Silk: Web Of Change

Issue 2: The Names Silk

"I'm sorry." She kneels on the dampness of the turf, in an ocean of graves surrounding her but one continues to have her attention. She sets her sights on her bag and steadily lifts a out gleaming bouquet of flowers to lay softly next to the memorial of Albert Moon. "Dad I'm so sorry. I should never have left."

"You came back." Tears had already soaked both their eyes, "oh my god. My baby girl came home." Having her mother clutching her daughter in the cradle of her arms, frozen by the crushing version of her own mother breaking down in pain and yet intense joy above her, Cindy felt the intense rhyme of her weak heart. The dampness of her mother's tears were being absorbed by Cindy Moon's shadowed hair. She could smell the alcohol on her breath and clothing. Mom, what happened to you? Feeling responsible her tears flooded ever so more aggressively. "Where have you been?!" Their reconnection was slowly cut as the mother released the once lost from her guard. Her daughter looked down in shame, letting out a single heated tear. Her mother saw her lost treasures and pain seeping through Cindy's face before she rewrapped her in the cocoon of her parenting arms. "Another time. Cindy there's something you need to know."

"Mum, where's dad?" Having broken their connection Cindy knew something was wrong, something was missing. "Where's Allie? Where's everyone?"

"I should never have left. I was scared. I couldn't control it. I messed up, I..." At that moment something in her breaks, not physically, even if she wished it was. In this fight she'd happily rather suffer the crunch of her bones, then the cruel silence of her heart breaking. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Pouring out her soul uncontrollably with liquid guilt revealing itself in vast numbers, she stares into the heart of the headstone and then rests her weak hand on its granite. "I'll make this right. I promise I'll find him. I'll find Allie and bring him home." Lifting her fractured soul to its feet, companioned by a the trace of determination painted to her eye she looks at the tombstones until it rains.

Two Weeks Later

"Turn here. Quick!" Rubber begins to smoke and flood to the stale air of the rotten, inclosed streets. As an elderly hatchback is thrown around the impossibility tight corners at such speeds a shadow soars throughout the orange sky at daybreak. "Did you see that?" Faces of fear looking through the bralacravers to the leader seating to right of the driver wish they could refuse his dreadful question.

"Is it true, what they say about it? Can it really fly?" One terrified teen shouts into the heated air of the car. The top dog looks at the wreck of a team player gripping his gun ever so tightly, the mixture of fear, sweat and testosterone in such a confined space being certainly unhealthy. "And can it really shoot lasers from its eye?" The words are whiplashed out of his mouth along with the rest of their heads as the chassis is whipped around like deadweight. The vehicle had thundered into a stand still without any braking or collision with anything else. "What the hell's going on?" The masked teen shouts, more to himself than anyone else, half leaving the floor open for an answer. "What are you?"

Glass shatters under the force of a fist, aggressively piercing its way through its brittle form. A hand wrapped in silk like webbing grips the leader so tight as if her hand had been nailed to his arm. She practically rings his neck.

"The name's Silk."

She pulls the scum out the window like a rag doll before throwing him to wall. "And no I'm not looking for a boyfriend" she stated flatly, full of gruff and attitude as if she were about punch him again and again until his teeth laid bare in the morning street. They are all terrified in the car, cowering before her shadow cast from the orange sun rising from over the tips of the skyscrapers of New York City. She loved it, loved the tough and rough edged she had developed and loved how the children before her were practically willing to wet themselves. One of the teenagers, dazed and confused looks to his car see the amazingly strong web vine hoisting the car to firm steel street lamp. Directing her attention to the same location she smiles before leaving. "Oh, and don't worry. The rest of you pussies are staying right there." She shoots a stream of thick matte white webs, sealing the vehicle and all in it, ironically trapping them in her web. The masked crusader turns back to face the leader with something in her eye, something he hadn't seen before, something that wasn't even there four years ago with raging heat. The game of cat and mouse was over, it was time for something much more meaningful. She struts over to him with the embodiment of intimation and focus surrounding her, almost like that of a predator. Finishing the terrifying presentation by knotting her fingers in the fabric of his shirt's color she wrenched him up to look him in the face.

