Tired, Kalika slowly opened her eyes, completely exhausted. "Hmm? Where am I?"
She looked at the ground below, looking at a one-horned deer covered in what looked to be dissolved silk. Unexpectedlty, a horned rabbit arrived and gobbled the deer in seconds.
"Huh?" Kalika stared on in stunned silence, watching as the rabbit ripped a small burp before moving on without a care in the world, all before getting ensnared in a trap. "How is that small thing able to eat so much…"
Kalika attempted to move her hands and arms, only to find them stuck. She moved her head. And felt a stickiness on her neck and arm. "What the…?"
Glancing at her body, she saw herself covered in a silk-like cocoon. "Oh, yeah… I was hunting, and then I was…" She looked above herself, meeting the sight of a huge, monstrously ugly spider. "You."
The spider's large appendage-like fangs twitched and stuttered with an unspoken anger as it quietly growled.
"So they still haven't come… Oh well. Whatever, this is too comfortable." Kalika yawned, tired. "It's still a little dark. So maybe I'll just sleep here a bit longer." Kalika closed her eyes when, suddenly, she fell to the ground hard. "OW!!"
The cocoon trapping her became brittle and dissolved off her in seconds. "Hey! What was that about!?"
The upside-down spider screeched and roared at her, clearly angry.
"Okay. So, first you tried to eat me, and now you're trying to chase me off?"
The spider angrily thrashed around on its web, screeching and roaring even louder.
"Tch! If you think you can scare me away, it's not going to work. I've killed a lot of you stupid spiders back in that damned arena."
A broken tree branched and hurled and cracked at Kalika's feet. Indignant, Kalika glared at the spider with a growing frustration, then eyed the tree connected to the web. With a puff, she moved and clawed at the tree, climbing it, inch by inch. "All I want to do is to rest, so let me stay a little longer, then I'll leave."
Reaching the top, a web instantly sprang on her hand, gluing her palm to the tree. She turned, forced to watch as the spider spurted an onslaught of webbed balls that stuck her to the tree. However, seconds later, the webs melted and broke off her like brittle dry mud.
"Hmm? Why did it melt-"
Suddenly, the spider charged and chomped onto her torso.
The venom coursed through her like a rapid tide, and the spider shook her as violently as a wolf, eventually tossing her body across the forest like trash.
Kalika's body twitched and convulsed from the poison running through her body, and soon became limp. Seconds later, the deadly venom spurted from her body like a fountain and she rose from the ground with a cold glare directed at the hissing spider. "I tried to be reasonable. I really did. But I guess I should just kill you instead."
The spider shuddered at once. With a rising dread, the spider fled.
It dashed through and past the crowded trees, crushing others beneath its weight in a complete panic.
"Where do you think you're going?" Kalika peeked from above at the monster's beady eyes. The spider shuddered and stopped at once to thrash around, attempting to throw her off. "That's not going to work."
Kalika drew her red knife and stabbed the side of the spider. It screeched louder and fought as she dug the red-stained knife even deeper. She pushed harder and deeper until it finally ceased.
Slowly, the spider rose. Kalika jumped off and watched its legs curl and roll on its back.
"Nature is weird." With a huff, Kalika sheathed her knife and reached for her leftover rope. She tied it to the dead monster and dragged it across the forest with mild annoyance.
She returned to the spider's nest, and leaving the spider's carcass, she climbed and laid flat on the web. "Ahh~~~. This feels nice. I really wish I could take this to my bed…" She stretched and yawned again and rubbed her eyes. "Maybe I'll have Donovan or Bjorn pull strings from that stupidly big spider."
From above, she watched as black dots from far above her became bigger and bigger. "Huh?"
She counted seven, then fifteen, and then another twenty. She sat up and watched as a small army of spiders encroached her location, and an army climbing from the tree, ground, and sky alike.
"Where the heck are they coming from?"
Groups of the smaller viscous spiders consumed the large dead spider. "Hey! That's mine!"
