“Ahhh” Sui screamed as she shot up in bed. An alarm was blaring in her head, and before she had the chance to even wonder why the answer became clear.

Sui, wave 4 will be commencing in approximately 5:00 minutes, please ready yourself.

Sui bit back another scream as the blaring alarm in her head disappeared like it wasn’t there at all. Dammit, do I need to alter some more settings or something. Surely that shouldn’t be the default

Grumbling Sui threw herself out of bed and stumbled as the blood rushed to her head before stabilising. She gave herself a few more seconds to make sure that her previous blood loss was not going to continue to plague her.

A few moments passed as Sui decided she wasn’t about to fall over. Now, do I try to eat breakfast in five minutes, or try to have a shower and change in five minutes instead… both are horrible ideas lets be honest.

Sui looked down at herself though. Her long pyjamas were not conducive to fighting evil monsters. Even now despite their age of over half a decade they still hung down over her feet and she was liable to trip.

Grimacing at the thought of what she was about to do Sui carefully took off her pyjamas before placing them underneath her pillow and grabbing her clothes from yesterday to fight it.

This plan was quickly scrapped when she saw the massive hole in the side and the large blood stains across the whole thing. Well… that isn’t quite what I was hoping for. Sui sighed, knowing that cleaning them was going to be a right pain and that she’d probably rather just sew herself a new outfit.

Discarding that set of clothes once again at the foot of the bed, Sui made her way over to her hamper to look for another outfit to wear instead. She didn’t want to get into something clean without having a shower, and she just didn’t have the time.

Eventually deciding on a mismatched pair of long slacks that didn’t go past her ankles, and a one of her work shirts. Because I won’t be needing it for the forceable future. Sui quickly threw them on ignoring the minor issue of not having underwear for the moment, but she did have some standards. Week old, shirt – Ok, underwear? Not so much.

See, the benefits of not needing anything for the top. Sui nodded to herself as she patted down the outfit in a futile attempt to expunge what wrinkles she could from the fabric.

Sui, wave 4 will be commencing in approximately 2:00 minutes, please ready yourself.

Sui shook the thoughts of clothing from her mind and tried to ignore the voice screaming at her to change out of something so unclean. I just need something to fight in, for a few moments. I don’t need my Sunday best so just let me be brain.

Despite her comments though it was already starting to bother her, and it was now worth considering that fighting in pyjamas would have been more acceptable because at least they weren’t distracting.

Returning once more to the battlefield, er, living room Sui took up residence on the couch and tried not to let her anger build. A poor sleep. A rude awakening, no breakfast after eating what barely counts as food the past night. No needlework for most of the evening… Ok mostly just the last part.

But Sui was good at controlling her anger. She simply set it aside and threaded it into a wonderful tapestry of pain and suffering for her to inflict on whatever poor thing was about to show its face to her.

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Once the countdown reached 0 Sui tensed. Ready to find whatever it was that had come to ruin her morning and destroy it with extreme prejudice. She stood up slowly from her resting place and scanned the room.

Everything was as it should be… half destroyed from the previous three waves. But Sui looked past that, searching resolutely for the intricate details like when you realised you must have missed on cross stitch somewhere in the pattern only to realise it was that time you ran out of thread halfway along and had to tie it off.

Seconds slowly meandered along, as Sui strained herself looking for what could be out of place but she found her eyes continually dancing between the holes in the sofa and the glass on the floor she really should have cleaned up.

Sui’s eyes scanned the entire room many times over. Not missing an inch of ground. And while that was true, the ground had been covered in great detail, what she missed was instead the ceiling.

It was only the hissing she heard before the real attack that allowed her to react in time. Sui jumped backwards and around twisting in such a way to be ready to attack whatever it was that was going for her neck.

As she turned, she came face to face with a falling spider. It had its legs splayed to slow its fall, with fangs outstretched. It was large as far as spiders go but still quite small when compared to Sui, or even the previous bunnies.

Sui’s nerves had already been on a razors edge. Her angry ready to lash out at anything she could blame for her recent troubles. When she saw bare edge of the spider her arms were already moving.

Sui slammed the creature down into the couch… accomplishing very little except squishing the cushions a little. Sui held the spider in a firm grip and growled “That all you got? You ruin my morning for one itsy bitsy spider?”

Then the strangest thing happened. The spider seemed to turn slightly in her grip and nod. Sui felt her arm threaten to jolt back in surprise but held it down. What the hell was that… am I hallucinating? Am I crazy already? Did that spider just nod at me?

“What am I saying, there’s no way this spider can understand me” said Sui out loud half daring the spider to react.

But she was not prepared for the look of smug contempt that seemed to appear on the things face implying it very well could understand her. I’m the crazy one right? Did it inject me with poison already or something? I can’t talk to spiders, right?

Sui gulped before trying one last thing “Do you yield?” she asked not even sure of herself, and not really expecting anything to happen.

When the damned thing NODDED at her and started to glow Sui felt her heart catch in her throat. She was half convinced she’d completely lost in when –

Sui has been given the chance to enter into a soulbound contract with Unnamed Lesser Webweaver Spider. Do you wish to accept?

WARNING: Soulbound Contracts are PERMANENT and IRREVOCABLE.

Each individual may only have ONE Soulbound pet and while it will grow alongside you it CANNOT be replaced.

Sui’s mouth dropped. Her eyes flickered between the spider and the air in front of her even though the screen moved with her eyes. Sui stared at the thing which seemed to shrug at her astounded gaze.

“Hmm, well, this seems like a big decision. So I’ll ask, can you help me with my weaving?” asked Sui

The little spider looked mightily offended at that one. ‘Me? Help with weaving? Does a fly fly?’ it seemed to say.

Well, clearly taking lifechanging advice on what and what not to connect your soul to from a spider is a sure sign that I know what I’m doing.

So of course, like any ‘completely reasonable person’ she clicked accept. If she was to receive assistance with her thread work, what truly did it matter?

“I accept” said Sui

And then she knew pain. Pain greater than even when she was trying to figure out what was wrong with the sewing machine. It felt like her soul itself was being torn apart. Which… to be fair, it was.

After an unknown amount of time Sui groaned and tried to sit up. She found herself splayed out face first in the couch, seemingly from falling after she passed out. The first thing to catch her notice after that was her hand.

The hand that was used to grasp the spider now bore the mark of multiple cobwebs running along her arm as far as she could see. They seemed to glisten and shine as she rotated her arm around in aw.

That was when she saw it. The little spider standing on one of those lines. It looked like it was part of the scenery. At her notice however it seemed to… unfold? Itself as it lifted up from her skin and became a full 3D spider

Congratulations. A special Mutation has occurred. Your Soulbound Companion is now a Miniscule Soulweaver Spider.

In response to the sudden notification Sui read it over quickly before dismissing it. Once she did so however she found her little spider friend wavy at her… and she didn’t really know how to respond to that