Stepping outside I found the lights of Squid spread out before me, a forest of glittering towers, their twinkles gradually merging into a scattering of stars and nebulae above. Taking a deep breath and standing quite still, I gazed skyward for a time. Although the constellations were alien, I still felt homesick just looking at them. All I could do was cast my hopes and thoughts toward my ship and crewmates, who might be struggling with danger even now. The other thought… that it might already be too late… was unbearable. That the Clever Gamble and her stalwart company might already be destroyed, stranding me forever on this lonely and desperately strange world.

My balcony-perch jutted near the top of a tall masonry building – at least twenty stories high – built in a rather gothic style. Peering left and right, I saw no easy route to get away. No nearby verandahs lay within reach through some cinematic leap… though I did spot a collection of garish gargoyles, spaced around the cornice-ledge, that seemed to leer and taunt, as if daring me to use their crumbling shapes for hand and foot holds.

I didn’t feel that desperate. Not quite. Not yet.

Some of the closest buildings loomed even taller than this one. Generally, the higher floors were dark and perhaps long abandoned; but many of the windows lower down shone with light. Dim figures could at times be glimpsed, passing back and forth beyond closed curtains. Despite the warm evening, not a single window or door was open.

Except… for… this one, I realized.

Peering about, I found that I could trace patterns of netting that I had seen earlier, spanning the open space between many structures… an array of obstacles that had seemed formidable by day, and all-too evanescent by the wan glitter of starlight. Moreover, the defensive shroud looked rather sparse near me.

In fact, I seemed to be situated well above all but a few of the webs.

Checking the balustrade and nearby wall, I finally found one attachment point, just overhead, near the right-end of the balcony. From a gobbet of sticky substance, a slender filament plunged arrow-straight into the darkness, parallel to the ground. If the cord was meant to support netting, those mesh strands had long vanished.

In fact, I began to suspect that was never its purpose. Tentatively and more than a little nervously, I reached out and touched the threadlike cable.

It hummed. A vibration that at once reminded me of the music from the cemetery serenade, a night (or two?) before, in the crypt-suburb of the zombie clan. Similar to that music, and yet somehow more frightening.

Something about it made my heart race faster.