When Twins War: Book I

Chapter Eleven

Perhaps days had passed. Garth wasn't sure. He could not even fathom whether he was suffering a delusion. He remembered being dragged off by the desert spiders into a narrow cavity that he barely could squeeze through. Muffled noises of his companions had echoed through the cavern as they too went went down, down, down. A faint sound of water had begun to become noticeable, but it had seemed like a distant dream, as if someone else was hearing it. Deeper and deeper they descended. A foul stench surrounded him, but that too only seemed to be somewhere distant. The darkness grew more vile and malevolent. Everything became only a clouded echo.

Eventually he realised that he was bound to the roof of a tight hollow, deep within the caves. The darkness seemed to close all the more around him, but he was sure he was suspended on a ceiling, wrapped up tightly in web. There were times when he was aware of screaming men around him, yet even the frightening screams seemed numb to him. Day after day, hour after hour — he had no idea on how long — it continued. Every few hours there was a small gnawing on his legs. It never felt painful. Indeed everything felt numb. He knew they were keeping him paralysed and dazed while feasting on his companions. In his numb state all that came to his mind was the wonder of when he would be next.

The tap tap of the spiders echoed in his head; every day, every hour, as they feasted and scores of them moved about the caves.

But there was a day, or a few hours – Garth did not know how long — when they stopped abruptly. Or, it seemed abrupt, but it might have gradually gone quiet over a few hours. Garth simply didn't know. For only a moment – or a while – he was considering if they had gone and slowly became aware that he could move again. The poison must be wearing off, he thought. But he still found the webs were too tight.

As he continued to struggle with the web a growing awareness began to overcome him. Something else was in the hollow. He shuddered when he heard shuffling close by. There was certainly something else there.

The darkness of the cave grew only more dark, as if that were possible, as Garth slowly became more and more aware of the presence. He found himself starting to panic, and then hyperventilating, and then became aware of others in the room doing the same.

Suddenly a frantic shrieking echoed through the cave from one of Garth's fellows, ending abruptly. Silence. Another scream; even more terrifying than the first. Then silence.

Hours passed, perhaps days. But every few days the Something Else would come and go, come and go. Whenever it would come, it would sometimes seem to do nothing but just settle close by, while at other times it seemed to be fidgeting with something. Garth wondered if it was also feasting on them.

Then came the time when it spoke.

"When will your time come?" it whispered malignantly, rupturing the silence. The whisper echoed in Garth's head. Garth didn't know where the voice was coming from as it reverberated against all the walls of the hollow. But he knew it was speaking to him.

"What? What?" he asked.

"Are you afraid to die?" it whispered.

Garth kept quiet, taking deep breaths. He opened his mouth and heard a distant scream. He was sure it was from his own mouth.

"I am already dead!" he shouted, panicking with the web. "Is this death? Is this hell?"

He screamed and struggled. Still, the web-cocoon had him tightly in place.

"They can come back, you know," said the Thing.

"Who?"

"Those servants of mine."

"What? What are you??"

The Thing seemed as if it was laughing. It moved. Garth suddenly felt a warmness over his body. Something was breathing onto him, onto his face: a burning and feverish breath. A foul odour overcame him. It breathed in and breathed out. His head spun viciously as a madness ate away at the little sanity he had left.