Chapter 1 of 5

A Cold Reception

Webber's POV

To say I was in trouble would be a massive understatement.

Wilbur and Winona took turns lecturing me that night, with varying levels of concern, frustration, and occasional anger. I remained entirely silent, allowing them to fret over me with no protest or argument. When Wilbur settled down to sleep, he curled himself around me in such a way that it was almost impossible for me to leave without waking him up. Winona watched me like a hawk as I nibbled on a morsel of meat, the first I had had in days. And, honestly, if it weren't for her doing that, I probably would have tried to hold up the charade.

The first day, I barely felt hungry. My stomach still felt tender and uncomfortable from the night before, spent sick long after the meat had left my system.

The second day, the nausea gave way to insistent hunger pains. It was easy enough to ignore them when pain was something I had grown accustomed to.

The third day, the feeling was starting to wane and be replaced by weakness. Minor, at this point, but present. My good hand shook when I gripped the sword and I started to notice cold sweat dampening the fur on the back of my neck.

The fourth day, the thought of eating made my throat tighten and my stomach clench. I struggled to fall asleep, but when I did, I was out cold. It was one of the few nights I didn't have nightmares, although in hindsight I might've just been too tired to produce any.

It wasn't until I actively admitted it, on the fifth day, that anyone noticed. At this point, my thoughts had gone blissfully silent, fading into a distant hum of static that numbed even the spider's anger that I had felt the first couple of days. It was peaceful in a way I hadn't experienced in years. Like finally being alone after spending your entire life surrounded by crowds. Sinking into water after hours of hearing thunder above your head.

It was intoxicating.

It was addictive.

And, as Wilbur and Winona made sure I knew, it was very, very unhealthy.

And I guess I knew that from the beginning. I wasn't an idiot by any means, I just had no intention of forcing myself to eat when I didn't want to. And that's exactly what it was. I just couldn't bring myself to eat. The thought of it made me sick, because every time I saw a dead animal, some part of me ached. I wanted to gag at just the thought of it. The thought of a tiny heartbeat going still beneath my claws for the thousandth time. The thought of a furry body pressed against me, blissfully unaware of the predator it was choosing to trust.

Maybe it just reminded me too much of Popsicle.

Of course, that night they forced me to eat. Wilbur had put a lot of time trying to make something that tasted decent after skinning the animal with terrifying efficiency, and Winona had stared me down until I complied. In the back of my mind, I was grateful for it. They cared enough to keep me from actively starving myself to death. It was a nice thought, and my body seemed equally grateful as the persistent ache in my abdomen finally started to fade.

But the rest of me couldn't be grateful. The rest of me hated their control over me, their strength over me. I hadn't felt really in control in so long that the fast had made me feel free. Something that I was doing against the wishes of the adults, against the wishes of the spider. And most of all, it was helping me against the spider. The rumble of his presence had faded so easily and it had felt so gloriously free.

They would be watching me closer now, though. That freedom was out of my grasp.

And, currently, any sense of freedom was out of my grasp. I could barely even move without alerting Wilbur, and even though he and Winona were asleep, Wilson certainly wasn't.

He was the wild card.

Wilson had stayed mostly quiet during the entire ordeal, occasionally adding some thought or information here and there, but far from the lecturing I had received from the other two. Mostly, he remained on the sidelines. Watching. When I looked over to him, the typical fear didn't strike. Instead, I was overwhelmed with a sense of urgency, with the desperate urge to go somewhere. I had somewhere I needed to be, and Winona and Wilbur weren't letting me go. They wanted to protect me, I knew, and I couldn't quite fault them for that, but my muscles twitched and jumped with anticipation and desperation.

I wanted to talk to him more than anything. Back in the fields, something had come over the both of us and I still couldn't puzzle it out. When Wilson spoke, when he posed questions I was certain I had heard before, his voice was calm and collected. Cool, but not malicious. I could see the fear dancing in his eyes, and I could almost hear him saying over and over: I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to hurt you. It felt like both Nightmare's voice and not. His voice and not.

For me, though, everything was mine. There was no second being vying for attention (something I was very accustomed to and aware of the sensation of). There was no unwanted or unfamiliar thoughts crowding my head. It was just me, Tyler, with the words of a thousand past lifetimes burrowing into my skull.

That thought was immediately thrown out. And, in all honestly, so was every other thought related to that. No, the familiarity of it wasn't what I wanted to talk about. It was everything else about it. Questions that I desperately wanted to knowthe answer to.

What made it all the more frustrating was that I could see the questions in Wilson's eyes as well, but it would be difficult to talk without waking Wilbur. And I wasn't entirely sure Wilbur wouldn't kill Wilson if he saw him talking to me. I pondered the risk for only a moment before Wilson made the decision for me.

"Can we talk?" He whispered. He dipped his head sharply towards Wilbur's sleeping form, tightly wrapped around me as it was, as if asking if it was safe. I glanced towards the prime ape, but he seemed to remain deep in sleep.

"Quietly," I responded, voice equally low.

