Chapter 2: 1.2 How do I walk?

Faragi

Keep in mind this chapter also received minimal editing.

'I'm not actually doing this am I?' I thought as I dragged myself backwards into the area of the cave that was actually illuminated by sunlight. 

I am not actually going to believe this is actually real, am I? I mean, I had done everything that would have woken me up if this had been a dream, a lot of that included hurting myself. My right hand, or rather, my top right hand (I can't believe I had to specify this) still hurt from when I had hit the wall earlier. My senses were all sharp, nothing was dulled, no blurry vision, my hearing was fine, I was able to think rationally, as far as I could, anyway. 

I had tried some math in my head, simple multiplications and additions and concluded that I did get the right answers to those too. The only thing that I had left would be to read numbers or words and see if they made sense. I looked outside into a lush, green forest filled with life and sound of birds and critters. That won't happen anytime soon it seems.  

The sun warmed my blood-caked body as I dragged it to the entrance of what was now officially marked as ''hellhole'' on the map in my mind. Bit by bit my large extra parts came into view. It started with two slick, black ''legs'' coming into view where my legs would normally be if I were sitting in a chair.  

Then eight long, black, spidery legs, all attached to a chitinous body segment that was in turn attached to my waist followed. Basically, my waist was where the spider's eyes would be? I could feel a tugging sensation somewhere when I dragged my ''knees'' over the grass, the short black hairs located there sent all kinds of signals to my brain.  

How do you even call a joint in a spider leg anyway? Why did I even care? Maybe I should actually care, not for the name, but for how they work. Because for now, it seemed that that would be the way I had to move myself, to anywhere, really. 

Great, I'm going to have to learn to walk on those. The thought alone sent shivers up my back, or was that the wind? I need to find something to cover myself as well... 

For a moment I became self-conscious of my body, with literally everything on display. For the moment, I was at least thankful that I appeared here completely isolated. I wondered what somebody would do if they saw something like me in the first place. If this was still the States, I would probably be filled with holes in no time, and honestly, I couldn't blame them. Imagine your worst nightmare, something that couldn't, shouldn't exist, covered in blood standing in front of you. 

I shuddered at the thought, I had not planned to die anytime soon, at least I hadn't before all this happened. Suicide may have been the easy way out, but it wasn't for me. I would at least try to live first. 

After I had counted my legs, all eight of them (ten if you counted the ones that looked like they were meant to grab into whatever was in front of me) several times just to make sure, I dragged my body further into the sun.  

What awaited my vision was a large black spider abdomen also covered in short hairs. And when I mean large, I mean huge. What was the length of my body from the waist up, was basically dangling on the other end as well as a huge black bulb.  

''Great, spider-man's got nothing on me.'' 

I tried to distract myself by making a joke, I hoped it would calm me down a bit. Guess I am spider-woman now? Or spider-girl, I wondered for a moment if I could shoot webs. That in itself didn't seem so bad until I realized where webs actually came from. I looked at my new bulbous abdomen and felt my face flush with embarrassment. I decided to push ''finding out whether I can shoot webs'' down my list of priorities, like all the way down, to the bottom, perhaps even lower than that.  

Speaking of priorities, since I have no idea where I am or how vast this forest is, my first priority should be to find water. And for that I had to learn how to walk on these things. Looking outside the cave I could see a clearing in front of the cave, covered by grass. The sun was not far above the trees closest to the clearance, which I would guess was about 20 meters away.  

The temperature had gone up over the past half an hour so. This led me to believe it was still morning and somewhere in summer judging from the fact that it was actually pleasantly warm so early in the day.  

My second priority would be food, obviously. I would have to keep my eyes peeled for anything edible. Thirdly, depending on whether I could get out of this forest quick, I might have to find a way to create fire. A fire would help cook anything that looked like it needed cooking and to keep unwanted predators at bay. 

I hoped that watching those survival shows on TV all those years ago would come to fruition. At least I had some knowledge, I signed in slight relief. Guess it's better than nothing. 

I needed to get these most important things going first, there would be plenty of time to think about the other stuff that had been bothering me later, which honestly was a lot.  

And so, I dragged myself onto the grass in front of the cave. Whenever I touched something with my extra appendages, I could feel the sensations of touching but I did not know how to exert control over them yet.  

Turning around so my belly was down proved to be more of an issue than I anticipated. Even with four arms, the rest of my limbs not cooperating with me was an issue. Is this how a tortoise felt when it was laying on its back?  

