Hearing that howl, I wasted no time swiveling around and sprinting away at full speed, knowing that any second I falter is one second closer to my death. That ear-piercing roar was the same as the ones I heard before it made my blood run cold.
My feet fall heavily on the rock, propelling me forward as fast as I possibly can. I can feel my leg muscles already burning because of how much force I'm putting into each step. My feet barely touch the floor before I throw myself forward again.
Why now?!? Did It suddenly dash toward me?
As I wondered why this beast was chasing my heels, my eyes wandered to the words floating in front of me, or more accurately the glow it was producing, casting a light white haze to brighten everything near me.
Damn it! Just like I thought, as soon as the words appeared and its glow illuminated everything, it caught the attention of a monster!
…It probably didn't help that I yelled.
I cursed my luck as I kept sprinting away, feeling the tremors grow stronger and stronger until the floor was shaking so much that I had to focus to keep my balance and not fall over.
The light from the words was attracting the monstrous beast to me, but I couldn't just turn them off as I wouldn't know where I'm going which would cause me to trip. Plus it'll just catch up to me anyway!
And if I keep the light on, he can just follow it and find me that way! This is a lose-lose situation either way.
FUCK ME, what do I do?!?! I can't think clearly as the monster keeps getting closer! I keep hearing the sounds of its massive paws falling on the hard stone floor getting louder and louder, and I can assure you that this is not helping my fragile mental state.
The only way I can survive this is to find somewhere to hide while it runs by me after I get rid of this God-awful light. But if I can find somewhere to hide soon, I guess I'm just going to be this bastard's lunch.
My speed slowly starts to dwindle as my energy has almost entirely left me. Sprinting forward with all my energy burned through my stamina, leaving me running on fumes. The only reason I was still moving was the adrenaline and fear of getting eaten, which are great motivators.
I wheeze as I try to get any amount of air into my lungs to soothe the burning. My feet start to stumble as my legs keep buckling.
I can hear the rumbling grow louder as I realize it's only a few feet away from me. If I stop at all, it will catch up to me in a moment. It's only a few seconds away from closing the gap and killing me anyways. I swear I could feel its breath hitting the back of my heels.
Just as I believe my fate is sealed, the soft white glow illuminates a hole in the side of the cavern wall big enough to fit inside.
Without thinking, I dive in as I cancel the light, plunging the world into complete darkness once again.
I hold my breath against my burning lungs' wishes as I hope this stupid trick would be enough to fool the nightmare chasing me. I push my body close to the wall to make myself as flat as possible, praying to remain unseen.
Seconds go by as the rumbling becomes almost unbearable as my entire body starts vibrating. The beast rushes forward, and it doesn't even glance toward my hiding place as it continues its rampage forward, not noticing that its prey escaped.
I keep holding my breath until I physically can't anymore and I exhale while coughing as I try to breathe in as much air as feasible, trying to soothe the pain in my chest.
My breathing is ragged and my body is shaking violently, but it isn't because of the tremors in the ground, but the heavy toll on my mind from the insane things that have been happening.
The fear of being chased by that beast was still clear as day in my mind. My body wouldn't calm down, even though I knew I didn't need to run anymore.
Every second I have been here, I have been on constant alert. The threat of death has been present at every turn, which has caused my mind to short-circuit, leaving no rational thoughts left except fear.
I slowly breathe in through my nose and out with my mouth to try to slow my heart rate, fearing that some monstrosities might be able to hear it. I inhaled deeply as I braced myself to start moving again, knowing I can't stay here for long.
As I slowly stop shaking, I start running my hands over the walls, trying to find my bearings. The tunnel was wider than it was tall, but it wasn't high enough for me to stand or wide enough for me to turn around easily, forcing me to crawl. It reminded me of those big air vents in movies where the protagonists crawl through.
Still using my hands to feel around, my face suddenly smacks into something standing in the middle of the passage, causing a flare of pain to rush from my nose. Upon closer inspection, I realized it was a pillar of stone. Feeling around, I noticed more small stalagmites connecting the tunnel ceiling and floor, likely the only thing keeping the cavern from collapsing.
As I slowly crawled forward into the hole, I realized the crevice was deeper than I expected as I kept crawling without anything blocking me except for a few stalactites.
It would be easier to just conjure the words and just have a light as usual, but I didn't want that target on my head again, alerting everything to my presence. As much as I would like to not smack my face on something again, it's better than being eaten.
I continued for a few feet with my fear growing every inch I went forward. I had no idea what was in there, and the cramped space wasn't ideal for fighting, but I couldn't leave as the other giant beast was probably still waiting for me.
So the only way is forward! Forward… into the dark and creepy tunnel… As unwilling as I may be…
I continued shuffling forward, praying that I didn't meet anything in the small tunnel. As I moved forward, I felt a slight resistance before something broke, causing what felt like a light string to fall on me while sticking to my clothes.
"...Please no."
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I know this feeling all too well. This is a spider web, which means that the little vermins that made it are nearby! This is possibly the worst news I could have received as I am tightly confined in this small tunnel, without enough room to even turn around.
As soon as I made that realization, I feel something small skitter up my left forearm. Letting out a startled yelp, I lift my right hand to swat it. I bring my hand down and I feel whatever was crawling on my skin crumple under the weight.
As soon as I do that, a white glimmer appears on my face, bathing my surroundings in that soft white haze.
[lvl 1 spring spider slain]
[No Remnant Gained]
Ignoring the words, I look around my surroundings which are now fully lit. As I glance around, I see hundreds of spiders staring back, their red eyes reflecting the light.