"I'll put it as simple as I can; the more you talk, the less bones I'll break" she threatened in a more masculine voice as opposed to her sleek and toned physique. The thug's overwhelming fear mixed in with the fabric from the balaclava covering his lips begin distorting his words into an unrecognisable form of communication. This only dug under her skin more, in her temper she yells in nothing more than pure rage. "Where is he? Where is Al Moon?!" With anger boiling in her veins Silk rips his mask off, removing the muffling and to get a clean answer once and of all.

"I don't know!" He screams frantically, covering his precious face with his hands. "Don't hurt me please! I'll return the money" he bargains. She was hardly interested in the pitiful amount of money they had stolen. She wanted answers not cash. What she found beneath the incriminating headwear was the terrified eyes, not of a thug, not even a man but a boy with salt burning tears flooding from his eyes. Cindy retreats from holding the teen in the shock of her horrifying revelation that invaded the deepest corners of her heart like a virus. He's no older than Allie would be. Her face may of been behind a mask but her eyes were open for the world to see, anyone could recall the hesitation nailing her the ground. She releases him go completely, allowing him to stand away from the car where the rest of his compadres were stands frozen, taken whole by the charm of the past and how much she missed in the four years of being away. She is gobsmacked at her own negligence, and therefore ashamed.

He stands, dusting himself off almost and straightening his jeans, seeing his ravished trainers. The young criminal nervously lifts his hand up a sure slight to give mercy, for Silk is still paralysed by pettiness, some small grief and realisation. Her own inner voice of reason creeps in, shrouding her vision and takes her away fromt he now to her inner mind palace. I can't believe how much everything's changed, it's fallen so far. The meaning of those words aggressively pulsing through her mind lightly raises in her heartbeat. Her emotions would normally serve her well in the heat of battle but all they are doing for her now is blinding to sound of the gun behind the boy's back being cocked. The sound of the solitary click resonated throughout the small streets, clashing on the glazing of the windows and soaring back into everyone's ears. The atmosphere of this stage changes over something as simple as a lift of a hand paired with the sly snagger, dark and very like a western or a gothic night, not New York and certainly not the middle of the morning. Still stuck in her perpetual lack of motion he pulls the revolver to her face, ready to cut her heart strong and silence the masked acrobat for good. He lets out another sly and crude laugh while she stands before him.

"See ya" he breathes, the vibrations from his vocals hitting her square in the face like slap back to reality. Cindy flashes with movement, the sound of gunfire ringing within her body. The sound cracks through the sky, followed by a cry out.

The ordinary challenge of living day to day life manifests itself as a young father with his innocent daughter walking through the belly of the dying city.

"Daddy, up" she calls. The father looks in line with the point of his precious child. His eye climbs the buildings until they saw the impossible.

It was a shimmering dark navy across the sky with strands of silver and white coming from the corners. "What the?" He finds himself looking at the most absurd thing; observing a car cocooned in web. The craziest thing he can hear are voices coming from the inside of the webbing. Taking a closer look out of pure curiosity he notices the slightest signs of life coming from outside the car. "There's somebody in there!" He shouts suddenly, playing the good samaritan. "Someone call the police!" As the words respectfully left his mouth he noticed the gun.

Silk lands on a rooftop somewhere in Manhattan, the wind blowing through her long and luscious black hair as she stands up tall. She takes a sigh and removes the layer of white webbing at her mouth to reveal herself in the broad daylight. Cindy Moon. She was Silk and had been for the most part of the past four years, only now she was embracing it and her abilities in a way that no one ever had before in New York.

Air tickles Cindy's flesh along with the adrenaline, both like electricity pulsing around her body. She breaks out into a frivolous sprint. As she runs upon the rooftops of New York City like the free bird she had always told herself she was she lets out a huge grin. Her moment slowly begins to waiver to a still frame, removing her webbing mask was another shackles loose, proving to herself she was more than a vigilante, as the city would soon have her painted as should she continue. She hardly cared though. She knew she would be painted as thug, if not a murderer, but she wanted to save the city, to save her brother. For her father, for her family that had been destroyed already. She had to fix everything. She draws large amounts of ice chilled air to her lungs, feeling the cut down her desert dry throat. Gonna need a bitter one of theses at some point. Holding the identity protector disappointedly between her two fingers she thinks of what it would lead to. Oh maybe something hot, like red. Yeah that'd be cool. Cindy's joke to herself didn't last long as she finally faces the possibility that she had been running along rooftops since her return. She throws her backside to the gritty roofing of the business originated building. Who am I kidding? I've been at this for weeks. I don't even know if he's still alive... She cuts herself off before going any further save saying the unthinkable.

