I am spider.

It is calm. My web is dark, a shrouded tangle of threads. It is flawed. Messy. What was once perfect now pales in comparison to the truth. I had not known. Foolish.

The other web. It shines, even now when clouds cover the sky, blanketing the world in gloom. Its lines are crisp, straight, unmoving. Perfection.

Since the thought-light first appeared I feel hollow, empty, missing something I didn’t know I had. Whatever left me refuses to come back. This is no ordinary hunger. The thought-light told me.

‘ding’ ‘You have been afflicted by Mana Starvation (minor): Nullified health and mana regeneration, Evolution paused’

Hunger gnaws at me. I want prey. To catch them in my web. To wrap them up. To bite them. To feed on their inner juices. So I do as I’ve always done: wait.

The torpor takes me. It smooths the burrs of time. My attention to the world and my body wanes. The hunger is still present. But it seems less urgent. I am calm. It is peaceful. I wait.

`ding’ ‘You have learned the General skill Torpor. Torpor replaces the need to sleep. While in the state of torpor you cannot move, your mana and stamina regeneration are increased, and sustenance requirements are reduced.’

The thought-light startles me. Rude thought-light. So often wrong. I learned nothing. The torpor has always been.

Outside has grown dimmer. Night approaches beyond the clouds. I sense through my web. No movement. No prey. I must wait.

I try to sink back into thoughtlessness. But something bothers me. A thought. I ignore it. But it persists in its wrongness. Always crawling back. Preventing the torpor.

My frustration is interrupted. A light shines. The clouds have not parted. No, a new sun has been born. Not in the sky, but below me. So close. I gaze upon its brilliance with all my eyes.

[Lamp]

‘ding’ ‘You have learned the General skill Identify.’

The new sun’s name is Lamp. It is small. Weak. Too weak to shine upon my web. Yet supplicants come. They dance around the sun. Wild. Free. Looping, always looping back towards the sun. My eyes follow.

[Moth]

It’s okay, thought-light. I know prey. There are so many. Many juicy prey. Dancing around the sun. The sun of prey.

The invasive thought returns. What if I seek the prey? It is so wrong. My web traps the prey. I do not seek. I wait. I wait for my web to get the prey. I have always waited. My web has always provided. It is not the best web. But it is my web. It will provide again. I believe in my web.

But I see them. I see the prey. So enticing. Teasing my hunger. But my web is not there. It is here. Where there are no prey. So I must wait. Wait in my web. Wait for the prey.

The prey’s movements are hypnotic. Soothing. They lull me back into torpor. The ache of emptiness dulls again. Time flows.

__

New movement rouses me. Not of the prey. No. They continue their dance. It is the other web. It rips. The perfection is ruined. I want to mourn the loss, but the hole left behind pulls me in against my will.

My surroundings change in a moment. Just as quickly as it formed, the rip in the other web is mended. Perfection restored. It is a small relief.

My web is gone. A leaf supports my weight. Wind tickles my hair. No large spiders greet me. I am alone. Alone with the wind. With the leaf. With the clouds. With the night. With no web.

Thoughts enter my mind. Thoughts that aren’t my own. Other thoughts. No light accompanies them. They express sorrow over loss of web. Loss of shelter. Loss of safety. Loss of belonging. Not their losses, but mine.

It stuns me. The sheer weight of their compassion holds me down. I cannot move. I can only experience. Another feels the same as I. Knows of my sadness. Shares in my loss.

The communication stops. Their presence lingers. Their power looms in the back of my head. They anticipate. For what? The pressure builds. Their scrutiny prods at me. I wait. I simply can not. It hurts. Whatever they want I can not give. Their attention fades. Mercy. I can think again. I can move again.

But my legs tremble. I saw nothing. I do not know what that was. Who that was? So powerful. Yet caring. Confusing. Much time has passed since another has cared for me. Not since the protection of webmother. And I am a hatchling no longer.

I am like the large ones now. Without web. A tragedy. But I can make a new one. I have done so before. I will do it again. I need a new lair. One of balance. Enough prey. Sufficient protection. Good vantages. Nearby.

Hunger still taints my thoughts. It breeds impatience. The urgency drives me. Idling now courts death. Starvation. I must not wait.

