GuNNhead

Not knowing the planet, he’s not sure if it’d be safer inside or outside of the cave in the case of an earthquake, so he starts slowly walking out of the cave, wishing his suit was repaired enough to do a tectonic scan. He’s fairly deep inside the cave, but the more he walks out, the stronger the vibrations get. He hears a rumbling coming from inside the cave. “Oh no, a cave-in!” he starts running for the exit. His foot gets caught on the soft ground near, tripping him up enough that the origin of the sound catches up to his position.

In one direction he can see the light of the entrance, illuminated by the fire. In the other direction, however, it is much, much more horrific than he feared. A mountain that was within the cave is bearing down on top of him. A giant funnel web spider has come from his depths, disturbed and enticed by the man’s disturbing vibrations upon its web. A smackeral of food wandering into its trap, it comes for him. Every move he makes, it can sense, but there’s nothing he can do, it knows exactly where he is, it can hone in on every breath, every heart beat. He stands for not but a second, then sprints for the exit with everything he’s got. It quickly maneuvers and strikes, fangs digging into calves, sending him tumbling further toward the exit. He tries to use his bow and arrow on it, hitting its massive, hulking exoskeletal armor. The spider does not even realize it was attacked, and hones in again for the kill. He fires another arrow, nailing it directly in the center of one of its eight eyes. It strikes again out of anger before recoiling in pain, missing, and sending the man even closer to the exit; despite its size, the eyes are incredibly vulnerable to these small pointy sticks. He notices the fire “this will surely put a kink in its step,” he lights an arrow, and aims for another of its eyes.

He fires; his shot is sure and true. The spider ducks, and the arrow goes soaring over its head, majestically missing its intended target by meters. Though, with a lot of luck, the flaming arrow hits a soft spot on its back. The part it hit starts moving, violently; it’s caught fire, and catches the surroundings to flame. Soon the man realizes what he hit. This spider on this planet carries its young on its back, and he hit one of the many young, setting it ablaze, which then set others ablaze. They scurry, leaving the mother, and heading to the safety of the inner web. The rest of the old, dry web catches like wildfire. The giant mother doesn’t know what to do, sent into a panic, she begins wavering back and forth, hitting the sides of the walls, and rocking the cave. Her actions crush the remaining clutches still attached to her back, some of their blood and guts puts out parts of the flame, but it is of no use, it’s all happening too fast, and she catches fire herself. She too now retreats to the back of the cave, only to meet her burning end in a giant fiery mess. The man can only watch, marveling at the sight, yet horrifically impressed by what he has inadvertently done. Nothing survived in that cave, save for him. He walks out with it still blazing behind me.

This entry was posted on October 2, 2009 at 3:33 am and is filed under Fiction, Gravity Surge, Horror, Sci-Fi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.