Chapter Three - Creepy Crawly

Terraforming complete. Realm altered. Planet acknowledgment complete. System integration in progress…

System integration complete.

Worried murmurs filled the area and the upperclassmen tried in vain to calm the worried teenagers. Jaricko remained silent, trying to make sense of what was happening. What he had assumed was a weird daydream was turning out to be terrifyingly real.

“What the hell is this?” Jack asked while swiping in front of him with his meaty hands. Jaricko looked at the words in his vision once again, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, he slightly relaxed.

“Can everyone else see this?” Jaricko questioned the four others around him. A few murmurs of confirmation replied.

“A mass hallucination?” Timothy hypothesized. The small boy was occupied moving in strange directions, often leaning all the way back or turning slightly.

“Was it caused by that explosion in the sky?” Tatum exclaimed. He had his camera in hand. Jaricko had a sudden idea.

“Hey Tatum, did you happen to get a picture of that light?” Jaricko asked. The other young man blinked and turned towards the device. He pushed a few of the buttons, and his eyes widened in surprise. A few moments later the camera pushed out a square piece of paper. Tatum waved it in the air for a moment and handed it off to Jaricko.

The teenager frowned.

“Are you sure you took this during the light?”

“Swear!” Tatum replied. The duo looked at the obviously regular star-filled sky that was displayed in the image. No sign of the strange light or the new blinking moon in the sky.

“This is fucking weird.” Identical grunts of agreement followed. It wasn’t long before Briar appeared near the boys.

“Are you all okay? No funny tingles or the urge to vomit? None of you are epileptic right?!” Briar seemed frazzled, which was the most emotion the man had shown so far. When Jaricko and the rest confirmed their adequate state of being, Briar appeared to calm down.

“Do you know what is happening?” Blake inquired. The tall young adult was busy writing down something in a small book by his side. His brown eyes were narrowed in concentration.

“No clue. Clair is using the satellite phone to contact the ranger station, but uhh…” Briar seemed to hesitate, but Blake was not dealing with any of that.

“Out with it!” The teenager demanded.

“Nothing seems to be going through,” Briar admitted. The upperclassmen ran a hand through his hair and rubbed his temple.

“That light could have been an EMP,” Timothy commented. All eyes trained on him and the boy buckled under the attention. The quiet giant, Jack, rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“What do you mean?” He asked.

Timothy scratched his nose, “That light could have been a pulse or bomb that knocked out all the electronics in the area. Have you guys checked your phones?” A few worried gasps spread across the camp and dozens of people reached for their electronic devices. Apparently, everyone had been listening to the conversation.

Jaricko cursed when his phone refused to turn on.

There goes the money I spent on the solar charger.

Jaricko’s heart felt like it was being squeezed, but he realized he had bigger worries than wasted money.

“Nothing is fucking working!” Someone cursed off to the side.

“Do you know how to fix something like this, Timothy?” Jaricko asked the dazed-looking boy. He jerked and shook his head.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Sorry, Jaricko, I have no clue. I’m not even sure you can fix electronics that have been EMP’d.” He shifted to stare at the wide eye of the second moon in the starry sky. It looked comparable to if a third grader had decided they wanted to try their hand at making a sculpture. Numerous cracks, gashes, and craters covered its surface. Its eyelids moved at a snail's pace while the white pupil in its center remained fixed in place.

“We need to leave!” A feminine voice shouted. Jaricko looked over to see Clair sitting down on one of the logs turned seats. A girl his age was busy whispering furiously at her. At some point, the conversation had turned public.

“We need to know what’s going on!” Someone else shouted from the crowd. Mutters of agreement followed. Clair sat up from the log and gestured for silence.

“I know everyone is worried, I am too. Myself and a couple of others will head to the nearest ranger station to see what's going on. I’m asking for everyone to wait here-”

“I’m not waiting in here in the middle of buttfuck nowhere when there's an eye in the bloody sky!” Blake yelled.

“Fine, those that want to come can. We’ll leave now.” Clair threw up her hands and reached into her pocket. She pulled out a set of keys and stormed towards the bus. A quarter of the crowd followed her, including Blake.

Jaricko turned towards Timothy. Strangely the boy seemed unperturbed by the chaos and was lost in thought. Jaricko tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

“Are you staying here or going?” The teenager asked, curiously. Something told him to listen to the boy that thought about the EMP. Too many times in the movies were the smart ones ignored until it was too late.

“I don’t think we really have a choice. If that EMP could knock out satellites so a satellite phone couldn’t work, I doubt this new bus will be any better.”

Right as he said that Jaricko could hear cursing and swearing as he heard the engine of the bus sputter and refuse to start.

“It appears you are right,” Jack remarked from behind. Timothy shook his head and rubbed his eyes. A sudden chill settled on Jaricko and he rotated around. The hair on the back of his neck stood straight up and he shivered. He noticed an absence.

“Where’s Tatum?” Jaricko wondered audibly. The other two looked around, confusion was evident on their faces.

“He was just here-'' A scream sprang up from nearby and the trio swiveled towards the noise. More shouting started to occur. A large figure dashed by, towards the racket. Jaricko’s eyes enlarged as he watched Jack push through the crowd that was fleeing toward the bus.