Cindy sat on the same sofa she had sat on four years ago anxiously, while her Mother had required another full glass to feed her obvious addiction and to sedated the grievous past she was about to commemorate. "You had been gone about a year, the police had no damn idea..." Cindy saw her mourning the memories, shallowing within her and companioned by the ache of their scars. Her once lost daughter placed a comforting paw on her mother's skeleton like hand. "We all began to expect and deal with it in our own way." Taking another gulp of her cheap wine she held back her tears poorly. "Al was never the same after you left. He got into some type of gang, he stop being the sweet boy you remembered." Tears began to release, her calm voice had shattered into a heart wrenching sob. "Albert always did say we didn't just lose you that day." Cindy planted her heavy head into the boney net of her fingers. "Oh Cindy you've grown so much"

She knew her mother's heart was already stretched as far as it could cope with and this was a cry for relief but she had to hear it, she had to know. "Mom what's happened to Ali and where is Dad?" She pleaded so tenderly with the allusion to seriousness. It was such a long night. "Please just tell me."

"Ali would to go missing for days, then just turn up out the blue until the day he didn't come back at all. Weeks passed with no word, Albert one night had a lead to where Ali was, he went. I told him it didn't feel right, but he wouldn't listen." This was close to breaking her and Cindy knew it, about to release words of relief to her mother, she was shot down in flames by five words. "Then they found his body," it was in those words Cindy had found her guilt "the next day in he was found in the river."

It's all my fault. If she wasn't already sitting she would felt the sudden weakness plaguing though her body like the maggots beneath the soft breakable skin. She could feel the pressure of weakness behind her eyes like a dam holding back the great flood before the inevitable crack. "Oh god Mom! It's all my fault" having been beaten down by the fists of her own guilt, she began to bleed out watery signs of damage and self hatred."Why am I so selfish? I was scared. I didn't want any of this."The damage evolved into a deep unseeable scare beneath all of Cindy's power, bravery and heart. A repeating reminder like a scratched vinyl, that her choice had lead to this.

Having noticed the slow decay of her daughter's self worth and will to keep her head held her mother placed her own reassuring hand on her shoulder, pulling Cindy in for a warm embrace.

An old saying is clear; 'Mother means god, on the hearts and lips of every child.'

Gripping her only daughter, her baby girl in the protective wall of her arms they both began to cry. "It's not your fault Cindy." The two reunited in the damp of their tears and the warmth of a mother and daughter's love. "I never blamed you darling and I never will."

Cindy snaps back into reality from her daydream, the light from the sun softly comforting her cheek like a old friend. The roof grew brighter in the rising sun. "Hang on, why is the sun there?" She looked to the huge clock face to side of the church. "Shit. I'm late! First day and I'm late" she curses and shakes herself. She moves in a flash, ripping a big webbed ball of sorts from the wall before yipping from the edge.

Making sure there was no trace to her previous work, Cindy walks up to the mouth of Midtown High school; its scape was bare of life but one, young blond about the same age as herself, in still what most would call school uniform, which was impossible because Midtown High didn't have a uniform. A hybrid between the formalities of a office wear and the youthfulness of a school uniform. With her loosely flowing knee length plaid skirt, compartmented by a soft cream woolen jumper with a sharp blouse underneath."Hi," she shouts, a short smile across her glowing face. "You the new girl? You're late" she continues with the irritating sound of a condescending tone beneath the delicate purity of her sharp and astute voice. She looks to the one who was cordially challenging her sense of timing, cursing under her breath briskly at being caught red footed. She feels the cold bite of the gust, the same gust blowing respectful image of virtuous blonde hair; its harmonic glow flicking in the sweet landscape of her scalp like sparks of light in the grace of the sun, before being cut by the headband that held the classic style she'd archived.

"Sorry. I had to fight my way through the traffic, it was terrible" Cindy explains looking to her with a merciful plea, in her glare. She always hated being caught or seen by a member of the elite in a school, it just annoyed her to hell. The girl in front of her was simply the latest in a long line of the sorts, the prudent uppity types or so they seemed to just clash with Cindy's vagabond and puckish rogue persona she'd done well to craft.

