4:5
“Prairie!” Ivan tried to snag Prairie’s arm but she lyrically danced under his hand and stepped through the dark opening and into the next room. Ivan rolled his eyes to the ceiling then sheathed his sword in his back holster and followed her.
“Oh.” Prairie said, a note of wonder in her voice
“Uh.” Ivan’s tone was more ‘the fuck’.
Kim surged past Dan and into the room. Ben slid in behind her. Followed closely by Gwen and Siobhan who also let out exclamations of delight and surprise. Dan, still holding the panel, looked to Patti.
“The good thing is they aren’t screaming?”
“I guess?”
“You coming?”
Patti shrugged. What else was she going to do? Dan followed her into the room, letting the panel go so it swept close behind them. There was a click as it met the wall. Well, guess they weren’t going back that way.
The room beyond was dark as a moonless night, the velvet darkness broken by countless glowing strands of something that writhed like thin worms in a mass in the center of the space. Hoping to see what lay in the darkness that was made all the darker by the brightness of the threads, Dan reached for his kinetic flashlight. It worked by squeezing a lever on the side down to the base and then up again. A few solid squeezes would get the gears inside spinning, powering up the light. There was a chance someone’s Magick would seize on the small source of power for a nice drink but usually it was too inconsequential for more than a sip. The grip and release hurt his hand after a little while but the minor pain was worth having illumination in spots like this.
Starting to squeeze he stepped forward and ran into Patti who had run into Siobhan. Siobhan threw her arms out to maintain her balance and her arm brushed 0ne of the glowing strands. It immediately wrapped around her arm, constricting and causing her to cry out as it bit into her skin, drawing blood.
Dan dropped his flashlight, yanked out a small utiliknife, and tried to hack at the strand around Siobhan’s arm. There was a rustling sound and then too many threads to count came darting at Dan like striking snakes, seizing his frame in their glowing lengths. They yanked him off his feet, pulling him high. His cry was choked off as several strands wrapped around his throat.
Turning at the noise and seeing Dan being hauled towards the ceiling faster than thought, Ivan grabbed his sword and started to hack at the threads. Whatever they were made of didn’t part. Instead they wrapped around the sword, ripping it from Ivan’s hand and snapping it up to the ceiling even as more threads came spiraling out of the darkness and wrapped around him too.
He screamed as the skin of his hands and wrists where they protruded from his leather jacket parted and blood welled. His jeans held up to the attack though the threads made horrible scraping noises as they slid over the cloth. It was like being wrapped in the finest guitar strings, the steel ones that could cut you like a cheese slicer if you slid your finger down them wrong.
There was a whistling sound as Ivan and Dan were sent flying to the ceiling where they were quickly cocooned in threads with their faces pointing downward so they could stare in horror at their friends still on the ground staring back at them with similar expressions.
Ben looked to Kim and made an O of his mouth from which he puffed a hard breath. Kim cocked her head at him, her eyes wide.
“I leap, you hit me with a gust.”
“I’m not that precise!”
“Do it!” Not giving her a moment to consider Ben ran towards the writhing mass of filaments that filled the room like glowing cotton candy and then leaped up. It was either let him go headfirst into the threads which seemed to notice his presence and reach out for him in a mass of deadly beauty or try to launch him upwards towards where Ivan and Dan were trapped.
Drawing a deep breath through her nose, Kim stooped low, tilted her head upwards and puffed. Air responded to her summons, coming up in a hard wind beneath Ben’s feet. He tightened his legs together and held his hands above his head like he was diving into the deep end, making himself into a spear, and let the wind throw him towards the ceiling. He angled himself to hit Ivan’s cocoon, which he did so with grasping hands. Like a monkey falling from a tree, he clamped his legs around Ivan and threw all his weight towards the ground.
C’mon! Give!
The filaments did not give. And the threads which had been too slow to catch him as he soared past on the gust of wind Kim called suddenly snapped to attention, arrowing at him faster than he had flown. Some of the threads cocooning Ivan loosed, binding Ben’s arms and legs. His leather pants and jacket protected a good portion of his skin but the threads broke through the skin on his hands and wrists, collarbone, and throat. The only place they didn’t seem to target was his face. Blood welled and then came the sucking sensation that had Ben screaming.
Around and over and from the side the threads spun, weaving them into an Ivan and Ben burrito. Because of the position he’d been in when grappling Ivan, Ben now stared into his best friend’s face, less than three inches separating their noses. The glow of the threads illuminated Ivan’s face, hollowing out his features and forming a dark shadow under his lower lip.