The spider's screeching echoed across the entire forest like a cry for war. The horde quickly grew in numbers, and the small groups of spiders turned into a swarm, slowly surrounding Kalika from all sides.
Kalika forced herself to her feelings, balancing on the webs. "All I wanted to do was to sleep. But you stupid things keep annoying me…"
The first spider leapt, countered with a knife to its head. Another followed, sliced in half as all the others pounced, attacking Kalika all at once in an overwhelming display of numbers.
They stung, gnawed, and webbed Kalika and, with their sheer numbers, pinned her to the ground in an animalistic onslaught. Determined, Kalika swung her knife, stabbing and slicing through the legs and abdomens of the rampaging spiders.
Pain surged across her body, and the poison coursing through her veins burned her senses all before meeting death's door.
Confident, the horde ceased, only for Kalika's knife to stab the head of another unsuspecting spider. She sliced through and expelled the poison from her body. The blue blood that once soaked her vanished, and her eaten flesh was ripped from the mouths and stomachs of the monstrous spider, sparing very few from the sudden death.
Still bold, the swarm attacked again, ripping at Kalika's arms and legs more vigorously than before.
"Gah! Damn you!" Before she knew it, another spider ripped into her neck. Killing her.
Growing tired of the deaths, entered her realm of nothingness. Within, she sensed hundreds of different souls surrounding her. Frustrated, she expelled and revived herself over the horde of spiders, then stabbed into the tree.
She glared down at the bewildered horde below, watching as each one fell as her flesh ripped from their bodies back into her. "Damned Spiders. Fine! If you wanna die, so be it. We were out of crystals anyway!"
She pulled her dagger and smashed through the horde on the web.
The Spiders swarmed, pounced, and Kalika slashed. Blue and black blood splatter painted the black forest, and a grotesque display of carnage. Legs and abdomens flew, and the carcasses of the relentless spiders slowly piled below the forest tree and holes.
Killing the hundredth spider, they slowly became more wary. Kalika looked with a cold and calculating glare.
She raised her free hand with a smirk. "Die…" she just as quickly snapped back to reality. She looked at her newly shaky hand, clenching it into a fist. "I don't need. I'll kill all of you all the same." Poised to attack, Kalika lunged only for the surrounding spiders to suddenly flee. "Hey? HEY! Where are you going!?"
Kalika chased, stabbing another in the head and following the pod behind with a fury, killing one after another. "I'm not done killing all of you bastards! So come back and fight! Hey! You wanted to kill me, right!? SO, DO IT!!"
The spiders fled into holes in the ground, barely big enough for a human to fit. Desperate, Kalika stabbed into the hole, nearly catching another kill. "COWARDS!"
Angry, Kalika kicked dirt into the hole and collapsed the entrance of their safe haven. With a puffed, turned back, taking each spider she killed with her along the way, eventually returning to the destroyed web that dissolved just before her, and growled at sight.
She slumped onto the closest tree, looking over the chaos of curled legs, corpses, and abdomens littering the ground with a musky trophy in the air. Kalika cringed from the smell and leaned against the tree, gazing up into the night. "Stupid spiders… And now I have to drag all these stupid things back to camp… So much for taking a nap."
Kalika closed her eyes, listening to the silent whispers of the wind as a familiar presence resurfaced. The sound of dragging quickly killed the silence. Something large slowly came in her direction. Curious, she opened her eyes and peered behind the tree and past the graveyard of spiders.
From between the trees, a large horned wolf with a bloated stomach dragged a deer with its mouth. "You…"
Kalika waited patiently as the dire wolf dragged its prize and dropped it in front of Kalika. It breathed heavily and laid at Kalika's side, exhausted.
"So… you were still following. I can't say I understand. It seemed like you were better off in that other forest with all those stupid goblins. Then you could've killed and eaten those dumb things to your heart's content." Kalika's eyes slowly drifted to the bloated stomach of the wolf she felt.
"I suppose it's a good thing you've had plenty to eat. But following us all this way and keeping yourself fat-"
Kalika caught her breath and turned back to the wolf's stomach, feeling a wriggling from within. She calmly placed her hand flat on the wolf's stomach, feeling several little bumps move around.
