Excerpt from Chapter 5: Life in the doldrums requires a malleable identity.

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It was an obvious plan.  He had to escape the monster.  

 

He hadn't any rational plan to implement, but his nerves itched with the anticipation for any opening where he might be able to attempt an open, full sprinted flflee.  

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Spinder's long, mangled stalks of legs trudged ahead through the forest in the general direction that Benjamin had specified, which more or less aligned with Eura's faint compass.  In her light, he saw potential providence.  Outside of it, he saw only decay.  

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Spinder's gnarled, uneven claws swayed casually as the tails of his blood red coat sagged and dragged along the brush.  The skittering minions that he called amplifiers, the things of nightmares that were made of bone and hair and other nondescript organic material, clattered and crawled underneath his coat distorting his obscenely emaciated frame.  The hidden mystery under his mask kneaded and massaged the brain underneath.  For all Benjamin could tell, the thing (he'd decided Spinder had long ago left behind the attributes given to a thing he'd call a 'person', both due to his physical twistedness and his singular, sick motivation) had no skull, but instead an exposed brain that bubbled and gurgled.

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They came upon a stone idol.  It was a relic from another time.  It had aged and decayed and was draped in fungal growth.  It had gouges and cracks and some of the once prominent features had worn away, but its shape was still obvious.  It was a statue that commanded attention.  Standing tall enough to dwarf his vile captor, the stone man issued an authoritative grimace that was both exaggerated and unfriendly.  In his left hand was a the stone approximation of a blade.  His right hand held what looked to have once been a perfect orb, but one that had ironically eroded to more of a cube.  The purpose for this figure's creation was grave and significant.  It would have taken many men much time to craft such a structure.  For some reason, Benjamin thought of it as desperate.  Perhaps it was because he subconsciously realized that the purpose of this mammoth statue for which such energy was spent creating was to affect anyone or anything entering this part of the forest rather than to be enjoyed by anyone or anything within it.  

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He noticed a similar monument not far beyond, and two more off to his left.  Their particular features were hard to make out in the dark of the forest and due to their decline, but their general posture and physique were the same.  

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"These statues were symbols meant to ward off terrible things from encroaching," Spinder explained, "But yet here we are, you and I, both terrible things.  And they certainly don't frighten me much.  It does make one wonder what other terrible things ignored these warnings.  If this is indeed the way that you wish me to make, perhaps you should consider the terrible things that likely still lurk here..."

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In the distance, Eura flittered around a fifth statue.  The statue seemed to be translucent in her light.  As they neared it and Eura migrated further up the path, the statue became opaque again, but it seemed to shine in a peculiar light all its own.  Not only did it shine in a light that seemed to defy the dim haze of the forest, it appeared to be the newest, cleanest, and strangest addition in the stone guardian family.  This character was squat and fat.  The menacing gaze on his face was replaced by a clowning grin.  Its eyes squinted shut.  The stone approximation for its hair was unkempt and falling in its face.  The sword in its hand was replaced with what looked like an oversized plantain.  The orb in his other was replaced with what looked like some sort of large bottle.  This was a profane mockery of the other statues, and if not for its awkward position in such a desolate landscape, and if not for the dire circumstances that brought him to it, it might have been funny to his juvenile mind.

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As they rounded the hulking comedic idol, Benjamin noticed another feature that was out of place.  Somewhere in the lifespan of this particular statue, a neighboring tree had fallen.  This wasn't some petty thing. Its trunk belonged to one of the great beams that held up the high canopy.  This tree had fallen in a manner that intersected the statue.  The statue hadn't crumbled around it.  There were no shards of stone at the point of the impact.  There were no cracks in its body.  In fact, there was no sign that the falling tree had made any impact at all.  Instead, part of the epic trunk and its mangle of roots seemed to permeate into the same physical space.  It was as if the statue weren't even real.  Or perhaps it was the tree that wasn't real.  Either way, it was impossible for the two structures to be occupying the same space as they were.  And yet here they stood, right in front of his eyes, impossibly entangling in this overlapping, unnatural manner.

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As they walked, the forest floor felt strange underneath Benjamin's feet.  With every step, the ground compressed.  Instead of solid earth, it was pliable and shifted under weight.  They were walking upon the exterior of a sand bag that sunk and molded around each step.  Both were nimble enough to not be snared, but it was a nuisance. 

