Chapter 3

Things are about to get really weird as Dash finds herself in the sort of story she's always read about.

 

Chapter 3

 

            Now I really wouldn’t consider myself the screaming type, but I defy anyone to react calmly to the scene that greeted me when I opened the doors.

            Spiders.

            Everywhere.

            And not just normal spiders. Huge spiders. Aragog sized spiders. From disgusting hairy leg to disgusting hairy leg, they spanned a good six feet. At least twenty of the monsters were crammed into the disconcertingly average subway station. At this moment I realized that I was terrified of spiders. Great timing.

            When I had exhausted my ability to scream, I tried to sort of stumble back from the door, still too shocked to think clearly. Since when had my life turned into a fantasy novel? Seriously. I couldn’t take it in.

            Of course the one thing I did process ratcheted up the terror one more notch. Some of the spiders were coming towards me, scuttling in that way only things with eight legs can. The biggest one stepped to the front, just feet away from me. He (I don’t know why it seemed male) moved forward with an undeniable air of command. I didn’t even know a spider could have command, but this one certainly did. Oh god, he was gonna touch me. Would spiders eat humans? I’d thought of a lot of ways to die, but giant-spider-lunch had somehow never made the list. Well, A for originality, I guess. Oh god, I was about to be eaten.

            Instead, the one thing more unexpected than being eaten by a giant spider-thing, happened, the giant spider-thing spoke.

            “Welcome, human,” His voice (I was now sure it was a he), was so utterly human and normal that I looked around for a person. The whole situation was just getting weirder and weirder, and I hadn’t even really begun to process it all. My internal monologue was getting more panicked by the second. A GIANT SPIDER WAS SPEAKING TO ME IN HUMAN ENGLISH. So, I made the standard response of any intelligent human being in an unintelligible situation:

            “Um…okay then,” Really, what was there to say? I stared into eight black, horrible eyes looking back at me. Should I focus on one eye? All of them? Why did it matter?

            “Uh, why aren’t you eating me?” Still probably not the smartest question, but a notable improvement nonetheless. The spiders shifted awkwardly, as if I’d somehow offended them. Come on, my teacher said that there are no stupid questions.

            “We do not eat humans, small one,” The lead spider continued, clearly miffed. The news relieved me for some reason although coming from a spider big enough to call a human small, I wasn’t sure the information was reliable. “We have lived here far longer than your webs have populated the Earth, and we will remain long after your petty battles for territory have been terminated. We have seen the sun rise and we will see it set on man. Why hurry it along by eating you? Your fruitless struggle and eventual demise are beautiful, in a way,” Huh, metaphorical and poetic giant spiders.

            My heartbeat slowed gradually, the instinct to run diminishing. “So, if you didn’t lure me here to eat me, why am I here? I was in New York City…” I trailed off, seeing spiders wave their creepy appendages, rocking slightly. Oh god, they were laughing.

            Apparently seeing my discomfort, the leader waved his fellows off. “You are still there. This is the city as much as anywhere else. Just, you could say, a different perspective,”

            “Um…okay. But can I go back? To the city I see, or whatever? I mean I have to go back…” I trailed off once more. Did I have to go back? Hadn’t I been lost and running? If they weren’t going to eat me or anything…

            “It is possible, but we do not wish for your immediate departure. Your thread has been cut, or else you would not have found us. Take your time here, heal yourself, rest and weave your web,”

            The culture clash was starting to get to me. “Thread? Web? Wait, I was just one girl on a random subway. Why me?” I was uncomfortable being the main character for once. I seemed to be echoing the complaints of hundreds of protagonists, but yet this was real. I was really in a sudden fantasy with giant spiders under New York City. I was really…oh god. They were moving; several of the spiders were coming towards me, hairy appendages outstretched, grasping at me.

            “No! Stop!” My voice went up an octave, “What are you doing? You can’t keep me here! God, don’t touch me…ahhh! Put me down, now!” Heedless to my bluffing complaints, I was lifted bodily into the air, their horrible claws ripping my t-shirt, coarse black hair prickling my skin. My vision was graying from panic. I would not pass out. I wouldn’t be that kind of character. I could think my way out of this…a plan…I needed a plan…I fainted. I know, I know. Damsel in distress archetype. But GIANT SPIDERS.

