Wait

“What the heck is that spider doing?” the exasperated voice resounded in the tiny cave as Alice Desare, human girl from Earth, walked one more lap around the edge of the shining pool that had been so crucial for her survival.

It had become a routine for her; walking round and round the tiny pond, waiting for her unexpected ally of sorts to come back.

After letting the shining Lumen specks of the pool merge with most of the cells of her body, the girl had spent the better part of three days testing her new limits and capabilities as she ate through the food reserves left by Skitter.

She had even tried to focus on regrowing her stump, something she had kept avoiding as the days passed. The difficulties caused by the lack of a second hand had still been less important than the feeling of temporariness she had managed to build around the absence of her right hand and forearm. She was scared.

An insidious fear that had gnawed and bit into her until it had made a nest of trepidation and doubt. A deeply burrowed tumor of dread that menaced her every moment.

Alice was standing upon a crumbling cliff of barely-holding false beliefs and gazing down into the knowledge that she might simply be unable of regrowing what she had lost.

She had tried after obtaining more Lumen-mutated cells and it had failed. Now she was working to bury deeper the fear that she had just unearthed.

It was now almost halfway through the seventh day.

Seven days that had passed since the spider had left her to go and talk to its mother.

More than 156 hours of a wait that had left her more and more restless as time went on.

An entire week. It did say it would need ‘many sleeps’ but this is a lot. Or is it? Maybe I’m just anxious. Probably. But I’m tired of eating screechlings and I really want to know what lies at the end of that large passage. What if it’s the exit?

She walked even more rings around the body of water, playing with her powers as she went.

“On. Off. On. Off. OnOff. OnOffOnOffAAAAAAA” she kicked the water, sending shining liquid splashing everywhere.

“I’m going crazy in here! I don’t care about waiting for that stupid spider. At the very least I’ll go and check out what happens outside”.

In a huff, Alice got ready for her venture and soon she was walking through the narrow passages that led to her observation ledge in the large, main cavern.

Once there, the girl sat down on the hard rock and took a deep breath, activating Enhanced Hearing to survey the entire area.

She could easily hear the monotonous drone of the wasp colony, still busy rebuilding their damaged nest; the grubs to her left were intent in munching on the limestone, digging for the strange material embedded within; further away, she could hear the skittering millipedes traversing their burrows, their mandibles routinely echoing over the sound of falling water droplets.

Alice was boredly listening to the movements of the screechlings on the ceiling when, suddenly, she heard a splash of water coming from the pools of water surrounding the forest of hallucinogenic mushrooms growing not too far away from her stone platform.

Curious, she focused on that, trying to ignore all the other sounds and catch the details of what was happening in the darkness. She could hear something wetly slither on the ground for a few seconds, the sound different from the almost inaudible sliding of the slugs that inhabited the fungal forest.

Then, a humid gulp echoed between the toadstools, followed, a few seconds later, by something silently parting the waters once more.

That didn’t sound like a crawfish. And it didn’t seem to be affected by the mushrooms’ spores. Dammit I want to actually see something, but my light is definitely not enough.

I want my phone back. Or a pair of night vision goggles.

Her expression became thoughtful as an idea came to her mind.

I managed to repair and enhance my hearing, what if I could do the same with sight? Obtain some sort of night vision? The question is: How? Back then I was only repairing the receptors and the shrieker’s core did the rest. She touched the shaped bone that still held the core against her skin that allowed the prolonged magical connection. Do I need a suitable core? Or can I do it myself using some of the power of the well?

She checked once again her surroundings, searching for any sound of predators in her vicinity. Finding none, she moved to the opening of her tunnel and slumped against the cold, hard wall, her consciousness fading just enough for her to concentrate freely on her eyes.

From her brain, she travelled through the large pathway that started from what her Instincts told her was the thalamus and progressed into the optic tract.

From there, Alice traversed the crossing of nerves that officially led into the optic nerve, a large bundle of axons that sent all her visual information to the brain.

From there, she moved across her retina, a multilayered strata of millions of neurons that allowed her sight; the cells were of two main types: wide conical receptors that were mainly present in a dark bowl-like spot in the center of the retina, and numerous longer and thinner rods that filled most of the rest of the strata.

Alice could feel the wider ones being inactive, useless in the dark, while the rods used the few hints of lights in the cave to send an incredible amount of data to her brain.

