The spider scuttled along the wall. It was plaster, weak and thin, viable to give under the slightest pressure. Observing the room, the spider ran down the wall. Reaching the carpeted floor it set down and proceeded to move towards a giant black monolith with a pink and hairy fleshy protrusion covering it.
Deciding to retreat back up the wall, the spider sensed something was off.
The fleshy body rose from its chair and slowly approached the spider. Noticing it, it brought its massive hand down slowly over the spider.
To the spider, the world darkened. Normally this would be a pleasant feeling, an experience to be treasured in memory. But something was off. The spider sensed a change in the breeze.
The hand collapsed on the spider.
In a breath the hand moved from the smashed remains of the spider. It was dead. This story’s over.
Wait, no, the spider’s still moving. Two of it’s legs are fractured but it’s still moving. The massive humanoid giant had long lost interest, assured in its victory over the spider and had turned its back.
A long struggle lay ahead for the spider.
Putting one leg forward and (with it’s entire body behind it) the spider dragged itself up the wall, leaving a thin collage line of entrails and organs. If the human had observed this, rather than exit the room, it would’ve seen the spider slowly make its way to the air vent.
Cold artificial air blew from the vent, chilling the spider and making it struggle a bit on the wall. It squeezed between the shafts of the vent. The air only got colder as it proceeded. Further and further it penetrated into the darkness of the vent. Bit by bit, step by step.
The spider felt the cold. It huddled into a dark corner of the vent and pulled what it could of it’s remains together. Slowly, it began spinning a web around itself, gathering all it could within the threaded shell.
Later, the spider began to gradually tear the shell that encased it. After a few minutes it managed to release itself. Free.
Though still mangled, the spider was no longer dripping parts of its body like a massive ruptured organ. It resumed scuttling across the cold metallic floor of the vent. Before too long it had to leap onto the side wall of the air vent. The cold air being what it was, this in conjunction with the built up layer of dust and filth on the floor made traveling along the vent ways somewhat difficult.
The spider, traveling deeper and deeper into the vents, was comforted by the growing chill and darkness. But the unnatural winds were kicking up and making it harder and harder to stick to the walls of the vents. Persevering, the spider continued trudging along. Finally it made it to the massive spinning blades.
Slicing into the darkness the rusted and jagged fan propelled the chilled air at the spider. Sticking to the floor of the vent, the spider waited, waited, waited…then rushed past the spinning fan.
“Closer…” something rattled in the spider’s brain. It perceived something, another.
“Closer…” the thing repeated. The spider was now in pitch blackness. It was a cold world. To a spider it was chilled and welcoming, refreshing in it’s own way.
“Closer still…” the voice called out. The presence was growing stronger with each step the spider took.
Scuttling along, the spider began to notice that the dust on the ground was becoming thinner, more connected, more threadlike.
“Little thing,” the voice said. The spider glanced up. It’s various eyes found the source of the presence. Another spider. Bigger, furrier, with mandibles nearly as big as the entire small spider.
“Big brother…” the little spider communicated back.
“You are hurt, why?”
“A massive creature, something with only four mammoth limbs. A giant, it moves slowly in the strange lands.”
The big spider crawled down the web, getting closer and closer to the little spider.
“You are quite fortunate a pair of hapless flies made their way here before you, otherwise I’d consider devouring you,” the big spider said.
“You would devour me?” the little spider asked.
“I would eat my own kind without hesitation. With that in mind what hope do you have?”
“True enough,” the little spider responded. Almost before it could perceive it, the big spider began moving around the little spider, causing a small amount of nervousness to creep up in the little spider’s gut. “I am unsure of something.”
“Unsure of what, small thing?” the big spider responded.
“My life had ended before, ‘neath the hand of the giant I spoke of before.”
“Yes…” the big spider drawled, continuing its circular path around it’s little counterpart.
“I saw something. I don’t recall exactly what. It wasn’t dark, it was something massive and gray…almost welcoming, pleasant and frightening.” the little spider remarked, shifting on it’s own legs nervously ready to leap if need be.
“Ah yes, I have heard of this, such as you are describing, never have I experienced it myself,” the big spider crawled and settled in front of the little spider.
“I do not know where to go from here, big thing, could you tell me, where to go?” the little spider asked. The big spider spread it’s jaws.
“There are a number of places for you to go, my gut for one,” the big spider launched itself at the small spider who tumbled out of the way. “Have you ever killed a giant? No, of course you haven’t. Have you ever seen a dead giant? Ever mated…at all?”
“No, I have done none of those things,” the little spider said sidestepping a stream of web shot in it’s direction. “What difference does that make?”
“Your life is an incomplete one, no, not even that, you are practically stillborn with all the experience you haven’t had.” the big spider leaped backwards onto its web and began shooting streams of thread at the little spider. Finding it harder and harder to dodge the web, the little spider rolled and began secreting a fluid down its legs and body, hoping against hope that the web wouldn’t stick to it’s body.
“To feast on you now…a meaningless end to a stultifying existence,” the big spider vocalized. The little spider wrestled it’s way out of the webbing and scuttled quickly. Leaping, it rapidly found itself on the back of the big spider.
“And your life, if a baby like me were to end it, what then?” the little spider asked, before it knew what was going on the little spider had driven it’s miniature fangs into the head of the big spider.
The big spider thrashed, desperately clinging to its last few seconds of life, but finally succumbed, legs shaking, off of the web and onto the web covered floor of the vent.
“I…I…I…” the big spider said, stuttering, it’s lines of communication becoming fuzzier by the second.