"I-I see… So your… Just like her…" Kalika's hands and lips shook, and she watched as the wolf lay its head down, closing its eyes in a deep calm. "S-s-so what is this? Am I supposed to be your pack leader now? Is that why you're following?"
She looked at the napping beast, silently scoffing to herself. "At least someone can sleep comfortably. I really don't get you things… I killed your pack, scarred your face, and almost killed you. And now you're here nuzzling up to me… You must be desperate if you're cozying up to your would-be killer."
Kalika continued to stare at the wolf, waiting for a reaction. "Tch. damn it all."
With a solemn sigh, Kalika carefully petted the head of the large wolf, stroking its fur and feeling the shift of the horn on its head. She did the same with her own horn and felt how it curved towards the back of her head by moving her tail in stroking its end, feeling a strange, faint sensitivity to it that tingled the back of her spine. "I wonder… Is there a way I can change back, or am I really…"
Kalika grimaced. Her heart sank with a truth she preferred buried from her. "All that matters is that we get out of here. To hell with demons, monsters, and magic. I want to live again. Then I'll finally be in control."
********
"Stay here," Bjorn warned, storming towards the forest.
"Like hell I will! Kalika's probably in trouble now as we speak. Besides, you said it yourself, we'll likely have bounty hunters looking for us!" Donovan shouted.
Bjorn stopped and glared at Donovan.
Donovan glanced around, unsure, then spoke more hushed. "And there's no way of telling if they planned this. For all we know, this could be a divide and conquer strategy."
"What you say has some merits… But this forest is especially deadly, as I said to Kalika. There are killer plants and insects in this forest. In particular, a queen spider whose venom can kill our kin in minutes."
"I don't care. No matter the risks. I'll take. I'm not going to break my promise."
"What the hell are you two doing way out here?" Kalika spoke.
Shocked, both Donovan and Bjorn turned to find Kalika dragging a green net full of spiders and a few other animals and plants behind her. They could only watch in stunned silence as Kalika dragged the horde, looking back at them with indignation.
"Why are you both just staring? Aren't you going to help?"
Donovan stuttered. "B…b-b-but… How? Why?"
"Hmm? The spiders tight? Yeah, a little bit earlier, I killed a big spider, and then these things came crawling out and ate it. I think I killed a good chunk of them before the rest escaped… I didn't know how to bring all of them, and then I found a few of those stupid killer flowers Bjorn mentioned. They work really well as rope to make a net. But it definitely took me a while to put it together."
Donovan shrank. "Don't tell me this big spider was that queen spider Bjorn just mentioned…"
Bjorn quickly cleared his throat. "I'll have you know, these spiders are not edible. Their flesh is… Poisonous…"
"I still got some rabbit and deer."
Bjorn turned, returning to the camp. "Donovan, help her, do that, and I'll process the meat and collect the crystals."
Donovan exhaled. "Sure. Fine. Let the human do all the manual labor." Kalika handed half the bundles of vines rope to him.
"Don't lose these."
Donovan pulled with all his might, pulling his half inch by inch across the yellow plains to their campsite.
With Donovan focused on the net of monsters, Kalika glanced back to the wolf, peaking from behind a tree. Conflicted Kalika thought deeply and, with a solemn gesture, waved the wolf off.
Understanding Kalika's intentions, the wolf fled back into the woods."
"Hey, Kalika." Donovan wheezed. "Aren't you going to help?"
"Oh, Sorry." Kalika pulled her side, easing the tension off of Donovan. "I got a little distracted."
"Sorry, but now is not the time to get distracted. You'll have plenty of time for that once we get out of here. Until then, just stay close."
"Yeah… Like I have a choice in the matter…"
Hearing a faint distance, looked to the camp where Bjorn waited patiently. "How about some pilgrim stew after this? You must be starving after hunting for so long."
A silent chuckle escaped Kalika's lips. "Sure. I'd like that."