The cones don’t work in the dark while the rods do. Could I focus on the rods to improve them? Even with the instincts I don’t know if I would be able to do it correctly. I cannot mess this up.

She momentarily left the retina, swimming in the transparent gel of the eye, ignoring the thin blood vessels to focus on the lens held on its outer side. It was a transparent and biconvex structure that changed shape and refracted light to send it to the retina.

On top of the lens lay her hazel iris, the structure that controlled the size of her pupil and thus, the amount of light reaching the retina.

Finally, covering everything else was the transparent dome of the cornea, refracting all the light towards the inner eye.

The girl knew the organs were useless to her needs, they wouldn’t solve her need of a better darkvision. Once again, her only option was the retina, she would need to focus there.

What if I copied a cat? They have reflective eyes right?

In vain, she tried to remember how those worked, all her memories vague or inaccurate.

I need an example of eyes that work well in darkness. A physical one.

This might be stupid… but what if I used one of the spiders? I might be able to get one to stay still enough for me to check it? Do I have to kill it? Would Skitter get angry if I did? Mhhh.

With the thought in mind, Alice came back to her senses, hurriedly checking once again her surroundings and finding them devoid of life.

By the time she was done looking for dangers, the young woman had set her mind; she quickly went back to her base and filled up her improved wineskin, readying herself in case the encounter went badly.

Half an hour later, Alice was slowly walking towards the arachnids’ territory, skirting the grub wall to stay as far away as possible from the wasps and the millipedes on the other side.

Her heart was hammering in her chest as she got closer to the spiders, the memory of her previous stay still burning a hole in the back of her mind.

This is really stupid. But I really want to see in these damn caves. This risk now might mean survival later on.

She took a few deep breaths and walked past the first large cobweb that in her mind, marked the boundary between the free-for-all of the center of the cave and the arachnids’ area.

Alice’s body lit up, the green glow painting an obvious target on her. She didn’t even have time to hope she had made the correct decision because a few moments later she heard the familiar plinking of metallic legs on the soft limestone of the floor.

The three creatures stopped just outside of her sphere of light; the only sign of their presence was the shine of their many sets of eyes in the darkness.

That confirms it then, they have something in the eyes that’s similar to cats.

She ducked as a glob of silk went sailing towards her, the projectile thudding on the ground behind. Instantly, Alice raised her prosthesis and got ready for a fight; the encounter already having gone badly in her mind.

She was thus surprised when one of the spiders clicked something to the one that had launched the attack, which froze before shrinking a bit on itself, appearing somewhat dejected.

The other spider then carefully walked a few steps forward, almost stepping into the light before stopping there, looking at her in something she really wanted to think was expectance and not hunger.

Ok. Now for the part I really don’t like.

She slowly and deliberately re-sheathed the bone knife she had extracted with her left hand, making a show of putting it back in her belt.

Next, she gradually extended her open hand towards the spider and, very calmly, took a single step towards the spider, which stilled completely; even its usually constantly moving mouth parts were now motionless.

“It’s all right. We are okay. Neither of us wants to hurt the other” she murmured softly, the words barely audible over the echo of countless droplets falling on ground and water alike.

She waited a few more seconds before taking another step, now less than a meter away from the spider, which on its part kept standing there, stock still.

She could perfectly see the reflection of her light in its eight eyes, the glint of its surprisingly smooth carapace and the resuming movement of the palps on its face, though she tried very hard not to focus on those.

She was just preparing to take the final step when, with the corner of her eye, she saw one of the other arachnids freeze as it was moving past one of the webs.

She glanced at it, her attention momentarily piqued. The spider had a single limb in contact with the larger silk pilon which, on its part, was subtly vibrating in place; Alice could see a single, thinner silk line disappear in the darkness, towards the webbed crevice she knew led further into their nest.

An instant later, the spider emitted a complex, shrill chittering sound that caused goosebumps to appear on her skin as she froze, ready for a sudden attack from the startled creatures.

The other Spear Spiders reacted immediately, hissing loudly as they turned and skittered at high speed towards their den.

What the Heck.

Was that me? Did something happen in their nest?

But most importantly. Do I go and investigate?

Alice bit her lip; on the one side, delving deep inside a nest of the spiders that had wanted to eat her just a few days before didn’t sound like the best of ideas, most of all if those same spiders were now rushing back to the nest to probably defend it. On the other hand, however, she really wanted to get a glimpse at the make of those eyes and, if she really decided to head back, she would still have to find something else to do that day, something that would probably become equally dangerous given her usual luck.

