Hey, buzz, you awake? Is he awake, Shri? I really can’t figure it out. Mind turning his face toward me? No? Well, keep to yourself then. Don’t come running to me if I don’t talk to you anymore!
 
The loud and obnoxious scent pulled me out of sleep. I was too tired to wake up, mind blank, and sight hazy. Some kind of drunkard was throwing pheromones around like crazy. I gave a mental groan and fell back into that sleep induced darkness.

Come on now, wake up, kid. You continue sleeping like that and you won’t be alive to see another morning!

You are missing the setting sun. Don’t the colors just remind you of flowers and their sweet-sweet nectar? Wait, you are not a bee. Flowers wouldn’t attract you.

Whoever it was, gave up at that point, but not for long. They, however, changed their target. 

Have you had a partner yet, Shri? Well, you do look kind of bulbous, if you don’t mind me poking. What —didn’t like that one, either? Come on! It was a great joke; it’s you who is too stiff and tight assed. Don’t you worry? I like you just the way you are! What, how are you still not impressed? I think there’s something wrong with you, Shri.

Well, I had something to say, too. And it was not all retarded quips and drunken comments. How someone could have such a lousy control over the pheromones? He was blowing them in enough quantities to saturate our surroundings. That would have gotten him locked up back in the city. Wait! I was not in the city!

I pulled away from the sleep-induced darkness like I would from an infection.

Stay away from him, Shri. The screamer was continuing. I’ll retaliate, otherwise. You don’t know my anger, yet.

Plants, leaves, web, and a shading spider!

My senses screamed of danger. I came wide awake! The spider was a goliath, nefarious, and salivating. Fangs protracted and pincers cleaning its straw mouth, she was coming for me, tip-toeing upon the straight thread. I bolted. Well, I tried. I couldn’t move. I pushed and heaved and even shook my body like I was having a seizure. But my efforts were wasted. I didn’t budge an inch. 

I was on my back and glued to the monster's dreadful creation, the web.  

She stopped right beside me and I panicked. I scented alarm with everything I had. I called for help. I scented emotions of the kind I had never felt before, and help came.

Oh, you are finally awake, kid. The scent was powerful and demanding and mind-numbing.
Chirpers and hissers had nothing on a spider. I could have escaped them anytime, but spiders are nefarious in our community for their traps. They eat their prey slowly over the days. They are the worst.

Thought you were dead. The scent continued. I tried calling you, but you were not listening at all. Name’s Barry, by the way. What do you call yourself?

Help! I turned. I don’t know what I was hoping from someone so merry, but what I found was not hope. There was a hornet looking at me. It was cocooned from chest to end and only had its head left outside.

I would have liked to react to the situation, but that’s when I felt the spider’s hairy legs descend upon my body. Immovable as I was I could do nothing to stop her. She bit me; one of her fangs pierced my bottom and delivered a cocktail of toxins that would have instantly turned my insides into goop were it not for the system. However, mysteries as it was, even the system couldn’t protect me completely. My sight grew colorful as the poison traveled to my head. Limbs stiffened right away. I tried something, but then the memories of my tussle with the ember and the mist resurfaced, paralyzing me. I didn’t hear anything after that.

I was completely bound to the web when I woke up. A cocoon of shining grey covered me so tight there was no leeway to move. I was no longer paralyzed, but even flexing my limbs didn’t budge the cocoon. It was a hopeless situation. It was the end. I was going to die.

Calm down, kid. You are not helping anyone like that. That thing is not so easy to get out off once caught. The giant hornet told me and then addressed the spider. See, this is why I don’t introduce you to others. Everyone starts panicking upon finding your identity. Can’t you web yourself a disguise or something? Like those beetles that carry their whole homes on their back? You can get some flowers maybe and cover that ugly face. That alone will be a huge improvement.

My head swam when the spider bit the hornet. His abdomen quivered as she sucked a few healthy gulps from inside him and pulled back. It was true. The spiders really kept their prey alive!

Maybe it was an act of asserting dominance, but the spider went as far as to twist the hornet’s antennae, causing him to buzz in pain. But even that didn’t stop him from cursing her as she was retreating back to her hiding place.

Yeah, run back to the side and stay there, you webbeber, Web-blobeber, web-bieber —oh, I’m too tired.

He noticed me watching. For a moment we both started. It was obviously he who broke the silence.

That’s Shri, by the way.

