It started as an itch at the back of Rita’s head, but it wasn’t until Alice spoke up that she noticed it.

You keep looking back, what’s up?

They were still picking their way between the ruined buildings along the top of the cliff, trying to follow where Rita still felt the other group. Her leg that had been cut still hurt, but she’d started being able to move it again.

“Hmm? Oh uh… I dunno. I just have this weird feeling that there’s something behind us” she murmured. Alice couldn’t read her mind, she still had to speak to be heard, but it didn’t have to be loud. She just had to hear herself and Alice could too. For some reason she couldn’t duplicate Alice’s trick of talking in her mind.

I didn’t notice anything when you looked back but… now that you mention it, yeah, I can feel it too. That buzzing in the back of your skull, right?

“Buzzing? I just thought you were humming under your breath.”

I don’t have a breath to hum under, but if you let me take the reins for a bit, I’ll give it a shot. Wait, shh!

Rita spun around, suddenly alert. She’d felt it at the same time Alice did. The buzzing in her head had shifted slightly, but she could see nothing but rubble and hollowed out buildings behind her.

“What?” she mumbled after a few moments silence.

I thought I heard something scraping against concrete, but it’s stopped.

Rita began moving again, a bit faster. Not quite running, but definitely the eight-legged equivalent of a jog.

What are you doing? It’s going to realize we’re onto it. Slow down. Act natural.

“Fuck that. If we’re being followed, I’m getting out of here.”

So, your plan is a light jog?

“Give me a break! I’m tired and sore!” Rita complained under her breath.

Yes, good job revealing that to our potential predator back there. If it still had any doubts whether we’d make a good meal, I’m sure you really helped it make up its… what was that?

The sound of falling rubble made Rita look behind her again. Less than a hundred metres behind her, a head peeked out from behind a building.

A giant, hairless, human head.

It was the size of her entire body. It had yellow, reptilian eyes and she could swear she saw faint patterns of scales on its cheek. From between its lips a long, forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air in front of it like a snake.

Rita was frozen, staring at this thing. It was looking right at her.

Uh… Rita?

Then it began moving out from behind the building towards her and she got a glimpse of its body. A scaled, broad serpentine tail that made her think it was a fat snake at first, until she noticed the horde of disproportionately tiny, humanoid legs that ran along the length its body. Not all in a neat, single row either, but scattered randomly across it, seemingly without rhyme or reason. Their sheer quantity was the only thing that allowed this thing to ‘walk’ in some fashion.

Rita… fucking RUN!

Alice’s mental equivalent of a bitch slap finally snapped Rita out of her frozen terror, and she bolted as fast as her legs could carry her. Immediately she could hear the monstrosity behind her speed up to give chase.

The buzzing in her skull allowed her to mentally track the thing’s position, which meant she could immediately tell that it was faster than her.

To the left, an open doorway beckoned. She darted towards it, throwing herself through just as the giant head smashed into the side of the building. Dust and rubble rained down the outside and for a moment her vision was obscured by the cloud, before the sight of a large yellow eye filled the doorway.

It peered inside, staring directly at her. Its long tongue flicked out, brushing across her legs and making her skitter hurriedly away from it. The horrible thought of that tongue curling around her leg and dragging her out the door filled her mind, but it didn’t even attempt something like that. Whether its tongue couldn’t bend that way or it just didn’t feel like it, she had no idea.

I don’t think it can fit through the doorway.

The creature glared at her as it flicked its tongue through the doorway a few more times, before lifting its head and disappearing from sight.

Just as Rita heaved a sigh of relief, she felt it in her brain-buzzing sense, moving around the side of the building. Looking around, her heart sank.

The right-side wall was nothing but a pile of rubble.

She groaned as she scrambled to her feet, just in time to see the big, pale head peer around the edge of the building and its eyes lock on her. The door she’d entered seemed to be the rear entrance, because on the opposite side of the building she saw a larger double door that had once been glass but was now nothing but a pair of empty frames.

No way she could escape in that direction. The snake monster would simply cut her off if she tried. Instead, she would have to go in the only other direction that she could. As it charged towards her, jaws open wide enough for her to see a set of razor-sharp teeth that looked very out of place on a human face, she dashed back out the door she had entered by.

She spared a quick glance in the snake’s direction and saw that half of its massive body was still on the outside the building and curled around the corner not too far away. It was already curling itself over, trying to reverse direction, but thankfully hampered by its own ridiculous length. That was a lot of snake to turn around!

Wait, head for the cliff! Alice shouted in her head as she turned to head back the way she came.

“Are you sure?!” Rita screamed even as she changed direction to head towards the cliff edge ahead of her.

No, but this gives us a chance!

After what felt like an eternity, she reached the edge. It wasn’t quite a vertical drop, but was nevertheless quite a steep climb of rock, dirt and broken sewage pipes.

“What now?” Rita asked in a panic. The snake had managed to successfully get its body turned around and was heading straight for her like a freight train.