Just a peek. If there is danger I’ll run away.

The girl carefully walked up to the webbed crack that led into the spiders’ tunnels, shining her light down the passage in the hope of seeing a hint of what would be expecting her inside.

The passageway was empty, the webs gently swaying in the air, probably perturbed by the passage of the spiders.

She stepped in, avoiding the sticky silk and focusing her attention on the sounds coming from deeper inside the den; to her chagrin, however, she found none, the thick curtains probably smothering the sounds before they reached her.

Instead of her knife, the fledgling explorer extracted one of the metallic fangs she had previously cleaned up, grasping it in her left hand as she proceeded down the corridor.

Where are the damned spiders?

Eventually, she found herself at a junction; one of the openings led to the right, the other to the left. Alice tried to remember which way she had taken when running away but her memory was spotty at best, the entire event clouded by the adrenaline coursing through her veins at the time.

She stood still, straining her ears to catch a hint on where to go.

Finally, after tuning out her hammering heartbeat, the weak plinking sound of the spiders’ legs could be faintly heard coming from the right passage.

She went that way.

As Alice progressed, the noise became louder and more defined, she could now hear the hisses of an unknown number of spiders, their furious clicking combined with the frenzied noise of their metal spikes slamming on the cold limestone of the floor.

She passed various openings, most of them leading to empty caves, sometimes webbed over and sometimes left completely untouched by the colony.

Her heart beating madly in her chest, she slowly inched her way towards the end of the passage, a dark room filled with the sound of fighting.

She looked in.

In the soft green glow of her halo, Alice could see the small, rounded cave that, given the number of round silk dens that had been anchored to the walls, had probably served as one of the sleeping quarters of the Spear Spiders, each funnel-shaped structure probably the resting place of one or more of the arachnids.

The entirety of the walls was coated in more webs that would have probably kept a hint of warmth in the air, probably making the room far more comfortable than her cold and humid personal base.

Or they would have, if only the entire area hadn’t become a chaotic battleground of fangs and venom.

One of the walls had crumbled, crushing some of the nests underneath quintals of rubble and dust, revealing a new passage from which large spiders continuously emerged, immediately rushing in to attack the besieged Spear Spiders that were slowly being pushed back.

The newcomers were very different from the spiders she had come to recognize in the caves. Their body was stocky, covered in short hairs that made them appear fuzzy and soft. Their eight legs were also shorter and stubbier, ending in curved claws that allowed them to actually move on the walls and ground, quickly surrounding the rapidly retreating homeowners and picking them off one by one.

When she appeared at the entrance, her light was instantly reflected in their larger eyes, eliciting a chorus of hisses from the aggressors as they tried to shy away from the harmful radiance of her body.

The Spear Spiders seemed to size the brief lull in the fighting to quickly retreat from the cave, leaving behind their dead and starting to wall off the opening with their webs.

Soon, the passage had almost been sealed and Alice was getting ready to get the heck away from there when her enhanced senses caught a strange noise coming from the legs of one of the bigger spiders behind the veil. She heard their limbs tensing as a sound of displaced fluid coursed inside their legs.

Her eyes widened and she had just the time to throw herself down when the large arachnid unexpectedly leaped, its stubby legs pushing its heavy body at incredible speed towards the hardening webs, impacting them and breaking through before they could set and be completely effective.

The monster bowled over the first spiders and landed on top of her prone body, missing her head with its legs by just a few centimeters as the defenders braced, trying to push it back.

Alice could see the creature’s underside, the wide thorax and the creaking joints that connected it to the legs. She took a quick glance at the now wide-open passage behind her, at the spiders once again advancing in order to move through the tight opening.

Her body moved on instinct, the sharp prosthesis plunging deep in the furry abdomen of the creature, causing it to rupture in a mess of ichor and innards that completely painted her with a coat of dark and oily humors.

The jumping spider bellowed a keening cry, swaying as it tried to retreat and escape from the mortal wound it had already suffered; the young woman just managed to roll away before it crumpled up on itself, the corpse crashing on the ground with a thud, shaking the stone of the passage.

She pushed herself up to her feet, following the retreating Spear Spiders down the hallway as the ones behind her kept fighting off the invading monsters, launching webs to hold them off while thrusting their weapons in the mass of corpses in front of them.