The woman atop the steps takes a quick breath, filling herself up with her aura of sunshine."It doesn't matter anyway. Wendy Moon isn't it?" She asks, presenting her hand in a welcoming manner, her kind yet timid eyes aligning with the hardness of Cindy's. "Gwen Stacey" she introduces with her cheerful grin. It wasn't that she was up herself or anything of the sorts, just over enthusiastic in every way and cheerful beyond belief.

"Cindy" the raven haired vigilante corrected, giggling out the word with a jesting smile. Her hand uniting with Gwen's, sharing the warmth at the touch. It was a split second of pleasantness that Cindy hadn't felt in a long time.

Gwen, anxious to the possibility of offending her begins to blossom with nerves. "Oh god I'm sorry. I'm honestly no good with names" a faint giggle lets slip from Gwen's lips amidst her incoherent babbling that Cindy found forgivable and the kind nature became transparent to Gwen, responding to it with a sweet smile back. "Right," she begins, taking her hand back and clutching at her purse. "Well we better move along, or we'll be later than we already are" she reminds herself, turning around to head back into the building with her guest in tow behind her. Together the two walk into the swallowing doors of Midtown High, Cindy looking to Gwen observing her graceful features.

In the heart of the school crowds of young people of all sizes flood their sights. Cindy can hear segments of conversations, grunts of the broody ones and attitudes sticking out miles long from almost all of them She can even spot the timid ones, the ones trying to avoid detections but not from Cindy, her senses too sharp and her vision a blur of ecstasy and euphoria of all the different and more vibrant colours to her iris. Her body cringes to the intensity of the sights, the sharp edges of all the people stabbing at her eyes. She had thought she was completely ready, she would never have considered what returning to a normal place would be like after so long. Gwen looks back to see Cindy's face same as it was outside despite the overload of change entering her retinas. "So they've put you in with me. Is that ok?" She asks humbly and in a soothing tone.

In advance to Cindy's reply, an unaware shoulder clashes with that of hers. "Watch yourself! Stupid bitch" a brash and assaulting tone cries out to the unaware Cindy Moon. Turning her attention to the accuser she meets the sight of an obviously distinct couple; a clean football player, by the silicon glare of his New York Lions jacket filled by the muscular fame beneath it. His head topped with a fashionably short radiant blond do. He is paired with an erotic, flirtatious redhead under in his dense arm, her face radiating nothing but disgust to towards Cindy's less than glamorous appearance. Her hormone encouraging makeup, with attitude filled maroon painted to her lips and shadowy judging eyes glare at the new girl, partnered with the seductive invitation of her lack of appropriate clothing, from the band printed crop top needingly displaying the busty shape of her chest.

"What's your damn deal?" Cindy shouts across the hall to the bulldozing couple blasting their way past anyone else in their way. Total dicks. Notes of anger ring in Cindy's voice, this was not the day to piss her off.

"You got a problem?" The redhead woman shrieks back towards Cindy and Gwen, setting up the challenge.

Gwen steps forward, parallel to Cindy while the space between the two pairs cleared of everyone else. "Mary Jane, just leave here alone" Gwen invokes, her unimpressive but brave tone vibrating at a crystal clear pitch, that all could understand. Gwen's eye harder than when Cindy first met her, like she was the water to her clay and the redhead had felt the white wash of Gwen's bark over Cindy's simply because she knew her.

Mary, colliding with Gwen's defensive words uncontrollably discharges a swell of rage almost as if her own faux positive charge didn't agree with her, which it really didn't when a catfight was on the cards. "Who's talking to you freak? You finally got yourself a girlfriend?" She spat at the blond petite Gwen, laughing to the comedic show of her unchangeable status. "It's Mary Victoria actually" she adds with a kick of her own vulgar attitude that could tranquilize and football player with its annoying and brash aftershocks. Gwen slowly begins cowering back into her shaped body, somewhat embarrassed and defeated. "Maybe you should learn to pick a better fight," Mary continues to mock with hands on hips, "but then again you're so much like your mother."

