His head thuds against the ground with a sharp, sickening crack as it locks tight around him, an impossibly heavy, unshakable weight yoked over his chest. He jerks beneath the thing pressing against him as its tendrils snake for his face - to cover his mouth, his eyes, his ears, his nose, smothering him with its own mass.

He strains beneath it, the blood pounding in his ears and in his throat. Its grip simply tightens. It's going to suffocate him. It's going to squeeze the breath from his lungs. He can almost feel his bones creak.

It's growing larger, seething upward in a great black tide, billowing out into the night as it blots out the stars. It drags him to his knees with the loops of itself wound tight around him. One thin coil hooks beneath his chin to tilt his head back.

It's staring at him with those horrible empty white holes for eyes.

Oh, good. He's intriguing to it, is he. Go figure. It can join the fucking club. All the terrifyingly incomprehensible entities are intrigued by him these days. It peers at him, almost - almost businesslike in its interest. Tim shudders.

His fingers have gone numb. A hot prickle of tension shivers down his spine.

Oh god.

God, no.

Not now. Now now. Please. Please.

He convulses once, feebly, barely able to shift within its grip.

No. Please, no.

Please.