"Okay, okay. Yeah, I just-" he let out a long and brushed his hair back with one hand. "Yeah, I just need someone to acknowledge that it happened. Winona is almost entirely ignoring it."

"Wilbur too," I confirmed.

Wilson was quiet for a moment. He started picking at a hangnail, keeping his eyes decisively away from me until the moment he started speaking again. "Did you feel that too? The... I don't know..."

"The... familiarity?" I guessed, filling in the blank.

"Yeah. Yeah." He continued fidgeting with his hands. "It's... it's not right. That was weird, right? Don't get me wrong." He raised his hands innocently. "I'm concerned about you and whatever ridiculous notions you have about food-" I scoffed. "-but I just can't get it out of my head. That wasn't... the spider, was it?"

I shook my head.

"I didn't think so. I just... wanted to be sure."

Another moment of quiet. I instinctively started scratching at the scar on my face, struggling to put my million questions to words.

"Your eye," Wilson blurted suddenly. I looked back up at him, humming curiously. "Does it hurt?"

"Which one are we talking about? The one I still have or-"

"Yeah," he interrupted before I could finish. He flushed, likely in guilt if I had any guess. "The, um... the glowing one. Does it hurt?"

"If you didn't keep insisting that it looked weird, I wouldn't know any different," I answered vaguely. "If it's any consolation, I don't think any unexplained 'glowing' is coming from my eye. Just showing through it." Before he could ask, I pressed a hand to my chest. "My chest feels weird. And my head is... buzzing. Hurts a bit."

"And what's waiting for us?" Wilson pressed. I tipped my head quizzically and he elaborated. "You said that something was ready for us. Waiting. What did you mean?"

I gave his question a moment of consideration. "I dunno," I finally admitted. "I just... I feel like there's somewhere I have to be. Right at this moment. Like..." I opened and closed my fists several time, face creased in thought as I tried to come up with a good explanation. "You know that feeling like you're being chased?" I finally settled on. "Where you feel like you have to move as fast and lightly as possible, and your heart is pounding and you can't convince yourself to look backwards because what if it's right behind you? And there's a safe area just up ahead, but it's right on your tail and you don't know if you can make it in time?" Wilson nodded uneasily. I wondered if he was thinking of any specific encounter since coming to this world. "That's what it feels like. Except added on is that nobody will let me run, and I have no idea what's chasing me and I also have no idea what the safe place is, just that it's there."

Wilson stopped picking at the hangnail with his finger and instead started tearing at it with his teeth. I watched as a spot of blood welled up on the side of his thumb when he finally succeeded in working it free. "I see," he mumbled around it. "And... what they're trying to do. It's making it worse?"

I nodded immediately. No need in hiding that fact. I was miserable and I didn't care if they knew it.

Wilson watched me for a long several moments after that as if considering something. He turned his attention to his other thumb, scratching at the nail nervously. "I can take you if you don't want to be alone," he offered after an uncomfortable amount of time.

"I would love to take you up on that offer, but there's no way I can get away from Wilbur." I sighed and rearranged myself slightly, displaying my conundrum with the sleeping prime ape. "I'll have to wait until they let me go."

"And when will that be?" Wilson asked with surprising ferocity. "Before or after their efforts to help you backfire? Will they wait until you become so miserable on a leash that you don't want to be near anyone? Or will they let you go before it gets so bad that you consider death as a release?"

"...Wilson?" I blinked several times, but he barely seemed to notice it. He had been fired up, but the fire was all his own. His eyes remained clear and gray, his voice decisively his own.

"I know what it feels like, Webber. I know what it's like to want to leave. To feel suffocated. I could tell you all the ways isolation doesn't work until the sun comes up, but you won't believe me. You're young. I can't blame you for that. It's in the nature of any child, let alone a child with your background. I won't let you get to the point you have to learn that, though. I refuse to let anyone else feel trapped like that."

"Where is this coming from?" My voice was louder than expected, but it seemed to be the only thing that stopped Wilson's rant. He raised one hand and threaded it into his hair, breathing heavily.

"Do you want to go to... whatever it is that's 'waiting'?" The question was posed through his teeth, barely a hiss.

"I... I do-"

"Then listen to me. When someone offers you an out, you take it. If you let yourself be restrained, nothing good comes from it. You will never submit to what you're told." He looked away, digging his nails into his arms. "You'll just always end up running away from it all."

"Is that what you did?" Compared to Wilson, my voice was deathly soft. When he didn't respond, I changed the subject. "Wilson, they're not... they're not acting like this to restrain me. They-"

"I've heard the speech before," he interrupted. "They just worry. They just care. They just want what's best for you. I've heard it."

My mouth clicked shut.

A moment later, I set to work carefully removing myself from Wilbur's embrace without waking him. After all, like Wilson said, when someone offers you an out, you take it.

"It wasn't about us, was it?" Wilson asked quietly as I worked. His voice had fallen again. "Back there. You said you hadn't eaten anything because you didn't want to take more than you gave. That was a lie, wasn't it?"