Alright, change of plans, to use my extra legs I would have to recognize and feel them, right? Maybe from there I could send signals to them properly. I sat up as far as I could, grabbed one of my legs and held it up. Touching the hairs on them sent a somewhat ticklish feeling to my head. I ignored it and started inspecting and bending where it could be bent in the hopes my brain would be able to replicate whatever I did. Who knew spider legs had this many joints? I had never thought about it before and always simply thought they had one or two, but I counted three? Or was it four?  

It seemed to create a click somewhere deep in my mind when I moved and felt the new sensations flooding my brain. After registering it I tried to mimic the movements with an internal input this time. 

Soon enough I had one twitching leg. I did not know how to feel about this, to be completely honest. On the one hand, having moving legs was essential to survival but on the other hand, well, look at them.  

Ugh, fucking spiders, I never understood how anything could find charm in those nasty creatures. Sure, they were useful for keeping mosquito populations at bay, which were probably my number one annoyance when trying to sleep in summer days, but some people went as far as keeping the larger species as pets. I mean come on.  

One of those people had been my grandma, although I couldn't remember her face or name, I could remember her passion for exotic animals, though. She used to have a large terrarium that housed a tiger python, a very docile, very large one at that. I must have gotten my thirst for odd knowledge from her I assumed. She knew everything there was to know about snakes, their diets, temperature requirements, humidity and a whole lot of other things that were needed to house them successfully.  

Hell, she even knew most Latin names. The creepier part about her deviation from normal pets was the fact that she had a smaller terrarium in the living room with a tarantula. She had dubbed it ''Grijpstuiver'', which apparently was a Dutch expression for something ''cheap''. I believe she told me that it would directly translate to something such as ''grab five cents''. Speaking of grabbing, thanks to her I now remembered what these two front limbs were called, pedipalps, and they were indeed used for grabbing. 

Despite the fact that I always sat as far away from that oversized spider as I possibly could, I was still happy I at last learned something from its owner. She had been the first person I could somewhat remember. I was still at a loss for any other family members, I truly hoped I would regain my former knowledge soon. 

Meanwhile, I had been moving my one leg, contracting and releasing, I could somehow move it the way I wanted to now.  

''Off to a great start, one down, seven to go.'' I sighed as I started working on the next. 

I have no idea how long my experimentation took, probably hours, which worried me a bit with regards to the timeframe I had to get water. I would rather not wander this forest at night. Who knew what lurked in the darkness, besides me that is.  

I would probably need some kind of weapon, just to be on the safe side of things as well. I pushed the thoughts away for now and for the second time, tried to roll over to my belly. My extra weight didn't make it easy. I had no idea how much I actually weighed at this point and I doubted I would find out without industrial scales. Never ask a lady her weight, okay? The added support from my legs eventually got the job done and I landed on the grass with a thud.  

Alright, let's see what we can do. 

I planted all my legs in the ground and exerted pressure to lift myself up. When I actually felt myself rise, I must have smiled a little because I found myself correcting my facial expression. This was not something to smile about.  

I managed to keep myself balanced fairy well, I felt myself wobble a bit but managed to correct myself every time I was about to fall over. 

'So far so good', I praised myself.  

I tried taking a step, and not actually taking into account I did not have my old human legs, I was stupid enough to raise ALL my right legs. What happened was nothing short of disaster. As soon as I lifted all my right legs off the ground, I lost balance and face planted the grass.  

I guess that was not how you did it. 

The next part of my physical therapy proved to be even harder than the first. I soon found out I needed two legs on either side to remain on the ground in order to keep my balance, I could stand on one for a few seconds but would ultimately fall to the ground.  

Maybe that would be possible later if I had better control? After some more trips and falls I managed to get a basic understanding of how this body worked. I can't say I wasn't surprised by how strong these new sets of legs were, they had to support quite a bit of weight after all (Don't ask). 

Soon I was able to take my first, albeit wobbly steps. It took all of my mental capacity to focus on so many moving parts at once that I soon felt exhausted from the strain on my mind.  

Holy shit, if this doesn't get any easier, I'm as good as dead. 

I cursed at my situation, and let myself drop to the grass slowly. I gave my brain a rest from the eight spindly appendages that caused it such stress and took a look at my pedipalps.  

And then there are these two as well, I sighed. This was going to be a long day.  

I reached down to grab these frontal limbs without looking and while I did so, I touched something smooth and hard. I instinctively knew what it was but with my mind racing I still bend over to look, moving the pedipalps to the sides.  

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There, hidden beneath the grabby legs at the sides, under my main body I could very clearly see silver fangs at the tips of two more protrusions. The shiny fangs curled inwards slightly and actually scared me.  