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"You're worried about the state of the ground," Spinder proclaimed, "You're wondering if this is a dangerous place.  Well, yes.  It is a dangerous place.  You should be very worried."

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"What's wrong with the ground," Benjamin said in his small, cautious voice.

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"The ground is fine," Spinder said, "But there are parts of this place that have no substance."

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As they walked, Benjamin reached out to touch the leaves of a bush.  At his touch, the entire thing disintegrated as if made of fine, gray, chalky powder.  "It's all dead," he whispered, realizing that every structure within his view was just waiting for a subtle breeze to blow it apart.

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"Dead? Perhaps. More relevant, though, is that it's undone.  It has been completely abandoned by the nature that held it together.  In that absence, what is left will decay until it has all been reduced to nothing at all.  This is how worlds end.  And this world ended specifically by becoming devoid of substance.  In my experience, and oh what experience I have, this is not entirely uncommon. Though as you know, it is far from the only way that worlds can end.  What a terrifying sentiment, the fragility of things.  And do you know the most acute problem with traversing dead worlds?  They tend to retain interlopers as permanent residents.  What do you think that might mean for us?"

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While Spinder pushed ahead muttering all manner of scary anecdotes and philosophies, Benjamin allowed his own pace to slow.  

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"A world without substance yields neglect and indifference.  Often times, a world like this and all of its inhabitants simply stall..."

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So as not to raise suspicion, he kept the rhythm of his steps steady, shrinking his gait until he was literally stepping backwards.  Spinder stiffened, now about twelve or so of his large paces ahead.  Benjamin's chest constricted, his heart pumping its contents into his palms.

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If Eura hadn't been so far ahead, he'd have asked her if the monster was agile enough to catch him.  As it was, he was left to his own judgement.  Functioning without the capacity for rational thought, his feet took primal responsibility for his well being.  But in his apprehension, he tripped in the malleable ground.  He landed face first in the ferns of the forest floor. But they were not ferns anymore. They were fragile, ash like, fern shaped structures. They evaporated into dust.  

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Spinder pivoted.  It was a perfunctory action.  Reflexive, not desperate.  Calculated, especially in contrast to Benjamin's clumsy flailing.  Through the dark, they caught each others' eyes, and whether by panic or sense, Benjamin's feet found the level of coordination needed to break into a full sprint on the wobbly ground.  He wove in and out of exposed roots and burst right through bushes and stumps.  He could only hope to lose Spinder through employing the agility inherent in his smaller frame.  

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He felt a shower of splinters rain around him, which all instantly poofed into an intangible cloud.  He cried out, realizing that Spinder was looming above only a step behind, batting the forest into oblivion on a straight course towards recapturing the mindful pilot of his capable navigator.  

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He tried to render Spinder impotent by swallong his fear, but Spinder managed to embarrass his attempts by plucking an ancient tree, roots and all, and tossing it aside.  The tree exploded into a black cloud and tiny projectiles of red sand.  Benjamin's mind autonomically began processing the terrible things the monster could and probably would do to him for trying to escape, which made the mission to get away even more desperate. This only fed his captors aptitude.

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He caught a break in the most unlikely of scenarios.  He'd spent so much time seeking the comfort of light that he was surprised to find black shadows in his time of need.  There was a long stretch of tall grass and dark oblivion, and without a second thought Benjamin plunged in, careful not to disturb the fragile foliage.  He was short enough that he could kneel  below Spinder's line of sight.  Though his lungs protested and threatened to burst, he held his breath.  Spinder shaved at the tops of the tall grass with his fingertips and confidently strode past him, coming uncomfortably close.

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But he passed.  He marched right by, temporarily thwarted.  Despite a sinister sensation that he was slowly sinking into the ground, Benjamin waited until the sounds of Spinder's labored strides were faint, and then darted back the way he'd come.  Eura was there to meet him at the edge of the tall grass and buzzed around him at full glow.  She seemed to be chasing away residual shadows that lingered around his body.  He didn't stop for breath.  He ran in any direction that was away from the monster that he'd left in the tall grass.

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He noticed the amplifier attached to the side of his head was loosening its grip.  Its tongue was drying inside of his ear.  He batted at it as he ran, but it was stubbornly attached.  

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Eura circled him as he pushed his young body to the extent of its physical potential.  She pulsed in that way that implied she was trying to get his undivided attention.  Benjamin misread this as encouragement or celebration.

