It was an exhausting day. You, Iris, Archie, and Malcolm maintained a safe but constant pace through the snow and ice, over the rocky outcroppings, and through narrow splits in the glacier, all in pursuit of your missing friend, Penelope. You had felt like a cold stone was sitting in your stomach all day, fearing the worst for the young, outgoing girl who had just decided to tag along with you and your crew. You felt responsible for her being here, on this lonely, isolated mountain at the top of the world. You had gritted your teeth, pushed through without food and barely any water, until at last you all felt as if you were going to pass out from exhaustion. You set up your tents, bodies weary and minds like thick clay, and fell asleep almost the instant your head was down.

In the cold, windy night you had a dream, a dream so vivid, so real, that when you awoke in the morning you could recall every detail, like a memory of real events.

You saw Penelope, unconscious, wrapped in a strange, slimy green net, being dragged across the snow by what you could only describe as a huge, lumpy spider covered in white, shaggy fur. Two large creatures, also furred, but moving in an oddly smooth motion, accompanied the large arachnid. Some of the landscape was familiar – it was territory you yourself crossed earlier that day.

You watched them reach the edge of an icy ravine, and there this strange group dragged your friend down a winding slope of hard packed snow and ice. Further and deeper into the crevasse they traveled until the cleft of ice and stone turned suddenly, and as they swung around that corner, the entrance to the ancient temple was revealed.

As the description you read stated, the stone of the exterior is a strange, flaked green marble. The door is massive, gargantuan in stature, a huge rectangle inside the flared hood of a cobra. There is no head or face of the snake, just the winged hood, but the likeness is more than enough to confirm to you that this is the Temple of the Snake. A narrow ice bridge connects from the glacier over to the stone shelf upon which the temple sits. While the entrance is the strange green stone, the rest of the temple, or at least the part that is visible, seems to have been carved directly into the rock itself. The design of the temple is hard to place. Parts of it look Tibetan, but other parts look more Japanese in nature, or possibly Korean. Other parts, especially the giant door, seem almost Egyptian. It’s an unsettling juxtaposition.

You watch as the group crosses the bridge to the giant door. You expect the huge stone slabs, each at least thirty feet tall, to open, but instead part of the carved relief on the door swings open, revealing a smaller door built into the larger edifice. The beings enter the temple, and you drift inside with them.

Inside you see strange glowing crystals that only barely illuminate the stone halls of the temple. You’re not sure if they are really producing any light at all, and if your dream self merely can see in the darkness. The strange furred spider shakes itself free of the snow and ice covering its pelf, and in doing so sheds its skin entirely! Underneath is a mechanical device, a large metal armature upon which rests a glass cylinder. Inside that cylinder is what can only be described as a human brain, floating in some thick liquid, bundles of wires and tubes running from the metallic cap atop to cylinder to the slightly pulsing gray matter. It’s revolting and fascinating at the same time.

The two other creatures also shed their skins, revealing them to be no more than furred cloaks over insectoid flying creatures. They land on spindly spider legs, their arms waving about, each ending with a crab-like claw. Their skin seems reptilian in place, chitinous in others, and on their backs are folded, chiropteran wings. All of this is frightening, but it’s their heads that are most bothersome. They lack all features, no eyes, ears, or noses, not even a mouth. The appear as oval pods atop thickly muscled necks, fringed with waving cilia, moving to and fro as they make their way deeper into the temple with Penelope’s unconscious form.

The mechanical brain leaves, and the two lobster-like creatures are joined by a third. They point a device at Penelope and she begins to float in the air. They use the device to take her to a room in the temple. It’s filled with strange white cabinets and countertops of a material you’ve never seen before. A metal table takes up the center of the room, and Penelope is placed upon it. You watch in horror as the three beings begin to use alien devices on the young girl, and a whirling set of metal arms comes down from the ceiling, aiding these monstrous surgeons as they open up Penelope’s skull. The sound of the bone saw cutting through almost makes you vomit, but you cannot look away, cannot end the dream no matter how hard you try.

You watch as one of the creatures gestures with their strange device and pulls a large, glass cylinder over to the operating table. The mechanical arms go to work, removing Penelope’s brain from her skull with a precision that would be fascinating if it weren’t so sickeningly terrifying. Her brain is placed in the large jar, which you see now is filled with a clear goop of some sort. Wires and tubes are attached, and a metal cap affixed to the cylinder. A metal spider body is summoned from the shadowy corners of the room, and the brain jar is placed carefully onto it, sealing into place. The three creatures seem to regard one another with what you can only guess are congratulatory gestures.

The table with the body is wheeled out of the room, leaving only the brain in the strange, horrifying new mechanical body. Your dream form does not follow the creatures, instead lingering on the cylinder. You wish you could weep for your friend, but you have no body, no form, just as she no longer has no body, or at least, not a body you’d wish upon anyone.

The lights dim. You feel yourself suddenly falling, the darkness surrounding you, and for a brief instant you think you’ve somehow fallen from the edge of the temple. Instead you awake, your eyes flickering open, to the cold, dark tent on the glacier, and a far away buzzing noise that sounds just a little bit like a motorcycle engine…