Bleh. Bleh and hurk. And cold and clammy. The mother of all migraines pulsed between Rita’s ears, driving burning spikes of pain through her temples and out her eyeballs. She was lying face-down on a bed – her bed, hopefully – absolutely soaked in sweat. Or possibly someone had just upended a bucket of water over her. Cold water.

Rita shivered as she levered one crusty eye open. Her eyelids were stuck shut and it took actual effort to get an eye open. Blearily, she peeked out through a barely cracked eyelid from under her mop of messy brown hair. Yep, that blurry thing over there looked like her dresser. Thank goodness.

How the hell had she gotten in this state? It felt like she had drunk half a liquor store last night, tasted like she’d eaten raw meat, and hurt like she had then gone ten rounds with a professional boxer. And Rita couldn’t remember anything. The last thing she could remember… argh, headache…

“Ughhhhh…” she groaned, before coughing up a ball of phlegm. She’d clean that up later.

Judging from the sound of the wind howling, she’d left the window open last night. Probably why she was so damn cold. Ugh, she just wanted to turn around and sleep until she felt better, but she had better go close that window at least, or she was going to catch a cold. Her bed was soaked, and it was getting decidedly freezing. The floor was nice though. She could pass out on the floor for a few hours… or days.

It wouldn’t be the first time Rita had gotten so drunk she couldn’t remember the previous night, but this was the worst hangover she’d ever had. Worse than after that frat party at Tau… something something. Worse than that time Mikeila had dared her to chug an entire bottle of schnapps. Even worse than the office party after she’d just broken up with Whatsisname and two of her co-workers had had to drag her from the cab to her bed. At least that time they’d left her clothes on and not just threw her onto her bed buck naked.

Wait, what?

Her eyes snapped open… and promptly burned like hellfire until she managed to work her arm up to her face and rub them vigorously. Slowly she levered herself upright onto her elbows. An icy feeling of dread was worming its way into her stomach, duking it out with the urge to vomit. Had she been drugged? Had somebody taken advantage of her?

The urge to vomit momentarily overwhelmed the feeling of dread and she heaved up a few spatters of milky white slime over her bed. Great, something else she would have to clean up later. Another gust of wind howled through her room and Rita shivered again. The cold wind did wonders to refocus her priorities. Window first. Then floor nap. Then absolutely anything else.

She tried to move her legs to get off the bed, but they felt weird. She couldn’t figure out where they were and how she had to move them. It was that strange feeling where your limbs felt like they weren’t part of you. And there were too many of them. What was it called again? Eh, didn’t matter. Window. If she couldn’t walk, maybe she could crawl. As an added bonus, she would already be in position for her floor nap.

Rita turned her head to judge the distance and blinked at the grayish light filtering in through her window. Her BROKEN window. Not just like someone had put a tennisball through it either. There were a few chunks of razor-edged glass still whole along the edges of the frame, but most of the window was simply missing.

Now the cold fear was solidifying into icy dread. Her bedroom window broken, drugged and naked on her bed… had she been…? Wait, no that made no sense. Her apartment was on the fourth floor and outside the window was a sheer drop. Who in their right mind would come in through that window? All she could think of was a muscular and athletic cat burglar, zip lining down from the roof and stealing into her room… in which case all he had to do was ask, dammit. Not like she was seeing anyone else at present and pickings at the freaking old age home that was her office were damned slim.

She looked around, trying to figure out what the hell was going on when her eyes came to rest on the source of the wind. On the opposite side of the apartment, through the doorway of her bedroom, she could see a large crack in the wall of her small living room. It was wide enough that she could see part of the building opposite hers.

Slow blink. What. The actual. Fuck.

She tried to get up and go see what had caused her freaking apartment to crack open like a piñata, but her legs still weren’t working right. She turned to look over her shoulder, to see what the hell was wrong with them. Maybe she’d broken both of them and her brain just hadn’t-

Rita screamed.

Right behind her was a giant, milky white spider. Giant, as in the size of a freaking dog! A really big, freaking dog.

She was still screaming as she scrabbled at her wet bedsheets, dragging herself away from the horrifying creature until she fell off the bed on the other side, landing on the ground face first.

She did not stop screaming as she frantically tried to crawl into the corner, the thing’s flailing legs still right behind her.

With nowhere left to go to get away from the eight-legged horror and her mind starting to shut down from sheer terror, she simply hugged herself and squeezed her eyes shut.

Silence.

After a few moments of nothing much happening, she cracked open one eye. Rita fully expected to see the thing standing right in front of her, glaring with eight beady little eyes and with fangs dripping with venom. In her terrified imagination the venom was purple for some reason. Maybe it just looked more menacing on the white.

Instead, the spider was lying on its back… right on top of her legs! She screamed some more and tried to kick it off, but its legs just started thrashing about. Then one of the legs slammed into the wall next to her at full kick and the resulting pain overwhelmed even the terror fuelled adrenaline.

“Ow ow ow ow ow…” she muttered to herself between grit teeth. It felt like she had stubbed her toe. Hard. The source of the pain, however, was from HER foot. ONE of her feet. One of her… eight… feet…

She opened her eyes.

Yes, indeed, the spider was not lying on top of her legs.

It WAS her legs.