My hesitance seemed to give him his answer, but I chose to speak anyway. "Not all of it. It was always in the back of my mind. And it's what the world wanted to hear, wasn't it? 'Integrity' and all that?"

"Then why did you really do it?"

Wilbur's tail was wrapped around my wrist, and the majority of his weight still rested on my leg. He still seemed deeply asleep, though, so I must have been doing fairly well in removing myself. As gingerly as possible, I started to free my wrist as I considered how to answer. Finally, I decided on the truth. "Control."

This sparked the scientist's interest. I noticed his eyes flickering between my hands and Wilbur's face, as if gauging the ape's wakefulness. "But then you let them take it away from you. Why? Why would you allow that, Webber?"

"Well, it just so happens that I also adore being fussed over." The answer, once again, wasn't entirely a lie. Wilson scowled at it, though, so I added onto it. "Wilson, what Wilbur and Winona see when they look at me, they don't see me. In fact, none of you do. I'm fully aware." I let a hint of contempt enter my voice. "You still call me his name. That's all you see when you look at me. A spider."

"That's not-"

"Deny it and I will know you're lying," I hissed. "But it's fine. You see a predator, and that's what I am. I'm more that than what they see in me. Because, Wilson, I assure you. They call me Tyler, but I know I'm just a stand in. A stand in for Wilbur's daughter. A stand in for Winona's sister. People that they've failed in the past and desperately want to save now. So, admittedly, that is something I do for them. No ulterior motive.

"I can't deny, though, sometimes it is tempting to take control over yourself. To be what you want to be and do what you want to do. It's rebellion against them. And borderline treachery against Webber."

"Because it made him weak," Wilson concluded, his eyes widening in understanding.

"The only things that makes him weaker are things that make me weaker," I grumbled. My hands were free now, and I almost had my leg free. Wilbur was so deeply asleep that he didn't even move, safe for the slightest twitches of his face as if dreaming. "So it's trying to find a balance. Weak enough that he has no control and strong enough that I can still fight on my own. Apparently five days without food is not a good balance."

"They're right about that," Wilson conceded. "But borderline restraining you like this? There's a reason I have almost no contact with my parents anymore."

"Wish I could say the same." With that, my limbs were free and I was able to struggle into a standing position. I stumbled over my feet and stretched out my arms. "Any longer like that and my legs would've started to cramp." When I was finished stretching, I turned my gaze back to Wilson. "You... were telling the truth? You'll go with me?"

Wilson nodded.

"Good. Get an extra torch for me, would ya'?"

The next hour or so was spent in stifling silence as both of us prepared light sources. I occasionally shot a glance towards my sleeping companions, but neither seemed close to waking. With torches prepared, as well the sword I kept close to my person, we headed out into the darkness.

Immediately, the silence went from stifling to straight up sinister. I forced my gaze straight ahead, but I did notice Wilson constantly looking over his shoulder as if expecting to be followed. All the while, the intense buzzing in my chest grew with every step. It gripped my heart and pulled me along somewhere, somewhere that I couldn't even begin to guess. With the ability to finally follow the call, that is exactly what I did.

"Do... you know what we're looking for?" Wilson questioned at one point. His voice was painfully small against the void of darkness around us, piercing the delicate veil that had been draped over us previously. I hummed in consideration for a moment as I scrabbled over a fallen tree, claws digging into soft wood and moss sticking to my fingers. Wilson simply walked around it and offered a hand to help me jump down the other side. His fingers were cold, and the realization that it was, in fact, early winter struck me. The chill failed to penetrate my fur, but whether that was because of said fur or the warm glow coming from inside, I couldn't tell.

"Something important," I answered vaguely as I landed back on the ground with a gentle thump. The grass was coarser under my feet here, even though it was just as open to the torrential rain as the rest of the plains. "With any luck, the way out of here."

"When have we ever had any luck?" Wilson sighed. I silently offered to take the torch from him, and the second he passed it off he started picking at his nails again.

"You're making yourself bleed doing that."

"Am I?" Wilson frowned, turning his hand over to examine the damage. "How could you tell?"

"You smell like blood."

Wilson scowled as if I had insulted him, even though it was just a fact. He squinted again at his abused fingertips before wiping them off on his pants and clasping his palms together instead. "Probably should try to find a new coping mechanism, hmm?"

"Coping mechanism?"

"Yeah. Like, outlet for stress, you know. Like, up until recently I've kinda... been running on an empty battery. Forced optimism. Masking. All that. This place is fraying my nerves horribly." He shuddered.

My whiskers twitched, lightly brushing against his shoulder. Honestly, most of what he was saying was Pig to me. "Well, I noticed you doing a lot recently. Why stop now?"

I could almost feel his frown without looking at him. "Well, it's not a good thing when your own mechanisms start hurting you."

"What's wrong with it? I mean, it's not like you're hurting yourself bad enough to weaken you. It's just a little bit of blood."

