HiNaBN: A nocturne, a sonata

   Along came the spider; he sat down beside her.
   Well, that was how it was supposed to go, but things never really did.
   "I--I apologize. For killing you."
   She was silent. Her mahogany-colored lace gloves stood out boldly on her chalk-white skin. Her thin lips were pressed into a stern line; she refused, it seemed, to look at him, because she stared at the mist in the distance.
   Sensing that there was probably nothing better to do, he kept speaking.
   "I wasn't myself, you see."
   He adjusted his glasses. He fidgeted.
   Her eight-eyed gaze was ice-cold and glassy-black; obsidian sharp, it was, too.
   "D-do you forgive me, Madam Spider?"
   "I might."
   Her voice sounded like a thousand-million screaming insects, yet somehow it also reminded him of the sound of the piano she'd been forced into calling her grave. It was soft, but its dangerous volume couldn't mask the hostility within it.
   "I really wasn't myself."
   "Who were you, then?"
   That caught him off guard, he had to admit. He wasn't expecting that question of her, certainly--and even if he had been expecting it, he probably wouldn't've known what to say anyway.
   "I... can't say as I know, Madam Spider."
   She blinked her eight eyes slowly, carefully, deliberately. "Perhaps a re-examination of your psyche is in order, Mister Tibenoch."
   He hesitated. "You m-may be right."
   She smiled cruelly. "You are forgiven, I suppose. What you must deal with is worse than death, I fear. Perhaps it would be best to wake up."
   "Oh, you're not saying this was all a dream, are you?"
   "Afraid so."
   
   
   He woke up in a cold sweat, panting, and prayed to whatever god would have him that he hadn't been listening.