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When his body finally began to shake from exhaustion, he slowed to a stop and collapsed.  His limbs quivered. His mouth went dry.  The amplifier had devolved into an annoyance.  He tried to scratch it away and even managed to move it, but could not displace it.  Still, a guarded glance in all directions demonstrated that he was free, and the satisfaction from that would hopefully render dead the horrible thing attached to his head that leeched on his misery.

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Eura, however, did not stop.  Benjamin took less than ten breaths before realizing why.  The world around him was seething.

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The creatures of shadow and ash slithered in his periphery. They were hungry, and they'd gotten a taste for him.

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"Eura," he breathed, backing against a tree, "Help..."

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The sentient little firefly darted around him, batting them one at a time with her exuberant glow. The light shone from her supernatural light implied in form the ashen puppets of maddening things.  Upon any level of conscious inspection, these specters vanished, and therefor he could only guess at any true shape.

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"You know what makes them more terrifying?" came Spinder's gravely voice from behind him.  Benjamin rolled onto his back and inched away on his elbows., which sank into divots of the softening earth.  The monster did not look angry.  In fact, by his composure, one might conclude this was a natural part of his vocation.  "Giving name to the abstract things that you fear.  It makes them concrete in a way that the concept alone can not.  Should we give name to these things? Should we realize them?"

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Eura had vanished at the sound of Spinder's voice, and consequently the nameless things to which Spinder were referring circled closer, strategically hiding just out of view and obscuring themselves among the natural shadows.  Meanwhile, Benjamin's weight was displacing the ground in a way that suggested it might eventually swallow him up.

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"Others have called them lucrids.  I'm sure the word has a meaning in some long dead language, and I'm sure that meaning was used to describe their nature, but now the meaning of the words has become their being.  They are the word in its most proper form.  As you revere them, fear them. Attach that fear to their name. Attach that name to their being. Lucrid. The intimacy of knowing them name will make the fear so much more potent."

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Benjamin heard a nondescript sound off to his right. He flinched and turned quickly, but his attention seemed to scare the source.  What remained in the space was something in the shape of a tree bursting into a rain of sand.  

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"If the meaning that has become their name is more horrifying, know that their nature is to seep into pores of worlds and exploit and digest them from the inside.  I suppose you could blame them for the lack of substance in this place.  Your fear suggests that you've met them before, and you have some idea about their nature.  How terrible for you.  They want to devour you.  Should I let them?  Not all of you, of course, as I still need you as pilot.  But maybe just a limb or an eye.  Yes, I think maybe an eye."

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He had a terrible choice to make. He could be swallowed and emptied by these lucrids or tormented by Spinder.  Ethereal monsters of shadow and ash whose primary function was to devour worlds or a monster spawned by a dying world whose function was to illicit misery?

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"We need to leave here," Benjamin demanded, choosing Spinder.  He stood and ran to the security of the monster's imposing stature. As he fled, he noted the shadows wash into the divot in the ground that his body left behind.  

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"Just as well," Spinder agreed, "There is nothing but decay in this place.  Nothing much to mine. But I don't think we can leave just yet."

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"Why not?"

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Spinder crouched and overwhelmed the boy with a gleeflully callous stare. "You're not quite afraid enough yet."

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Benjamin couldn't imagine being more afraid.  He offered Spinder a pleading look, but of course the stoic figure had no empathy.

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"Oh, no.  Did you think that I was able to waymake upon command?  I apologize if I gave you that impression.  It takes a tremendous amount of psychic, emotional energy to actually cease to be in one place and come to be in another."

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A shadow curled around his ankle, up to his waist, and buzzed in his ear.  It made a move to strike, but connected with the amplifier instead.  Benjamin spun and, completely out of reflex, dove between Spinder's stalky legs.

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The amplifier was bleeding something course and dry.  He held out his hand and red sand fell into his palm. There seemed to be a connection between the red sands and these shadow creatures. As his mind began to contemplate the logical dilemma, the things crept down the back half of Spinder's body and onto Benjamin's shoulder.  In the place that they pooled, his shirt began to disintegrate.  He pulled out of their way and cursed Eura for cowardly leaving him.