There was a vibration from the net. I could sense it now that I was calm. What else could I be? Panic and strength had already proved to be worthless.
Shri likes jewelry. He said, pointing one quivering antenna toward the other end of the hexagonal web.

Shrunken, mummified bodies hung from the web ends like small trinkets. It was not a good sign. My chances of escaping were looking really grim.

Wait! He could understand her. So maybe he could convince her to let us go. I gave another hard pull, but the cocoon was unbreakable. Just how strong was her web?

I decided to try my luck. You can understand her? I asked.
Of course, I can. Who do you think I am?
Can you tell her to let me go? I need to be away. I told him my reason, the summary of my journey, and aim. He was highly impressed. There was one problem, however.
That’s very romantic. He said. I like it. This kind of aim is worth protecting. It’s just that —there came the excuses. I would have been better off without the hope— do you think I’d be here if she listened.

That was fair.

She’s obviously deaf. The hornet scented loud enough to ring my head. The spider furiously tapped the web in return. I wondered how he could be so confident. We were literally seconds from death. If anything, he should have been weak and weary, catatonic from fear.

Oh, here she comes. Don’t let her stick you —not that you can resist. However, keep in mind: she injects you, and you are done. Good luck. Hope you survive.

Mt heart undulated in synch with the web. She was coming directly for me. I cringed away into the grey cocoon, trying to hide inside my prison. The only positive news was that her fangs were retracted back, but the poking straw shaped jaw more than made up for it in the negatives. She wasted no time. Positioned her legs around my cocoon and jaw at my abdomen, and bit into my abdomen through the cocoon without damaging it. My strength waned. A big bright numerical five rose out of my head, followed by slowly trickling ones and twos of yellow.  Soon I couldn’t even keep my head up and lost consciousness.

The sky was covered in a veil of black clouds when I came back. The shuddering wind was blowing the web everywhere, trying to free it from the constraints. I believe we would have had a much better chance of survival if the wind did blow it away. But the spider had been thoughtful. She had added a few more anchors to keep the construction floating, though the design had become a mess. We had another guest stuck on the web: a hoverfly. The hornet was still around, and still as merry as ever.

He noticed me waking up and welcomed my back with a cocktail of pheromones to drive my hangover away.
Did you think of any plans while you were concentrating?
I was unconscious! I would have shouted, if not for the following information.
It’s going to eat us tonight.

I thought sensibly. It was not time to panic. We needed to find a path to freedom or somehow make the spider let us go.

Anyway, he said, think you can do anything about our situation with your mandible? I heard your kind can cut through anything if you push hard enough.

I turned my face to let him see my missing mandible, giving him much disbelief. He cursed as if that was the extent of his plan. I was not even surprised. He was not normal. Maybe all hornets were like that? No. How I could I judge an entire species based on a single encounter. I was distracting myself and it was working.

What rotten luck. Mind telling us where you lost it? That’s Giant by the way. He told me pointing an antenna below at the hoverfly, who buzzed his wings in response. He was still trying to escape. Good choice. Just that it wasn’t so easy to escape the web once caught. Now that I was calm and collected I could see how panicking was not helping Giant, instead, it was making the web wind tighter and tighter around him. It wasn’t long before the wing that it had free was also stuck the web.

I do mind. I said not feeling so well.
Come on! How else do you want to pass time? By sleeping, or maybe counting fireflies in the sky? Well, not tonight.
There were clouds in the sky. What if it rains?

Don’t get your hopes up. Barry curbed my enthusiasm. She will drag us under a leaf if it does rain, and that will be that.
Don’t you have any good news?
Now that you mention it, I do have one. Look to your left? He said.

There was a fresh cocoon hanging from the end of the web. That’s Marcus. She finished eating him an hour ago. So there is a chance that she won’t eat us tonight.

This is tomfoolery, nothing more! I lashed and he lashed back, blasting pheromones stronger than ever.
What? You have something better to add? If so, tell that to poor Marcus. He also believed in miracles and now he’s dead —gone! I can’t be gone yet. I have to bring back the news of an invasion to my home. I can’t die here!

However, the night came and brought Shri —as Barry had named the spider— to eat us.

She went to him first and ate two of his legs. She tried to eat more but he finally had enough leeway to flutter his wings and that got her off him. Yeah, stay away from me, Shri. I don’t like you like that. I had to give it to him; he had a heart so big it was growing out of his chest. If I didn’t know any better I would say he didn’t care about his life. But that would be a wrong claim.

