Webs in the Void (Patreon)

Three Months.

Of course, that was a best guess.  Time could pass differently here, after all.  Days could be shorter, nights longer, there could be more or less hours in each day, or the years could be shorter or longer.  There were a hundred different ways this Earth could be different from my home, though I couldn't test any of them, because I was trapped here.

Trapped.

I'd never thought of a prison in these terms.  It was an entire world, a whole planet, that I was marooned on like some castaway at sea.  When I thought of prisons, I had always thought of gray buildings and dull metal, of faceless and impersonal guards armed with arbitrary authority...I thought of the Birdcage...I thought of Winslow High School.

This was a prison without walls, without guards, without end...

I shook myself from my melancholy musings, looking instead out over the cliff before me, past the green valley below, and towards the setting sun.  For moments like these, where my world shrank to me and a beautiful sunset, I could almost forget that there wasn't anyone else on this world, at least that I could find.

An empty world.

That fact alone had taken days to sink in.

The idea that I could walk and walk, forever, and not find a single piece of evidence of human habitation.  Nothing.  Even an old soda can or a bag of trash would have been a welcome distraction in my first few days.  There were upsides, though.

Like the stars.

As the sun finally set, I leaned back onto the hard ground and cradled my hands behind my head to watch the first few pinpricks of light emerge from the darkness above.  The last week had seen a rainstorm and cloudy skies, denying me one of my few luxuries, but the weather had finally cleared this morning, leaving a starkly, crystalline, beautiful view stretching from horizon to horizon.

I had been outside of Brockton Bay before, on a few occasions, but...

...there really was no comparison.

The sky before me was one which had never known a single light bulb, had never been touched by the harsh glare of a neon sign.  Breathtaking...did not even begin to cover it.

Time passed as I watched the stars, though I didn't really note it.

That had been another change in my new, isolated, existence.

I got up for my morning runs, everyday, like clockwork.  I went to school (until recently), everyday, at a certain time.  My life had been made of schedules, dates, times...

Now it wasn't.

Don't get me wrong, I still got up everyday and went for a run along the paths I had scouted.  I still ate, slept, and kept my life to a theoretical rhythm, but...otherwise time had lost all meaning.  Even marking the passage of days was more of a rote routine than any real effort of timekeeping.

I ate when I was hungry.

I drank when I was thirsty.

I slept when I was sleepy.

If that meant I stayed up for half the night and slept until noon, didn't eat until midnight, and woke up to sate my thirst just before the sun rose...well, why not?  There wasn't anyone around to take offense or opportunity of my odd hours.

For a normal human, daylight may have been an issue, true, but with my power...

My power...it had seemed like a joke, at first, a lifetime ago it seemed.  Now, stranded in the wilderness, it was a godsend.  For hundreds of feet around me, insects milled about over every imaginable surface...and I knew where each one was, perfectly, as if they were an extension of my own body.  It was strange to think that it was almost nine months since I'd triggered, but in that time my powers had grown, both in scope and depth, becoming only more effective with time.

If my solitude had granted me anything, it was time.

Time to hone the myriad aspects and skills I possessed, turning my swarm into an extension of my own body.  Two hundred feet to my left, a small river crashed over the cliff face I rested upon and I heard the water splash as if I was standing next to it.  I looked down on my human form from a thousand feet above the ground.  Back in my camp, a colony of bees turned away from their duties making honey to check my firepit, finding the mass of glimmering embers and crackling logs burning merrily away underneath a tent-like canopy of spider silk.

I suppose the greatest of ironies in my life was the utter lack of concern I'd formerly paid to fashion.

Now, by necessity, I'd been making my own clothing, my own sleeping hammock, my own shelters...  By now, millions of black widow spiders populated the region I'd occupied as my new home in this empty world.  I had no idea if the arachnids were native to this region of...wherever I was, but I'd found no other better web-spinners for miles, so from the few hundred bees, spiders, wasps, and other arthropods I'd brought through the portal with me, I'd bred into a truly impressive cooperative colony covering entire city blocks of this wilderness I'd found myself in.

Not to say that my new environs hadn't made a contribution or two.

Groups of shrimp in the local rivers willingly culled themselves to help balance my diet, while a few hundred thousand silkworms provided me with a softer bedding than the coarse spider silk I'd grown used to, the largest beetles I'd ever seen granted me a supply of usable chitin, and a termite mound slowly built into a structure I might one day call a 'house.'

Tiredly, my human body stood up and began making it's way through the near-total dark of the forest, my flawless stride guided by a perfect recognition of each insect-covered surface.  A swarm coalesced into a human-shaped form and walked with me as I trekked back to my camp.

It's buzzing voice intruded on my musings.

“Hungry?”  It, I, asked.

“A bit,” my human lips spoke.  “We-”

I paused, shaking my head.  “I,” I spoke more forcefully, affirming my individuality, my singular-ness, “I have some berries, some fish, and some of that wild cabbage left.”

“We should start a garden,” The bugs buzzed aloud, speaking my thoughts.

“I should start a garden,” I agreed.  “The ants have been clearing a few areas and I've put earthworms to the task of properly fertilizing them.”

