As I walk through the gate, I can see several spiders camped out behind the large doors.

It seems they are prepared for an ambush. Which only makes sense considering the situations we’ve already been through lately.

Reorienting my eyes back to Gong, I can see the worry in her eyes, behind the smile she’s giving me. Reaching her, I see her arm come out toward me, which causes me to flinch a little. She pauses until I look back up at her.

I see a soft smile come from her. Comforting and understanding. From just this, I feel a connection to her, even deeper than the one we share through the spiders.

It’s strange.

Through the connection we share with the spiders, we have been able to get a better feeling for each other’s emotions as we work with each other.

From the connection, I can feel that she knows. She knows the struggle that I went through and understands. She’s gone through it herself.

Knowing this, my body relaxes subconsciously.

She continues to move closer, ultimately wrapping her arms around me slowly. The feeling I can sense she’s trying to give me is one of safety, companionship, and friendship. Despite the overly large breasts that press tightly against me, nothing sexual comes to mind. Just an overwhelming sense of peace.

I can’t help but to look around quickly, to see if anyone can see me in this state. However, since she’s already guided anyone who would to the village area, we are essentially alone together.

I relax further into her embrace, reciprocating the hug. She’s lowered her body to my height, folding her legs and leaning forward. I lean my head onto her shoulder and hers onto mine.

She’s so warm…

Her head nestles in a little closer into my neck, her breath warm. She pulls me in closer to her body, the length of it practically enveloping me with her size.

She whispers softly into my ear. “It’s okay, you can relax a little. I’m here. We’re here for each other. You did the right thing.”

I can feel, more than hear, the comforting words being whispered into my ear. The experience of being pressed into her chest. Feeling the thoughts I had suppressed, come back to the surface.

My eyes get a little wet, as I just find myself talking with her. Speaking about how I felt when fighting the murderer. How I felt about not doing anything the first time with the kid and her parents.

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I talk in depth about the anger, the disgust, and the fear I felt when fighting the murderer. The distress as I did everything I could to save the kid and her parents.

By the time I finish, I have practically explained the whole situation. And find that we have walked together, laying against each other as we walk, all the way back to the cave entrance.

Behind us, spiders cover our tracks, a soft layer of web being ripped up and replaced.

Before we head in, Gong stops. Separating us slightly. She places both hands upon my shoulders, looking me in the eye.

“James. I’ve been where you’ve been.”

She bites her lip, looking away into the distance. Her eyes look pained and I can almost see her eyes start to water.

Snapping back to mine, she continues. “In this life, we have to make a lot of choices. Horrible choices.”

Her teeth clench slightly before relaxing.

She shakes her head, like she’s removing thoughts.

“I told you before about my friend. The one who built all of this.”

She grabs my hand and begins leading me down into the tunnels. Towards another section that I haven’t had the chance to explore, yet.

“I told you that she was taken by those iridescent worms and I never saw her again…”

She stops for a moment and looks back at me. Tears are pouring down her face.

“I’m sorry, but that wasn’t completely true.

“I actually found her… later. Months later. After searching the tunnels, far away from where I would normally go, I was able to finally find her.”

As she says that, we come to a dead end. A cave with no other entrances, but highly lit up with stones.

In the center is a dirt area.

It is clearly a grave.

I turn back to Gong, to listen to what she has to say. She was also staring at the grave. She continues to speak, while staring at the dirt grave. Unblinkingly.

“She was being used by those creatures as a way to birth more of them. She was the only one caught, for such a small group of them. They had completely changed her into someone else.

“Just a creature, looking to help them breed. Practically no mind, just a husk of a being.”

Falling silent, her eyes close in pain.

She suddenly yells with a strained voice, “Fucking hell, I couldn’t do anything! I couldn’t save my only friend. The one person who helped me… reduced to drooling, babbling… mess.”

She begins coughing, agitating her throat. I rush to her side, putting a hand on her back.

Looking at me, with eyes full of gratefulness, they glaze a bit, as she looks back at the grave and at the walls.

“I killed them all… but I couldn’t kill her. She couldn’t even speak coherently, let alone barely move. But even as I tried to cut her down, she immediately attempted to strangle me for killing her ‘babies.’ I had to lock her up, just to keep her from running to find another and breed more of them.

“Every. Single. Day. I went to go see her. To try to bring her back. But it didn’t work. And in the end… I had to kill her, because she escaped and had found another worm… raising it like a child.”

Disgust is clear on her face, as she thinks back on the memory.

“I still remember the love in her eyes, as she babbled nonsense to her absurdly engorged belly. That was the moment I knew that there was nothing else I could do. The woman I had knew had died and been perverted by those monsters.”

She sighs, rubbing the back of her head.

“Sometimes, James… there are no good decisions. There are reasons to wait. There are reasons to jump in and do something. Ultimately, you can only go off of what you believe to be the right thing to do.

“And if I had a chance to do it all again? I’d probably try again to save her. And then kill her. Because, sometimes the only way to resolve a situation, is for people to die. Neither good, nor bad.

“But you? You have something special here. If… if you would have been there, maybe we could have saved her. However, you need to take care of yourself first. You can’t help others, if…”

She points at my head.

“…you aren’t all there. So, take better care of yourself, before helping others. My friend… she might have been here if she took better care of herself. If she didn’t run herself so ragged, that even some fat worms could drag her away.

“Even if it may hurt, make sure you are safe before jumping out there to do something. Okay?”

I give a nod, staying silent. Thinking on her words.

We chat a bit more, slowly moving the conversation away from those things, but her thoughts and words stay with me.