The spider was up on a shelf that was out of reach for 03’s ‘pint to knee-sized’ new form.

Checking himself out he was only around knee-high but that was only when his lungs were filled with air when he would breath out he would noticeably deflate so he wondered if he should go back to how he was before but he decided against it. Instead, he threw his tail at the item before trying to smash the cupboard it was on, it was behind glass cylinders we know to be flasks and honestly, it didn’t really have many purposes other than decoration for the scientist it had massive use for 03. Just looking at it he felt like a thousand new ideas for a new body were entering his mind.

Suddenly he stopped… ‘What if it gets smooshed?’ he asked himself. Then he wandered around wondering how he would get to his prize as he was now more slug than human.

It wasn’t a spite filled pride that prevented him from simply ‘shifting’ but instead for of joy for the promise of discovery and victory. This was his moment of glory that would be spoken off for the next thousand years, he knew this!

He did!

The idea, the concept that he… that there was a possibility of failure that existed outside of his actions was nothing more than an odd thought by and a faraway one to him now although had never really left him.

His mind had inverted from his time inside the coffin where there was nothing his actions could achieve or at least the belief that this was the case had permanently affected every decision and idea he had now he was near the opposite end of the spectrum seeing the world as if it was a veritable he could completely control.

This was more like a reflective jolt of defiance towards his old way of life than anything he had any real thought put into and honestly it was passing every second that he couldn’t think of a safe way to grab the spider without the act of changing his body.

There was another reason for his subtle obsession… he was running away. The knowledge of death was looming over him this was a way to escape that even if only for a moment and the idea that everything was within his control was pleasing especially when added to by the discovery of death.

He hoped he would discover death away by finding a solution to a completely different problem that he himself had made.

However, this was all subconscious so it didn’t matter that it wasn’t a logical plan because he wasn’t thinking logically at the moment and that unlike his attempt at running away from his fear was indeed purpose-driven or intentional.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Even if his age was eighteen he had the mentality of a baby learning to crawl with intelligence to match his age but honestly it was probably below average and unfocused was still too smart to not realised what he was doing and actively rationalise and distract himself by the promise of the spider’s allure. It wasn’t a positive place inside his head right now.

In a fundamental way, he was currently volatile but was anchoring himself to his current objective, eating the spider’s corpse.

So what he did was he made steps using the shelf cupboard. The spider was housed in a see-through plastic box that was shaped like a book and was dangerously close to the edge on the fifth level of a set of ‘floors’ so he climbed onto on floor then where he would swing half of him up to the next.

The plastic box holding the spider had two small glass flasks placed in front of its left half, they looked like they had been placed there intentionally to prop the box up and prevent it from falling over on its own.

On the way up he did knock over a few glass flasks however his new eyes didn’t really catch them until they broke apart beneath him, his eyes had traded ability for numbers or quantity over quality which is why he probably never realized the spider was in a container so when he swung himself up he knocks the side of the container he managed to push it enough where the plastic box it was in fell along with the flasks.

The box itself didn’t shatter or break but it did splinter here and there. That was until 03 went flying off the shelf straight into smashing the box screaming mentality, ‘ If I can have it no one can!’ Before rolling over onto its back like a turtle would onto its stomach and using its tongue like a rake to pull whatever it could of the spider into its mouth giggling as it played.

Because that was what this was, a child playing an imaginary game for the very first time in its life. An imaginary game with imaginary rules and imaginary stakes. A fantasy to escape reality.

A child's lie.

Still, even the imaginary can have effects of reality as now that the spider was consumed, he found that it was old and stale in taste but quite informative in design. He liked the many leg situation it had going on for itself.

He also likes the eyes. He began to curl up into a ball of flesh before he started to wrap himself with the same material that the spider’s fangs were made of before placing a single red mark to signal danger because he liked the way it looked on the spider before he then shot out 16 new legs, 8 to the floor and 8 to the roof.

Then he coats his legs in his bone exoskeleton which is more for visuals then purpose, he also adds a few spines like spikes in between his legs, then he decides to add a continuous or at least uncountable amount spine joints which gave his new legs a snake-like slithering effect to them.

He moved with a snake-like grace by moving with a mix of slithering around by surfing his new bone tentacle legs across the ground and seemingly the air as if he was swimming through the air and walking like a spider.

He moved like a monstrous white ghost or some fowl offspring of Cthulhu, this alien and ghost-like image was added to when it became apparent that he moved making nearly no noise add all, only a gentle hymn of a soft feminine breath with a slither of a seductive quality that was broken when one saw what was making the noise but before it could easily entice an unknowing victim.

And so he began the first great walk! ie he circled the room once before pulling himself into a cupboard before falling asleep as he had grown tired. However he was satisfied, he had moved more in this short amount of time and experienced greatest emotional highs then he had ever before in the entirety of his life.

He was looking forward to what tomorrow would bring for the first time ever.