“Erp!” Ivan’s mouth moved as he tried to force words through the constriction of the threads binding his throat tight enough to choke words but not breath. Blood sluggishly seeped from the skin of his neck before being sucked up by the threads. Fighting the pain and panic, Ben curled his lip up, the closest thing he could come to a shrug with how he was snugged closer to Ivan than chocolate sauce on an ice cream sundae.
On the ground Siobhan was falling back as hard as she could, trying to reach the wall where they’d entered as filament after filament flew from the mass and tried to snag her. Prairie came flying from the side, daggers raised and brought them down on the threads which released from Siobhan and wrapped around Prairie’s hands and arms instead.
“No!” Siobhan lunged, grabbing Prairie’s shoulders and digging her feet in. It didn’t help. Just gave the threads more targets to grasp as they wrapped around her waist and hands and yanked her away from Prairie who was being rapidly cocooned by threads and dragged towards the ceiling. Prairie let out one long warbling scream and then the threads silenced her.
She slammed into the ceiling a short distance from Dan. By the thrashing of her cocoon Kim, who was standing transfixed with her shoulders plastered to the wall they’d entered through, guessed Prairie was still struggling and trying to cut her way out with the special dagger’s Ivan had given her. The attempt seemed to whip the threads into a frenzy. More and more flew from the darkness, wrapping around and around and around Prairie’s small frame until she looked like a glowing ball of thread with a tiny little face barely protruding from the side.
Siobhan was ripped off her feet, kicking and screaming as threads slashed through her patchwork vest and burrowed under the front of her shirt, slicing off buttons to reveal her bra and the skin underneath. The tendrils wove, like roots seeking nutrients in the ground, around her ribs and in their wake her skin parted.
Blood stains, ugh. She thought. The inconsequential things you think as you face death! Because she was pretty sure they were all going to die in here. Didn’t stop her from fighting as she was wrapped tight in threads and yanked towards the ceiling. Finally realizing the fight was a losing one she crossed her arms over her chest so her hands were trapped just below her collarbone with her fingers brushing against the strap of her bag. She slammed back first into the surface, bound tight as the threads constricted in degrees until she could barely wiggle her fingers.
Patti stood stock still, her gaze darting as she registered the loss of Dan behind her and Siobhan in front. It had taken seconds – SECONDS to drop their numbers from eight to three. Patti’s gaze darted to Kim who was holding a huge tumbleweed of fire in front of her, clasped between both hands, while she jammed Gwen back against the wall.
“Patti!” she pitched her voice to carry but didn’t scream. Patti figured out why almost immediately as the threads swayed towards Kim and Gwen only to curl away from the wildfire Kim held before her. The threads, or whatever they were, must target sound. Made sense. Creatures that lived in the depths of the ocean did something similar. Come to think of it, Patti thought in that way your mind did when it was literally overwhelmed, creatures like that also developed bioluminescence, similar to the threads.
“Patti,” Kim repeated. “I need you to move slowly and very quietly over here.”
Patti shifted her weight, lifting a foot and placing it down carefully a short step away. The threads writhed, reaching for her.
“Doesn’t seem like that will work.” She said real low, barely moving her mouth. Her thoughts raced around in her head like marbles fallen from a jar. Ping ping ping. Ping ping… Wait. Ping.
Could she? She’d never tried before but if anything called for a ‘what the fuck why not?’ this was it.
Patti sang a tight note. Even as it released from her lips she quickly and very carefully wrapped it in Magick, facing the power inward to reflect the sound back on itself until it formed a static field of sound. Okay. Okay. That worked. Eyes crossing she stared down at the coherent ball of sound.
Not knowing just how long the Magick could contain it she clenched her lips and drew as much air as she could possibly hold in her lungs through her nostrils. Then tightening her diaphragm she very slowly and forcefully propelled the contained sound forward on a subsonic wave.
It wobbled through the air, a little bird with wet wings, gliding into the mass of threads before the containment failed and a clear, pure note was released. All the threads that had been reaching for her snapped towards the sound. Patti threw herself hard to the side to where Kim and Gwen held a small spot of darkness behind the burn of Kim’s fire.
“Ohshitohshitohshitohshit!” Patti rolled behind Kim, drawing her knees up to her chest and tightening her arms around them to make herself as small a target as possible. Every part of her shook. Every. Single. Part. Ragged breath whipped from parted lips and she fought hard to keep from passing out.
“Patti,” Gwen tried to catch her attention but Patti couldn’t really hear her over the sough of her breath. The next “Patti!” sounded like it was coming through water. Oh, yeah, here came the blackness.