All of the spiders were pitch black, with lime green spots covering their backs. Each of them was the size of a nickel, but the sheer number of them made my body freeze.
I stayed there in shock, taken aback by the sudden army of arachnids that appeared from nowhere. The thought of me possibly crawling past them, not even knowing they were there sent shivers down my spine. We all stay still for a few seconds, before they all suddenly skitter towards me, creating a tidal wave about to wash over me.
I immediately start crawling backward as quickly as possible, not able to turn around, meaning I'm forced to watch as they keep getting closer and closer. Their tiny legs clicking on the stone made me think of a clock ticking down to my death.
Not caring about anything except getting away from the spiders, I crawl backward as rapidly as I can, ignoring my tired and overused muscles, cutting my hands and knees on sharp rocks in the process.
I kept wiggling backward as fast as I could, trying to find any escape as I started at the spider tidal wave getting closer rapidly! The only thing I could think of to stop them from reaching me was blocking the tunnel, but there was nothing I could use to do that.
I was running out of time to think as the front-runner spiders were only a few inches away from me. Their tiny arachnid bodies clambered on the walls, seemingly determined on reaching me.
Then suddenly, one of the few pillars on the side of the cavern holding the weight of the tunnel caught my eye. Immediately, I had an idea, but I had no idea if it would work, but sadly there were no other options.
Scrambling backward, I scraped my shoulders on the stone as I maneuvered enough to position myself right in front of one of those columns. Eyeing it, I noticed it was around the width of my forearm, roughly 25 centimeters in diameter.
Noticing the spiders hadn't slowed down at all, I pulled my leg up to my chest and kicked with as much force as I could muster. My foot connected with the pillar, yet nothing happened.
Not being discouraged, I pulled my leg back and kicked again, and again and again. After every kick, my leg started to hurt more and more, but I didn't give up.
With one of the kicks, I felt something shift as a piece shipped off. Excited by the development, I kept kicking and kicking, but the pillar didn't break fast enough as I suddenly felt things start to crawl up the legs of my jeans.
Horrified, I shook my legs to try and fling them off, but they stubbornly clung on, continuing to climb up my legs. Every second more and more made their way onto my legs, slowly but surely making their way up towards my thighs. A few made their way into the cuffs of my jeans and directly made contact with my skin.
Knowing there's no way to get them off without using my hands, I keep striking the pillar, hoping to cut off the rest of the spiders. During one of the kicks, my foot connected at an odd angle, causing my ankle to twist, which made my entire leg flair up in agonizing pain.
Over time, more and more spiders climbed up my legs until all I could feel on my legs were their tiny legs crawling all over as if my legs had gone asleep. A few spiders made their way onto my chest, getting dangerously close to my head.
Just as everything seemed lost, my foot connected with the column one final time as it snapped in half, causing a tremor to run through the tunnel.
Realizing I succeeded, I started to crawl back again as I didn't want to be buried under my barricade. Sure enough, a few seconds later the ceiling of the tunnel collapsed, closing off the rest of the spiders from reaching me.
*cough* *cough*
A plume of dust flew in the air and I closed my eyes tight and cleared the dust from my throat. It seemed I was finally rid of those spiders.
The only problem was there were already almost a hundred spiders crawling on my body, and some were even under my clothes! In a panic, I unceremoniously thrashed around, trying to smack the spiders or do anything to get them off of me.
Luckily a few were squashed as more fell off, but it barely made a dent in the swarm of arachnids that encased me!
I kept slapping my body over and over while trashing my head to hopefully stop spiders from entering my ears or nose. I felt a few stinging and burning sensations as I realized some bit me, but I didn't have time to deal with that as I kept killing more and more spiders.
Suddenly, a slight numbing feeling spread from the bites, slowly building up with each bump on my body, making my movements slow down more and more, but regardless of this, I kept killing more spiders.
[lvl 1 spring spider slain]
[No Remnant Gained]
[lvl 1 spring spider slain]
[No Remnant Gained]
[lvl 2 spring… ]
[No Remnant…]
[lvl 1..]
[...]
White words kept flashing in front of me, notifying me that I had killed one, but no matter how many I killed it felt like they were never-ending! They kept crawling up my body like they were trying to encase me with their grotesque arachnid bodies.
More and more searing bumps covered my body, but I could feel the number of those arachnids crawling on me slowly start to diminish.
The numbing feeling kept multiplying and amplifying until my entire body was tingling like my body was being pricked by numerous needles. My arm barely listened to my commands, like my body was rejecting me whenever I tried to move. I wasn't moving my arm, but more like I was flinging it in a direction, hoping to hit something.
After what felt like an eternity, I could feel that only a few spiders remained. After slapping the last spider into a gross paste, I gasped for air as I tried to calm my nerves.
Laying there on the cold and damp stone tunnel floor, covered in multiple cuts, scrapes, bruises, and spider bites, I can only think one thing.
"I hate spiders…"
Slowly the bites kept spreading until I couldn’t even move my body without excruciating effort. I was barely able to force my head to move, and after an agonizingly long time, I sat up enough to look at my arms.
Wherever the spring spiders bit me, I could see a very faint lime-green liquid coursing through my veins, barely noticeable if I didn't pay extremely close attention.
Oh great, but of course, the spiders have paralyzing poison bites, cause why not!
As I lay there, not able to move my body, words appeared in front of me again, but this time it wasn't white, but golden!
[lvl 1 spring spider slain]
[Remnant Gained]