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"How I wish we could stay. This is most nourishing. But it would simply not do for me to be stuck here indefinitely, I suppose."  Another of Spinder's amplifiers protruded from the chest of his coat, leapt down, and tore a hole in the ground.  Benjamin, who had been so desperate to escape him, now embraced the company of the sadistic monster.  
 

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##

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They made their way. Benjamin and Spinder had developed an almost perfect symbiosis. In the moments where Benjamin felt most confident in their way, Spinder would falter. The way was consequently unmade, and they would find themselves genuinely lost.

 

Eura kept her distance, and Benjamin thought for sure it was partly of shame in not coming to his rescue when he most needed her. In fact, part of him wanted to shame her for abandoning him. Part of him wanted to berate her. To punish her in some way. But another part of him empathized. She was afraid of Spinder, and it was obvious as to why. Spinder was scary and she was just a tiny firefly. Benjamin wondered if Spinder was also fueled by her fear, small in stature as she was.

 

The path between their position and Eura's distant glow would become impassible from rough terrain or overgrown foliage or the shadows of animals with ambiguous intent. In Benjamin's worry over this, Spinder would regain his ability to waymake. He'd heft the obstacle, kill the animal, or carry Benjamin under one arm as he climbed impassible obstacles. When properly fueled by Benjamin’s apprehensions, there seemed to be no hurdle, physical or abstract, that was insurmountable for Spinder the horrifying waymaker.

 

However, when they way was restored, their direction made sure again and Benjamin's confidence returned in full, Spinder powered down, become a feeble shell of his imposing potential.

 

Worry would return. The cycle would repeat.

 

It seemed to be a very inefficient way to navigate, which was disheartening. Spinder asserted this in his recursive jabs. At least they were moving, and Spinder managed to have enough psychic fuel to function just fine without being a constant threat to Benjamin's safety. That's not to say his menacing threats and probing questions stopped, but they became more of an inevitable habit than a necessary function of purpose.

 

The way that Spinder made led them to a place stranger than any he'd seen so far in the 'nothing of interest to see'. He remembered neither coming upon this place nor the moment he first recognized its obscene strangeness. It wasn't a lapse in his memory exactly, but there was a missing distance between some arbitrary place that he thought of as 'before' and this place he was a part of 'now'.

 

In the distance, there was a tranquil lake. Above the lake was sky. In the sky, the silhouettes of the monolith mountains. The reflection of its peaks was breathtaking. The faint starlight showed imperfections in the lake's placidity. There were small wooden boats which floated aimlessly atop the water, spinning lifeless like curled, dry leaves. Each small boat had exactly one passenger, and each passenger sat hunched, stiff and rigid with rigor. Each passenger was lit by the faint glow of a dimly pulsing firefly.

 

He did not recall coming upon this view, he simply found that this view was in front of him. In the same manner, he did not remember the moment that he first saw the two figures ahead of him. One of the two figures was Spinder, and one of the figures was Benjamin. Rather a Spinder, and a Benjamin. Yes, he watched himself walking forward in the same rhythm he himself was walking forward. He watched himself look back over his shoulder and perceive the him that looked ahead. He watched Spinder right his head with his large, taloned hands. A firefly, perhaps a Eura, danced around them at a safe distance. Part of him wanted to run and catch up. That part of him was certain that if he was able to join up and communicate with this other him, he would better be able to understand this strange and surreal experience. But an equally determined, cosmic force kept him at pace, pulling him forward towards the inevitability he was watching.

 

To give some sort of delineation to himself versus himself, he thought of the self that was doing the pondering as the proper form of Benjamin and man beside him the proper Spinder and the firefly that buzzed closest the proper Eura, while the figures he saw ahead were each respectively a common benjamin, spinder and eura. He was the Benjamin, while the other was just a benjamin. This almost made sense in his child mind.

 

Ahead, a eura lit a patch of red sand and it revealed to a benjamin and a spinder a thing in the shape of a boat on the shore. A benjamin boarded the boat and a spinder shoved off. That particular eura lit their way and her glow was emphasized by the reflective water. That benjamin looked down over the side of his boat and into the water that she lit, and as he did an impossible current tugged the small wooden boat forward and left a small wake. The soft waves lapped against the red beach. The eura calmed the current by drawing back from the water and coming to rest on the benjamin's shoulder, where she pulsed in a comforting way. The current seemed to stop altogether, and the boat floated, gliding across the glassy surface by its momentum. It broke off of its sure course and veered into a shallow spin. The proverbial string that had been pulling it forward seemed to have been cut.

