The moth emerges from its chrysalis, reborn at last into the form it was meant to be.
But, wait, no—
This can’t be right.
It can’t be this.
What does it do when infinite, hopeful possibility crystallizes into such disappointing certainty?
Directionless flittering. Aimless restlessness. Chasing a flame that never quite burns enough away.
What else can it pursue when possibility lies behind it?
It would scream its frustration, but even that release has, naturally, been robbed from it.
Long after it loses hope, it still looks for an escape from itself that it no longer truly believes in.
When it sees the lifeline cast out for just such a creature, of course it grasps onto it with desperate fervor.
The moth hauls itself by the thread to wherever it leads.
It pretends not to know exactly what it pulls itself forward with, even as the light thread clings to its hands, as it sticks and bunches together and refuses to be shaken off.
The silvery thread leads to a dark and lonely place the moth never knew to visit before.
One thread leads to another, connects to more, all catching what dim light trickles down here in a way that makes it seem to glow against the darkness beyond.
And as the web catches the light, so too does it catch the light-seeker.
Limbs, tangled too much in sticking thread, stumble.
The moth pitches into more threads. It struggles, unwilling to let its journey end here, but its choices have lost the power to influence what happens now.
The web traps it more surely than it even does itself.
There is no fear when at last the spider visits. Its many eyes appraise the moth inside and out, until at last it makes up its mind.
The fangs pierce. Deft hands weave the moth into a new chrysalis of silk.
Venom whispers a sweet promise that follows the moth into dreams.
“A spider does not offer infinite possibility—it only offers the one: to become just like it.
“But to be a spider is to be the one who weaves.
“The power to spin the possible into the real, is that enough?
“Then spin for yourself whatever will satisfy you, spider-to-be.”