"We- er, Tyler." The correction caught my attention enough for me to look back at him. He looked almost horrified, eyes catching the firelight like flickering stars as he stared. "You- have you been... I mean..." He seemed to stumble over his words, and I could tell he was trying to find a way to articulate himself. A flicker of frustration rose in my chest. Just spit it out. "When... when you get stressed. What do you do to... I dunno, vent it?"

"Depends on the situation. I used to just... you know, get angry. Yell at people. Try to fight whatever was that stressed me out. And I guess I still do that in a way, it's just a lot harder when it hurts to fight the source of your stress."

"It- It hurts?" Wilson stammered.

"We already went over this, Wilson." I sighed. "Or do I have to remind you about the food fiasco?"

"Have... have you been hurting yourself to punish him?"

My sigh was sharper, more forceful. "Well, yeah, sometimes. It's usually not on purpose. But you know what you're... in the middle of panicking and you grab your arms or your head real hard? Well, it doesn't go as well when you have claws. And the pain is grounding. It's not like I go out of my way to hurt myself, but it's like what you said. 'Coping mechanisms' or whatever. Sometimes you accidentally hurt yourself just by following your fear instincts."

Wilson stopped so abruptly that I nearly left him behind in the darkness. I turned to face him, scowling at his hesitance. Now, he definitely looked horrified, as if I had just told him that I was dying. Inklings of something like guilt fluttered in his gray eyes as his gaze flicked over the features of my face.

"What?"

"I'm just... Tyler, that's really, really bad. Like, hurting yourself, even to try to get at the spider."

"It's not like it's anything terrible," I argued. "Maybe to you it would be. You're a lot... squishier than I am."

Wilson was clearly struggling to find a response. He let out a low breath and shrunk the few paces between us with several purposeful steps. As I continued to lead the way, he reached around my back and put one hand on my opposite shoulder, squeezing gently. I didn't draw any attention to it, instead taking the time to relish the gentle touch that I hadn't felt in so long.

"Sometimes, I still think of you as like a son," Wilson said softly. "And it makes me worry about you." I jumped at the words and shot my eyes back to him, but he didn't look at me. Instead, it was his turn to stare directly ahead as he spoke. There was such a tender note in his voice that I almost believed I had imagined it. I hadn't heard anything like it since before he died. Something almost wistful. "Not anybody from my old life that I felt I failed," he added after a moment, as if remembering my previous comment about Wilbur and Winona's thoughts of me. "I just... I care about you. I don't want anything bad to happen. I don't want you to hurt yourself."

Despite the way the conversation up until now had gone without much feeling from my side, these words were enough for that familiar warmth to swell in my chest. I rose one hand to grasp at the necklace centered over my heart, running one thumb over the cut gemstone. "Sometimes? ...What about the other times?"

"The other times?" Wilson repeated distantly. "The other times, I'm not myself at all. I can't think of you of anything when I can't even think anything of myself."

I frowned at the ground, digging one claw into one of the grooves of the pendent. "Wilson..." I started uneasily, preparing to open up a whole new set of questions about Nightmare when something cut me off. The strange sensation bubbling in my chest rose without warning into the back of my throat, causing an instinctual cough as the tickle appeared. Under the stone of Wilbur's necklace, I noticed a warm yellow glow rising from under my fur. I coughed again, squinting fiercely into the darkness ahead. "We're here."

"Here?" Wilson questioned, shaking his head as if to dispel his previous thoughts. "Where's 'here'?"

"I... don't know," I admitted, pushing forward a few paces until my feet landed on flooring. The mud had mostly frozen over by now, but that didn't stop it from being present everywhere from when it was still wet. That was what made the floor beneath my feet so unnerving – it was clean. Polished and untainted, as if it had been locked away in an untouched castle for years rather than sitting out in the mud and rain and snow. Even though tiny snowflakes had started falling at some point, they avoided this area, arcing around it to land in a ring around. The flooring itself was icy cold against my feet, enough to almost make me lament my lack of shoes, but dry. It was achingly familiar, but I couldn't quite pin it.

"What is this?" Wilson sounded just as confused as I felt. His shoes tapped on the floor in a much louder fashion than my own padded footsteps and echoed into the night. I shuddered, fearful of the creatures that would be able to hear him. With no answer in our circle of light, I moved forward again, leaving the frozen mud behind entirely.

Then, the light of the torch caught on something. At first, it was just wood stained a deep brown, reaching about as high as my chest. As soon as I was in its vicinity, the same yellow glow that had plagued me all day transferred to it, casting the entire machine in golden light. The new lighting rendered the torch obsolete and highlighted the details that weren't noticeable before. Red runes were carved into the top, creating a circle around a machine of jury-rigged parts that rose and floated in our presence.

My heart was thumping in my ears before I even recognized the device, but maybe my mind was trying to block the image from my head.

I knew this machine. I knew this machine intimately, every detail fried into my head down to what the wood felt like under my hands. What it felt like to be pinned against it, mauled hand jacked high above my head by a knife through the palm.

I couldn't breathe.

Wilson cursed under his breath and I flinched away from the sound. I couldn't help it. My sword fell from my hand and I scrambled helplessly away from the scientist, spiderlike growls rising in my chest as panicked images assaulted my mind.

