The cathedral of silk loomed around him, ancient and humming, the webs pulsing with that same low, subsonic vibration that had been following them since they entered the nest.
Dom’s blades were drawn.
His ears were flat against his skull.
Somewhere behind him, Emma’s footsteps were fading into the dark, and ahead of him, the shadows were moving.
The Queen was coming.
She descended from the ceiling like a god deciding whether to be merciful, legs spanning the width of the corridor, each one a column of polished black chitin, her eight eyes catching the faint bioluminescent glow and reflecting it like scattered moons.
She was vast, she was ancient, and she was looking directly at him.
ActuallyADruid: that’s the QUEEN!!!
GoblinSlayer69: HOW IS HE STILL STANDING
BussyBlaster9000: RUN CATBOY RUN
MomsCreditCard: WHY ISN’T HE RUNNING
Dom wasn’t running because running would get him killed.
The Queen wasn’t chasing prey.
She was observing a curiosity.
He’d seen the same look on a cat watching a mouse that had wandered into its territory, not hungry, not yet, just…
interested.
“Okay,” he breathed.
“Okay. You’re big. I get it. I’m just leaving.”
The Queen didn’t move.
Her mandibles clicked, a sound that felt less like a threat and more like a question.
“I’m just going to back away slowly. You can have your cathedral. I’m sorry for trespassing. I’m not here for whatever you’re protecting. I want to leave.”
One massive leg shifted.
The floor vibrated.
Dom’s grip tightened on his blades.
He needed Feline Grace.
The active mode would give him the speed, the silence, the pain suppression, everything he needed to survive the next sixty seconds.
But activating it required three seconds of standing still.
Three seconds of looking absolutely ridiculous in front of an apex predator.
“There’s no way around this, is there?” he muttered.
The Queen’s head tilted.
The motion was almost human, a slow, considering angle, the kind of gesture someone made when they were trying to figure out a puzzle.
“If I do this, you’re going to watch me. And I’m going to have to live with that.” Dom said, mostly to him.
The chat, despite the terror, was still there.
SaltySupp0rt: is he…
is he about to do the thing
PixelSlvt: @SaltySupp0rt HE’S ABOUT TO DO THE THING
F2P_And_Proud: IN FRONT OF THE QUEEN???
Dom took the stance.
Wide legs.
Arm across his chest.
Opposite arm pointing at the Queen.
The system overlaid a crescent moon backdrop and sparkle effects across the cathedral of silk.
For one surreal, impossible moment, the nest of Chicago’s most terrifying predator looked like the set of a low-budget idol music video.
“Nya.”
The Queen’s mandibles stopped clicking.
All eight eyes focused on him with an intensity that made his skin crawl.
A quick, bouncy hip-sway to the left.
The Queen didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t do anything except stare at the strange creature that had wandered into her home and was now dancing at her.
She had watched armies march through her territory.
She had torn hunters apart.
She had seen fear, aggression, submission, desperation.
She had never seen this.
A wink.
A finger-gun pointed at the ceiling.
The Queen’s head tilted a fraction further.
One leg shifted backward, then forward again, as if she couldn’t decide whether to attack the strange dancing creature or continue observing it.
Her mandibles twitched.
The web-song stuttered, the rhythm faltering for the first time since they’d entered the nest.
ActuallyADruid: The Queen is actually so confused, genuinely confused.
KravenMoHead34: @ActuallyADruid SHE’S NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS
BussyBlaster9000: THE CATBOY JUST BROKE AN APEX PREDATOR WITH A DANCE
MomsCreditCard: 🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
PixelSlvt: 🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
BussyBlaster9000: 🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
StinkyRiftDiver: 🐱
[Feline Grace — Activated.]
The world sharpened.
Fatigue vanished.
Speed flooded his veins.
The Queen’s leg came down exactly where he’d been standing, and he wasn’t there anymore.
He was already moving.
Silent.
Ghostlike.
The Queen’s eight eyes swept the chamber, searching for the creature that had been dancing in front of her half a second ago and had ceased to exist.
Her legs shifted, her mandibles clicked rapidly, a sound that might have been alarm, might have been frustration, might have been something closer to wonder.
The strange creature was gone.
And for the first time in her very long life, the Queen didn’t understand how.
The nest became a blur of silk and shadow.
Dom sprinted through corridors that twisted and turned, the webs pulsing with each footfall, the web-song rising in pitch as the Queen realized her curiosity was escaping.
She wasn’t chasing him.
She was hunting him.
A leg crashed through the wall to his left.
He ducked under it, pivoted, kept running.
Another leg descended from above; he slid across the stone, felt the wind of its passage ruffle his ears, and scrambled back to his feet.
The Queen was fast.
Unreasonably fast for something that size.
She moved through her webs like the silk was an extension of her body, and every time Dom thought he’d found an exit, another wall of webbing had sealed it shut.
“She’s actually herding me; this is crazy,” he realized.
“She’s not trying to kill me; she’s trying to keep me here.”
ActuallyADruid: The Queen is CORRALLING him.
That’s normal, not predator behavior.
