When Cage opened his eyes, he found himself in what appeared to be a cellar. Mortared stone walls and a low ceiling encased the space in a cool grey, and at the center of the room was a round concrete pillar extending from the cement floor into the ceiling above. Cage looked over to his left and saw Robert. He had his back turned to Cage and was staring at the stone wall.

Cage walked over to him, but Robert didn’t seem to notice. He was transfixed by something on the wall: two brick-shaped cuts protruding from the smooth stone surface. The rectangular cuts were positioned with their long lengths pointing vertically, and were set parallel but slightly askew from one another. Together, they made a sort of two-sided frame around a square depression wall.

Cage looked at Robert, who seemed to be in some kind of trance. He looked back to the wall where Robert was gazing, and at first, saw nothing but the grey wall and strange geometric shapes. But as he examined the wall, he began to feel sick, low in his stomach, and his pulse quickened.

The wall began to change. Cage watched as the square depression became translucent, and then clear. It showed into another room, large and open and blanketed in a low-hanging fog. Sitting in the fog was a boy. He looked to be maybe five or six years old, with his hands wrapped around his legs and his head huddled on his knees. He was crying.

Cage wanted to help the boy. He reached out to touch the wall, and in that moment found himself waist-deep in a cylindrical hole cut into the cellar floor. Deliah was now in the room, and she and Robert stood outside the hole looking down at him. Cage was trapped in the depression by a covering of thick, white spider webs. “Will you find something to clear these away?” he called to them. He ducked lower. Robert and Deliah looked down at him, unaffected.

“The square stone,” she said. “Find the square stone.”

The webs were now multiplying, closing in on Cage, growing denser. He crouched down in the hole and began to panic. He was on his knees when he saw it, small and black and moving along the thick strands toward him. It was sheen, dark, and despite its size, Cage sensed the dread swirling inside it. It glided along the suffocating threads in his direction. “Get me the fuck out of here!” he cried. It inched closer. Cage breathing was tight and high in his chest. “Help me!” he shouted. It paused, just for a moment, and shot into Cage’s face.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Get it off me!”

Cage leapt out of bed, rubbing frenetically at his body. “What the fuck was that?” The room was spinning. He twitched and spasmed and felt the creature crawling over every inch of him.

Dissoriented, he staggered into the bathroom. The shag pile rug near the toilet felt like a swarm of insects on the bottom of his feet and he jumped and swatted at himself again. “Fuck!” His heart thumped in his chest. “Is anybody here?” he yelled. No answer. He took a leak, stumbled back into the room, and got under the covers. The loose threads of his frayed blanket felt like ants scurrying over his skin. He twitched and tried to calm himself and sleep. The clock said 11:37.

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