Gwen reared back her hand and slapped Patti, pulling the majority of the blow just before making contact so Patti’s head only rocked slightly on her neck. Where Gwen’s voice hadn’t snapped Patti out of it the slap sure did.
She drew in a hard breath and then held it, feeling it shaking in her chest as she met Gwen’s gaze.
“Are you going to be able to breathe normal?” Gwen asked, bobbing her head in emphasis.
“What’s normal?” Patti croaked out.
“Seriously,” Kim quipped over the crackle of fire, “I’m the one that didn’t make the bad decision this time?”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Gwen muttered, keeping her gaze sturdy on Patti. “Patti? I want to put my hand on you. Is that okay?”
“Your hand?”
“I’m pretty good with minds and hearts. I think maybe I can smooth out the rough edges so you can think, okay?”
Patti considered her with eyes wide as a first-time swimmer contemplating the reaching hands of their parent coaxing them to jump. Finally she gave a tentative nod.
Gwen reached forward slowly and smoothed Patti’s hair back from her hairline. The movement soothed. More than it should? Patti almost started nuzzling Gwen’s hand as it made another pass and another.
“There you go,” Gwen said in a gentle tone that matched her smile. “Better now?”
Patti felt her arms loosening from their boa constrictor grip on her knees. She realized just how hard she’d been holding on when the blood rushed back into her feet with needles and pins and screams like the damned.
“Owwwww.”
“Let me.” Gwen stooped and laid her hand on Patti’s ankle and the sensation just flowed away.
“Thought you said you did heart and mind?”
Gwen shrugged. “And a little body. On the side.”
“You are awesome.” The compliment just came out of Patti. What she kind of wanted to say was ‘wrap me up, take me home, sing me a lullabye as I fall asleep’. Blushing she pushed the thought down.
“Kim gave Prairie an orgasm with her Magick touch.”
“Gwen! Dude! That’s like…” Kim snapped without much conviction.
“True.”
Patti giggled. Damn. She didn’t giggle. She wasn’t the giggling type. She was the full-bodied laugh you felt in your toes kind.
Standing back up Gwen dusted her hands together and peered around Kim’s shoulder, squinting through the fire haze at the threads. “Got any ideas?”
“Burn it? It looks fine as silk so it should go up sweet. But I’m guessing everyone trapped in it would too so I’m going with that is a bad choice.”
“Yup.” Patti nodded at this insight. “Anyone hear that?”
Gwen tilted her head, frowned. “No. What?”
“I’m not sure. Something. Maybe nothing.” She cocked her head, listening. Whatever it was didn’t repeat. Taking a deep breath and steadying herself she rose really slowly trying her best to make little noise as she settled beside Gwen with arms crossed to hide the shake in her hands. “Let’s keep spitballing. So, cutting is bad.”
Gwen nodded. “It seems like it. Everyone who tried to cut the threads which was Dan, Ivan, and Prairie got trapped really fast.”
“Ben got caught because he jumped up to Ivan.” There was regret in Kim’s voice for her part in that.
“Had to be tried.” Gwen replied. “Spaghetti, right?”
Kim frowned and looked down then reluctantly agreed. “Spaghetti.” Then in a rush she added, “But if we lose them spaghetti can bite my squishy ass.”
Patti snorted. Danger heightened senses making everything scary scarier, funny funnier, a riot of emotions clamoring in her head. She tucked her hands into her armpit’s, squeezing hard at her ribcage to contain the rapid beat of her heart. “Okay. Cutting bad. Burning would be worse.”
Both Gwen and Kim nodded. “Far worse.”
They all contemplated the threads for several moments, the crackle of the flames in Kim’s hands underplaying their thoughts.
“How long can you keep that burning?”
“Don’t know. So we might want to chopchop.”
Again the silence, then Kim suggested. “It’s thread. Could be make a spool and spool it?”
Gwen rolled her eyes. “Well, that wouldn’t take us until we’re dad from old age.”
“Trying here!” Snapped Kim without any real heat.
Real heat. Ha!
A wheeze came from above them, drawing their eyes from the threads. Dan’s eyes widened and he drew in a hard breath. It was hard to tell in the weird phosphorescent glow of the threads but it looks like his lips might be turning blue.
“Think faster.” Gwen muttered.
“I don’t…” Patti stopped, her ears catching the very faint sounds of scraping. The threads movement was sibilant, a slide and very subtle catch. This was not that. “Do you hear that?”
Enter The Woods 