I would probably have run a world record if those had belonged to anything that wasn't me. Now this had piqued my interest despite my disgust, was I actually venomous? The thought was a weird one, but it also would mean that I had some means of self-defense if things took a turn for the worst.  

Overcoming my fear, I took a hold of one of the protrusions and as if on reflex I could feel something pushed out of my body. You know that feeling when you pop a pimple and feel the relief of pressure? That was basically what I felt as I watched a green liquid spurt out and then drip from the tip of my fang.  

I shook my head. So, venomous it is, going to have be careful with those. It didn't take long for me to learn how to retract them back under my body.  

I rested for a while, just leaning back on my huge abdomen (which made for a great cushion). The weirdness of laying comfortably on something that shouldn't even be part of me soon faded as I emptied my head of thoughts. I closed my eyes and heard the sounds of the forest enter my ears. 

Laying in the sun like that, thinking about nothing really seemed to revitalize me. After a while I decided I couldn't postpone my objective any longer, I mean, without water I would die right?  

I stretched my arms, neck, heard a few popping noises and tried to get up on all eight again. I managed to stand up quite easily and walked (skittered?) a bit to warm up. Walking straight lines went okay as far as I could tell, besides the occasional misstep. When I tried to turn however, I found out I would actually have to make a large circle or I would simply lose balance on one side and fall to the ground.  

''I can't believe I actually have the turning radius of an SUV.'' 

'Two right, two left, other two right, other two left', I kept repeating in my head, like a mantra.  

After a while I decided it was time to head out. There was bound to be a source of water somewhere. My only other choice would be waiting for rain and judging from the skies above, there was no chance of that today.  

I had barely set a step outside of the clearance and felt the temperature drop in the shade of the trees, it was still warm enough to justify not wearing clothes until I had fixed my other priorities, but I would have to get working on it soon.  

The trees didn't look anything out of the ordinary though. Sure, I didn't recognize any of the trees, they mostly seemed deciduous, no evergreens in sight, at least not the ones that I knew of.  

I then realized that I almost made a huge mistake, this place seemed pretty safe, I had yet to see anything coming close to the cave and it would provide shelter if needed.  

I should mark my path so I don't get lost.  

I walked back to the cave entrance and searched the stones scattered around and looked for one that I could mark trees with. When I found one that looked like it wouldn’t be hard to carry around, I lowered my body and picked it up and I was surprised. I mean, the stone was about the size of a can of soda but it weighed no more than a pebble.  

I tried looking for a larger one and found a smooth rock about the size of a football. I tried lifting it, expecting it to be somewhat heavy and almost tossed it into the air when I did so. Okay, so either these rocks were made of cardboard, I got super strength or, if this isn't earth, whoever created this world put the gravity slider to ''extremely low''.  

I picked up the largest rock I could find which turned out to be a ragged rock the size of a skippy ball, lifted it above my head with ease, even when only using two hands and threw it as hard as I could. It flew a considerable distance, more than would humanly be possible, I would guess about ten, fifteen meters?  

If I had to guess, I would pick super human strength. I picked up one of the smaller ones and decided to see how far I could throw one of those. It got far, really far; it didn't stop until I hit one of the trees on the other side of the clearing where it dispelled my dream. After hitting the tree, the rock shattered into thousands of pieces, leaving a small cloud of dust behind where it had impacted. It turned out these rocks were actually made of cardboard after all, damn. 

''No cheat skill for me I guess'', I referenced the many works of fiction and series in where the protagonist would be reincarnated or teleported to another world after receiving some kind of skill that made them completely broken characters. I was disappointed, but not surprised at this point. 

At this point I envied those characters, but I also pitied them. Having skills like that surely would make things a lot easier, but it also meant they hardly had to put in any kind of effort.  

I skittered over to where the rock had impacted the tree's bark. White particles from the stone painted the place of collision, the stone in question was nowhere to be found. I thought for a moment until another idea came to mind. Making my fangs appear before me I took one in my hands and clenched something. I don't exactly know what, but I succeeded in not leaking any venom. I carved it across the tree horizontally, creating a line.  

'This would work', I mused, 'now, off to find water, I'm starting to get thirsty'. 

And so, I ventured forth, violating every fifth tree or so as I went in a straight line for as much as possible. It seems I must have scared all the wildlife away since I couldn't spot anything besides the birds flying high above through the small openings in the treetops. Most of them had vibrant colors that I hadn't seen with my own eyes before. They reminded me of the species you would find in tropical areas and rainforests such as toucans and macaws.  

