They follow a short ways. "There's nothing to be concerned about," Henry is saying. "She will walk the spiral, and she will return, rebuild her body, and more than likely fall asleep. She certainly won't get lost. The Wyrm turns back on itself, always."

"She walked— she walked out of her— you're being really chill about this!"

"It's relaxing. It's like getting a deep massage. And are you not the one who specifically requested 'the one where she rips her face—'"

"I didn't think it'd work!"

Henry's chuckle grows distant as you travel on, walking the way you must walk, for as long as you must walk it. There is no fear in you, or much of anything in you, except the spirals Claudia cut; you are the map, are the road; your strings have wound together as tight as as you can bear it; you are, briefly, not perfect, but as near to perfect as you can be, through ordinary means. If you could feel, it would be excruciatingly painful. As it is, you walk.

But not forever. Your way should've been clear. You should've made it clear. You should've walked in tightening circles, walked in your footsteps back, fallen on the floor, made the soil into thick mud, the mud and your blood into flesh again, and you could've slept there, and had dreams, and when you awoke— but the spiral was open. Claudia cut it wrong. See in the palm of your hand that gap. See through it, at your way ahead, but there is no way ahead. The path ends. At the end of the path is bubbling nothing: a cliff into void.

This is not how it's supposed to be. It's not. It's not. It's not. You are trapped. To jump off that cliff— you would die. But you cannot retreat. Every fiber of your being screams against retreat. And you cannot find another way. There is no other way. You have reached the end of the road.

You are afraid. This is not how it's supposed to be, either. You look into the void and are more miserably afraid than you have ever been, more than you ever could've been, beset as you were by other concerns. You are free of other concerns and can devote the entirety of your narrow and altered being to animal fear. You will be at a complete loss to articulate it, when you're finally able: it is less than you and more. Nothing on your level. But it will rip at your edges, that red primordial scream: NO! YOU CANNOT DIE! YOU CANNOT DIE! YOU CANNOT—

————

You will awaken hours later sore and hoarse. Richard will be sitting next to you, back to the wall, feet out, smoking, and when your eyes open he'll lean over and thumb a spot of blood off your cheek. He won't say anything. Henry will shout for Claudia, who'll stay ten feet away and rub her eyes and nose as you're asked how you feel, what you remember, if you can move your fingers, your neck, your everything. You will be told that you started screaming and would not stop. Not words. Just screaming. Thank God the snake was there.

(2/4)