanity. Driving him to rage. To fight. To destroy.

Even as he was pulled into the open doorway, he could feel the sinister grins of unnatural beings looking down upon him. In that singular remaining part of his scientific brain, he shuddered. They'd been watching him. Testing him. Whether he'd passed or failed was impossible to tell.

A dark sense of foreboding quickly quelled the anger in his heart as the shadows released him. Falling into the abyss of the doorway, Wilson's mind went blank.