The string in Cindy snaps like a twig. She'd figured out that Gwen was the daughter of Detective Stacy, the one she had helped nights ago and she had also deduced about the fate of his wife and Gwen's mother. That simply did not stand in her books as a viable insult. "That's enough!" She blares into Mary's face, her fists clenched and her chest out as a show of moxy and willingness for violence. "You have no right! If you want to say shit, say shit to someone who'll do something about it" she challenges the redhead like she were Gwen's own mother. Cindy rises to protect someone she barely knew, story of her life one would say. "Just piss off" she shoots from fairly pursed lips. Her heightened senses suddenly predict the fall of Mary's right shoulder, she prepares to impound this back bit hitting her jaw with a single hard thud from her elbow. With a single step to the side of Mary's incoming attack and a jab from her elbow reinforced by her offhand to the fist for an extra dose of force, the redhead and her cheap and dirty jab is suddenly cut down before Cindy, Gwen and the rest of the observing student body. Eyes look to the shocked glare of another. In the evergreen of her eyes, Cindy sees the swirling hate of everyone living more fortunate than her, which explains the shade of depression standing beside her like a phantom. Mary stands straight with a rage filled with rage and outrage. "Back off!" She yells into the empty space between herself and her attacker.

The flaming redhead tries to apply pressure and offset the balance of Cindy's stance with a shove but as if her innards were replaced with the density of stone she wouldn't budge, an immovable statue mocking her. Recognising the unsettling fact that she is clearly outclassed in this clash of titans Mary feels the paranoia building the walls of humiliation and she knew if she didn't place her next move right, it would tumble above her. "Watch your backs, you never know who's behind." As the chill of from Mary's frozen blue eyes ran its crawls down Gwen's curvish back she turns away and begins to leave with her partner around her. Fear may have taken Gwen tightly by the hand but Cindy's hands free from her anger as Mary turns away from them with the stench of disrespect oozing out of her smug smirk.

"What a jerk. Are you okay?" Cindy words are comforting to Gwen as the void between the two pairs enlarges so does Gwen's self society, her fear suddenly dissolves simply by exposure to the strong woman near her.

"Yeah I'm fine," Gwen reassures her, trying relocate her breath. "That's Mary Jane Watson. Well it was, now it's Mary Victoria apparently. She used a good friend" She explains while they too returned with the walking. "Then she met that jerk." Gwen was of course referring to the hunk of meat that had had his arm around the girl. The tremendously handsomeness of his defined arm around the thinness of Mary's shoulders looking unhealthy to the common folk. Finished by him running his greedy hand down the runway of her spine. "Flash Thompson" Gwen reveals, Cindy remembering his smug and almost vulgar face. Their steps soon begin to find the rhythm again as the two journey through the sea of faces. "I bet if she left Flash and got with someone actually nice, she would have been alright" she added, a hint of resentment in her voice.

"Please I can get back the money?" Blind to the outside world due to terrifying darkness that plagues his vision, relying on his other four senses to detect his correct residents. Feeling the achy, rough sack on his head and the cutting chill of the steel handcuffs unnecessarily tight around his wrists. Breathing in the thin scent of raw fish seeping through the fabric of the bag. His knees would surely bruise from kneeling on the unmaintained cemented ground, if he lives long enough to even get up off of it. Whoever is around him had finally walked over his grave leaving a trail of untamable fear in his far too young of a soul. "Look. it wasn't my fault, she came out of nowhere, please I-"

Cut from his prophetic cry by a single cold bluntly placed word, matching over to his ears. "She?" The equaliser repeats, his tone cold and stainless like a sword falling down on the kid's tongue to silence him. The delivery of that single word the clearest and yet muffled syllable to ever enter an ear. His breath loses its rhythm and becomes replaced by the composition of the conshendo of dread and the rising beat of panic. "She?" He repeats again with an extra waft of air following, invisible to the lad behind the bag.

"She called herself Silk," the guy explains, somewhat trembling as he leaves off. The words being spat from the terrified boy's hidden mouth. "She's one of them freaks, those mutants. And she shoots ropes out of her fingers. That's all I know I swear" he pleads, scrambling his hands behind his back but to no avail with them bound. Like a wild animal the terrified youth had lost control of breathing and tone of voice, wet with fear for the thing in front of him. The eyes of the lamb growing heavy in the darkness though the weight of the water building within.

"You cooperation has been most appreciated," he starts, ecstasy sounding from his flat and muffled voice. "But no act can relieve any man of his failures." Rebellion and disorder begin to spill out of sacked prisoner's head. Sounds that matter not, the pathetic chime of pleading for mercy. Uncontrollable rage, fear and the unwillingness to be put down like an ill pet.

