A WEAVER IN THE WOODS – A SHORT FANTASY STORY
“Sarah”, I called while walking towards the edge of an unbelievable cliff.
“Michael is here”, I exhaled reminding myself all the ungrateful things her parents said to me.
They actually thought she was kidnapped by bandits in the West Coast. I tried to prove myself worthy but what does a poor boy see than the rich?
She wasn’t my class, my type and definitely not my status.
“Sarah”, I yelled louder with my face much reddish than before. The sands were getting loosened and I wasn’t permitted to look too deep at the suicide cliff.
“A spider took her”, I muttered to myself. This was of course to remain sane even as the whiplashes caused me to shed tears. When was being a hero ever appreciated? Her parents had their royal guards strip me naked claiming I was with a lie stuck in my oesophagus.
“A spider? How big”?, They mocked as my skin paid the price.
I should have walked away, probably never look at another brown bush but again my heart ached and it was love. I sincerely loved the dark hair and silk like outer flesh.
“You’re mine”, I played my fallacy in my head but then I forgot that weight betrayed me. I descended like haystack onto what felt like sticky rubber.
“Cobwebs”, I kept mute leaving my eyes to stare at a particular bone above me and nonetheless.
“No way I was dying here”, my conscience assured whilst watching hairy sugarcane sized feet race to my corner.
It would be a funeral without evidence of I dared to move but eventually the evening got darker and from a hero, I became another prey.
“Three! I count three!” my mind kept on with it’s nonsense. Spiders are usually solitary hunters but these predators must have wandered away from the realm of no short things.
“Sarah”, I drew the attention of one.
It knew the vibrations were those of a loosed end but there were too many human bodies that still twitched from the venom brutally released in their spinal cord.
“Neurotoxin perhaps”, I whispered. This wasn’t intentional but I have a bad habit of dying and right now my heart fell into my mouth.
“She’s the king daughter, they’ll have guards come after her”, I concluded as the sun settled down finally.
Besides me was a victim, one who was a popular hunter in our kingdom. The moon’s glow made me recall that scar given to him. Rumours said it was by an rogue tiger he killed but I thought otherwise. Yes! I always think otherwise!
“Help”, that cold finger wrapped around mine. “Fa…mi…ly”, he struggled to shift the web that pinned his head almost parallel to mine.
“I’m sorry”, the loud whisper summoned another much darker spider.
This one was quicker and just before I could pray for saving grace, the venom went into my neck numbing all my senses within seconds. All that was left was a juicy body and eyes that couldn’t blink.
“Michael”, she called. Now too late.
“I’m dying”, I spoke but my mind never ordered a microphone neither was my vocal cords responding to anything she mused on about.
Love, I swore was one of the greatest foolish showmanship. I wasn’t thinking and neither was my heart which could have been beating far off on the East Coast with my drunken merry father.
I should have said sober but he recently lost the most violent beast the pastor called his missing rib on the day of their wedding. Who wouldn’t be glad? Beauty’s a curse!
“You shouldn’t have come for me”, she managed to stagger towards where I laid.
I slowly watched us both get wrapped by two of the three beings that ruled that dark underworld of gigantic holes.
“Your leg”, my body responded. “Shake it hard.”
I refused to listen not when a lover of mine was confessing all the wrong things she had done while been prepared for dinner.
“I love you”, my mouth suddenly came alive. “With all my heart and soul.”
“Michael”, her white lips now started to yield to the eight eyed silk constrictor. “I love you too.”
What a marvelous wonder these things have built. I carefully studied the awestruck wonders they made from just webs. It was thick, flexible and yet durable.
My wrappings were unto my face as it became difficult to breathe.
“Gods of my ancestors”, I prayed. “One last common sense.”
This was a preview of what followed after such prayer from an ungodly fellow.
I heard screeches at first which soon transmogrified into loud noises from millions of bats.
“Not again”, one of the spiders spoke to the other. “I’m not sharing this time.”
My eyes widened in amazement of what dropped me in my burial costume. The other dropped the princess as well saying “I agree”.
Weirdness at its peak! I must be drunk from the whips. Probably a lash reached into the soft parts of my brain and shook it’s very core.
“Princess”, energy surged into me like a man possessed.
I first began with my teeth chewing off what felt like paper mixed with saps from trees. Much bitter especially with the thought that such a thing came out of their abdomen.
“Talk to me”, I soon broke free.
“My he….hero!”, she latched her arms onto me like hooks. “Take me home.”
“Sure!”, I smiled tempted to kiss a damsel in distress.
With one hand I actively commenced undoing their murder work, another held her back firmly watching as those hairs fell right on my elbow.
“I’m marrying you when I get out”, my mind bursted out it’s thoughts.
“You’re still thirteen”, she halted my fantasy. “Let’s promise that when we’re much older Michael”, a smile came up afterwards.
I was happy which was short-lived by the guardian of the easiest entrance out here.
The spider stared at us in mockery clapping it’s palps together repeatedly.
“Buffoonery”, it spoke feminine leaping to where I stood amidst human jawbones.
“Let us out”, I screamed at it but she was much capable of eating us alive seeing that her abdomen was much bigger than those of the other two.
“I’m gonna burst it”, my murder instincts came alive. The invertebrate was quick but I had a bone in hand and a strange reflex which gave me the name “spineless” in the community school.
My first swing happened to be backwards agilely able to switch positions hitting what seem to be a human thigh bone on one of it’s legs.
“Curse you”, it screamed as I bursted out with a now locomotive Sarah. This was the first phase but then there was a hole that leads to the surface.
“You go first”, I threw her up. It was impromptu but she was readily able to grasp a root and crawl her way to the surface.
“Your hand Michael”,she stretched those mud filled fingers to me.
I leapt for it but was intercepted by the now seven legged spider which called my name in agony.
“You thing! I will personally feed you to my eggs”, she wailed.
I gulped in saliva as I imagined sumo wrestling on the board the white people brought to our kingdom.
“Television”, they called it but only the king was able to access it anytime. So much for leadership on his part.
“Michael”, Sarah started the women’s syndrome. This consisted of the tears and refusing to be alive without the protagonist of the story. “Please stay alive.”
“Of course I would”, I frowned in my heart.
Death was never what I intended and the bats were beginning to disperse one after the another.
“Let’s battle you fat thing”, I shrieked in my own nightmare-ish way.
The female spider roared like a woman in labour and with a sharp spin, I was on the floor with a broken elbow and half-alive ankles.
“You’re mine Michael! Mine alone”, it cried.
My blurred sight reached for an easy bone and just in seconds, I stuck it on its large binocular like eyes. It left me immediately and started to yell, cry like something I’ve never heard before,….a tiger’s roar.
“So this was it”, my brain recalled the man from earlier. The spiders have been luring unsuspecting victims by means of different animal and human voices.
Brilliant! I would say if I were on their side but soon there was a strange silence as the spider fell clasping it’s legs together like one giant claw.
“Michael what did you do”?, it’s harsh sentence mimicked the exact tone of my mother.
“I never loved that psycho”, the brutish temper took control.
“Please no! no! no! I’m with child”, it pleaded but at that moment, I did what I said I was gonna do.
Sarah vomited without delay on sight of the abdomen’s goo on me. It tasted like spilt cow milk though I wasn’t waiting around to savour my flesh in the mouth of another arachnid.
“I’ll get you for this”, the male spiders returned but I was holding her hand and this time, never letting go.
“Michael”, she paused. “We’re running the wrong way.”
“Exactly!”, I smiled carrying her in my arms into the break of day.
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