Glimmers of light shining off of a knife.

White-hot pain.

Blood and tears pouring out of a gaping wound, tearing viciously into skin and chitin and then through eye-

I was going to die. I was going to die. I was alone with Wilson, with nothing stopping him from finishing the job that was started so long ago.

Someone said something, but I couldn't hear it. All I knew was that someone else was there and then there was a hand on my shoulder-

The scream that was building in my throat suddenly tore out, raw and terrified. I fought them away, striking out with every ounce of force I could produce and hitting true, blood painting my claws but the memory of where it came from fled the second it happened, and all I knew was that my head was on fire and my hand was painted with blood and the floor was slick with it so any attempt to run was thwarted when my knees gave out and I couldn't get the traction I needed to stand back up but even if I could I couldn't breathe and I couldn't move and I wanted to beg for my life but why would they grant my wish they were here to kill me I was going to die I was going to die I was going to die IwasgoingtodieIwasgoingtodieIwasgoingto-

"Breathe."

I didn't want to die.

And then, suddenly, I wasn't there at all anymore. I was somewhere else. Floating aimlessly, disconnected from my body and the locked muscles and incoherent thoughts. It was like I was watching myself from several feet away, but I couldn't even recognize the panicking boy as myself. Numbness had spread over every inch of my body, emotions dulled to a point that they were insignificant.

Wilson had grabbed both of my hands and wrenched them away from my face, his eyes huge with terror. A set of bloody claw marks tore across his cheek, but he seemed to be paying very little attention to them, instead focusing entirely on keeping me from moving. I curiously watched his mouth move as he spoke, saying something, but the words were muddled as if we were underwater. Tiny jewels of blood welled up on scratches all over my face and upper arms, and after another moment of observing, I noticed that Wilson was restraining me to prevent me from clawing at my skin any further, and had apparently taken a hit himself from it.

I didn't think I was screaming anymore, but it was impossible to tell. My mouth was still open, but I wasn't sure why. Maybe trying to catch the air that I had lost already? Even as I watched, I was losing the will to fight, instead going limp and pliant under Wilson's hands. He hesitantly released me, wincing at every twitch and jerk of limbs that couldn't remember how to move quite right.

When Wilson tried to pick me up, he was met with little resistance. It was like all the bones in my body had suddenly melted, leaving behind a body that could barely keep its shape. That was a suitable description, I thought. Like a snowman that had melted in the summer heat.

I was surprised, though, when the tiny (so tiny, was I actually that small?) form in Wilson's arms jerked again, nearly kicking him in the nose as something fell into place. Glazed eyes cleared, trembling whiskers stilled, and bones spontaneously reformed proper. I knew immediately that it was not me snapping back into reality, for I was still here, paces away from my body and the action. Which meant that Webber was taking advantage.

Which was fair. It's not like I needed a body right now.

He struggled out of Wilson's hold, and the scientist relinquished it without much trouble. He did frown though, as Webber shook himself furiously, scattering tiny drips of blood across the polished floor, then stretched his whiskers until they quivered. He turned around to look at Wilson, then gave him a wide grin.

Wilson's words were still muffled, but I could hear his just fine.

"Much better, don't you agree?" Webber asked in a borderline cheerful manner. His voice was distinct from mine; lower, with hissing emphasis on 's' sounds and harsher intonations on consonants. He held himself different, with a slight hunch in his back as if he couldn't quite stand up straight and a certain wobbliness of his knees. More than that, though, he moved much more than myself. Even just standing there, looking at Wilson, his whiskers were twitching and moving and crossing across his face to hit against each other with dull clacks of keratin on keratin. His eyes, sans the ones that had been gouged out, all focused on the scientist. Five in all, with the scar tearing through two accessory eyes as well. Even though Wilson had sworn that the glow from my chest and eye had highlighted my pupil, his eyes were all white, with no hints of humanity in sight.

Wilson said something, and even though I couldn't hear him, I could see the uncertainty on his face. One hand raised as if to reach out to the spider in front of him, but he stopped before touching him.

"Really, just in time for you to finally start using that name." Webber rolled his eyes. "You've worked him up a bit too much. He's taking a little break for now. Don't worry, I'm sure he'll be functioning in a halfway decent manner before too long."

Another question from Wilson. This time, he took up the sword I had dropped and leveled it at Webber's chest. I could see his hands shaking. His fingers, once red with cold, now turned ghostly white as he grabbed the hilt with so much pressure it was restricting blood flow.

"He's still in here," Webber said. His voice had sharpened, the growl a little more prominent than before as his irritation leaked through. "Trust me, if we could get rid of each other that easily, we wouldn't still be in this situation. Besides, I believe we have something else to worry about. For example, this beauty right here." He flourished his arms towards the machine and marched towards it with purpose. "I didn't expect to see one of these here. Although if His Majesty," mocking filled his tone as he made sarcastic quotation marks in the air. "led you here, I'm assuming this is what is supposed to lead to the next world, right? Of course I know about your desperate attempt to move on. I live in this head rent free, remember? I know everything he does. Weren't you supposed to be the smart one?"