An exposed leaf holds no safety. I scuttle to its underbelly. A thread anchors me. My traversal across the bush is not silent. Curious. The single dragline bends the stems with ease. Leaves come with them, tangling noisily. Annoying. I am no better than the gray furs. I hope I don’t start chittering.

If any hunters notice my obvious passing, then they do not strike. I reach the corner of the bush. A few strands of silk create a temporary enclave of safety. I peer beyond the cover.

A small sun illuminates the area. It is Lamp. The sun of prey. The previous temptation rears up again. To go to the prey. To seek. To snatch. To feast. The hunger pushes on my limbs. Urges me onward. I’ve dropped via my dragline halfway down the bush before I even think.

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If Lamp is here, then my web is near. My web. I thought it lost. Gone forever when the rip swallowed me. The other thoughts reinforced the conclusion. I swivel, dangling on my line of silk. I look for my web. The stone of red and grey looks familiar.

A burst of sudden wind whips me violently. With the wind comes dust. I grip for dear life, flailing and spinning through the air in the abrupt chaos. My line holds and tangles in some leaves. Through the cloudy blur I see more lights. Faint. Tiny. Floating.

The dust clogging the air thins, revealing that the stone has fallen. In its wake, flames roar. They throw embers and ash skyward, seeking to birth more children with the wind.

I am not calm. Fire means death for spiders. And the flames are too close for comfort. My web, if it was in the stone of red and gray, is lost. Soon all I see will be reduced to ash. There is no time for thought. Only action.

I lower myself the rest of the way to the ground. Only one direction matters: away from the fire. Loose leaves and stems clog the ground along with the grass, making the terrain difficult to traverse. My hunger complains again, sapping away the energy to keep going. My limbs feel stiff. Every pump is an effort. They just want to curl in and rest. I press on.

I know the grass is not endless. I have seen the end. But down in its density it looms forever. Step by exhausting step. Away from the fire that burns. That consumes.

My coordination wanes. Legs trip over nothing. It sends my body pitching and rolling as the rest desperately make up for the other’s failure. My dragline catches me more often than not.

One of many stumbles cascades into more limbs missing their step. I fall. My pedipalps taste the dirt. Taste my failure. It is too far. I am too weak. My insides burn with heat. Not from fire, but panicked exertion. I stay still, legs curled until I am nothing but a fuzzy ball.

I wait, inviting my demise. The fire will be upon me soon. To crisp me. To blacken me until nothing but char remains. To end me where I lie. I’m happy I saw the other web. That beautiful web. Even here the web spans. Its perfect lines give comfort, unhindered in the slightest by all the grass. It simply passes right through. Onwards. Outwards. Upwards. Downwards. All directions. It is everywhere around me always. Only distance fades it from sight.

Again questions creep forth. Who spun such magnificence? A pity I will not have the chance to know. But I got the chance to see. To experience its simple majesty.

I am calm. Time and the cool dirt has sapped the excess heat. And the flames have yet to spread this far. Their dancing may not match the beauty of the other web, but I can appreciate their dance nonetheless. I shall meet my end eye to eye.

I uncurl. Each joint resists my push. Stiffness aches every twitch. The single blade of grass may as well be an ascent to the sky. Each step takes effort. But it feels like a small victory. Slowly my vantage grows higher. I reach the peak. A conqueror over my fatigue.

A macabre audience of flickering shadows praise the flames. An ominous red glow illuminates my surroundings, promising destruction to come. Yet for all the bluster and spitting no embers leave the source. Even the bush has been spared. I don’t even feel the heat. Curious. This is the least destructive fire I have known. It is stunted somehow. Prevented from realizing its true potential for mayhem. Tamed?

Whatever placed those thoughts in my head certainly had the power to subvert the nature of the flame. Are they still here? Did they rip the web? The tear was clean. The mending flawless. As perfect as the web. Did they make the web? Another opportunity lost.

Yet I still live. A life to find them again. To learn the strength and courage to send questions back. But that can not happen if I don’t find food.

Prey. I need it. I am nothing but a webless savage now. A slave to hunger. I see large ones in the distance looking at the fire. But my eyes focus elsewhere. Lamp calls to me. I can only hope my body does not give out.

