Spiders of different sizes were climbing down the trees. The biggest ones were high up, with their multiple, red, ominous eyes looking straight at us. I couldn't discern with precision, but they looked impossibly large. Thankfully these large ones were mostly observing — for now.

Counterintuitively, the small critters — small in terms, they were the size of dogs — were the ones on the ground. And there were LOTS of them.

"Any ideas?" I asked Myrra.

Before she could answer, one of the spiders lunged at her back. I struck it out of the air before it could reach her.

"We run," she said, crouching and picking something up.

Three more spiders began approaching, but one well-aimed rock crippled one, smushing half of its body. Damn.

"Yes, before we are surrounded," I said, adopting her tactic and scooping one small rock up. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see even more spiders climbing down the trees. We had to go now.

"This way," I threw the rock at the closest spider and avoided the other one. Fortunately, they hadn't encircled us completely yet.

"Let's go," I yelled to Myrra, and she followed.

A small number of them started chasing us through the woods, slightly green in color. They were impressively fast but not smart enough to take the shortest route to us; they kept climbing trees by mistake, instead of going straight forward.

We kept running until we were more or less sure they weren't right on our tails.

"Fuck," I said, still jogging.

"Phuck," she nodded, huffing.

"Did you see those big ones up above?" I opened my arms wide to illustrate how big they were.

"Ya," she said between breaths, "big."

She was too tired. The interesting part was that I felt completely rested. Not even out of breath. Which, now that I thought about it, wasn't normal. I'd been walking for hours on end and had barely slept the past three days or so...

"Need..." she said, slowing down, breathing, and gulping hard, "Essence."

Shit, she was getting worse.

I looked around as if it would help us in any way. The sky was darkening now, and we didn't have much time. We had lost those spiders, but they could find us at any moment now.

"We need to keep going, Myrra. They might still be after us, and we need someplace safe to spend the night."

She nodded. The further away from those insects, the better.

Just as we were about to move, the lights flared up. Orange and blue lights ignited the sky, illuminating the area a bit. Good, it was getting darker anyway.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I pointed to it, "See? Lights."

"Uhum. Lights. Probably Essence," she said, glancing up. "Maybe—

I stopped and grabbed her arm. She looked confused, but the urgency in my expression must have given her an idea of the seriousness of the situation. She tensed, eyes shifting to alertness.

In front of us, a few dozen meters away, a huge black spider lay hidden under an overgrown bush. It seemed to be using the shade as camouflage.

Is it... lying in ambush? Or just chilling?

Myrra crouched slightly and picked up a long stick with a pointy end by her feet. I tugged at her hand, indicating we should circle the monster, but she refused to move and whispered, "Core."

Were cores that important? Did she need them to replenish her essence?

I locked eyes with her and shook my head. That thing was the size of a small car; there was no way we would be able to kill it easily. She didn't flinch away from the eye contact and freed herself from my grasp.

That was the face of someone who wouldn't change her mind.

Should I... leave her?

A thousand thoughts went through my head. Frankly, she was slowing me down, being a burden. Plus, I had all the supplies and the knife. Leaving her here would not hurt me...

She kept approaching the spider, pointy stick in hand. Shit, she looked so dumb, wearing rags and holding a piece of wood like that.

I started circling the spider, repeating the maneuver I did against that smaller one. I was betting on those things not having good perception. They seemed to have the same hyperfixation trait as those zombies.

If things get bad, I'll just run, I told myself, like a mantra.

Myrra approached the spider, and I hurried to match her pace. This would be a pincer attack of sorts. If we were lucky, the thing would die before doing too much damage to either of us. The intermittent flashes in the sky only heightened the tension of the situation.

Damn it. If I die, I swear I'll kill that Myrra girl.

She was now dangerously close to the spider. Her eyes flashed gold for a second, reflecting the orange light up above, and she impaled the stick straight into one of the spider's eyes. The piece of wood went surprisingly deep, making the insect squeal and thrash around.

I lunged at its back, basically mounting it, and drove the knife into the top of its head, near the eyes, where I assumed it was softer. I felt a shell cracking and the knife sinking, but not as deep as I would've liked.

The thing thrashed even more, and I rolled out from the top of it. Luckily, it seemed angrier at Myrra, not even sparing me a glance. The thing was scarily agile, chasing her in a heartbeat. She had already opened distance and was using the trees in her favor.

I hadn't been able to take the knife out, so I searched for something else to use as a weapon. A stick was the best the forest could offer, unfortunately.

Grabbing one, I ran after the disgusting oversized insect and struck one of its legs, right at one of the joints. The stick broke, and the leg bent a bit, but that was it.

It finally decided to turn to me, angry. Its ugly, mangled face almost was enough to make me puke. I had a pretty strong stomach, but not even those bodies had caused me such aversion.

Thinking it would give chase, I distanced myself quickly. Surprisingly, the spider just ignored me and continued to focus on Myrra. Good. I grabbed a rock this time and threw it at the monster, who didn't even acknowledge me.

I repeated the strategy, getting a piece of wood from the ground and hitting the same leg. The spider turned around again, and I could see, at the edge of my vision, Myrra getting another stick.

She yelled, "Keep that. I go again."

The insect turned its attention to her once more. Did it think I wasn't big enough of a threat?

I hit another one of its legs, on the same side. My intention was to destabilize the creature. It had eight, but if two on a single side didn't work...

This time it squealed loudly — spiders made noises? — and turned around. It had probably decided enough was enough and finally turned to deal with the pesky fly behind it.

I jumped back, not intending to turn into spider food just yet. The creature's fangs moved frantically, and its face was spraying fluids everywhere. If Myrr—

Too focused on the monster, I kicked a small rock and tripped, falling hard to the ground. Shit. The thing's legs were thrashing erratically, each like a deadly spike searching for a target.

One of them slammed down just inches from my neck, sending a spray of soil into my face.

No way this how I die, right?