 

Proper Benjamin watched with an alarming, disproportional lack of emotion as that spinder grabbed that benjamin's head in his hands and pushed it under water. The benjamin flailed, and the eura frantically darted around the scene.

 

Proper Benjamin felt eyes on him. He turned to see their source. He was less surprised than he should have been to see that there was another common benjamin and another common spinder walking in their footsteps at a steady pace. A eura fluttered around, making a sort of perimeter for them. He felt maybe that he should stop and let them catch up. There was part of him that was certain if he was able to communicate with himself, he would better be able to understand this strange and surreal experience. But an equally determined cosmic force kept him at pace, pulling him forward. As if to ensure this inevitability, he felt the echo of what he’d witness moments ago. Spinder's large, mangled hands twisted his head to face the proper destiny.

 

As he refocused on the lake, the benjamin that had been drowning was nowhere to be seen. The small boat had disappeared. It was out there somewhere, but it had joined with the others. They were all indistinguishable from each other now, each carrying a lifeless spinder, barely lit by a eura ember. He couldn't count how many spinders in boats there actually were. He supposed that the number could have been infinite.

 

They came to the beach with the distinctly red tint. Spinder explained that the way was straight. Benjamin suggested that they go around the lake. Spinder replied that around was not the way. It was all very mechanical. They both seemed to know what to expect next. They had, after all, just seen it. So neither was surprised when Eura became brave and joined them. Nor were they surprised when she lit a patch of red sand that, in her light, revealed the presence of a small wooden boat.

 

Benjamin made a suggestion, and with much less apprehension than was probably warranted. He suggested that they take the boat across. Spinder, in his sadistic manner, asked if it frightened him knowing he would be drowned to death in the lake. And though it did, he felt only resignation. He implicitly understood that there was no avoiding it. This is what happened. It simply was. He hoped that the next benjamin perceived things differently, and that somehow this wasn't the way for him, but for Benjamin proper, his first foot was already in the boat.

 

Spinder pushed off with his spindly legs and then joined. Though he was so much taller, the balance of the boat indicated that their weight was evenly distributed. This could possibly have been attributed to Spinder's emaciation, but Benjamin didn't think so. It was a symptom of what he didn't understand about this place. It was a clue.

 

Eura came to rest on the bow of the boat. She pulsed in an average way. He thought to ask her what was happening, but for the life of him he could not think of a single question that he could ask that would invite yes or no as an answer. The only possible answers were long and contrived from a million minds more mature than his own.

 

As the boat slowed from Spinder's original push off, Eura lit their way. Benjamin glanced into the light of her reflection in the water. He expected to see his own face. But the reflection was untrue; the angle was all wrong. What he saw was not his own reflection, but instead a drown benjamin just beneath the surface. In fact, as Eura skimmed the surface of the water he saw distorted traces of many drown benjamins, all submerged and unable to ever come up for air. They were dead. And he knew how they died. He had seen it. He had been an involuntary voyeur to the tragic act.

 

His panic was the wind that drove the current. Their boat was pulled forward. Just as he had seen, just as was bound to be. This was not a surprise. He understood how the way was made. His fear and worry and woe were helping Spinder waymake, because he was the Waymaker, and that is how Spinder the Waymaker worked. Just as Benjamin was the stupid child, and his fit was as helpless and naive and ignorant of the whole truth. Just as Eura glowed for yes and darkened for no.  Just as...no, that was all. Spinder and Benjamin and Eura. It sure seemed like there were more, though. And not only because of the bobbing benjamins and dead spinders on the floating boats. They no longer mattered, after all. It just felt that there was one more that mattered. And that one more could, perhaps, alter the balance of the way of things.

 

Eura floated up from the water, obscuring Benjamin's distorted and dead reflections. She came to land on his hand, but that seemed wrong somehow. She was to land on his shoulder, because that is what calmed him. This was different. This was unexpected. To land upon his hand was a gamble. Benjamin couldn't understand why she'd chosen his hand. It was as if, perhaps, she also sensed that something was amiss. There was a striation in this event's iteration. Perhaps his boat had caused a wave that had met with the wave of the boat belonging to the benjamin ahead of him. Maybe the two waves met at their apex and doubled in amplitude. Maybe this larger wave blew an imperceptible breeze, which caused Eura to flap her wings just a bit harder than her former iteration. Maybe her struggle tired her into flying the least bit lopsided, making his hand an easier and closer target to glide to. Maybe this slight change wasn't unique to his personal version. Maybe each iteration of benjamin-spinder-eura had its own unique change, each seeking the minute detail that was capable of altering the eventuality. Not out of concern for Benjamin or Spinder or Eura or the quest that bound them, but out of the natural order in inevitable entropy. For that, too, was inescapable. In their attempt at perfection, further iterations lost cohesion. The more details there were, the more deep corners.