Just one step. That’s all it takes for progress. It may not be much. But it’s something. I can do a step. If I’ve done a step, then I can do another. I just need to keep stepping.

I part the blades of grass. Always more beyond. Progress is nowhere to be seen. But I know. Each step is a little bit closer. On and on. Just keep going.

I enter a single-minded trance while pushing forward, ignoring my aches and pains. In the daze and darkness I almost pass by salvation.

Prey.

It blends in with the leaves and dead grass upon which it feasts. I do not know what I’m doing, without a web and charging towards it. My hunger cares not for being proper. It only wishes to slake itself by any means possible.

I ready a thread of silk upon a foreleg. I have eaten this prey before. Their armored carapace renders my fangs useless. Only their soft underbelly may be pierced. Without a web the initial snare will be sloppy and dangerous. My webbed foreleg jabs out to begin wrapping it up. Yet rather than stick the thread to it, the tip pierces with ease. Like their hide is frailer than the thinnest of dry leaves.

It reacts in pain, curling upon itself into a ball. But my leg continues onward. I can feel the prey’s juicy insides bursting. I forsake any grace at all. More legs stab with reckless abandon. Its defensive posture is worthless against my assault. It wriggles weakly, but it is too late. It succumbs to its wounds.

‘ding’ ‘You have killed a [Woodlouse]’

One of my legs scrapes out of the corpse. The others hold my kill. A bite is unnecessary. Its insides have already been shredded. My mouth is upon it immediately. The inner goo is wonderful. The viscera has just enough chunky texture. Delicious. I want to eat every morsel. Before I can even appreciate it, the meal it is gone. Just a hollow shell. I pry it open to scrape out every last bit.

The ease at which its carapace cracks with the lightest of pushes does not go unnoticed. There are just more important things. Like scouring my legs clean of the slimy slick remnants with my pedipalps and teeth. The flavor. Quite satisfying.

Still I hunger. Its hold is no longer overwhelming, preparing to send me into another frenzy. But the hollow nothingness still gnaws at me. Usually prey of such size would sate me for days. While my body aches no longer, something is still missing.

Clean of my prey’s juices and stamina restored, I orient myself back towards my goal. Lamp. With its oh so many tasty morsels. The distance does not seem so daunting anymore now that my limbs are responsive. The grass is merely a prelude to the feast to come. A hindrance of time but not effort. Soon.

The grass passes by while I ponder and traverse the ground. The ease of stabbing the prey seems wrong. It has been some time since the last woodlouse I fed upon. Was it just a frail hatchling? The size indicated otherwise. Its armor offered no resistance. No more than my web puts up against the wind. My legs look no different from my last molting. A mystery.

A red light brightens my surroundings. Just as quickly it disappears. I turn back to the fire in a panic. It is still contained. Another flash. I turn away from the fire to see the source: a giant red monster with shining sleek carapace. Upon its back a sun flashes. Over and over. Endlessly. The abrupt changes between brightness and darkness disorients me.

Its carapace splits apart. A molting? Creatures spill out of its body. A hatching? They are as big as the large ones. Strips of their body luminescence a silvery brilliance like the moon. Their black heads reflect the red sun. The swarm moves swiftly with united purpose. But what purpose?

The red sun fades. One large one immediately scrambles on top of its mother. In the red sun’s place a blinding white sun banishes the night. The large one actually touches the sun. I can not believe my eyes. Somehow they direct the sun. Now its light shines upon the source of the fire.

A pair breaks off from the others and approaches the fire. They both wield strange sticks. One has a flat edge that glints in the light of the white sun. The other is simply pointy and silver. The one in the lead bashes against the wood repeatedly. It then wedges the glinting edge into a corner. It backs away to allow the other to bash its silver stick into the wedged stick. The blows look powerful with all the large one’s weight behind them. The wood starts to crack. The pointy silver stick is wedged in now. The wood opens up, revealing the fire within.

The large ones actually see the fire and go into its domain. For what purpose? Do these strange large ones capture suns? Fire does look a lot like an untamed sun.

In any case, I have seen enough of this insanity. If they want to anger the tame fire, then I shall be elsewhere. Lamp awaits. Lamp and its tasty prey.