Chapter 3:

It seemed that the end to what felt like an eternity was finally approaching. Alastair tried to move his legs. Successful. He could faintly feel them, though weak, they appeared to be in place. He closed his eyes and then slowly opened them again. The surroundings finally stopped swaying as feeble white light entered his retinas.

‘What happened, god damn it?’ Alastair pondered in confusion.

Little by little, the fog in his head began to dissipate revealing small frail fragments of memory. Like puzzle pieces, they were scattered all over the place and connecting them was proving to be quite the challenge. Alastair sighed heavily as he eventually began to recall his past; icicles, flashing white lights, a strange voice, spiders… It all felt too unreal like an unhinged mad dream.

‘What?’ With every new image that flashed through his mind, the spider was visibly getting more and more confused until, at last, his eyes began to sparkle with understanding. All at once, reality has dawned upon him like a chilling waterfall.

‘Shit…’ he whispered in distress as a feeling of tingling and weakness began to spread from his soles upwards, towards his main body, ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ With every second, the unpleasant premonition of impending doom somewhere within him grew stronger.

‘Statistics!’ His frantic command triggered an immediate response.

[Beep!] A monotonous mechanical voice, like a calm wave, spread through his head as blurry transparent text began to appear before him.

[Statistics:

The following statistics are based on the average human adult, this standard can be altered in system settings.

Species: Unidentified arachnid

Status: adulthood stage, malnourished

Strength: 0.0018 (-0.0005)

Agility: 0.31 (-0.15)

Intellect: 0.02 (+1.6)

Vitality: 1/10 (-2 per day, increases when the host consumes food)

Mana: 0

Mass: 2.0 (-0.6) grams

Warning: Statistics have been negatively impacted due to the host’s malnutrition, replenishing vitality as soon as possible is strongly advised.

Skills: Mild poison, Cobweb, Regeneration, Hibernation, Dash.]

‘As expected,’ Alastair’s face darkened as he grimaced in disappointment, ‘seems like I have managed to fully recover after the hibernation, but not without a cost… I’m already one foot in the grave.’ He anxiously rubbed his head, his eyes carefully skimming through the information in front.

‘Dash? I don’t remember having this skill,’ finally, the spider’s attention stopped at the bottom of the window, ‘System!’ he called, ‘Display skill information for dash.’

[Beep!] A characteristic beep sounded in his mind followed by an array of transparent text.

[Dash: A skill that allows the user to instantaneously accelerate, momentarily reaching a speed of up to 5 times that of the original. Distance of the dash is determined by starting velocity and total resistance forces, usage puts heavy pressure on the user’s legs; successive uses are not advised. Attained upon achieving adulthood.]

‘Surprisingly, this is quite powerful,’ Alastair nodded in approval, a little frustrated, ‘too bad I didn’t have this skill before…’ he helplessly shook his head, regret would only bring about misery; there was no point in dwelling on it for too long.

With tremendous effort, the spider rose to its trembling feet; akin to a half-dead drunkard, it swayed from side to side, desperately trying to find its balance, gathering all its remaining strength for one final effort.

Inch by inch, it began to slowly crawl out of the tiny burrow where it had formerly buried itself alive, chasing the fleeting chances of survival. From the side, this miserable scene was akin to a corpse creeping out of its grave; so unnatural, yet so real. Alastair didn’t care, he persevered.

At last, the final layer of dirt crumbled as miniature pieces of mud began to fall down into the pit. Bright light and raucous chirping assaulted its senses as the spider returned to the surface. The sun was still high up over the horizon and its warm rays caressed Alastair’s head. He squinted his eyes, trying to adjust to the sudden surge of brightness, apprehension was clearly written all over his face.

‘Damn it!’ He cursed in apparent annoyance as his head constantly spun around; he was on high alert. ‘It doesn’t get any better,’ he remarked sarcastically, glancing at a dark shadow that crossed the plane a few centimetres away from him. ‘At this rate, I won’t even make it to the colony, more so my base…’ Alastair shook his head, cursing the day he found himself in the body of a defenceless spider.

Slowly, stealthily dashing from shadow to shadow and trying to keep a low profile, the spider began to move. Making it straight to the base, theoretically, was possible, but relying on the whim of the infamously bipolar lady luck was, generously speaking, naive, if not foolish; as such, its first destination was decided - Alastair was going to raid the ant colony and, hopefully, restore at least some of his vitality before voyaging back to his base at night.

At length, the perilous journey through the harsh wasteland was over. Fortunately, during its trip, the spider did not encounter a great deal of danger, obviously, even small birds that primarily preyed on insects, avoided this lifeless land, preferring to hunt in the surrounding prolific forest. Still heedful of his vicinity, Alastair began carefully inspecting the earth for any signs of activity, in his current state, he didn’t dare approach the colony too closely and hence needed to forage for traces of individual ants.

After what seemed like an endless amount of futile efforts, the spider was, in fullness of time, able to distinguish fresh traces of ants. In semblance to a well-defined trail, their miniature footprints were visibly engraved into the tiny specs of red sand below, aptly leading him straight towards their current location. A weak smile crept onto Alastair’s contorted face as the long-lost feeling of anticipation began to surface with him. With newfound strength, he began to follow the lead, time was not on his side.