 

In the end it didn't matter. Now that the horrors of what was floating in the water were hidden from sight, Eura’s soothing pulse calmed his fear. He tried again to think of what it was that was missing. What large factor did he not see?

 

The current that had been pulling the boat along seemed to stall. The water was still. Their boat listlessly drifted.

 

Spinder reminded him that it was his job to make the way. Benjamin knew how the way was made.

 

He felt Spinder's hand shove his head into the water and pin him there. He flailed and kicked, but Spinder was solid. The hand that had once effortlessly ripped through metal mesh now held him under the surface.

 

And as he faded, he wasn't afraid. He should have been, but he wasn't. Why wasn't he afraid?

 

Spinder plucked him up out of the water and apologized for his action. He explained at length in his most polite way how Benjamin's suffering was necessary in order to waymake. Then he plunged his head back under. He knew the monster would accidentally kill him in a futile attempt at trying to mine for despair, but his flailing struggle was a reflex. He certainly didn't want to die, but fear was not the mechanism driving his limbs. Perhaps it was that his limbs were caught up in the same force that had pulled him towards the inevitable in the first place. Whatever the case, the cause for his thrashing could not fuel Spinder's need.

 

As he inhaled water through his nose and his body began to shut down, he had a final realization. In his final moment, he was forced to face one of the dead benjamins. Soon his body would be like this; a container that once had supported life. A container and nothing more. His body gave up. He passed.

 

While disconnecting from his container, his mind offered one last observation. It was one that made no sense, but it was the one that he knew to be correct.

 

He was not, nor had he ever been, Benjamin.

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##

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Benjamin screamed.  In the course of his fight, water filled up his lungs and choked him. He fought anyway.  He fought hard.  It was a futile campaign, but his anger and his fear and his remorse and his lasting worry for his world would not quit.  Spinder held him in a manner where in the ebb of his splashing he'd get small moments of reprieve.  He would inhale.  Of course, the waves were fast and Spinder's grip was committed.   In the course of each inhale, he'd find his face again submerged.  His body convulsed.  His eyes and nose and throat burned.

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With one crane of an arm, Spinder pulled him up and out of the water.  Between gasps, he heard the monster say in his calm propriety, "I apologize for the force I must use, but surely you understand that it simply would not do for us to be marooned on this boat in the middle of this lake.  This is how I waymake.  Please, if you find it in any way possible, I'd rather you refrain from dying.  At least until there is a way to be made."

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And then, the brute pushed his head back under the water.  His coughs had been too violent to voice any protest.  They had watched this exact scenario as they had approached.  They had witnessed the entire, sad eventuality unfold.  Granted, the present perception of it was much different than the distant observation had been, but everything was beat for beat a match for what they'd witnessed with their feet on the red beach.

 

As he'd seen, he fought against the inevitability, as futile as he knew it to be.  In his thrashing, his fingers very accidentally caught on the creeping thing attached to his ear.  The thing with the sickening tongue that liked to tickle his brain.  The thing that Spinder had called an amplifier.  In the violent movement, the thing tore a portion of his ear and a chunk of his hair before scurrying towards the water's surface.

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In moments, he would inhale his final breath.  And when he died, Spinder would be able to find no more remorse. No more fear. No more fuel. He'd have no way to carry on in his function of waymaking.  He'd float aimlessly in the small wooden boat on the placid lake at the feet of the monolith mountains with the rest of the lifeless, common spinders.  And Benjamin would join the common benjamins, dead and done with all worry and curiosity.  His vision tunneled.

