Glassy Fingertips

An Intro to The Weave

​She woke with a start, she lay in a large cavern, the light drip, drip, the only sound in an otherwise deafening silence. She pondered what may have woken her from her sleep, she reached her senses out into the blackness and utter silence, nothing, nothing but the constant, drip, drip, drip – suddenly it stopped, she shifted toward where she thought the dripping had been coming from, the sound of shifting polyester cut the silence like a knife. She went still, the dripping had resumed, maybe she imagined it. She laid back down and tried not to think about it.

~

She woke to an odd cool light shining over her face blinding her to her surroundings, she felt a terrible pain in her legs, and she realized with a start that her hands were bound above her head. Her eyes began to adjust to the light, a shadowy figure stood in front of her. The figure spoke in a raspy voice almost human, but undercut with a harsh unnatural sounding cadence, “It stirs, my, friends...”

Two more figures came into her vision, they also held pale lights that seemed to glow from their hands themselves. The first figure edged closer, “Hell, o, my sweet, what is a creature like you, doing in a place, like this,” it hissed.

She could only cough in reply. Another figure spoke up, this one with the same odd voice but an octave higher and more stilted, “It’s, one of, those... creatures... queer... but not only queer, a shifted queer, hm, and what did you, hope to, achieve, coming here, hm.” The third figure didn’t speak but the light came across it in a way that allowed her to see its features.

The figure at first glance looked like an average middle-aged man, perhaps one of some standing, dressed in gray robes with a hood that cast an odd shadow on his face. Until she looked closer and realized the shadows on his face were not caused by the hood at all but weaved across his face in a random pattern, features of the man’s face contorted and disappeared, a form that passed for human but was undeniably not. For a brief moment, she swore it smiled at her.

The first figure was now on top of her, its face now inches from hers she could see it was worse than its silent friend, its face was near featureless, a taunt waxy gray skin was pulled tightly over its skull. Its eyes swimming black clouds. Flashes on the creature’s face gave dim images of the person it used to be, a power-hungry noble, who finally met something more powerful than he could handle.

She felt its weight press into her waist, “Kill it, sacrifice its flesh, it, has already, mutilated it enough,” the higher octave figure screamed.

“No, not, yet, it has, not served, its purpose to me, yet, I want to take, take its, memories...” the figure straddling her hissed.

“Waste! Waste of time! It is a shifter! Nothing, of use, from shifters, dirty, traitors, kill, it...”

“Memories... for finding... to kill, all...”

“Yes, yes!” the higher octave squealed in delight.

The creature straddling her now gave her its full attention, “Now, let us, begin...”

She saw its hands now in the light coming towards her, the fingertips were consumed in a glassy black heavy liquid that spiraled into the shape of fingers. They seemed to extend as they got closer to her face cupping over her cheeks and spilling into her mouth. She felt them, the creature’s thumbs, inside her mouth, the odd cool liquid pouring off them filling it up. Then she bit, as hard as she could she bit, she felt her teeth crush through the thumbs snapping in her mouth like a carrot before dissolving completely, she choked on the black liquid.

The creature screamed, “It, it, took my fingers?! It, it took, them...” suddenly, the creature was consumed by the black glass, it took over his form before dissolving it completely into a shiny sludge. The sludge lunged at the silent creature, and consumed him, like it did the first.

“What did you, do, you, shifter, you dirty, queer...” the sludge then consumed the last creature. The lights had gone out, all she could hear was the sludge advancing towards her. Then she felt it, felt it touch her feet, but she hadn’t felt her feet since she had awoken. The sludge pressed on at first it felt cold, like a spreading slime poisoning her body, consuming it. Then it changed, it felt warm, like a layer of warmth and protection weaving underneath her skin, she realized, it was probing, it was asking her how they could coexist.

She understood in that moment that it needed to know everything, every minute and tiny detail of her body, how it all worked, how it all functioned. If it didn’t know all, it would destroy her, and she knew she knew nothing. Though somehow, she was pointed to something, some new things in her brain that had never been there before, memories from the monsters, fragmented bits from before they made contact with it, the consumer, THE WEAVE, when they were tested. Those memories flowed into her mind readily, memories of all the minute details that make a human body, every cell, every organ, every interaction. Information that no one person could learn in a lifetime, information passed down from the original three, the first weavers, the son, the daughter, and the father. Each one of them had failed though to commit to memory themselves. The noble, he had remembered his demeanor but not his appearance, the knight who remembered his skills but always assumed he looked like everyone else, the wife, never forgot her hatred of the queers.

She felt the strands tie around her body, now burning her very being to smithereens, unless she controlled them. She fed it the knowledge she received from the ones consumed, and it cooled. She felt it constructing the minutia of her body, the things the same for everyone. Now she needed to focus, if she was to retain her form, she was going to need to understand the strands, she was going to need to understand how they created her body so she could shape them. She felt them swirl and twist into the forms she needed, she thought, how was it possible for her to shape her own memories, how could she create a recognizable form.

