This is part 5 of Liminal, a short story in serial form. If you just landed here, start with Part 1.
Oh!
How my agony does persist!
To whom do I pray for relief? Or for release?
The druids who once walked these woods, who filled the gentle breezes and the storm-wracked nights alike with their benevolent and protective incantations, are centuries gone now, insensate, their spirits unheeding of my cry. And so I stand, quivering, cold, consumed with desperation.
I am bound by invisible cord, pinioned, a moth thrashing silently, futilely, against the unyielding grip of the spider’s silk.
I am both in this space and outside of it. Alienated. Alone. Trapped in a liminal space between myself where I stand and all that surrounds me.
And now. Now the spider draws nigh.
I tremble with fear, and yet…
And yet I offer her my embrace. Arms spread, head bowed, I desire her touch tho my every fiber screams for me to flee.
I cannot.
Cannot and would not.
She descends the path, that familiar glint of fleeting sunlight on her cheeks. So lovely. So terrifying.
She is here. I feel her brush against me. Her breath warm and sweet upon my chest. She calls out for me.
I am mute.
Then I see it, the means of my demise, the spider’s sting, its deadly point poised to strike.
I am helpless. I give myself completely to what will come.
She tests its terrible sharpness, presses, withdraws, then again. My breath is trapped, shuddering.
She strikes. Drives the dagger into my belly. The pain sears me, explodes within me, I watch as the color drains from the world. All shape and shade blurs. All form fades to blackness.
She twists the blade, begins to cut away my flesh.
Oh, Mathilde.
Mathilde.