The corridor was far too narrow for a large number of spiders to pass through, and the wave of foes had been stymied by the bottleneck of the entrance, the defenders holding them back with their deep-thrusting spears.

However, Alice quickly realized the same could be said for her side; their escape turned into a crawl as the spiders in the front had to move in rows into the tight passage, unable to quickly get out of the way.

The girl kept looking behind, seeing the protectors fearlessly sacrifice themselves as they tried to stop the enemy’s advance; the Spear Spiders plunged their sharp legs deep within the head of the frenzied creatures, severed the legs of the ones that tried to push forward and coated in silk the ones trying to pass on the ceiling or walls. However, she could see them die off one by one, each killing an enemy only to be rushed by the countless more behind it.

Her rearguard was getting overwhelmed, she would probably be the next one.

When she finally reached the end of the tunnel the invaders were almost on her, she frantically tried to push past the spiders in front of her, moving towards the glimmer of safety that was the exit, only to see them turn as one; giving their back to the only way out that, in turn, was being rapidly sealed up with layer of silk after layer of silk.

Each of the arachnids was ready to defend their final hold on the hallway, ready to give their lives in exchange of enough time for the defenses to be completed.

She definitely was not.

She could hear the wet crunching of chitin behind her back, the squelch of punctured organs and the deathly throes of far too many monsters.

The hisses of tens of spiders locked in combat and the screeching of the dying ones formed a maddening cacophony of sounds that made the panic in her chest bloom into a wave of chaotic survival instincts.

In a daze, she saw one of the webbed caves she had passed before, the entrance just large enough for a single spider to squeeze through. She dived into it, getting out of the main hall just as the first of the Jumping Spiders soared through the air, impacting with the line of raised spike-legs of the defenders.

The first charge of the enemy failed; the monsters impaled by the metallic weapons.

Even so, the creatures didn’t waver, the second line of attackers walking on the bleeding corpses of their comrades and soon crashing into the defenders, pushed further in by the pressure of the third throng, and of the fourth.

The seemingly endless wave of spiders covered every centimeter of the passage, a continuous stream of skittering limbs and bulbous bodies pushing hard to reach their goal.

As the last line finally fell, overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of their enemy, a hyperventilating Alice glanced behind her, checking out for the first time the place she was in.

Behind her were three smaller spiders, each about as big as a flat screen tv, that had apparently just emerged from a rounded nest anchored to the wall, their eyes set on the strange creature intruding in their resting place.

Oh fuck me. Let’s try to not be eaten by the babies

She was starting to turn back to check on the entrance when a sudden movement caught her eye, prompting her to jump to the side as a large limb slammed where she had been just a few seconds before and tried to grasp her, the recurve claws leaving deep gashes on the ground.

A huge spider was trying to push itself through the opening, trying to reach the preys stuck in it.

The girl didn’t waste a second, launching one of the bone spikes straight towards the large eyes of the creature just as her already gory prosthesis pierced its legs, a spray of dark blood adding itself to the fluids she was already covered in.

With a horrid screech, the monster fell back, giving her enough space to see the mass of monster trying to break down the webbed over passage. She was officially stuck in there.

A few instants later, her sight was once again blocked by the disgusting head of another spider, this one small enough to try and push through the opening while snapping its mandibles at her.

She was just readying herself to spear through its clicking face when she saw something sailing just beside her ear, a small glob of silk landing straight in the spider eye and hardening there, causing it to screech and try to pull it off with frenzied movements, impeded by the narrow passage and the allies behind it.

She took the chance, pushing the prosthesis almost to the hilt into the head of the creature and then pushing it back with one of her feet.

She pulled off her caked coat, the bone button she had carefully tied on snapping off with a clack.

Alice pushed the cloth into the passage, shouting at the tiny Spear Spiderlings behind her and pointing at the silk, trying to make them understand.

“Web it! We don’t have much time!”

Somehow one of them reacted, sending another silk glob to impact onto the wall and soon pushing past her to start coating the passage in a layer of slightly drooping silk.

A few heartbeats later, the other two copied it, skittering all over the ground to wall off the passage.

Just as the first layer was erected, a hard crunching sound echoed from behind the silk, the dead spider hiding them crushed by a live one that immediately tried pushing past their hastily erected defenses.

Their siege had just started.

*****

This chapter is officially sponsored by Kellanved! Thanks for your support. I appreciate it.