It felt like hours, and for all Mia knew, it was just that long that she sat there, not thinking, not worried, but lacking any semblance of hope about herself for the first time. If she wasn’t what she thought she was- if she wasn’t human- then what was she now? How was she supposed to act? Live? Even just survive? Was she supposed to just roam the forest, another beast to live and die by cruel nature’s law?

…no, no. That couldn’t be it. Not only because she actually had intelligence as opposed to just instinct, but she had something else, right? Something important.

A reason. A direction. Someone HAD talked to her…maybe. For all she was certain of, it could’ve all been in her head. But she didn’t want to try and make too much more sense of that- it was what was keeping her from having even WORSE of a crisis of self than she was right now. Not that it helped much beyond that, but it was something keeping her from doing…well, she wasn’t sure what’d she do, but it likely would’ve been insane.

But that didn’t help her question. What WAS she? How was she going to survive? If whatever killed that monster came back, she was sure to meet a similar end. ‘So how to avoid that?’ she thought to herself. ‘I’ve got to figure out everything I can actually DO, I guess…’ and she grimaced as soon as the thought flitted through her brain, because she knew that the biggest thing she could figure out was, quite literally, behind her.

Spiders, naturally spun web. So, logically, she could spin web, right? She was pretty sure it was possible- as much as she tried hard to ignore it, she certainly felt…something back there that was…well, calling to her was probably not the best way to phrase it. But gross though it very much was, she certainly felt like something in particular should be coming from there…

‘...okay, Mia. Time to just grit your teeth and bear it. How do I produce this stuff?’ She had no real idea for it; much like everything else she’d managed, she’d have to rely on experimentation, instinct and hope for the best as she took the time to figure out just what her body could do. ‘Okay, take this little piece of…whatever I am. Just kinda…let it out? Wait, how can I even check, I can’t…’ she paused, and then flexed her…backside? Focusing on it now, she wasn’t sure- that full feeling she’d had earlier hadn’t really came from where her stomach was, actually. It’d felt…lower. Somewhere in her spider parts. That part HAD…well, done what it did. Maybe she had two stomachs? Kind of like cows? She recalled THEY had more than one stomach. Gah, she was distracting herself from the actual issue.

Fortunately, she found that she was able to bend…whatever it was…under herself pretty far- enough that although she had to bend and angle herself a bit, she could see what was there. By now, she was half expecting the split feelings of normalcy and alarm, and with that and her previous vow in mind, she moved past it quickly enough to focus on herself and her body. “Right, so I guess I just… flex…push…?”

She hadn’t even realized she was talking out loud to herself now, so focused she was on getting something out. And, to her surprise, she DID begin to feel- something. “Come on, come on, just…just forget the weirdness and just…WEB!” Something in her shifted, worked. A feeling surged forwards through her with some alarm, and before she knew it, a wet, sticky strand of web shot forth from the opening on her end- landing with a small *plap* a foot or so in front of her.

It took several minutes for her to mentally recover from that. ‘Okay, then, so…webbing. I can do that now.’ Honestly, it was a positive! With her own web- silk, she could likely carry things in it. Especially once she figured out the finer details of how to use it all. If nothing else, she had something else to do for the day.

Indeed, the vast majority of the rest of the day was her figuring out how to spin it and use it, and by the end of it, she’d determined a couple of things. The first, she was surprised to learn, was that she seemed to be able to at least spin six kinds- at least, as far as she could determine:

One that was heavy and sticky. One that was extremely light, but hard to break. One that was between both of them. One that was heavy, but not sticky. One that seemed to only be sticky in starts and stops. Lastly, one that seemed…well, it wasn’t sticky, it wasn’t too light, nor too heavy, and had no particular other aspects of it she could tell. Something to worry about later, she supposed. She’d used some of it already, the partially sticky web being used as a bit of a sling to secure and carry her water pot to her back. She was glad for the use.

What was the second thing that she learned?

Spinning webs was BRUTAL on her appetite. As she walked through the forest now, she was deadset on getting a meal. Spinning webs had cost her a deal of energy and now she was particularly hungry. Honestly, she had been so deep into her testing that she hadn’t even noticed, and now she was regretting that immensely. She couldn’t even say she wouldn’t just…do that suction thing that she’d done to the wolf again. Her situation was starting to get a bit desperate, she thought. Maybe she’d have to turn to those smaller animals for now.

…the thought STILL didn’t exactly bring her any relief, resolve to work through this ‘half-spider’ thing or no.

Several minutes later, at last she managed to catch a break- a large boar! Granted, its back looked a bit…scarred, clearly scabbed over, but the rest of it looked properly meaty and frankly she wasn’t in a position to complain.