“Good,” my swarm chorused.  “the whether is getting warmer, the days longer.  It should be planting season soon.”

I nodded.  “The house is looking good.  I might be able to have a bedroom next month.”

My swarm was silent for a long time.  “...we're building a permanent house.”

I frowned behind my mask, “We need to.  That storm a week after we got here was bad.  I need more permanent shelter than a spider silk curtain and tent.”

“What happens when our friends come for us?”  My swarm asked hesitantly.

I backhanded the mass of insects suddenly, spinning and putting the whole of my body weight into the blow.  My swarm stumbled back, deforming to 'splash' against the ground before slowly reforming into a cowering humanoid shape that focused firefly-eyes on my human body.

“They're not coming!”  I practically hissed.  “No one's coming.  Don't you get it?  Tattletale, Grue, Regent, Imp, Bitch: they're either dead or trapped like we are!  I'm a fucking supervillain!  Do you think anyone's going to want me back?  The fucking Protectorate probably threw a party!  Even if the Undersiders didn't get thrown into some other world like me, you think they'll come rescue me?!  How the fuck would they even know which world I'm on, huh?  Huh?!”

I stopped, freezing as if waking from a nightmare.

Slowly, the humanoid swarm dissipated as I sorted them back to their regular positions and jobs.  Breathing heavily, I dropped to the ground and pushed every insect away from me, leaving a small bubble of space in which I could be truly alone.

I tore off my mask and took heavy, deep breaths.

“I'm going insane,” I said aloud, clawing my hands through my long black hair.  “God damn it, I'm going insane.  I'm fucking arguing with my fucking power...or myself...or bugs...”

I reached down to my waist, where a large bag made of spider silk layered with beeswax on the inside rested.  Taking it, I uncapped the chitin plug and drank deeply from the reservoir of water within.  My thirst quenched, I raised the waterskin higher and drenched my face with cool liquid.

As the water dripped from my huddled form, my thoughts spiraled downward.

What did you do when you knew you were going insane?

How did you 'fix' a situation like this?

Salty tears mixed with the last few drops of water as they fell to the ground.  Suddenly, the expansive, beautiful sky that I had been so complementary of now bore down on me with a crushing finality, a barrier that I could never pierce, a wall that would hold me in my empty, painfully lonely prison cell.  Dropping to my hands and knees, I took gasping breaths as I staved off the panic welling up.

My silk-clad fingers dug into the dirt as I fought to keep myself under control...

...and, slowly, I beat back the madness which bubbled beneath the surface of my mind.

Someone, I think it was Emma of all people, had once said that humans were social animals.  We, as a species, needed companionship, needed socialization and communication, or we'd go mad.  I'd always been a bit of a loner, but the last three months had slowly beaten the truth of my humanity into my skull.  In the absence of anyone 'real' to talk to, I'd crafted a figure to converse with...

...and this hadn't been the first time.

It had started as practicing my powers, a simple little game to pass the time and further my control over the 'swarm voice' which had instilled so much terror.  Over long, lonely days and weeks, though, the 'game' had quickly become...more.  I had heard stories regarding castaways who forgot how to speak and communicate and after I'd trekked miles and miles without any sign of human habitation...it had become a recurring nightmare; the idea that I was slowly losing her humanity by inches...

No, not my humanity, just my sanity.

The panic having past, I stood and continued back to my camp.

After all, there was nothing I could do about any of this...

...or could I?

As deranged as it was, I'd made a cogent point about setting up a permanent shelter, hadn't I?  Laying down roots meant getting attached to this empty world, meant thinking of even a small part of it as 'mine.'  If someone found me...years, decades...in the future and I had carved out a life for myself, would I be willing to leave?  Would I have grown too comfortable in my prison?

It was a sobering thought.

As I looked around my camp, I could almost see the future unfolding.  I'd put up another tent...over there, and then the termites would finish building a wall-mound opposite it.  I could set a swarm to digging out a cellar, too, couldn't I?  After all...I had the time.

Pulling out some pieces of dried meat, I began to consume a light dinner and think.

...and plan.

…

XXX

…

I had long grown immune to the shock of cold river water, but the shivering afterward was always problematic.  Cowering by my roaring campfire to warm up, I dried with the towel I'd crafted from my silkworms' excretions, relishing the feel of something other than spider silk against my skin after so many weeks.  Finally dry, I hung the towel on a drag line near the fire and took measure of my situation.

I had a good 'life' here, if one could be so generous...

I had food, water, shelter, clothing, and managing my growing industry of silks kept my mind busy, though it wasn't particularly engaging.  I had even begun to pick up dyes now that the flowers were blooming in greater numbers.  I had nearly all the comforts I could reasonably expect: safety, security, and a long-term expectation for these to continue.

Picking up and moving...

I would have none of those, or very little at least.  Using my power I could reasonably expect to find my way to any water sources within easy reach, the same with food and shelter.  Clothing wouldn't be a problem, though managing a 'migration' of several hive-based and territorial spiders, wasps, and bees...might be problematic at best.  My reasons for moving, though, weren't material.  Over the past three months, beyond the initial confusion and exploration, I'd moved little when one compared my patch of 'territory' to the larger world.