Wilson said something else. My ears rang when he spoke.

"Why are you so eager for me to leave? I have just as much right to this body as he does," Webber snapped in response. "I figured you would be grateful to have someone with a steady head right now." He placed one hand on the device, letting his fingers run gently over the finished wood as he paced around it. "The Teleportato, it's called. Hilarious name, I know. Maxwell was tired when he named it." Webber barked a laugh as he said this. "Yes, Maxwell. I know who he is. I'm not an idiot. They've been my only allies for years, you know."

"Webber," I said out loud, catching the spider's attention. He rolled his eyes and waved one hand in the air. He didn't look at me, which made me wonder if I was actually present or simply a voice in his head. When I prompted him again, he threw his head back and groaned loudly.

"What, Tyler?" He demanded to the air. Wilson flinched hard, but his words were still lost on me. His face was creased in fury and fear, and I could only imagine what he was saying. "Give me a few minutes, okay? If I didn't step in, we would be unconscious at best right now, or dead at the worst, assuming our buddy reared his ugly head again." He pointed towards Wilson with his thumb. Wilson took an uneasy step back, his features wavering slightly at the edge of my perception.

"What's going on?" I prompted. I tried to get closer, but I couldn't move. I was simply a third party observer, without even a body to interact with the world. He rolled his eyes, but didn't immediately react. "What's happening?"

"You seriously have to ask that?" He scoffed. "You went out of commission. Again." His whiskers flicked to one side as he said 'again', keratin claws clacking against each other. "Really, you're becoming quite unreliable. It's honestly a wonder you haven't entirely given up before now."

"Given up...?" I struggled again, but found myself still entirely bound. "What did you do?" Despite the frantic energy of the words, I was still eerily calm. Unconcerned.

"Are you kidding me?" Webber's claws dug into the wood and he slammed one hand into it. "What did I do!? I am not the villain, no matter what you seem to think, Tyler! I want to survive, and the longer you have control of this body, the more likely you are to kill the both of us!" His fur spiked out and he glared harshly at the wood beneath his hands. "Just now, if you had fallen unconscious, who knows what would have happened? I stepped in. I stopped your panic attack. I am sane and stable, and you are not!"

Movement in the corner of my eye. Wilson was inching up closer to the angry spider, sword uneasily held in front of him. He looked deeply conflicted, pulling an almost impressively tragic hero face.

Do it. The thought of being stabbed by Wilson didn't even shake me in this state of numbness, but with no emotions in the way I was left with just my rational thought. I wasn't sure if Webber would pull away again, but even if he did, the risk was too high to keep me alive now. This was more than a moment of unconsciousness spearheaded by Webber. Our consciences had entirely flipped. I didn't want to know if it would be permanent.

"I've never hurt any of your 'friends'," Webber growled, unknowing of the situation unfolding behind him. "I've never done anything malicious to cause you to hate me as much as you do. I've helped you!"

"You work for Them," I said calmly.

"Because to follow anyone else is lunacy!" His claws twitched, splinters cracking until his hands.

"Then what would you do? If you had full control?"

"What would I do?" Webber bared his fangs and hunched his shoulders. "I would be among my own kind. The spiders have long since abandoned me, but They would be more than happy to take me. And, you know Tyler, I never had any intention of hurting your friends as long as they stayed out of my way. But truthfully, you're starting to make me very angry, and I'm thinking that it might be fun to torture you a little bit. It wouldn't make up for the years you had me trapped under your thumb, but it would be a good start. To kill them while I forced you to watch."

"You never had any intention of letting them go free."

Webber scoffed. "Maybe I did. You wouldn't ever know."

"But you wouldn't. You hate me."

"You know what!?" He shouted. "I do hate you! Queens below, I hate you so much! I want you to die just as much as you want me to die! I've tried to help you countless times. I gave you the fighting edge you needed when you fought the Giants. I pulled you together when your robot was destroyed. I potentially saved your life minutes ago. And you've only ever repaid me by torturing me and hating me and blaming me for everything. Have you ever thought, Tyler, that this is all your fault? Have you ever considered, even once, that I am the victim!? So yes, I despise you Tyler. I hate you so, so much. And I will take fantastic pride in wiping out all of your happiness. You will never have control of this body until you know what it's like being trapped for years with no companionship other than the one who hates you more than anything else! You did this to me! This is YOUR FAU-" The spider suddenly jerked forward as Wilson struck him in the head with the blunt end of the sword. I only had awareness for another second, noting that Wilson had used his opening to incapacitate rather than kill me, before I blinked out of existence entirely.

…

I came to with a violent start.

Icy water dripped down my face, falling from my whiskers and pooling on my shoulders as I jerked into a sitting position, breathing heavily. Immediately, fight or flight kicked in and I jumped to my feet, only to sway and nearly collapse a second later.

"Whoa, whoa, steady," a voice called out, gripping my shoulders and stabilizing my stance. I reared back to face the voice, instinctively growling as I blinked water out of my eyes to see.