She thought back into that moment, to why she came here, to how she was going to fulfil her dream. She was going to become a master of THE WEAVE, a weaver, a shifter weaver, and she was going to release it from its cage, finally give the knowledge to all how to weave it. She was Zoë Xaria, a shifter, member of the Nihilist Queers of Marhavenand according to Catie, a selfish bastard. She finally had done it though, she had the power of the carbon now, she could truly create the person she wanted to be. She already had that image in her head, she fed it to the strands, but it was still unsatisfied, it knew she would pass out before it could do everything, she was going to have to sacrifice something.

“My legs...” she moaned out loud, “My legs, you can, have them...” her head spun the strands bucked in excitement, tearing down her body into her legs, the process was complete, it had remade her, she now could use it, the carbon tendrils slithering warmly beneath her skin, but in her legs, chaos. Threads spun so intricately and unrecognizable, pure and the way it was meant to exist if only it didn’t need a host. She felt herself slipping away, into that chaos, she slept.

~

Warm sunlight woke her again, she felt a bed beneath her, she was wrapped in cotton sheets. She heard chickadees singing out to one another from outside the window. She also heard a soft voice singing lightly.

Hush now darling don’t be scared

The sun has risen, the dark wouldn’t dare

Hush now darling clear your mind

The day is new and it is mine

So wake now darling don’t you fret

Momma loves you, little pet

The voice giggled.

“Are you awake sweetie? It’s almost time for breakfast.”

Zoë heard footsteps coming closer, a door clicked open and squealed.

“Baby, are you feeling better?”

Zoë opened her eyes but found herself staring at the ceiling unable to move.

The voice sighed, losing the fake softness, “No, no, I thought that was right, she should be better...” Zoë heard the voice suppress a sob, “Why, why...” Zoë’s world went dark again.

She woke again in the same bed but only moonlight streamed from the window now. She felt so connected to her body, in a way she had never experienced, but her legs were this dull spot in her senses, missing. She sat up in bed, the moon peered into the strange long and narrow window that slashed through the center of the dark room. Then she went to stand, and suddenly she was lying on the floor, she realized, they really had been sacrificed, she tucked them against her chest and felt, nothing, nothing but the swirling chaos.

Then she suddenly felt arms wrapping around her from behind, “Baby, you’re, you’re awake, I’m so happy,” the soft voice from earlier whispered in her ear. The arms pulled her into a tighter embrace, “I’ll stay with you baby, until the morning...”

The world faded away yet again.

Zoë woke now for the third time in the same bed, the sunlight washing over her through the narrow window. She looked around the room, it was sparsely decorated, the walls were all a pale white, a black wooden door left ajar across from the foot of her bed. Lying in a corner of the room were her things... her roughly tied together satchel, the polyester bag she slept in, and her clothes that looked as though they’d been both burned and torn to shreds.

In looking at that tattered pile she was hit with a bunch of realizations all at once, she was completely naked, there was an arm wrapped around her waist and another body pressed up against hers, but it was cold. Then she realized it had worked, she had constructed the form she wanted, she could tell, that for the first time her body finally matched her mind. Despite the circumstance, she felt euphoric, she had done it, it was possible, and she survived.

The cold body against her shivered and moaned softly, “Baby, baby, you’re... awake.” The voice sounded weak, and Zoë turned over and found herself inches from the woman attached to that voice, despite how cold and weak she looked, the woman was absolutely beautiful, her eyes were the color of sapphires, and her soft features were framed by tangled black hair, she smiled and Zoë felt her heart pang. The woman reached out to touch Zoë’s face with slender, soft fingers but Zoë recoiled, “It’s okay, it’s okay baby...” the woman touched her cold fingers to Zoë’s face. The memory of the glassy fingers came into her mind; she felt the cold consume her face as she bit down on the creature’s thumbs.

The woman drew her hand away, “I see...” she said to herself, “Zoë?” the woman said, “Zoë, I need you to look at me, okay, look at me please.”

Zoë hadn’t even realized she had been avoiding the woman’s gaze but when she told her to look at her, she felt she couldn’t do it. She felt the cold fingers push her chin up and her eyes met with the sapphires. As soon as they met the woman spoke, “Bite me.”

Zoë was in disbelief, bite her? what did that even mean, why did she want to – “Bite me,” the woman said again. Suddenly, her head filled with the vision of her biting into the neck of this woman, and she had to do it, her mouth opened involuntarily and bit into the woman’s neck. Immediately there was a rush, a feeling of the strands descending through her teeth and into the woman and suddenly, she was in her head, Marigold of Ravenmoon, she was the local witch, the local healer the local alchemist... her mind filled with a vision that she did not understand, but somehow performed, she sent the strands through Marigold, warming her back up to a normal temperature before pulling the strands out of her body.

Zoë removed her teeth from Marigold’s neck and the woman moaned with ecstasy, “Good job baby,” she stroked Zoë’s face again, this time with warm fingers that pulled Zoë’s face closer to hers pulling Zoë into a deep kiss, Zoë pulled back only to find herself again staring into those sapphire eyes.