I could stay here, physically safe, and go slowly mad from the isolation, as I had been...

...or I could trek across dangerous, unknown wilds with unknown hazards all for the hope of distracting myself from my growing sense of loss and loneliness.

I stared at the painfully blue sky for a long moment.

Then I stood and prepared to leave.

…

XXX

…

Louise Francoise Le Blanc de La Valliere coughed and hacked violently as the dust cleared away.  Her summoning, the sacred ritual that stood as a right of passage in the lives of all Brimiric mages, had followed suit with every other spell she'd attempted to cast, ending in a destructive blast of fire and sound.  Shaking the last flecks of dirt from her strawberry blonde hair, the petite girl looked up, vainly, into the clearing cloud of dusty air.

No, not in vain...

...she had summoned something.

She had summoned something!

Her eyes widened as the dark mass within the cloud was slowly revealed to be a swirling swarm of all manner of insets, abnormally cohesive and moving with strange purpose.

“Hah!”  A voice barked out, “The Zero summoned a cloud of bugs!  I suppose the summoning spell really does give you the proper-gah!”

The critical noble was hushed into silence as he, along with the collective crowd around the summoning circle gasped deeply, the sound magnified by their numbers.  Louise, for her part, was silent, though no less unnerved as the swarm began to twist and deform...

...and a form began to manifest from the cloud, seemingly melting into solidity.

A clawed foot...

...a chitinous hand...

...dark gray pelt.

A long, armored membrane draped along it's...shoulders?  It appeared to have a form similar to a human, if only in the obvious numbers and shapes of extremities...though could that be a feature of mimicry?  Perhaps this insect-like creature was some form of shapeshifter and was merely resolving itself into a shape that reflected those around it?

The long, wing-like membrane stretched down to the ground in an obviously limp fashion, though it perhaps served a similar function as some animal's gliding mechanisms.  Louise couldn't imagine such a comparatively small wing-span would allow for actual flight, but...

Actually, now that she looked closely, it almost appeared similar to the cloaks she and her classmates were wearing...Louise cocked her head, pondering the creature's form further.

It looked so...human, really, bizarrely so.

Armor plates covered much of it's body, shaped and fitted with an almost artistic, intelligent design.  The curvature of the...form gave the impression of a female of it's species, if only due to the subtle curvature of it's chest and hips.  Finally, though, Louise looked upon the face of her familiar.

Spurs of bone-like chitin framed it's jaws and face, giving it the look of possessing mandibles...though given how they seemed grafted to it's gray-black flesh, Louise didn't believe them functional.  More chitin surrounded blank and reflective eyes framed by graying-yellow hair that cascaded down it's back, sending a shiver up Louise's spine as they tracked over the crowd.  Noticing the creature was still crouched, the strawberry-blonde nodded to herself.  It was time to bind her familiar before the obviously skittish...beast took fright.

She stepped forward.

…

XXX

…

Taylor shook herself, blinking rapidly as the insane mix of sensory data from her swarm focused itself into a sensible stream of sight, sound, touch, and more.

...much, much more.

There were some two dozen human figures about her, in the field where the...portal?  The portal she had fallen into!  Her mind focused.  None of the figures were obviously hostile, nor had she been greeted by her friends...could random chance have actually deigned to see her 'rescued?'

She snorted.

Her luck had never been that good.

But, still, the portal which had brought her here was more luck than she usually enjoyed, given she had just slipped off a shear cliff face.  She shook her head, marveling at her own stupidity and overconfidence.  Three months of living in complete isolation and the morning she sets out to see the world, she stops to take in a view and the ledge gives way underneath her?

That was more Taylor Hebert's luck.

As one of the figures in the group stepped forward, Taylor chastised herself again, focusing on her surroundings.  There were humans, yes, but there was also a wide array of...animals?

...if an enormous floating eyeball qualified for the title of 'animal.'

A giant lizard that looked something like a pokemon...

...and was that a dragon?

Fucking. What.

“Focus,” Taylor muttered under her breath, looking back to the humans and fixating on them as the more familiar of the fixtures in the field.  Mostly teens...around her age, possibly?  An older man, with a large walking stick.  The children all seemed to be wearing variations of a uniform...long skirts, tailored blouses and shirts...cloaks...

The wider range of information from new, foreign bugs on this world began to filter in, showing a building in the distance...thick stone walls, towers, heavy wooden gates...it was a fucking castle.

Teenagers.

Weird ass creatures.

Castle in the background.

Dragon.

...and, were those little wooden sticks in the hands of most of the teens?

Taylor's jaw worked silently for a long moment, her mind refusing to put pieces together as the obvious truth of the situation slowly dawned on her.  A raving portion of her psyche had long since begun to rant and rave at the...complete and utter insanity of this latest turn her life had taken.  No, she wouldn't do insanity an insult by calling this insane.  This wasn't insane, it was a farce.

She, Taylor Hebert...

...was trapped in Harry Potter.