Page 55 of Dreamscape Therapies

Then the entire bar goes silent. The change is so sudden that it takes me a second to realize the music has stopped. The conversations are gone. The clinking glasses have stopped. Even the kitchen has fallen quiet.

I slowly turn toward the room.

Every person in the bar is looking at us.

They're all smiling, their unblinking stares sending unwanted chills down my spine.

Something about their faces is wrong. Their expressions are too identical, their smiles too wide, and their bodies too still. They don't look like people anymore. They look like marionettes waiting for someone to pull their strings.

Then the woman nearest to me begins to unravel.

At first, I think she's melting.

Then I realize what's actually happening.

Her skin pulls apart into hundreds of tiny strands. Her hair becomes thread. Her clothes twist into yarn until her entire body collapses inward, leaving nothing behind but a colorful pile on the floor.

Another person begins to unravel.

Then another.

Within seconds, the entire bar is coming apart around us. People dissolve into piles of yarn, tables loosen into tangled strands, chairs collapse, and the walls begin pulling apart at the seams. Even the neon signs unravel into glowing threads that float through the darkness.

The room that was so warm and familiar only minutes ago disappears piece by piece until there is nothing left but mountains of yarn and the two of us standing in the middle of it.

Then I hear something behind me.

It's a soft, rhythmic clicking, like someone working a pair of knitting needles.

I turn toward the sound.

"I've been looking for you,” I call out.

The clicking stops.

A voice answers from somewhere behind me.

"You shouldn't have."

I can't tell whether the voice belongs to a man or a woman. It sounds young and old at the same time, as though several voices are speaking through the same mouth, their words woven together into a single sound.

"I'd like to talk to you."

"You are not welcome here."

"I'm not here to hurt you."

There is a pause.

Then the voice answers quietly.

"He already has."

The weaver stands in the center of the ruined bar. It's enormous, much larger than the creature I've encountered before. Its long, segmented body is covered in smooth, iridescent chitin that shifts between deep blue, purple, and green whenever it moves. Six impossibly thin legs extend from its body, each ending in a sharp point that presses into the floor. Its arms are long and unnaturally delicate, ending in almost human hands that manipulate the yarn with frightening precision.

Its face is narrow and angular, dominated by two enormous blue eyes without pupils. Its mandibles twitch constantly as it works, pulling thread through its fingers with the practiced rhythm of someone who has done this thousands of times before.

I can't take my eyes off it.