The only problem? How would she even approach the thing? She had no…well, she supposed she had one weapon, though costly.

Really, it was her only serious choice. The beast was largely turned to her back, fortunately, but otherwise it was a bit of a distance away; a couple dozen feet at the least. Far too long away for her to toss any webs at it. Pursing her lips, she simply had to chance it, she supposed. She began the slow, steady inching towards the thing as it snuffled about, clearly absorbed in grazing over watching for predators.

Yeah, she could empathize. She was awfully hungry, too.

Blessedly, the creature seemed to ignore her as her steps were feather-light on the forest floor. She doubted it was her own skill at the effort for this; before she knew it, she was only a few feet away from the feast, and a primal thrill began to course through her.

Her front legs seemed to rise up off the ground on their own, her abdomen/rear pointed forwards. It would take a bit more of her energy, but…

A plethora of webbing shot forth, arcing through the air with an ethereal grace before falling over and around the beast suddenly.

That was enough to get the beast to panic. And more importantly, begin to run. And it was here that Mia realized that she’d overlooked one critical detail of her inaugural hunt.

What to do when she actually CAUGHT the thing. She’d somehow managed to completely forget that just because it was covered in webs, that wouldn’t mean that her chosen target would just sit there, let her walk up, and turn it into mush. And as the beast began to scramble and buck and squeal, she did the only thing she could think of- grab on to the webbing coming out of her with her hands and PULL.

To her honest astonishment, it seemed to actually work, the beast being hauled back to her, and Mia nearly let go, her surprise at her own strength ironically robbing her of it for a moment. It wasn’t a costly moment, fortunately, for her, and she regained her wits quickly enough to make use of the fact that the beast had only entangled itself even worse in her threads- the thing had practically cocooned itself with its flailing, flopping on its side by sheer accident.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Hauling it in wasn’t a problem from there, and though she worried about the beast’s attempts to throw its head around, she was able to sink her lower body into it, much like the dead beast before it. This time, however, she was made to look at the beast dying herself. Its flailing slowed, dropped to near nothing, and its beady eyes glazed over in a matter of moments.

A few minutes later, the pig was drained, and she felt full of pork. It brought a grim satisfaction to her. If nothing else, she’d be able to hunt and eat, provided she was careful. No doubt there were bigger, badder predators here that’d easily make a meal of HER, she was sure.

But that brought to mind another issue. The sun was starting to go down, and she was in no mood to sleep outside without a fire or any kind of protection. “I need to find a cave, or something…” she muttered to herself as she looked carefully. She had no clue how far away she was from the cave she had come from, but with how rocky this place was, there’s likely to be more than that one, right?

At least, she hoped so.

It was near nightfall before she found her answer. A small cliff, nothing awe-inspiring, and overground with plants. But at the distance she was, she could see at the top the lip of a cavern, inaccessible to most things without the gift of flight.

‘But then again, I’m not ‘most things’ anymore, am I?’ she asked herself. Of course, this scenery had brought to mind the second thing that she knew spiders could do.

Climb.

There was no vow or any sort of internal pep talk this time. No, she needed to figure this out quickly and see if she had shelter or not. If she took a few bumps…well, she REALLY hoped she wouldn’t, but as it stood, she’d have to risk it.

She put one thin, hairy leg onto the rocky surface. Carefully at first, and then much more forcefully as she dug the tiny nails on the end of them in. Then another. Then a third. A quick experimental lift, even a hop didn’t see her lose any grip, and she grew a bit more curious. Leg number four, and she was halfway there. ‘Okay, okay okay okay just…you can do this, Mia, you can absolutely do this, just scale the cliff, just- just GO!’

Without any further thought, she essentially threw herself at the wall, the remaining four legs latching onto it-

-and she was rewarded with a vertical viewpoint as she, quite directly, was now looking up at the sky and forest canopy. “Whoa,” she admitted out loud to herself. “Gonna have to get used to this…”

Indeed, her weight didn’t seem to overpower whatever let her stick to this wall, and with a bit more confidence, she detached one leg, let it up a bit more. Another leg, from the back this time…

…she let out an honest giggle at the sensation as she clambered- no, TROTTED up the sheer cliff face. It wasn’t a matter of finding the best handholds- in fact, her hands were currently making sure her (sealed tightly) water pot didn’t fall. It was pure spider leg power!

‘Okay, that’s another advantage to this whole thing,’ she admitted to herself. She was pretty certain that when she was bipedal, she wasn’t doing this.

