“I cut down on the particulars. Only a few points that, if you weren’t already aware of them, you should be.”

Suicidal ideation…

Potential bipolar diagnosis…

“I don’t know,” I said.

Pervasive feelings of betrayal, lack of trust, including in herself…

“I shouldn’t be looking at this,” I said.

The screen went black.

“You should,” Dragon said.

The screen came back. A different page, closer to the end of the document.

Chris, I realized. I read some of the general notes, clicked a button, and read another page.

“Fuck,” I said.

Interlude 10.y

The world greeted him with a chitter and a dozen spidery legs prying at his upper body and face. Legs hooked onto teeth, where he had teeth, and onto gums, where the teeth were absent, bottom and top row, prying his jaw open until it cracked and he wasn’t sure it would close again. It shoved its face between the legs, into his face and his mouth, and the texture of it was like wet sandpaper on cold, naked skin.

Its head narrowed, a spear or a wedge, and it tried to force its way into his mouth. Its shell was like scales, oriented so that passage in should be easy, the grit of the sandpaper and the slant of the shells making entry smooth. To go the opposite way was to have the sandpaper texture scrape and the scales catch.

It couldn’t enter, so it withdrew, and it gouged chunks out of him in the process. It thrust in again, and he fought it now. His hand—his only hand—dug for an opening, sliding across scale without finding gaps. It tried to grasp the spider leg, and found it thorny.

His enemy pulled free again, and the slant of the scales resisted, design resisting the effort. Scales caught on some of his only teeth and with the creature’s legs and body straining, pried them loose where they weren’t pried out altogether.

He fumbled, searching for eyes to gouge—and found a smooth, slightly convex surface, that small fingernails couldn’t scratch or find purchase on. He fumbled again, his hand momentarily paralyzed as the creature fought its way forward again and caused him to nearly black out, and found the shoulder of the thing. A mess of cords and tendons beneath a cupping of shell. He tore, dug fingers in, and did what damage he could.