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In fact, it wasn't just his vision. The perception of the world through all of his senses was collapsing.  It was through the collapse of his sensory perception that he could appreciate the world in a disconnected, unfocused manner. The clear outline of a body bobbed in the water in front of him. His mind expected a dead benjamin.  Perhaps the last thing he would see was the benjamin he'd watched drown before him.  He wondered if, in turn, he would be the final vision of the benjamin behind him.  But the person whose eyes he saw looked different than those of a benjamin.  His delusional instinct in this impaired, near death state was that the floating body was not a dead benjamin after all.  It should have been, but when withdrawn from sensory focus, it turned out to be something else entirely.

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It was in that fragile moment when the last few bubbles were blurting out of his open mouth that the person floating in front of him became everyone, both real and imaginary.  His mother, his stepfather, Maseu, Gadbeau, Spinder, the pilot, the girl from the adjacent pod, the ghost children...but none of them fit right.  Not on the dead thing's body, and not in Benjamin's mind.  

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And the more he looked the more certain he was.  There was something incorrect about it.  This version was out of place, drown in this lake like a benjamin. His muscles began to relax.

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Spinder's strong grip withdrew from Benjamin's head.  Unfortunately, the child had no energy left in him with which to pull himself to safety. The drown figure in front of him, perhaps because he was recognized as an impostor, woke from the dead.  The strange facsimile used all of his strength to push the authentic Benjamin's head up for air.  More true, he pushed him in any direction that was away, which coincidentally was the direction he needed to be pushed in order to survive.  Benjamin's perception of his wrongness seemed to sting him, and the imposter reacted violently against it.  His aim had not been to help.  The help was an inadvertent side effect.

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Benjamin Proper pulled in a strained breath, his folded body bobbing on the surface.  He heaved.  It took a moment, but clarity returned to him.  He could not yet right himself, but his mind was receding from the terminal tunnel.  He was cognizant enough to reason.  What had caused Spinder to suddenly let him go?

​

"Does it alarm you," Spinder seemed to answer his thought, "That the fireflies that hover around this lake seem to be capable of stinging?"  His voice was strained.  With his gargantuan razor mitts, he was awkwardly swatting at the air around him.  "If the little things can cause damage enough to distract someone as strong in stature as me, imagine what they will be capable of doing to you...I hope... that...frightens you..."

​

It didn't.  Instead, Benjamin found himself laughing.  He laughed heartily for the first time since he'd entered the strange world under the canopy of the Nevergreen trees.  His lungs ached and every orifice in his face burned with a fury he had never known was possible, but considering all of it in context, he couldn't help but laugh.  He had been so worried about how his little firefly friend would fair against the sadistic nature of the company he kept.  As it turned out, not only could she hold her own, she had likely just saved his life.  Whatever fear she had felt for Spinder, she had overcome.  Perhaps this was her redemption.  He was proud of her bravery, and he was amazed by her resilience.

​

Out of the corner of his eye, Benjamin saw Spinder reach for him again.  Likely, the effort of waymaking and battling an obstinate firefly was draining him, and he needed to harvest more gloom.  Eura flared and launched with blinding speed at the gaunt palm that chained his sharp, mangled fingers. There were sparks at the point of contact.  Spinder's heavy hand missed its mark and succeeded only in piercing the glassy water.  Benjamin laughed again.  This time, with enough air in his lungs for the laughs to be audible.  The big scary monster had been reduced to a clown in its pathetic fight against the meek little bug.  

​

Spinder began to speak, but with a strange and uneven cadence.  The nonsensical series of words that came out sounded most like, "Scared of because a mouse when is spinning?"

​

At this, Benjamin almost fell out of the boat in a fit of laughter.  It gave him the conviction to pull himself straight.  He wedged himself against the bow and watched the comedy play out.  Perhaps it was the stark contrast of the comedy to the dreary pageantry that the forest had shown him so far, but this was the funniest experience of his young life.

 

Spinder's brainhand bubbled and kneaded and plucked and pushed and massaged and tapped.  This only led to a further loss of motor control as he swatted at the sky for the oh-so-menacing firefly.  

​

"I but am eight sorry...mayonnaise is not made of fluorescent pantaloons..."

​

And that was it.  The sadistic Spinder collapsed against the side of the boat.  He now resembled the infinite other spinders that floated in their little wooden boats on the placid lake.  In this boat, though, Benjamin was alive.  

​

He glanced beyond Spinder to the shore.  He could make out a benjamin and a spinder readying a boat.  Behind them, he made out a pair of figures still in the shadows.  He wondered how their version of events would play out.  Had he just crafted a new path that they, too, would follow? Or was there some aspect of his course that was unique? He did not intend on waiting and watching. There were more pressing concerns than his curiosity.