KravenMoHead34: @ActuallyADruid what else could it be
ActuallyADruid: @KravenMoHead34 I don’t know.
curiosity?
recognition?
Whatever it is, it’s not normal.
A leg caught him across the ribs.
The impact sent him crashing through a wall of silk and into a smaller, darker side chamber, the webs here older and thicker.
He rolled to his feet, gasping, and the Queen was already there, blocking the exit, her eight eyes fixed on him with that same unreadable expression.
She wasn’t attacking.
She was waiting.
“What do you want?” Dom shouted.
The Queen’s mandibles clicked.
One leg extended toward him, pressed against his chest, pinning him to the silk wall.
Dom struggled, but the pressure was immense, just unyielding.
The leg was warm, pulsing with a rhythm that matched the web-song around them.
Then the golden timer in his peripheral vision hit zero.
[Feline Grace has expired.]
The numbness vanished.
The silence lifted.
And pain crashed back into Dom’s body like a wave breaking against stone, every bruise from the Queen’s pursuit.
He gasped, his vision swimming, and for one horrible moment he was just a broken thing pinned to a wall, completely at the Queen’s mercy.
The Queen tilted her head.
Her mandibles clicking, she could feel the change in him.
The sudden tension.
The sharp intake of breath.
The way his body sagged against her leg as the fight drained out of him.
Then she pressed deeper.
A slow, deliberate application of pressure against his sternum, as if she were testing the limits of his body.
His breath came in short, ragged gasps.
The pain was everywhere now, white-hot and total, radiating outward from the point where her leg met his chest.
“Stop—” he managed, but the word came out wrong, thin and broken.
The Queen didn’t stop.
The needle-sharp tip of her leg pierced through his jacket, through the fabric, and into the skin over his sternum.
Dom screamed, a raw, primal sound that tore out of him before he could stop it. This story is hosted at g.com.
MomsCreditCard: WHAT WAS THAT xXDungeonDaddyXx: OH GOD
GoblinSlayer69: HOLY SHIT
BussyBlaster9000: I’M NOT WATCHING THIS I’M NOT WATCHING THIS I’M WATCHING THIS
PixelSlvt: SOMEONE DO SOMETHING
Then the silk gland pulsed.
A thread of something impossibly fine, impossibly bright, sank into the wound.
It didn’t feel like poison.
It felt like a brand.
A signature.
A claim written in a language his body understood even if his mind didn’t.
The pain shifted into something else.
It burned through his veins, through his chest, through the space behind his eyes where the system’s interface flickered and stuttered.
ActuallyADruid: That’s not a wound.
That’s a MARKING.
The Queen is marking him.
CertifiedFloorTank: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN
ActuallyADruid: @CertifiedFloorTank I don’t know, but he’s alive.
She’s not trying to kill him.
KravenMoHead34: THIS ISN’T A NORMAL FIGHT.
SaltySupp0rt: HE SOUNDS LIKE HE’S DYING
F2P_And_Proud: @SaltySupp0rt HE’S STILL BREATHING.
LOOK.
HE’S BREATHING.
StinkyRiftDiver: I’m going to be sick
OhNoRatio: WHERE’S EMMA!??
MomsCreditCard: @OhNoRatio SHE’S COMING.
SHE’S RIGHT THERE.
xXDungeonDaddyXx: SHE’S NOT RUNNING??
EMMA ISN’T RUNNING AWAY!
PixelSlvt: @xXDungeonDaddyXx BECAUSE SHE’S A BETTER PERSON THAN ALL OF US
Then Emma’s voice cut through the dark.
“Get away from him!”
Lume exploded into the chamber like a golden nova, her glow blinding, her tiny form blazing with light.
The Queen recoiled in surprise.
Her leg withdrew from Dom’s chest.
He slumped against the silk wall, gasping, and the Queen turned her massive head toward the fairy.
Emma was standing in the entrance, her hands raised, her whole body trembling.
“I said get away from him!”
The Queen studied her for a long moment.
Then, very deliberately, she withdrew.
Her legs folded.
Her body rose.
Her eight eyes lingered on Dom for one more heartbeat before she turned and vanished into the dark.
The web-song went silent.
Dom collapsed.
His chest was burning.
His vision was swimming.
The last thing he saw was Emma’s face above him, her hands already glowing with Mending Touch, her voice calling his name from very far away.
“Dom—Dom, stay with me—I’ve got you—don’t you dare die on me—”
MomsCreditCard: IS HE OKAY???
ActuallyADruid: The Queen let them go.
She actually let them go.
This is beyond wild
GoblinSlayer69: @ActuallyADruid why?
ActuallyADruid: @GoblinSlayer69 I have absolutely no idea.
The chat was screaming.
The stream was still live.
And Emma was dragging Dom’s unconscious body through the dark, Lume’s glow the only light.
She didn’t stop.
She didn’t look back.
She just pulled him toward the exit, one arm wrapped around his chest, her voice steady despite the tears streaming down her face.
“You’re not dying here. You don’t get to die here. We’re getting out together.”