Darkness.
When I opened my eyes, there was no warm hospital bed. No crying mother. No stern-looking George Stacy. Only blackness, thick, suffocating blackness, with spiraling echoes that rang endlessly in my head.
Where… am I?
I tried to move, but my body was wrong. My balance felt alien. Instead of two legs beneath me, there were more—too many.
One. Two. Three. Four…
Eight.
No way… don't tell me—
Panic flared. My limbs flailed wildly, scraping the stone.
CRACK!
The wall split apart. Dust rained down as a sliver of pale light spilled through. Not bright, but somehow my new eyes drank it in. I could see clearly. Too clearly.
And what I saw made my stomach drop.
Spiders.
Hundreds of them crawling on the stone walls, weaving webs, feeding, fighting. Their countless eyes gleamed faintly in the dark. Small ones, big ones, hairy ones. A nightmare given form.
Then...pain.
A sting in my abdomen.
"?!?!"
I twisted, and saw it: a spider, its fangs buried deep into my body. My body that was no longer human. My limbs were black and sharp. My back swollen like a spider's.
"I… I'm… a spider?!"
Terror consumed me. I flailed wildly, trying to throw it off.
Then the ground quaked.
BOOOOM!
The cavern shook, cracks racing across the walls.
SCHLK!
An enormous appendage pierced through the spider biting me, skewering it like paper. Blood sprayed, its body twitching once before collapsing.
I froze. My trembling eyes turned upward.
And then I saw it.
A spider so colossal it blotted out the cavern ceiling. Its legs were like black towers, its body scraping stone as it moved. Each step shook the world.
Eight glowing eyes scanned the nest.
I couldn't breathe. My eight little legs locked in terror.
The giant paused....then without hesitation, it turned and plunged its massive fangs into a cluster of spiders nearby.
CRUNCH! CRACK! RIP!
Dozens of little spiders, no different from me, were devoured in a single bite. Their bodies disappeared down the monster's maw, their screeches silenced instantly.
I stood frozen, trembling so hard my legs rattled against the stone.
The creature didn't even glance back at me again. It just moved on, its towering body vanishing into the darkness, leaving only silence and the stink of blood behind.
My voice cracked as I whispered to myself, "…Mother… spider…"
But if she was a mother, then she was no protector.
She was the predator.