Winona was the one holding my shoulders. Deep lines of worry creased her face and she reached one hand out to brush the water off of my face before it could drip into my eyes. Wilbur was a few paces in front of me, pacing back and forth and somehow managing to prevent walking into anything despite keeping his eyes on me. Wilson was next to me, wavering uncertainly with some sort of weapon in one hand- I couldn't be bothered to care that much.

I relaxed substantially once I recognized everyone and spat some of the water out that had accumulated in my mouth. "What's with the impromptu bath?" I snapped, rubbing my eyes. "Do I have to remind you that it's winter?"

Winona looked back at me, once again brushing a hand across my forehead. "Tyler?" She sounded hesitantly optimistic, and I was suddenly very aware that I was missing some crucial details.

"What?"

Wilbur stopped his pacing, releasing a long breath as he gripped his chest. "Oh thank me it's you."

"Yeah it's me. What's with the... faces...?" I looked around between my companions, worry creeping in my chest. "Did something happen?"

"You don't remember anything about yesterday?" Winona asked uncertainly.

"Yesterday...?" I looked down at my hands, noticing scratches of all sizes and severity creeping up my arms and onto my chest. Strangest of all, though, was the wrappings around my claws. Pale brown and spongy in texture, I couldn't help but wonder if it was made from some sort of grass or bark. It didn't feel like they were concealing any injuries, so their presence confused me. "Um... this isn't about the food thing, is it?"

"Webber took control of you," Wilson said glumly.

"What!?"

"Well, way to rip off the bandage," Wilbur muttered.

"Do you remember leaving camp with me?" Wilson asked, eyes flickering across my features as if looking for something. When I nodded, he continued: "And finding the... the machine?"

That part came back to me as he said it. The wooden machine that the sensation in my chest lead me to. I definitely remember immediately panicking, but it was the details after that that became blurry. "He took over?" I demanded. I snapped my gaze towards each of the others in turn. "How much? How long?"

"You were gone," Wilson whispered. "Entirely. It was all him."

I found my fur bristling, but whether it was from anger or the chilly water still in my fur and freezing at the tips was to be determined. "And you let him?"

"Oh no, he clobbered you," Wilbur supplied helpfully as Wilson violently shook his head.

"He was distracted. I knocked him out."

"I told you that if he ever took over like that to kill. Him." The words rumbled in a growl, deep in my throat.

Wilson swallowed audibly and looked away, rubbing one arm.

"We... would've," Winona said quietly. "But we wanted to give you some time. To come back to your senses."

"Which you did," Wilbur added.

With little else to do, I sighed deeply and leaned against the tree we had taken shelter in. I looked up into the branches and tried to come up with something to say. Webber had taken over so absolutely that I had to be neutralized. I would have to draw more of the story out, but none of them seemed too willing to talk about it. I would have to wait to get any decent details. "Okay. That answers some of the questions. That doesn't answer the ice bath and what you did to my claws." I showed my hands as example, still wrapped tightly with bark or grass or whatever it was.

"Well, cold water in the middle of winter probably wasn't a good idea," Wilson admitted. As he spoke, Wilbur seemed to take the unspoken command and added more wood to the chiminea. He beckoned me forward with his tail, an invitation I only accepted because I was beginning to shiver and ice was forming on my whiskers. "But... I was hoping that a cold shock would help to kind of... factory reset your brain, in a way. Whether it worked or you just needed to rest off the panic attack, who knows. I figured the threat of being possessed by an angry spider was bigger than the threat of freezing next to a fully stocked chiminea."

"And the claws?"

"That was my idea," Winona said after a moment of silence. It was now her turn to fiddle uncomfortably. She reached towards me and gripped my cold hands, flipped them palm-up to show some of the scratches decorating them. "You hurt yourself. Quite a bit. At first, I wanted to blunt them, but none of us knew if we could do that without hurting you more, so we just... wrapped them. At least you wouldn't be able to hurt yourself by accident in your sleep or anything."

I stared down at the wrappings. I was extremely unsure how I felt about them. I didn't like the way they felt on my hands, but at the same time, I couldn't deny that it was a brilliant idea. Like painting someone's nails to prevent them from biting them. I folded my hands into fists (to the best of my ability) and pressed them to my chest.

"What was so important that you had to go out, anyway?" Wilbur asked as he sat beside me. His tail lazily flicked against my leg as he settled himself. "You could've gotten seriously hurt, especially going out by yourself like that."

"I had to," I said simply. "You don't understand. I know you guys care about me, but I... I needed to go. It felt like I was trapped."

"And...? What did you find?"

I ignored him for a moment, gazing into the shielded fire of the chiminea and watching as the flames licked around the hardened clay and struggled to reach towards the sky. "Well, I guess I'll just have to show you guys."

There was much protest from both Winona and Wilbur, but they had seen now what I did when told no. Wilson said nothing against it, though. Likely, he understood the significance of the machine ("Teleportato" came to mind...?) as much as I did. After all, I had been very clear with him about listening to me here.