And then Shri teetered toward me. It was amazing how easily she could move even under the wind.

That reminds me of Marcus. The wind carried the pheromones to me. You are about the same size as him. Better not let her get you again.

No. I screamed, but the spider was too much. I couldn’t move, couldn’t act. Charging with the skill took me nowhere. The web was too sticky, too strong.

Her legs felt the cocoon, finding a good place to stick me. Saliva dripped from her mouth. She was going to enjoy eating me alive!

Buzz your wings! The stupid hornet advised. I had no wings. All I had were my pheromones.

I targeted the spider's face and overwhelmed, causing an explosion of pheromones at point-blank.

Whoa, what is this? This is amazing. The hornet cried from the other side. He was enjoying the attack a variant from which had frozen a whole company of ants on the 40^th floor.

It had no effect on Shri.

Do it again. The hornet exclaimed. I thought he was onto something. Do it one more time before you die! This rush is AMAZING!

Like hell, I could or would do it again! It was my only shot. The spider’s mouth grew closer. Just when I thought this was it, a familiar chirp rose somewhere in the distance, sending a shiver down my bound back?

Something moved in the white boundlessness of my sight. The spider was about to dig into me when the chick swooped down from the sky and tore through the web in a single sweep. The web stuck to her face as she careened through the ferns and the bushes. Winds flung Giant off the web and he plunged into the foliage below; while Barry chanted bird over and over again. It was good to know that even he had his limits. What was not good to see was the large tree that we were approaching at breakneck speeds. However, the chick banked toward the left, dodging at the last moment, midst mine and Barry’s fearful releases. Flying was too shading much for my heart.

It wasn’t long before we were on the ground. The chick rubbed her face into one of the feathery wings and cleaned the web and us and then pecked us out. She snipped the cocoon and freed me and almost ate Barry. I had to douse him in my pheromones to sway her into letting him go.

The spider fell out of her beak when she chirped, but she was quick to pick it back up from the ground, munch it into a paste and engulf it. That was the end of a menace.

Shri, no! Don’t leave me. Barry cried as I released him from his binds. At least return my limbs!

His condition did not look good. The spider had eaten him away. Only his front legs remained and even his wings were damaged. He was in no condition to fly, and I thought I had it bad.

I’m alive, aren’t I? That’s all that matters. The wing will heal. And these two legs are more than enough for me. He said moving them in front of my face. They barely twitched at his command.

You should learn something from him. My inner voice, the ember that lived inside me, spoke up for the first time in what felt like ages. I agreed.

Where are we going? The chick chirped excitedly. The world is so big. The wind is so cold. The sky is so empty. Where are we going, next?

I wanted to return to the 43^rd city as soon as possible. It was only right that the chick took me back for the delay that her mother had caused. But I took a step back. Clouds rumbled above scaring the chick. The rain was coming. There was no way I was getting anywhere tonight. And there were also my considerations about Greed and its workings. Selfishness strengthened the sickness, the result of which I didn’t want to know.

I couldn’t figure if it would be selfish of me to force the chick to help me or not. She would be of much help, but I would be separating her from her mother. This is what the Ember had meant when it told me to be selfless rather than being selfish.

However, her mother was not around, and I didn’t want the chick to be alone anymore; not after what I knew about her. She deserved a better life. We all did.

Say, I asked Barry. How far is your home?
Not far at all! He said, understanding. The sun sat in that direction so that means we need to go that way. He said pointing to my left.  
Are you sure?
Of course, He buzzed and flexed his jaw from the resulting pain. Wh-who forgets the-the-ir way home? But how are we getting there before it rains?

I looked at the chick. She was feverishly looking at the lights in the sky, though the rumble scared her. She hid her head between her feathery wings every time lightning lit the sky pink.

What do you think about riding her? I pointed at the chick and Barry buzzed in painful excitement. He better stop buzzing!

Of course, Madhuri will help us, but will she listen to you?

He named her, too. That was… fair? I also had my number and Barry… actually, who gave him the name? Maybe every hornet had names? And what about Shri —did he name her, too? Did he also have a name for me? Maybe he was still waiting for my introduction.

I shook my head as the sky rumbled and a cold shuddering gust ruffled the forest. It was time to find out whether the chick —Madhuri, the ember whispered in my head and had a laughing fit— well, whether she would follow me or not. Selfish or selfless, It was not intelligent to spend the night in the open; especially since it was raining.