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"Those were soldiers, miss. They were scared of you." Quentin slowly places the baseball bat he used to clear the webbing on the ground. "I get it. No one likes me either." He holds out his hand and with a sickening tearing of skin and meat, his true self pops out of the palm of his hand.
A centipede.
"Haha, funny, isn't it. I feel a sense of kinship with you. I guess it's because we were both seen as pests."
"I DON'T." SPIDER GRANNY's 'head' slowly drifts to stare down at her spidery legs. "I. WHERE ARE THERE? I. I'M NOT A PEST, KYEH KYEH! THEY HAVE TO COME BACK! TO VISIT THEIR GRANDMA!" You can hear the cope dripping out of her words. Her desperate attempt to keep up her twisted viewpoint. "STAY! STAY! GRANDMA WILL MAKE YOUR BOOBOOS GO AWAY!"
"When's the last time someone has come down here?" The centipede sticking out of Quentin's palm skitters right back into the rotten body it's piloting. "When's the last time anyone has talked to you?"
The silence lingering in the air after his question says all.
>26
"...You're not alone any more." Quentin is trying his best to hold back something that he's clearly been holding back for a while. "I'm not alone either. You don't have to be alone anymore, I'm here for you."
In the blink of an eye, SPIDER GRANNY jumps off of the webbing and onto the ground. She skitters right up towards Quentin as if she's about to attack but she simply sits there. Staring at him.
He presses his hand against the nesting doll's head. "I get that it hurts. To be alone. To hear people chattering and enjoying their lives while you're left to rot here. Alone."
"I. THE RADIO'S STILL PLAYING. I TRIED TO CALL FOR MY NURSE BUT SHE. WHERE IS SHE?" The ecstatic, crazed energy once in her voice is beginning to fade. "Where's my son...? He should've been here."
"Do you know where you are?" Quentin continues to rub his hand against her face.
"I...IN A. Nursing...?" She sounds lost, scared, confused as if slowly waking from a dream.
"A place where humans leave their elders to rot. I'm sorry. They won't come back. But we can be here in lieu of them."
"...Grandson? What are you talking about?" Oh no. You recognize that lost, aimless tone of voice. The cleansing rains of Alzheimer's that slicks through the contents of your mind. "I. Can you turn the radio on, dear?" Her spider legs are shaking now as if under the effect of a neurodegenerative disease. All of that youth and energy is fading away.
[SEEKER OF THE CITY] An instinct. An impulse. She's asked for the radio many times.
"Why...why is no one ever around anymore. Nobody ever comes to visit me..."
[UNSTABLE] If anyone did visit her, they stopped coming a while ago. When it got real bad. Will your friends stick around when you become like her?
Quentin rests his face against the nestling doll's head, gently rubbing her 'cheek.' "It's okay. We're here now."
There's nothing anyone here can say. The silence is the only answer that anyone could give. The WORK RESULT was...
