Things clicked together. I hadn’t been the only one rescued from the spider. I looked at the motionless forms. Perhaps retrieved would be a more accurate word. Two adult human sized cocoons, one cocoon shaped and sized like a beach ball, and one giant sized...corpse – webbing strewn around it. The body was missing its head.

I looked at the oddly shaped ball of web and hoped I wasn’t staring at a child. Just the thought inspired chest clenching sorrow.

Anything but that.

I tore my attention away and back to my rescuer. We met eyes. For a frozen moment we transcended language.

I had an ambivalent relationship with eye contact. I mean I get it, it’s nice, important even. I’ve read enough pop-psychology to know that it plays a large role in non-verbal communication. Eyes are windows to the soul and all that.

Nonetheless, sometimes eye contact hurts.

Not everyday, practical eye contact. The eye contact I gave the cashier to tell them I heard the price and will now pay felt like a simple flex of muscle. Even the knowing glances shared between co-workers when the annoying boss started monologuing felt little different. Eye contact for the sake of acknowledgement was easy and painless.

When eye contact stretched beyond that, into realms of intimacy, vulnerability, and curiosity – that’s when it started hurting.

It always felt…too much. Like I was staring at the sun. Except it wasn’t radiation being poured into my skull, it was emotions and thoughts and dreams. Experience.

But it wasn’t my experience. It was shaped, filtered, transformed, and translated through their own grey matter. And when it came rushing out of their eyes to meet my own sensitive greens, it smashed into constructs that could not, would not interpret. But still, it came, an unrelenting flood of experience.

The giant’s eyes were filled with grief and so much more.

I endured.

***

I slept that night.

When I woke up to early morning light, lying on rough hide, I found myself surprised that I slept at all. Admittedly, the previous day had been quite exhausting, but I’d also spent at least half of it unconscious already.

Who would have known that the sleep induced via monster venom and adrenal overload wasn’t as restful as genuine snoozing.

Not that I felt rested. A more exact description would use words like ‘sore’, ‘in pain’, ‘dead’, and maybe have an analogy using a steamroller.

As it was, I could barely sit up to receive the waterskin from my oversized camping buddy.

When the sun rose over distant mountains Dr. Colossal revealed himself with the new and improved moniker: Viking God Battle Warrior.

The man, for he clearly was, had long flowing locks of golden blonde hair framing a face and head that could substitute for a battering ram. Grey eyes forged from steel peered out from eyebrows you could jump off, land on a hawk like nose, and then cut yourself on his jawline.

Frankly put, the man was statuesque. Ten feet tall had been slightly hyperbolic, maybe eight feet and some change, but he stood with the strength and poise of a barbarian god who felled twenty-foot-tall monstrosities for breakfast. The gleaming broadsword strapped to his back and a body covered in animal hide completed the image.

I had fun imagining the dried meat he gave me as originating from a dragon slain in aerial combat. Unfortunately, the taste didn’t match the fantasy.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

We didn’t speak – not like there was much we could say – so I couldn’t ask whether he’d slept himself. But based on how I was still alive, I wagered he kept watch the entire night.

Either that or the forest knew not to fuck with him.

I was probably projecting, I had first-hand experience that he didn’t want to stick around to meet the thing that put me in the web. The thought of something being able to challenge the meat tank in front of me did not contribute to the early morning optimism, so I tuned it out.

Unfortunately, there were a few other things which I couldn’t so easily ignore.

Firstly – although aesthetically it should be second – this was my second day in a new world. The surreality was leaving and on the way in was the raw certainty that this was the way things were going to be. I was fighting back, but I could only be in acquiescent denial for so long.

Secondly, Viking GQ hadn’t dealt with the corpse. I mean, I should probably be more sympathetic – there were probably new world customs afoot – but still.

Thirdly, it was starting to smell.

The cocoons were still there as well. And while I tentatively trusted my rescuer in judging whether their contents were dead or not – they were unnerving to see out of the corner of my vision.

Oh, and my bite wound was definitely infected, as indicated by the dull throbbing heat that radiated from my right shoulder blade. Barring immediate antibiotics – or maybe another divine intervention – I was doomed. Although frankly, based on the timescale of death by septic shock versus death by monster, this wasn’t on the top of my priority list. As a last resort I could call up the god of goat hating and hope I didn’t get smote.

Comparatively speaking, the top of Sir Viking’s priority list was opaque to me. He was currently kneeling in front of the dying campfire like some kind of Dark Souls character, eyes focused grimly on the flickering embers.

I was loathe to interrupt what may well have been his stat allocation post level-up – a fact that reinforced itself by a still stuck loading bar on my lower left-hand vision – but I was also feeling dread when I looked at the beach ball sized cocoon.

What I was originally imagining as a parent’s worst nightmare was starting to look more like a sack full of spider eggs. I was probably hallucinating, but occasional flickers of something kept catching the corner of my vision, dragging my attention back to the ball of web.

Thankfully, the Ashen Viking didn’t take much longer. When the last ember sparked its final spark, he lifted his eyes to me and stood.

And pointed at himself, then me, then back towards the mountain.

Go back from whence you came, evil spawn? Come with me if you want to live? We are going back?

None of those sounded appealing to me. I would rather he pointed in literally any direction except the mountain and its known and unknown inhabitants. Maybe towards the beautiful lake I had seen from the cliff. Although, after upgrading my situational awareness from naïve idiot to floundering moron, I would wager it was probably filled with terrible monstrosities. Maybe Crazy Viking could point me in the direction of the local library, so I could figure out where I was and what the hell I was supposed to do about it. A hospital would be great too.

Well, time to dust off my skills at charades.

I pointed at myself then the ground. I would like to stay here please.

My crazed rescuer shrugged, pointed at himself and then the mountain. Then he pointed at me and the ground, gave me a skeptical expression, and drew a line across his neck.

Point taken. I was probably safer with him.

I gestured to the cocoons and corpse. What happens to them? Are we coming back?

I eyed the beach ball. I’d seen enough horror movies to know that if my suspicions were true – and we didn’t deal with it soon – we’d return to a hive straight out of an arachnophobes worst nightmare.

The naïve giant followed my gaze and one large eyebrow furrowed below the other. What trite are you talking about, boy?

I pantomimed the sack breaking and spiders crawling everywhere, including my mouth, which was gesticulated with plenty of silent screaming.

I received one giant sized chuckle in return.

Then the warrior drew his blade, and all thoughts of humor fled my mind. The broadsword was massive, almost as tall as me, and gleamed with a polish I wouldn’t have expected from the man clothed in hide.

Fortunately, the sword was not aimed at me.

The giant strode toward the ball of web with a predatory gait, and I tensed in anticipation. Assuredly this warrior could handle a few baby spiders.

A familiar whistle of high-speed metal split the air and I realized I didn’t see his sword move.

Instead, I saw my laptop fall to the ground, covered in tacky spiderweb.

Compatible tribute available for MEMORY_NEXUS augmentation. Perform sacrificial sequence to retry initialization.

Manual retries available: 1.