Short Stories From Fading Worlds

The Angel and the Spider: Chapter 2

Six months had passed since he'd met Elias, and as much as he wished it were otherwise very little had changed within the walls of the facility. Elias was permitted to visit him weekly, a present for both of them displaying 'good conduct and loyalty', which felt more like an insult than a compliment to Wander but what did he know?

He knew it wouldn't last forever, for there were always too many unknown variables at play where creatures like the two of them were involved, too many unpredictable abilities and phenomena.

And when it came to a cryptid as esoteric as Elias, a cryptid that had not only warranted the attention of the Administrator himself but also required an entire new ward to house him, such phenomena were all too common.

He'd been privy to more than one moment of quiet confiding from the young angel, always by the stream in his own enclosure so that the listening devices would have a harder time picking up what was being said, wherein his friend had told him that they really didn't understand the things they could do, nor the events that seemed to surround them. Things just happened, and he couldn't really do anything to stop it.

Wander had winced internally when he'd heard that. He knew what would be running through the heads of the bigwigs at the moment, because he'd had something similar when he'd arrived; when first the scientists worked out that he couldn't control the cyclical nature of his venoms and toxins, they'd spent a year using all sorts of training methods and machines and medicines to try and 'fix' that. Eventually they'd given up when they realised that there was a risk of damaging his venom-come-toxin glands permanently if they continued, and Project Hecate had been shut down.

The extraction process for his chemicals wasn't pleasant, but at least it wasn't like it used to be.

So with those experiences he knew what the scientists were likely trying to do to Elias at the moment. There was nothing he could do to stop it, but he could at least be a consoling figure for his friend for twenty-four hours a week. That was something, wasn't it?

That night he had a dream. A nightmare. He couldn't remember the details, just... just a blinding golden-white light, burning away the shadows he lived in. The light was warm, but overpowering. Scorching. It had hurt his eyes to look at, and filled him with a sense of existential dread for reasons he couldn't fathom, let alone put into words. It was something primal, deep inside the recesses of his mind and soul, telling him that the light wasn't bad, but that it was dangerous. It was lashing out, burning away too brightly and too quickly. It was frantic, and woe betide those who-

He came awake at the sound of his enclosure door opening, a man in a white coat and two heavily armed guards entering with weapons at the ready.

"E-005, there's an emergency, we need to move."

Wander jolted out from the last dregs of his sleep at the frantic words of the researcher, the two guards at the door hurriedly scanning his room as if looking for threats. Almost at once he knew that the doctor was right; there was an emergency, for they could feel something was wrong. Alarms were sounding in the back of his head, the same sense of dread he'd felt in his dream settling throughout his body.

Something had gone very wrong somewhere.

"Okay. Where do we need to go?"

"F-Ward," the scientist replied without even a moment's hesitation, "F-001 has responded badly to ongoing Project Michael procedures, and its powers are threatening to overpower the security countermeasures put in place by Operation Eden. That's where you come in."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. We tried sedating him with pills made from a distilled and diluted version of your toxins, but that was insufficient. Doctor Daniels, the project lead of this phase of Project Michael, has requested access to an undiluted form of the toxins. We haven't the time to extract your toxins and refine them, so the Administrator has given us access to you. Your venom cycle was observed ending two days ago, and so you are now in a paralysing agent cycle, correct?"