His eyes widened even further and his eyebrows shot up past his hairline. Through the gaps in bodies, he caught sight of what could only be described as a massive spider.

Its eight legs were thick and hairy, each one as long as an adult human, and tipped with razor-sharp claws. Its body was massive, covered in shiny black chitin that glinted in the filtered flickering firelight that fought against the encroaching darkness. The second moon in the sky had caused the surroundings to increase in luminosity, but it was still terrifyingly black.

The spider's eyes were numerous and beady. Its mandibles were long and sharp, and seemed to be capable of rending flesh and crushing bone with ease.

Directly in front of it was Tatum. How the boy had gotten there, Jaricko had no clue. Why Jack was currently rushing at the monster with a metal fire poker was also outside Jaricko’s everyday understanding.

“Get out of there Tatum!” Jaricko yelled and hoped that the frozen young man would hear him. Tatum snapped out of his shock and collapsed to the floor. Jaricko could hear him praying under his breath while scuttling backward.

The giant spider hissed as Jack approached, waving the poker like a club. The creature swung a curving claw straight at the beefy human, but the teenager dodged out of the way with jarring agility. He stabbed the makeshift pike into a joint and yanked it back out. The creature hissed in what Jaricko assumed was pain. It backed off slightly, raising its forelimbs in anticipation.

Drool escaped from its maw and slid down to the ground. Jaricko could see a set of mandibles comparable to the tusks of a walrus.

“Somebody help him!” Jaricko shouted. He expected to see the professor or an upperclassman come running by to rescue the day. He was immensely disappointed to see Briar retreating into the bus, with Clair still trying to start the vehicle.

“I thought everyone here was supposed to own a gun,” Jaricko lamented. His heart was pounding in his chest and every instinct in his body told him to run away and find shelter. The apathetic eyes of the spider, while not directed toward him, were horrific. Jaricko ground his teeth and made a decision.

While Jack and Tatum wouldn’t be classified as friends, Jaricko was loath to restart the process all over again. Especially when everything was going to shit around him.

“If I die to a giant spider in the woods, Mom, I’m haunting you,” Jaricko muttered to himself. He glanced around briefly and spotted a long stick that had been lodged into one of the fires. He grabbed the end and sprinted towards Tatum. The large man was busy distracting the spider while Tatum was rocking himself back and forth on the ground.

“Tatum! Tatum! Get ahold of yourself,” Jaricko shouted in the boy’s ear. While Jaricko didn’t feel like the one that deserved to tell him that, the boy did listen. Timothy also ran over and dragged the stuttering journalist away.

Jaricko turned towards the spider and waved the makeshift torch in front of it. The creature reeled back in apparent terror. In a fit of childish rage, Jaricko smacked the burning branch against a lagging hairy leg that was closest. He was bewildered when the fur instantly caught aflame and traveled upwards.

The spider screeched and tried to smother the flames with its other legs, but it only served to spread the fire further along. Jaricko watched in rapt fascination as the monster was turned into a living bonfire. Its cries of agony slowly ceased until it was nothing more than a pile of a charred exoskeleton.

Jack collapsed to the ground, huffing for breath. He gave a lazy thumbs up to Jaricko. The boy reflexively returned it.

I only tapped it once.

Jaricko shivered, not due to the cold air, but because of what he had just done. The hisses the monster had produced were traumatizing. Jaricko was dragged out of his warring thoughts by a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“You did well. Do not worry. It would have harmed Tatum if it could’ve.” The giant man gestured towards the young man who was being bandaged up by one of the upperclassmen. There was a long bloody gash across his chest that Jaricko hadn’t noticed before.

“But the screams, it was alive, it felt the pain of-”

“Yes. But we did not force it to attack us. Animals are not stupid. The spider knew that each hunt may end with them dead. It is the way of life. Eat or be eaten,” Jack simplified with jaw-dropping clarity.

Why the hell is the redneck suddenly a philosopher?

Jaricko was unsure of how to respond, but he did feel better. While he didn’t completely understand what Jack was trying to convey, he felt the young man’s sincerity in his words. Jaricko heard footsteps behind him and swiveled around, his heightened nerves and adrenaline still prevalent in his system.

“I got the bear spray, back away dudes, I’ll-” Briar’s words were cut off when he noticed the state of the spider.

“That’s not a bear,” He remarked.

Jaricko saw something flashing in the corner of his vision and rubbed at his eyes. When the blinking light remained he focused on it. A string of words jumped in front of him, causing him to flinch backward.

System access unlocked.

Welcome - Jaricko Peterson [0], resident of Planet Earth.

Absorbing Essence [32/78] - Juvenile Mountain Forest Arachnid [Tier 0] x1

Displaying Status.

Status

Name: Jaricko Peterson – Tier 0 Human [0/20]

Class: Locked – Essence Required [0/10,000] (+)

Profession: Locked - Essence Required [0/1,000] (+)

Attributes

Tier 0 Mind – Rank 1 [0/50] (+)

Tier 0 Body – Rank 1 [0/50] (+)

Tier 0 Fortitude - Rank 1 [0/50] (+)

Tier 0 Spirit – Rank 1 [0/50] (+)

Tier 0 Capacity - Rank 1 [0/50] (+)

Essence: 32

Fae [0/3]

“Oh my,” was all Jaricko could manage to say.