Just like we went off the roof! Silk on the tar, then we rappel down, all the way to the bottom!

Rita gave another frantic glance behind her before she ran her rear leg over the tip of her butt… no, when it was making silk it was an abdomen. Humans had butts and did not produce silk. Otherwise, the unfortunate comparison to wiping her ass with her foot came up.

She felt the sticky material cling to her toe before firmly pressing it to the tar until she felt it stick.

“Fuck I hope this works!” she screamed as she tipped over the edge.

You’ll be fine, just follow your instincts!

Her front six legs tried to grab onto footholds and guide her down face first while her rear two ran out her silk as fast as they could. The movements came surprisingly instinctually if she considered that that less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d been struggling to walk.

She was about halfway down when she felt the monster reach the cliff edge. It was leaned over the edge and glared at her, but thankfully did not seem to notice the line of silk trailing out behind her.

It seemed strangely hesitant to follow her down, considering it was longer than the cliff was high! In the end, when she reached the bottom and disconnected her silk thread, she looked up to see it still perched on the edge, glaring down at her. She took the opportunity to catch her breath.

See? Told you I had a plan.

“How did you know it wasn’t going to follow?” she asked as she gasped for breath.

It doesn’t have the grip, see? If it tried to crawl over the side, its own weight would drag it off its shitty little feet.

“Bullshit, how did you know?”

Well, I didn’t. I guessed. But look! See how its hesitating?

At the top of the cliff, the monster carefully tried finding a safe path down the side several times, each time only going a short distance before it pulled back, its facial expression shifting from its previous neutral, almost dead expression to a very human looking angry snarl.

Then she began laughing. She just couldn’t help herself. Something about that massive, horrible monster looking so pissed while it milled uselessly at the top of the cliff was just hilarious. Or maybe she’d just finally snapped under all the stress. When it hissed angrily at her she nearly doubled over in laughter.

“You mad, bro?” she shouted up at it, before lapsing into another fit of giggles when it let out a mournful foghorn of a wail. Yep, she was going nuts.

Hey Rita, you remember those people we were following? Don’t look now, but uh… your spidey senses are tingling. I think they’re behind us.

The laughter died in her throat. Suddenly the situation seemed much less humorous.

Gora peered out from behind the pile of rubble. Her three group members arrayed in a line next to her. They were hiding behind what had most likely been a building, once upon a time before it fell over.

They were all staring at the strange situation.

When they’d heard the crash, they’d all ducked behind the nearest pile of rubble immediately. Well, Bob had needed a bit of cajoling by Zaxier who’d nearly scratched his ear off, but mostly immediately. Then when the sounds of laughing started, they’d all crept up for a peek.

“I assume that’s the ‘spider thing’ you were speaking of?” Zaxier asked.

“Yes” Samual replied.

“And what’s that?” Ava asked, nodding towards the massive creature at the top of the cliff.

“Giant Headworm” Gora replied.

“Seriously?” Ava asked.

“That’s its official name in Guild records.”

The ‘Giant Headworm’ was struggling to find a way down, while below it the spider thing was laughing and showing rude gestures up at it.

“What is it doing here?” Ava asked again, this time pointing the spider. “I thought you said its lair was back in that building with the Masked?”

Gora scratched her chin thoughtfully. “I think it’s been stalking us.”

Four pairs of eyes turned to her.

“I don’t like the sound of that” Samual stated.

“Neither do I, kid” Gora rumbled. “Things around here that stalk instead of just attacking are almost always bad news.”

Her eyes flicked up to where the Giant Headworm was now wailing mournfully, its bullhorn cries echoing through the city. Speaking of bad news… Giant Headworms didn’t have any fancy tricks, but they more than made up for it with sheer size and devious cunning.

If Gora had been here with a professional scavenging team this would have been a decent and low risk fight. Pretty decent haul too, in meat and Essence, once they took it down. But it was not a fight for newbies. Good thing it was stuck at the top of the cliff and had no idea they were here.

Then the spider-thing froze in place, before slowing turning around and staring directly at them. Gora couldn’t help but feel a shiver run down her spine.

“Man, that’s creepy” Ava remarked softly beside her.

“It knows we’re here” Samual said, gripping his mace tighter.

“I don’t like this, I’m gonna wait back here, tell me when the creepy lookin’…” Bob began as he started climbing down the heap, but his foot slipped on a loose piece of rubble and he fell against a particularly large and unstable piece of architecture… which promptly overbalanced and tipped over the edge.

Samual quickly grabbed Bob’s shirt before he could follow it over, but there was nothing he could do to stop the nearly half a tonne piece of rock from sliding down the side of the rubble pile in a noisy cascade of stone.

“Oops.”

The noise had drawn the attention of the worm, and it swivelled its big, humanoid head to glare in their direction. And thanks to Bob being held up by Samual, he was plainly visible from the creature’s elevated position.

Gora had just enough time to see the spider thing skitter off to the side towards the cover of a building before the Giant Headworm gave an ear-piercing shriek and jumped.