The Weaver

Twilight seemed to come early as we gathered around the fire. These forested lands are never quiet, but this night there is a pressure on the eardrums, as though Darkness itself has settled in to wait. There comes a low thrumming and a staccato rattle of bones somewhere nearby but unseen. Twigs and vines stir within the ground litter, randomly at first, but slowly self-organizing. They twitch and shudder, but soon start to synchronize into a macabre dance, and then begin to coalesce into inelegant threads, moving ever more frantically, until they weave a silent, stooped figure.

They never call him by name, only The Weaver. He'll slip sideways into your dreams and choose bits of tattered memory, which he draws into himself through pursed lips, weaving within himself another universe within which--If you are lucky--you will rule. If you are not so lucky, The Weaver will take them all for himself and his own mysterious needs. And with them, he will take your soul.

Place your bets.

Such are the elemental dualities of life. The universe doesn't care; it always wins.