Widows In The Web

Me and Manny walk through the tunnels hand in hand. It’s been so long since I’ve seen the sun. Today, or was it today…? Nevermind. It was my first time seeing the sun, and I already miss it. I still feel sick, but we’re walking because of our injuries, and I feel safer with Manny by my side.

“Stay close to me, I don’t know what’s lurking in these tunnels.” Manny whispers to me.

I nod and stagger close behind him. Suddenly, I stop and tug on his hand.

“What? What’s wrong?” He whispers a bit loudly.

“I hear water…!” I whisper quietly.

He looks in the same way the sound is coming from and we both go over there. There’s clean water flowing from the leaves and into a little pond. He goes and drinks some from the pond, while I go and drink some from a dewdrop on the giant leaves. Just as I open my eyes, I let out a scream and fall backwards onto the floor, looking up at the ceiling. Manny immediately turns in my direction as I start to cry and runs over to me.

“Origami! What happened!?” He exclaims.

I can’t form any words. All I can do is stutter and cry as I slowly point to the ceiling with a shaky hand. Manny looks up too, and he gasps.

A giant silky web with a giant black widow inside of it. Inside of the web are wrapped up carcasses of dead children who were unlucky enough to get caught. Manny pulls me up and we both rush out of the room before it can find us.

“Nice… Nice eye Origami..” Manny pants. We both take deep breaths, trying to catch our breaths.

The room is silent for a second. It’s a little relieving and peaceful, until I suddenly shout, “Wait! Manny! They’re all alone! We have to find them!”

He jumps at my sudden yell and I start coughing after. I cough up some blood before I wipe my mouth and focus on trying to just breathe. My head hurts and the world starts to spin, but I look up at Manny. He seems to have caught on to the severity of my yell.

“Oh god, you’re right! What if they’ve already been caught! No, don’t say that.. But, the matter at hand is we have to find them while not killing ourselves.” Manny seems to be talking to himself, but also to me.

“Go… Find..?” I ask.

“We could,” Manny begins, “but what if we’re going the wrong way?”

“No choice..?” I say.

“True…” Manny says.

There’s silence. We all are thinking hard. Well, he looks like he is. I’m just trying to not be sick on the spot.

“You know what? We’re going to keep going until we find them.” Many says confidently.

I smile. Something starts to hurt inside of me when I do. Not physically, but.. It hurts somehow. It hurts deep in the core of my chest. I think that’s where a heart is supposed to be? I didn’t learn about bodies…

“Are you okay Origami?” Manny asks. I don’t know why. I tilt my head in confusion.

“You’re, uh.. You’re crying again..” He says.

I wipe my eyes. He’s right. I am crying. I wipe away my tears until they cease to exist.

“Sorry…” I whisper.

“No no, It’s okay.” He replies. “It’s alright to cry. You seem small anyways.”

“I’m 11.” I hiss.

“And I’m 12.” He says. “So you’re still young. So am I.”

I look away in embarrassment. He’s cornered me with his words. I sigh and take his hand. We start to walk, but just around the corner, there’s massive webs filled with spiders smaller than the one we just saw.

“The babies…” I whisper.

“Yeah..” He replies quietly. “Don’t wake them up..”

As soon as we take one step, all of their beady large eyes turn to us. I start to shiver, and so does he. Suddenly without warning, all of them jump out of the webs and start to swarm us. We run back the way we came. We have no choice. We run down the tunnels hand in hand until I trip on a rock and lose his grasp, falling to the floor. My head spins.

“Origami!” He yells as he stops running.

I manage to stand up and I start to run, only to get grabbed by the arm.

“Manny!” I yell.

One of the baby widows bites me and I cry out of pain. The spider gets blasted by fire and lets go of me. It jumps back and starts to hiss. The rest of them go to check on that spider in confusion.

“Guys!” Blue yells.

Blue and Potato are here. They’re pretty scraped up, but they look okay for the most part. Potato seems to have a broken arm.

“Blue!” Manny exclaims happily.

“No time to explain morons! Come on! They won’t stay stunned for long!” Potato yells.

“Origami! You okay? Can you walk?” Manny asks while holding out a hand.

I look up at him while dazed in pain. He gasps when he looks at me. I don’t know why. I realize my hair isn’t on my eyes. Oh gosh.. I try to move the hair in front of my eyes, but he grabs my hand.

“Sorry Origami, but there’s no time!” He pulls me up and we start to run. I can’t really understand what’s going on. When we all start running, the spiders do too. We all run hand in hand through the holes and tunnels trying to find a way out.

“Where do we go!?” Blue yells.

“No idea!” Manny replies loudly.

“There!” Potato exclaims.

We all run into a hold with a dead end. I take my rock from earlier and throw it into the hallway far away from us, and the spiders all start to run that way. We all breathe heavily, trying to compose ourselves. I look at my arm. There’s two gashes where the fangs went in, and the area around is reddening and swelling a bit, while the bite itself is turning blue. I’m very worried, and I feel sick to my core. I turn my arm the other way to hide it and smile. Everyone is smiling at eachother.

“We did it! And nobody’s dead!”

“Blue!” Potato exclaims.

“What? It’s an accomplishment.”

Everyone laughs. I smile. We all check if the coast is clear before going through a hole that isn’t blocked off. We crawl through a little bit.

“Ah. I can’t wait to see the sun!” Blue exclaims happily.

“I agree,” Manny begins, “I missed the sun.

“Sun’s alright.” Potato says.

“Sun…” I say quietly.

Everyone laughs. I must have been funny. Or maybe we’re all going insane. I don’t know. My arm is starting to hurt now, but I try my best to ignore it. We finally emerge into the light.

“Boom baby! We got-... Sun..?” Blue trails off when we look at what the light is from. It’s an incinerator embedded in the ceiling somewhere. Everything else looks safe though..

“Well, there doesn’t seem to be any monsters. Let’s camp here. We’ve been on the run for quite awhile with no rest.” Manny says.

We all agree with Manny and set up camp with some cloth and sticks we find laying around. By the time camp is done and we all sit down, everything hurts. Mostly my stomach and my chest.

“Hey guys, I’m through. Gonna head to bed, okay?” Potato says.

“Night Potato. I might as well go to bed too. So should you both.” Manny says.

“Yeah. Bed sounds nice. Night Manny. Night Potato.” Blue yawns.

Manny turns to me. “You going to go to bed as well Origami? You look really tired.”

I shake my head.

“You all sleep… I need to spend some time alone…”

“Alright,” Manny sighs, “just don’t go far..”

I nod. “おやすみ guys.”

They look confused, but seem to get the message. Manny laughs.

“Oyasumi Origami.” He says with a laugh.

They all head off to bed. I would too, but the pain, the sickness. It’s all catching up with me.. I don’t feel good. I feel as if my insides are trying to kill me themselves. My chest feels like it’s hitting me with a hammer, and my stomach is as if someone was twisting a sharp blade around in it. I slowly sink to the floor with my arms wrapped around me. I feel sick. My throat feels like it’s closing. I feel like I’m going to throw up. I feel like I can’t breathe. I start to cry silently. I wish it was all over. Let me go. Let me die. Why am I feeling all this pain? What’s happening to me?

“Origami! Origami, just stay calm, I can help you!” Hate is trying to reassure me.

“You’re going to be okay! You’re… You’ll be fine..!” They don’t sound very confident.

The world goes blurry. I throw up blood and bones. I’m scared. I try to stand up to call for help, but the pain in me is just too much. I look at my arm. It looks worse than earlier… I look at the steel floor as my vision goes from blurry to black. From ringing in my ears, to nothing. All I can do is feel.

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