It didn’t take long before his target was finally within sight. A small group of ants unhurriedly crawled towards the direction of the colony. It consisted of about 6 workers and, unexpectedly, one dead fly which was conveniently carried on their backs. The unsuspecting ants seemed quite nonchalant as they slowly moved forward, none of them noticed that every one of their movements was greedily followed by four pairs of cold murderous eyes. Alastair hungrily licked his lips; it was finally time for supper.

The sun began to slowly recede. A gust of hot summer breeze rushed through the glade. Playfully, it lifted and tussled around green leaves, spinning them in some sort of a round dance before releasing them into a gracefully slow free fall. Amidst this exquisite serenity, a small group of ants gradually moved forward, with every tiny step getting closer and closer to their destination and long-awaited rest. After a long and hard day of work, the ants were visibly tired; the slowness and uncertainty of their usually nimble movements suggested that they were on their last legs and only duty and instinct didn’t let them stop and take a subtle break.

Suddenly, the lead ant paused in his treks, causing the rest of the group to stagger unwillingly; in front of them landed a leaf. It was so large, that had the whole group stepped on it, they would not have been able to occupy even a fifth of its area, walking over such an obstacle would only create them unnecessarily struggles. The ants turned around, ready to change direction and continue their journey, unfortunately, in the end, all the efforts were futile, none of them were destined to make it out alive.

Swoosh! With a sharp ear-splitting noise a black shadow dashed towards them from behind the leaf.

Without even a chance to react, the front ant froze in place as Alastair’s sharp fangs penetrated its neck, injecting in a lethal dose of venom. It staggered, trying to regain balance, but soon toppled over, its body becoming limp. The remaining workers only began to realise what was going on, but a second body was already lying lifeless on the ground, its beady eyes gruesomely popping out of its sockets.

Panicked, the ants assembled together into a tightly closed circle, their disproportionately large eyes staring at the attacker, their front limbs raised, ready to defend at any time. Ignoring them, Alastair quickly grabbed the closest body and immediately retreated to a safe distance, replenishing vitality was his foremost goal, he could deal with the ants later.

As his sharp teeth dug deep into the worker’s soft flesh, the expected feeling of ecstasy and satisfaction did not follow, on the contrary, the spider felt unbearable pain begin to arise within him as the food slowly descended farther into his stomach. Alastair felt like vomiting. With utmost effort and will, he gradually managed to restrain his urges and forcefully took another bite, no matter what he needed to live.

The pain remained, but this time it was a lot more tolerable, Alastair no longer felt like retching. His eyes widened in surprise. He took another bite, then another; nothing happened. With every new bite, the feeling of tenderness within him was subsiding being replaced by the long-gone feeling of fullness and satiation. The spider sighed in relief, seems like his initial worries were for naught; the pain was not due to injury or disease, but due to his prolonged hunger.

His eyes shifted towards the ants. They were still packed in a tight circle, they didn’t approach him, but nor did they try to escape. Alastair couldn’t tell what they were thinking. Initially, he supposed that the ants would launch an all-out unorganised attack due to the pheromones that have latched onto his body, however, he was evidently wrong. He shook his head in disappointment, now that the ants were prepared, rashly attacking them would only prove to be a very risky, if not a suicidal, endeavour.

Ever since his battle with the guardian, the spider had learnt one thing, and that is not to take any chances without apparent and obvious benefits. Unwillingly, Alastair decided to retreat, but before that, he still had one thing to do; he covetously looked in the direction of the dead fly.

When the ants were assembling into their current defensive formation, not only did they abandon their deceased comrades, but also the insect, obviously, to them their lives were worth more. Alastair smiled at this turn of events, had they encircled the fly, he would still not dare to attack, but now that was no longer a problem. With quick and nimble movements, the spider dashed towards the fly like a tiger that finally found its prey, it grabbed the dead insect with its powerful jaws and, again, backed away, not giving the ants a chance to retaliate.

With skilful movements, Alastair began to hurriedly wrap the fly into his sticky web before attaching the insect to his back. At last, he was ready to leave. Just as quickly as it appeared, the spider was gone, leaving behind only a short trail of barely visible footprints. Night slowly descended upon the forest. Everything became silent; birds no longer roamed the sky and wild animals retreated back into their burrows, only rare insects and nocturnal predators could occasionally be seen foraging for prey.

With fully replenished vitality, Alastair limberly moved through the darkness. Dim moonlight illuminated familiar landscapes as he rapidly approached his base, he was already very close. Oddly though, the spider was not in a good mood, its scrutinising gaze constantly wandered through the surroundings as if desperately trying to find something; the worry in its eyes gave away that whatever it was, it was not anything he wished to encounter.

Ever since dusk, a black premonition stuck onto him akin to superglue and with every passing minute it was only getting heavier. Alastair felt as if a ton was placed onto his shoulders and though he never trusted the so-called sixth sense, he couldn’t get himself to ignore this feeling; somehow he was certain that something went very wrong.

Alas, time passed and nothing seemed to happen, not a hint of danger could be noticed anywhere within the vicinity, Alastair’s uneasiness began to gradually fade away. His base was already within his view.