I came to on the back of one of said spiders, lying with my face to the ceiling. I’d lost a little time, so I had no idea how we’d gotten here, but I didn’t spend too much time on the question. Here was beautiful. A massive cave (or at least I assumed it was a cave; I could see no walls or ceiling) stretched out in every direction. The whole scene was illuminated by a sort of flickering, buzzing light coming from high above. But that wasn’t the real wonder. It was a web. We were entering a web. Spider silk was everywhere, fashioned into anything imaginable, a city of silk, walls and walkways, huts and shops and mansions. I realized my mouth was open, my predicament momentarily forgotten, overawed by the fantasy before me.

Anxiety returned though, as the spider who was carrying me approached one of the silken walkways. I knew that spider silk was strong, but these things had to weigh two hundred pounds. Add my hundred and twenty, and there was a recipe for disaster. “Is that gonna hold our weight?” I asked quietly, afraid to make my consciousness known to whoever was carrying me.

I felt its back rumble in that creepy laugh before it spoke, “Really? Our silk is stronger than your steel. You should feel quite safe,” Apparently my ride was a female. She actually answered pretty nicely for all that she had laughed at me, and though I still couldn’t quite get over the, well, spideriness of the situation, I wasn’t freaking out anymore. Feeling heartened, I dredged up the courage for another question,

“Where are you going to take me?” We were now quite high up in the web system, my host picking her way through the myriad of strands with ease.

“Just to a room for you to sleep in. You can explore the web tomorrow, but for now you should rest. One of your legs is hurt.” She paused, apparently thinking,        “I just can’t think how you manage with only two…I’m starting to like my own legs more and more,” She stopped suddenly, making me slip towards her head, “Well, here you are. You must be exhausted. Make yourself at home, and my brother will come tomorrow to show you around our web. Rest well,” And with that, she rolled me gently off her back, turned around, and scuttled back into the mass of webbing from whence we came. Belatedly, I realized that I didn’t know her name, or for that matter, if she even had one. Come to think of it, her voice hadn’t sounded that much older than mine. But she was a spider with a human voice, so how was I to guess what her age would be? For all I knew, she could be a thousand years old. My perception of reality had already been turned on its head enough for one day. She was right; I was exhausted.

Looking around, I found myself in what appeared to be something of a circular room. Multiple sticks around the perimeter secured the hundreds of silk strands that made up the walls. I had seen no other building materials used anywhere in the city. The room was sparsely decorated, with only one piece of…I guess you could call it furniture. It was a silk hammock, hanging down from the walls and taking up the bulk of the room.

I walked over to it, slightly wary. It looked pretty comfortable, but it also looked like a cocoon. I wasn’t that stupid. What if the girl spider had been so nice because she was fattening me up for the slaughter? It was a sickening thought, but honestly, I didn’t have too many options at this point. It was either lie down, sleep, and hope that I didn’t get eaten, or make a run for it on a sprained ankle through a web of massive spiders. Process of elimination worked pretty well. Ha, a useful test strategy, who’d have thought it?

Making my way over on stiff and burning legs (right, I’d been running), I lay down carefully, pleasantly surprised by how comfortable, if slightly claustrophobic, the hammock was. I rolled over, head spinning. It couldn’t have been more than four or five hours since I’d first jumped out that window. Somehow the phrase, “it felt like a lifetime ago”, now made a whole lot more sense. I still hadn’t gotten over my fight with Dad, the things we’d said, the fact that I was now, for all intents and purposes, homeless. And now this. I’d gone from the New York Subway to an underground community of giant, human-voiced spiders who said that they didn’t want to eat me. What. Was. Happening. I was lost in my own narrative, so my brain took the sensible route. Foregoing all analysis and leaving me vulnerable in an unfamiliar place, I fell into a dreamless sleep.

Author's Note

Sorry the formatting is being a bit weird...please read, review and enjoy! Or you can talk to me at my-wibbly-wobbly-life.tumblr.com. Have a great day!