​

The only sound in the moment was the gentle lapping of the waves.  The monolith mountains had grown from angular geometric features on the backdrop of his home landscape into proud, insurmountable barriers not far beyond the opposite shore.  The view was majestic.  The night was serene.  In exhaustion, he found a strange peace.

​

Eura was not doing well, however.  The poor creature dropped out of the air and into his lap.  She looked worse than if she had been caught under a boot and then scraped off on a step.  Her glow was pained and her rhythm was lethargic.  One wing bent upward and wouldn't pull in to her body as it should have.  She looked broken.  

​

"Thank you," Benjamin whispered to his friend.  She gave that faint ember glow in response.  He cupped a hand in his lap and let her crawl onto his index finger.  He held her up to his eye.  "If you need to rest, I understand.  But if you could help answer some questions about what is happening here...I think it would be a very smart idea for me to know.  Do you think you can answer at least a few questions?  I'll hold you right here to my eye so you don't have to strain."

​

It was a confident yes, though her effort to glow stopped her pulse.  Benjamin began to worry that he'd traded lives for her.  Perhaps she had to die for him to live.  Upon the onset of worry, he looked to Spinder, certain that the worry would revive him.  He managed to catch himself.  He let his worry transform into hope instead.  And after a moment, she pulsed again. Spinder didn't budge.

​

"Did my laughter do that to him?  My joy?  Was it the sudden forgetting of all of my worries and fears and pain that caused his collapse?"

​

Yes.  Eura answered yes.  Benjamin thought so.  Perhaps the world under the canopy of the Nevergreens wasn't as complex and confusing as he once thought.  There were certain laws and rules that governed it.  It was a simple matter of learning them.

​

"And the amplifier...knocking that off weakened him too?"

​

Glow.  Yes.

​

Next question.  He needed to address what he'd seen under water just before Spinder had let him go.  "What did I see under the water?"  Of course, she could not answer this as it was not a yes or no question.  She simply emitted a strained pulse.  So he rephrased.  "Do you know what I saw down there?"

​

Eura glowed yes.  

​

"Was what I saw down there a boy like me?"

​

Eura darkened no.  Perhaps the phrasing had been too specific.  He changed the verbiage.

​

"Was what I saw under the water a boy, but not a boy like me?"

​

Eura was more hesitant, but eventually darkened.  Hard to answer, but ultimately false.

​

"Was what I saw under the water a boy at all?"

​

Eura went an ominous black.  According to her, the strange, benjamin-shaped version under the water was absolutely, positively, undeniably not actually a boy.  Unfortunately, Benjamin had no way to ask her what the thing was, and he had no way to even know the questions to ask in order to lead to articulating the proper questions to ask.

​

"Does the boy have something to do with the red sand?  The lucrids?  What I saw in the forest?"

​

A hesitant, slight glow for an uncertain, complicated yes.  Something was still not quite right with how he articulated the question, but he was on the right track.  He attempted to ask about each in turn, but to each she gave the same muted glow, indicating that the answer was tangential to correct, but not able to be confirmed as phrased.

​

So he fished for an answer. "Was the thing I saw real?"

​

And then she gave him the strangest answer she'd given yet.  She glowed bright.  She darkened.  She glowed bright.  She darkened.  She darkened, then glowed bright. The contrast suggested a manic, emphatic level of importance in that question, and in dissecting the answer.

​

"Was it...both...real and...not real?"

​

Affirmative.  One single long glow. He had no idea what that could mean.

​

"Well what do I do with that information?"

​

She pulsed.  He sighed.

​

"I want you to rest now.  I'm going to try to figure out how to get us to shore."  Eura kept her ember burning just enough so that he would know she hadn't passed.  Even in the bowed position, Spinder towered over them.  His silent stature was menacing, but to avoid falling into his fear, Benjamin continued to picture the absurdity of him flailing after the firefly.  So long as he could wield that memory, he had no reason to fear Spinder waking behind him.  If he could manage to get to shore, he felt confident he could finally escape, though considering Spinder's unique ability to navigate this world, he was still undecided on whether or not he should. Either way, Benjamin had some personal agency over the nature of the relationship with the hulking monster for the first time.

​

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