"Don't you think it's a very bad idea to go directly back to the place that freaked you out so bad you were literally possessed and incapacitated?" Wilbur said. He looked deeply concerned, but slightly irritated as well as if I had inconvenienced him in some way. "You're not acting smart here."

"You'll understand when you see it," I responded cryptically, because I honestly had no other idea how to explain it otherwise.

Despite going along with me, I noticed that the other two kept Wilson as far away from me as possible. I should have been annoyed, but I actually appreciated the sentiment. I knew that Wilson wasn't going to hurt me, but I had no doubt that Wilson's presence had been part of the triggering experience. As such, I took the front of the group and Wilson willingly took the back, both of us with fresh torches burning bright enough to encompass the whole group. Wilbur grumbled the entire time, but Winona was being surprisingly supportive despite her reservations. She was the one who helped me over the log this time, keeping a steady grip on my hand even after we left the obstacle behind.

Wilbur sniffed the air and shuddered with an exaggerated gag. "It reeks of Nightmare Fuel."

Sure enough, the scent had become almost overpowering. Sharp and metallic and bitter, all at once, like vomiting up blood. It hurt to breathe, a sensation building up in my sinuses similar to the sensation of having inhaled water, or having been hit in the nose. I hadn't smelled it before, which I pondered for only a moment before stepping into a puddle of the gelatinous liquid.

I reeled back with a childish squeak, kicking my foot in an attempt to get the fuel off of it. Wilbur let out a similar sound of distaste.

"This wasn't here before," Wilson muttered.

The once pristine checkerboard flooring was now coated in thick puddles of Nightmare Fuel, congealing into clumps towards the center of each one. It was almost impossible to walk forward without stepping in any. Wilbur didn't hesitate to crawl onto Winona's shoulder and stick his tongue out.

Wilson and I shared a look of concern, but pushed forward nonetheless.

The source of the Nightmare Fuel became clear as the wooden machine came into view. The metal in the center shifted and rose again in our presence, leaking the foul fluid from every crack and crevice. I flinched at the sight, inching backwards until Winona gripped my shoulder and squeezed it gently. I closed my eyes tightly and took a deep breath.

"That's it," Wilbur said. His voice pitched with wonder as he moved from Winona's shoulder to mine. "That's it! That's what we needed!"
"This... mess of parts?" Winona asked dubiously. She raised one foot, wrenching it away from a particularly viscous puddle with an unappetizing sclorp. "Needed for... what exactly?"

I took a deep breath and walked right up to the machine. I placed one hand on it, expecting another painful flashback or some kind of panic attack to come over me, but I was only met with overwhelming sadness. This stupid device marked one of the most traumatic events of my life, and now it was one of the most important things in it. It seemed to welcome my presence, lighting up once more and bathing the four of us in a gorgeous golden light. The buzzing in my chest hit me tenfold, and I didn't have to look down to know it was glowing in tandem. When my gaze landed on the blood red runes in the center, the color shifted and the entire mechanism hummed as if pleased.

"That's what Maxwell means by 'survive and thrive'," I said calmly. Something about the Teleportato felt warm and familiar to me now. The panic had been stripped away, replaced with that overwhelming kinship I had experienced at Wilson's earlier questions about integrity. "Thrive. Improve. Become better." I turned to face my companions, grinning. I didn't have to be able to see myself to know that something looked odd about me.

Later, when I would ask, the others would not be able to pinpoint my appearance either. The best answer I ever got was 'regal'. And, somehow, regal is how I felt. Like coming home to a throne made for me. I had no crown, but no King really needed something so garish to show he was a King. I had no robe, no cape, no palace. But I needed none of those things. True power came from aura. And my aura was shining impossibly bright, warm and golden, through the machine and through my heart. Bathing my eyes and scars and even my teeth in its glory.

"Are you guys ready?"

"Ready? Wait, are we going? Did we win this world?" Winona was clearly confused, and I knew for certain the others were too. "What did we do?"

Wilson nodded once, his face set in a determined frown. "Do it."

I nodded in acknowledgment and turned back to the Teleportato. I placed one hand on the wood again and this time, it warmed up in response to my touch. I found myself smiling as though welcoming an old friend as the machinery buzzed and sparked into life.

Shadowed hands sprouted from the small hole in the center, twisting and writhing around each other as they shot towards the heavens before barreling back towards the ground. Now familiar with them, I closed my eyes and didn't fight as they grabbed me, pinning my arms to my sides in the process. I heard Winona let out a small yelp of surprise as she was grabbed as well, and even though Wilbur and Wilson didn't make any verbal signs of being taken, I knew very well that they were.

I opened my eyes just for a second, before I was pulled into the ground entirely, to see the figure of a woman watching me. Tall, graceful and beautiful, flickering with fire and wavering under my eye.

And then, we were gone once more.

If you are interested, check out my Deviantart at RhymesWithChronic for drawings that I do related to this story! There's a handful over there already, as well as one that is a sneak peak for the future ;3