The radiant shine of the sun's rays, gloriously pierce through the glass in the classroom. The light illuminating the faces of prestigious and promising futures as they sit absorbing the knowledge like it was power. All but one are embracing it. Cindy's jet black hair spreads across her desk like the roots of a great tree, life outside the branches of nest like hair seem dampened; the light the sound, her world. "And that's how scorpions as a species.. Cindy Moon, Cindy!" One of the voices in the room call out to her just as she begins to drift off startling Cindy as her exhausted and shot down mind is forced to reboot.

"I wasn't sleeping, promise" she shoots out quickly, hardly able to see as her eyes are still almost glued together by lack of sleep over the past nights.

"Do you think I was born yesterday young lady?" Replies the lecturer at the front of the class. They stare at each other with unimpressed pictures painted on their faces. Oh just shut up. You were just as boring when we first met. Now look at you, Stillwell. "Well if you weren't sleeping, you'll have no problem answering this then. What are the symptoms to a scorpion's venom?" He sets her, looking smug and victorious. Smiling to himself like a child would in a sweetshop, the vibration of the other students sniggering makes its way to Cindy and Gwen's ears like toddlers. Gwen begins to bury her head in embarrassment and pity for Cindy's sure humiliation.

"Where is it?" Screamed a tall and twistedly thin crooked female to an elderly male that was clothed in the formal wear of a Captain. On his knees with the sway of the deck beneath him, as the harshness of the raging waves attacked the sides of the ship like a pack wolves crawling at the brack. Age and knowledge were clearly characteristics of his natural raggedness. "Tell me where it is Captain!" The question had been repeated by the mutineer.

The elder looked up to face the twisted act presented to him. It was painted with the colour of two personnels, bright vibrant starks for child's youth and the grays of a crooked woman like a painting. Cindy had been imprisoned by her in bone like bars that were her arms. "Cindy. Look at me, just keep looking at me, everything's going to be okay." The Captain tried to comfort the child by his warm, father like eyes and warm words but fear had already since conquered her. A stare of question bloomed between them as he look to her fingers seeing the web develop underneath Cindy's cratered nails, they both knew she could end now if they wasn't the unknown watching. So the Captain did what he felt he had to, focusing on her cocktail mix eyes of fear and anger. Don't kid.

"I think our Captain needs some encouragement." In a rupturing second the imprisoner snatched something out of her pocket slammed her hand and the object into the child neck.

An agonising scream released from the little lungs of the thirteen year old girl, before collapsing to chilling steel of ship's deck. "No! What have you done!" In panic and dread the Captain felt his lungs fire the words like ammunition to this witch.

The enjoyment of the crooked woman's inviting smile was sickening. "I've injected her with scorpion venom," the mutineer explained to the Captain, Cindy's body twitching with electric pluses through her. The sight was horrific. "Oh Cap, I don't know how long she's got."

"I'll kill you," the Captain barked, spitting out words. "I swear to God I'm gonna kill you."

"So I'll ask you again, where is it?" The mutineer countered with the smugness of the villainous crook mocking the Captain's threat.

The class waits eagerly on Cindy's reply to Mr Stillwell's question. "Widespread numbness, difficulty with swallowing," she spits at him after a second of thought into her traumatising past, the memories piercing her mind like a raging storm. "Blurred vision, seizures, salivation, and difficulty with one's breathing." A single tear escapes from Cindy's damp, oak eyes accompanied by a weakened voice or perhaps cry. "See told you I was listening."

Mr Stillwell can see the emotion in her heart through her swollen eyes and felt the guilt along with it. "Well... Right, back to," A shockwave thunders its way through Cindy's mind. "What, not now?" A shattering raw tears though the glass with intense impact. Panic infects the class like an epidemic of fear. Cindy pulls her version back to together. What the hell was that?

"Stillwell!" A female voice cuts into Stillwell's and Cindy's ears with merciless intention, flooding him to break with torment. You? Please no, not you. Having been left by all but Gwen the two witness the armored woman standing in the widow, green steel and chrome flickering in the sun like a laser to the former professor. All three standing differently to spot the rise of the tools to the direction of the professor, the green glowing as its towers over her head like scorpion's tail.

"Your prize has returned. Lover."

To Be Continued.