Her trek to the upper cliff area proved problemless, and she was greeted by a yawning cavern entrance. Fortunately, it wasn’t a big one; there were some remnants of bones of some animal, but even she could tell that it was long dead. Nothing else seemed to make this their home, from what she could tell. Likely because there was no way to get up here. ‘Guess if that’s the case, then I’ll move in for now,’ she figured.

With her stomach largely full, and feeling a bit more confident in herself, Mia allowed herself to drift off to sleep before much longer. The baying of some beast or two sounded in the distance, but for once, Mia wasn’t scared. There was no way anything was getting up here, so the beasts would have to find someone else to terrorize this night.

When she awoke, she felt…confident. Refreshed. Ready. She carefully looked out towards the forest from her cavern entrance. ‘Today might be good,’ she thought.

That lasted right up until she saw the smoke in the distance.

----------------------------------------

She knew she shouldn’t. She really, REALLY shouldn’t be headed towards the fire. But she couldn’t help herself. Part of her was hoping against hope that there’d be friendly people there. She could ask questions, maybe, finally start to-

Blood. Again.

A lot of it, and fresher, this time. How she could tell that, she could only guess, but she knew it for certain. Suddenly, she felt a whole lot less sure.

That said, as the smell of smoke started to get stronger, she was surprised to hear grunting. Someone was still alive! Well, whoever it was, maybe she could help, right? That’d be a way to get on their good side and get some answers!

The smell of blood didn’t abate, however, and she grew more worried alongside her hope. But then, a flicker of orange, and she could see the fire in the distance. And along with it…

…bodies. A lot of them. Human bodies. And beast bodies, much like what she’d come across that first day. Were these the people that’d killed that one?

Her gait became much less quick, and she had to pick her way through the gore; she endeavored to keep her eyes off the chewed and disemboweled human corpses as best she could. Frankly, she was grateful that she didn’t seem to find the idea of eating them appetizing in the least. At least she still had THAT much to hold on to.

She cleared the brush, to see the fire burning in the middle of a small, rocky area, with much less in the way of trees. The fire itself wasn’t burning as brightly as she’d thought it would be. It was a small thing, barely being fed by twigs and leaves; a strange prospect considering what all surrounded them. But that wasn’t her biggest concern. No, that was the human in savaged leather that sat across from the fire, staring at her in shock with blood running down his eye, cradling a bloody arm and a makeshift wrap around his leg. He was scruffy haired, and when he grit his teeth, yellow-toothed. His mouth moved, and though it didn’t match up quite to what she expected, she understood him, nonetheless. “And now a demon comes to finish me…” he growled out.

Wait, no! “Me? Demon? N-no, I was going to ask if you needed-”

“I’LL NOT GIVE ANY QUARTER TA TRICKERY HERE, BEAST!” he yelled, and that’s when she finally noticed- in his left hand he held a bloody, and clearly sharp blade. “You can- can take yer lures n’ promises back to the Underworld! And I’ll SEND YA WITH ‘EM!”

Before she could try to refute anything, he lunged forwards, his face a raging inferno that far surpassed the heat of the meager flame he jumped over.

A flame that Mia wasn’t equipped to handle.

She yelped, and in panic, flung herself to the side. “Eeeee!”

The man stumbled as his swing met empty air, but he quickly pivoted, spinning into a back swing with his good hand that nearly caught Mia in the chest were it not for her quick backpedaling. He paused only briefly to fill his lungs with air before he charged again with a yell, sword raised for a vicious stab. As Mia backed up in fear, she felt her back end hit a tree. That was all the moment needed for him to close the distance.

But it was all the moment needed for Mia’s instincts to trigger- that for once had little to do with her being a spider, and everything to do with her desire to survive.

‘Too close, too close, too close!’ she yelled inwardly. Outwardly, it was much more of a screech, as she panickily lashed out with her two front legs.

The strikes were quick and direct; like arrows fired from a bow they shot forwards, much faster than either party was expecting. The first impacted his collarbone, perhaps hit more, and stole the wind from him. The second was, to her great fortune and his fatal loss, squarely to his forehead. He went sprawling- and she heard the crack his head made upon impacting the rock before she saw the blood on either end of his head.

He did not move, and neither did she for several moments.

When she did see the blood, however, her first movement was to void her stomach in shock…or at least attempt to; nothing was coming out, and she was sent to dry heaving.

The tears that came after weren’t anything to do with that. ‘Oh. Oh gods…what have I done?’

Part of her understood it was an accident. She hadn’t intended it. It didn’t mean she hadn’t murdered someone.

‘Maybe I was just kidding myself…maybe I AM a monster.’ It would certainly explain why that atrocious part of her seemed to find it completely fine that he was dead.

The fire, dim, but not dead, continued to burn lightly.