247
The dark web
🕸️

You and Snako start pushing at the spider web with your hands.

It is amazingly strong and also sticky. When you push a strand it becomes harder and harder to unstick your hands.

"Arthur", cries Snako, "I'm stuck!"

You turn to the side and see that somehow Snako has got himself totally tangled up in the web - he is hanging upside down with spider webs curled round his ankles and his hair brushing the floor.

"Hang in there Snako, I'm going to see if I can get through!" you reply but as you try to move over towards Snako you feel thick ropes of spider web curl around your legs and lift you up into the air. In an instant you are as helpless as Snako.

You feel your panic rising as you struggle. Who is going to help you now? No-one even knows that you are here except perhaps Slumblebore.

"Aaargh! Look Arthur - spiders! Millions of spiders!"

Snako is right. Crawling out of the cracks of the walls, floor and ceiling is a host of spiders. They scurry along the webs heading for you and Snako. In a sudden insight you realise that these spiders have made the webs themselves, working as a one enormous team to add strand after strand of spider silk until they had created these rope-thick cobwebs. So many spiders working as one! What could they not achieve together?

Then all thoughts flee from your mind as the wave of spiders reach you. They stop inches away.

One lone spider - no bigger than the rest - scuttles out of the pack, delicately steps onto your robes then up to your neck. You see a flash of tiny fangs then you fade into unconsciousness.