As I clawed my way forward through the mess of cobwebs, I was reminded of what I had learned the first time I had entered the cave: the path deeper into the cave sloped downward. Each step I took carried me downhill. And the deeper I went, the steeper the path got. On one hand, that was a small help: traveling down an incline meant that the force of gravity was at least partially assisting me against the friction and stickiness of the cobwebs, and there were actually several moments when I allowed myself to 'fall,' my own weight doing more to pull me along than the effort of my own claws. On the other hand, it meant that the return trip — if I lived long enough to make one — would require considerably more effort.

I could only hope that, deeper within this cave, I would find some food source. That was all I had: hope. Whether it was optimism or the simple fear of starvation, I found myself moving with considerably greater haste, and considerably less caution, moving through the cobwebs as fast as I could, even when that meant 'sliding' down the descending gradient more than 'crawling.' I couldn't even see what was in front of me: I was so deep into the cave that I was well past the point where any ambient moonlight might have illuminated the path forward. I didn't even notice the hole beneath me until I felt myself tumbling straight downward, suddenly realizing that there was nothing supporting my weight other than the sticky cobwebs.

I fell helplessly through the vertical tunnel until I landed in a section of the cobwebs that was too thick for the weight of my falling body to tear through it. At first, I felt relief at not having plummeted to my death, but that relief was quickly replaced with a different kind of fear. The cobwebs had been thick enough to stop my fall, but they were also thick enough to defeat every effort I made to pull myself free. Any direction I tried to turn and twist, I found my body completely ensnared. My body might have been larger than that of an ant, but for all the good my thrashing seemed to do against this massive wad of web, I might as well have been a mere insect.

As if being completely trapped weren't enough, it seemed I was about to die of hunger. My satiety was at 2%. Even if I did somehow manage to break myself free, that didn't answer the problem of food. Fat chance of encountering food in a place like this. It seemed I was destined to starve here, serving as nothing more than a meal for whatever spider had spun this web.

Wait. 'Fat chance of finding food in a place like this.' I let out a croak that could have been a weak laugh. Actually, there was a decent chance of finding food in a place like this. Better than decent, even. This spider web literally existed for the purpose of capturing food. And it had succeeded at doing exactly that: a helpless baby dragon was now completely ensnared, awaiting death. Well, maybe I wasn't the only creature that had succumbed to the same fate. Maybe there was hope for me yet. True, it seemed improbable that a creature would make it as far into the cave as I had: I'd fought through thick webs to get here, and it was only my desperation that had driven me. But there were thick webs here. Most creatures didn't survive by spending their energy and time building things that served no purpose — clearly, if the spider had spun a web this deep in the tunnel, it expected to capture some prey. Maybe its prey could be my prey. I was, after all, a [scavenger]. Several days ago, I had been drawn to the spider's cave by the smell of rotting meat. Maybe I could find some here.

In the darkness of the cave, my eyes were doing precious little, but I closed them nonetheless in an effort to concentrate. The cobwebs had a sweet, sickly odor that did a decent job at masking any competing smells, but I could detect the faintest hint of something else — even humans, which didn't particular excel at smelling, could detect odors with a concentration of less than one part per million, and if there was anything that a [scavenger]'s of smell was adapted for, it was picking up the scent of rotting flesh. Unless my nose was lying to me, there was some meat somewhere in these catacombs — not a fresh kill, but something that had been left to marinate in the stuffy, musty air of the cave, something that by now was probably dried out. That seemed like a good sign — meat left out for a long time suggested a lack of other predators or scavengers to come and eat it up. The last thing I wanted was for my next meal to be interrupted by whatever (presumably giant) spider had spun this web.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I followed my nose and attempted to thrash my way toward the source of the smell. My forelegs swiped at the web like a knife attempting to cut through molasses. It was only with great effort that I was able to move at all, and when I did, it wasn't clear to me that I was even making progress toward my goal — was I pulling myself along the web, or just pulling more of the web closer to me? It seemed like the latter, given how with each swipe of my claw, I seemed to be bunching more and more of the sticky web closer to my body.

I remembered the time I had played a classic 1990's Nintendo game, where the first level was the inside of a giant tree, with walls covered in spiderwebs. In that game, the cobweb-covered walls had been convenient climbing surfaces, with the pointy-eared protagonist scaling the webby walls as easily as he might climb a ladder. I wish that I had been transported into that video game world, where every bit of the environment seemed perfectly tailored to help the hero in his journey forward. This spider web was no ladder. It was exactly what any real spider web was: a trap meant to ensnare creatures that fell into it, no matter how much they struggled. And right now, it seemed to be very good at its job.

Hunger was beginning to overtake me, with [satiety: 1%] and dwindling with each passing second — something made even more clear to me by the urgent flashing of my [satiety] meter. I closed my eyes. Perhaps it was time to make peace with this. I could die struggling, or I could accept reality as it was. I remembered a line from another classic 90's Nintendo game: I did my best, I have no regrets. If my fate was to starve to death here, then so be it. I had died once before of a heart attack in my sleep, and in a way, this wasn't so different. The body required certain things to stay alive: a heart, to pump blood through the body and to the brain. Lungs, to ensure that the blood was freshly oxygenated. And calories, as a source of energy to keep the whole system running. Life was a complex, fragile thing. Death was, in a certain sense, an inevitability, the default for any living creature that didn't have access to resources: it would come, sooner or later, and in my case, it was coming sooner.

I closed my eyes, and did my best to relax as I watched the last bit of my satiety meter hit zero.

Satiety: 0%. You are starving! Starvation penalty: -10% to all stats, including max HP and max SP. Starvation penalties will increase by additional 10% for each day of starvation status. Eat food to remove starvation penalties.

I snapped to alertness. I was starving. I had never been so happy to think those words. 0% satiety wasn't the end of life; it was the beginning of starvation. Of course. Of course I wasn't going to waste away to nothing just from going two days without food. Humans could survive for months in starvation conditions. Even smaller creatures, like lizards, could go weeks without food. Even if my body had to start digesting the proteins in my muscles as an energy source, the result would be that I was weakened, not killed instantly.

According to the system notification, I was incurring a status penalty — thankfully temporary, it seemed — of 10%. If I went another day without food, the stat penalty would be 20%. On day 10…presumably, all of my stats would be zero. "Including max HP and max SP." Well, if I hit an HP cap of 0, a lack of stamina would be the least of my worries. But nine more days was a long time away — more than an entire lifetime, from my perspective as a baby dragon. I could find food in that amount of time. I wasn't going to starve to death. I'm going to live. The thought overwhelmed me. Seconds ago, I had been ready for the end, but I was going to live! I felt my entire body grow warm as a mix of joy and relief overwhelmed me. I felt a shake in my body that began with my upper spine, and moments later, I found my entire body shaking. I felt a wet sensation at the corner of my eyes, and it took me a moment to realize that I was feeling the wetness of my own tears. For the first time in my life as an infant dragon, I was crying. Tears of joy streamed down the scales of my face. I opened my mouth, and a sound resembling a relieved sob escaped my jaws.

Several moments later, I regained my composure, but the thought still overwhelmed me. I'm not going to starve to death here. I'm going to live.

Then, in the dim light of the cave, silhouetted against the webs above, I saw the giant spider approaching me. Apparently, my celebration had been premature.