“What now?” the little spider asked.
“I see the gray…I…I…I see the giants…” the big spider said before collapsing on its back and dying.
The little spider regarded the remains for just a bit and then moved on.
Before long, the spider was becoming aware of an illumination growing in intensity around its body and eyes. Another vent opening, different from the first, appeared slowly in front of the little spider. Its legs shuffling beneath it, the spider exited the vent into the slightly warmer air of the air conditioned room.
First and foremost, it was the light that assaulted the spiders eyes, forcing it to be still and adjust. The little spider began scaling the ceiling of the room. Something on the air, a movement or action that caused its body to shudder a bit.
Another spider? No.
An abandoned spider web, wafting gently in the fake breeze. The little spider approached, its split legs dragging behind it. In the corner of the room where the ceiling meets the wall, the spider quickly found that several flies, some living others dead, were trapped in the web.
“This isn’t your web.” one of the flies said.
“Quiet!” another fly silenced it.
“I have no wish to eat any of you if that’s what you fear, and I realize I am not the creator of this web,” the little spider said. “Can you tell me where I am?”
“Where you are?” the first fly asked. “What sort of question is that?”
“How so?” the spider asked back.
“You are here, here is where you are, that is all.” the second fly said.
“I don’t mean it in such terms, let me repeat myself-”
“Don’t bother, if you’re not going to eat us then kindly leave and spare us the ignorance of your kind.” one of the flies said, the little spider couldn’t distinguish which.
“Very well.” the spider responded moving away and down the wall.
As it went along, the little spider noticed a vast clear abyss beneath its legs. Spinning a web and shooting it towards a wooden sill, the spider swung and balanced parallel to the clear abyss. A clear barrier between the cool indoors and the blazing outdoors. The little spider had begun its life out there somewhere, it realized. But it had no real desire to go back. If anything it missed the cool darkness of the vents.
All of the sudden, a fluttering, a massive feathered creature flew and landed on a branch of a tree near the window. The little spider swung on its web wildly for a moment before settling down. It wondered if the clear barrier would hold or whether or not this creature was a threat. Whatever it was it was certainly massive and colorful enough to constitute a threat.
“Come outside -whistle- come outside -whistle-” the bird chirped, its voice muffled a bit by the glass.
“Don’t be stupid, you’d eat me if I did,” the little spider communicated to the bird. “I have no desire to be sustenance for you.”
“-whistle- you’re the stupid one -whistle-” the bird sang.
“Me? Why’s that?” the little spider asked.
“You stay in this massive box, with your -whistle- fake air and -whistle- hairy giants to crush you into nothingness. This is their realm, not yours.”
“Be silent.” the little spider responded.
“The seasons are changing, the time of great heat is fast approaching. Won’t you come out into our world?” the bird asked, lightly pecking at the glass.
“Our world? The giants are here, they are there, it doesn’t matter. The only difference that makes itself known to me is that out there you would devour me.”
The bird was silent, only lightly tapping on the glass every few moments.
“You’ll never know until you come outside -whistle-, come outside -whistle-.” the bird repeated. The spider swung back and forth on its strand of web, then releasing , it flew into the air and lashed out another thread. It connected with another wall and allowed it swing towards the carpeted floor. Scuttling across the shag, the little spider quickly found that it was having trouble on the carpet. The combination of its ragged legs and jutting threads from the carpet made movement a problem.
The light from the sun was coming through the window above, casting the bird’s shadow into sharp relief across the carpeted floor. Moving, the little spider suddenly felt a shaft of heat. Looking towards the bottom of the wall it saw a series of pin hole size openings. Approaching the holes, the spider looked through and saw a series of ants.
“Purpose, purpose, purpose, purpose-” they repeated in unison and on top of each other. The little spider for that moment and that moment alone didn’t feel so little.
Retreating from the holes, the spider moved along the floor before reaching a massive wooden tower which was only a support structure for an even greater superstructure.
The spider peeked up and rose up on its haunches as best it could. There was a giant resting on the structure. Its eyes were closed and it was breathing deeply. The little spider rushed up the wooden pillar and before too much time had passed had managed to bring itself up to where the body of the giant rest.
It was gargantuan. The little spider could hardly comprehend how big this creature was in relation to itself. Scuttling, the spider reached the end of one of the gigantic limbs of the behemoth and made its way onto the hand of the creature.
The surface of the hand was riddled with crevices both shallow and deep. Ebony hairs jutted out at odd intervals. A miniature forest where if the sunlight caught it just right it would be cast in an intense reddish hue.
Just then, the giant awoke. The little spider could sense the vibrations through the skin and up its legs. Slowly, the giant rose. The spider was raised into the air, the giant unknowingly carrying it.
It only took a few moments but the giant quickly became aware of the presence on its hand. Giving its own hand a glance, the giant lightly shook it. The little spider clung with as much strength as its limbs could generate.
A great shadow fell over the spider as it raced across the hand, being slowed down every step by the crevices and hairs of the skin. Going this way and that, the spider felt a coolness settle over it as the shadow over it rapidly grew.
With a clap, the spider was smashed.
Using its other hand, the giant flicked off the remains of the spider into the air.
Falling, its body began thrashing and acting on its own accord, shooting threads of web in every direction possible, hoping, praying, trying to cling to something, anything.
Everything slowed down as the little spider descended closer and closer to the ground. The periphery of its vision began to gray. Then his eyes became clouded.
The air was cool and the sky was blotted out into perpetual twilight.
-End
2008

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