Oops, almost forgot to mark a tree, I quickly pulled out my nightmarish fangs to mark an exceptionally large tree when something shot up the tree in a flash. 

When I tilted my head to see what had made its way up the tree within the blink of an eye, I looked into the eyes of a squirrel. Its eyes were fixated on me as it held something resembling a walnut in its paws.  

I froze for a second before slowly backing away from the tree. Cute as it was, I would prefer not to get bitten and get some nasty infection for desecrating its home. After I had taken a few steps back, the curiosity of the critter seemed to have diminished as it turned around and continued climbing up the tree.  

When its tail, or rather tails came into view I realized that this was unlike any species from Earth. This animal possessed two tails each shaped like pine cones, for lack of better comparison. It reminded me of the outer tip of a rattlesnake's tail except it was magnified significantly. So, either that meant this was an undiscovered species, or my intuition had been right and I was no longer on Earth. 

I marked tens of trees and was starting lose hope of finding a source of water. Hours went by and the sun was already starting its descent. I was positively parched at this point and would need to find something soon or I would be in trouble.  

My relief when I found a group of standalone palm trees (don't ask me what they were doing in the middle of a forest) that bore ripe coconuts was immense. I scanned my surroundings and noticed that the scenery had changed quite a bit, I had been too preoccupied with water, and marking to even take note.  

In between the usual trees, stranger species had started to appear; conifers and pine trees were scattered around, and then these completely out of place palm trees grouped together neatly made me wonder how this ecosystem worked.  

I picked up a coconut that looked like it had fallen down not too long ago, skittered over to a sturdy looking oak, the tree that I marked most recently, and smashed it against the trunk. After a few hits I managed to see some cracks. I sat down, pried my fangs in the cracks and carefully pried out a piece, creating a hole. I paused for a moment, wondering if it could possibly be toxic when the sweet aroma of strawberries hit me.  

''What?'' I asked no one in particular, ''how messed up is this world? Like for real''. 

I spilled a bit of the liquid inside in the palm of one of my hands and sniffed. That was strawberry, alright. There was no mistaking the sweet smell of one of my favorite fruits. Death by strawberries didn't seem such a bad way to go, I decided for myself and licked up the moisture.  

I was in heaven. This was literally and by far the best tasting strawberry smoothie I had ever tasted before. It was so rich and sweet in flavor that I drank the contents of the fruit in seconds without even thinking. 

Who would have thought that the best strawberry would be disguised as a coconut? If I had these back on Earth, I could make a fortune! The possibilities were endless, Smoothies, desserts, mix drinks, ice cream. Hell, I would put those fake Italian ice salons out of business in no time! Yay for capitalism.  

For the first time since coming to this world (I would just assume this from now on) I felt... Happy. It was wonderful what a good drink could do, maybe I could eat these things too? Oh, that would be two birds with one stone.  

I pried it further open until it snapped in two halves. The flesh on the inside even had a pinkish red color. Jackpot! I inwardly cheered as I sank my teeth in. Strawberry flavor mixed with a hint of mint which made for a delicious combo was now making love to my tongue.  

It took quite a bit of effort to eat the insides but it was very well worth it. Bliss filled me as I ate. When I was done, I was hungering for more and decided to see if I could get one of the coconuts hanging above. I don't know what pushed me to do it but before I knew I was trying to climb up a palm tree.  

I had no idea how to climb trees properly before but it turned out that having four hands surely helped out with that. It took quite a bit of effort to find my footing and had to hang on for quite a few times when I slipped but I soon reached the top of the tree at about 5 meters high. I raised one of my front legs to slap the coconuts as they seemed to reach farther than my arms and soon I had about six fruits down on the ground.  

It must have been hilarious to see me climbing a tree in this body but I didn't care. A feast was waiting for me down below and I carefully lowered myself.  

I picked up one of my new favorite fruit and repeated the process I had done before. When I had the hole pried open an unexpected smell entered my nostrils. Banana? Oh yes, this gift just keeps on giving.  

This one tasted just as rich in flavor as the strawberry counterpart. This delicacy went beyond simply opening a store, I could lay the foundation for an empire with this! After consuming three I came to the hypothesis that any that were harvested from the tree itself tasted like banana, and any that been on the ground for a while tasted like strawberry. I also decided I would save the other three. 

Lastly, these coconuts, if not split, would be ideal containers for large amounts of water and could be carried around, I could turn them into makeshift canteens quite easily.  

I looked up to the sky again, and couldn't find the sun. It was still very bright, but I had to make my way back. I was quite happy with planning this out to a decent degree when I followed the marked trees back.  

At least my immediate problems were solved, for now.

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