Chapter 3: Wednesday

Waking up in the cold darkness of the basement Sasha switched on her bedside lamp and instinctually began scanning the walls, checking for any spiders. To her surprise there was... nothing, nothing but the few posters and paintings she had hung to decorate the place. For the first time since moving into her basement dorm there were no spiders to greet her as she woke up.

Relief from her situation would not last long however, sitting up in her bed she felt a strange, painful throbbing from between her legs. Pulling back the blankets she saw that on the inside of her leg, about halfway up her thigh was a large red lump, with two small black dots atop it. It was tender and sore to the touch; it was a spider bite. Despite their constant presence in her room this was the first time Sasha had been bitten by one of the spiders; she was no expert on spider bites, but she knew they were not usually this pronounced or painful. 

Leaning over and grabbing her phone from the bedside table Sasha considered calling David to tell him about the bite and ask if she could stay at his place despite his roommates being frustrated with her. She scrolled down to David's name, but at the last moment decided not to call. David never seemed to understand just how bad the spider problem was and Sasha worried that calling up begging for a place to stay because of one spider bite might cause him to think she was crazy. 

Waking up to spiders every morning was upsetting but waking up to a bite from one was far more distressing. Her dorm had never felt less welcoming to her and so Sasha decided to stay out as late as she could handle and avoid going home. 

Wednesday was a quiet day for her when it came to schooling commitments, only one lecture for the whole day. So Sasha occupied most of her time in the library, if there were any upsides to her arachnid problem it was that she was ahead on all her readings and assignments, if she were home she would likely be relaxing, but without that option she was forced to study. 

Not long after lunch Sasha made her way over to a bar just off campus where she decided to spend her afternoon and night. She managed to finesse enough free drinks out of various patrons to get suitably drunk for the evening. The liquor helped her forget about the spiders and the bite, but as the night progressed, she would often be reminded of her circumstances by a sharp piercing pain along her inner thigh. The bite did not hurt all of the time, but it remained tender and sensitive, any contact to it caused an intensive needle like pain of heat, something as innocent as he clothes rubbing against her leg would pull her out of her escape and remind her what awaited when she finally returned home to the dorm for the evening. 

In a brief moment of weakness, she considered attempting to get one of the men buying her drinks to take her home so that she could have a night away from the basement, she was desperate to escape, but could not escape her own guilt and could not cheat on David. 

As the evening drew later and later and the other patrons disappeared into the night Sasha was left with no choice but to return to the dorm. She had never been this drunk, she was slurring her words and struggled to stay standing as she walked, fortunately the campus was close by and she managed to make it back to the basement. She was so inebriated that she forgot all about her before bed ritual and simply walked in, kicked off her shoes and collapsed on the bed, passing out moments later. 

That night Sasha feel into a deep sleep, a sleep unlike any she had had since moving to the city. Restful peace took hold of her, but it would not last for long and soon horribly vivid nightmare would take hold of her. It was a nightmare unlike any Sasha had had before, it felt so real, more real even than when she was awake. 

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She was in a cave and it was very dark, so dark that she could barely see her own hand in front of her face. The cave was long, and she was to the back of it, but she could just manage to see out the entrance to the cave. She was high up amongst some hills and down through twisted treetops below the cave she saw bright luminous city lights. The shapes of the buildings, the image of the skyline, it looked so familiar to Sasha, she studied it for a moment and the she realized what she was looking at. It was Arbor Hills. She was sitting up in the mountains that overlooked the city. 

Before she could process her whereabouts, Sasha felt a sharp and sudden pain in her stomach, instinctually grabbing her stomach she found her belly firm and enlarged, it felt as though she was pregnant. Panic began to set in, dropping to her hands and knees Sasha began fumbling around on the cave floor, hoping her phone was with her or that she would find some sort of light source. She found sticks and some jagged pieces of flint and in desperation attempted to light a fire. She struck the flint pieces against one another over and over generating small sparks but nothing more. With each spark a fleeting glimmer of light emerged and through the sparks she saw clearly that her body had now changed to that of a heavily pregnant woman. Flint tore flesh from her fingers as she desperately tried to ignite a fire. Eventually sparks took hold and the small scraps of wood before her were set ablaze. The small fire was no larger than what could be found on the end of a torch, but it produced an unnatural amount of light, the cave came to life as if she were outside in the daylight. She could see everything and quickly realized her enlarged belly was the least of her worries.

Hearing movement from up above her Sasha looked up to the ceiling of the cave to a sight of true horror. Dozens upon dozens of giant spiders, each the size of an adult human sat perched on the ceiling, looking down at Sasha. They were all a dark black, with thick furry legs and enlarged fangs dripping in venom, the heads of these spiders seemed like a blend between spider and human. They were ugly contorted things, hard to look at and yet behind their eyes Sasha thought that she could see a kind of sadness. Sasha screamed at the sight of them and then quickly again from pain.

Sasha was hit with a wave of aching pain; a dull but ever-increasing pain rose up her lower back and across her abdomen. Intense pressure and pain hit her across her pelvis and up her inner thighs, were she had been bitten. The realization hit her; it was contractions. She wanted to stay quiet, she did not know how the mutated spiders would react to her screaming, but she could not hold in her terrified cries for help. Sasha forced herself to her feet and ran towards the cave's entrance, towards the city lights. Stumbling and in pain, she tried desperately to escape the eyes that sat fixed upon her. Each step was hard fought, the contractions were coming unnaturally fast, every few meters they would hit her again and she would be forced down to her knees, but she never stayed down. 

As she neared the exit a large shadow descended down over the entrance, a looming figure of gigantic and twisted proportions. A pulsating black visage of gut-wrenching terror, the mere sight of which was enough to make Sasha sick to the very pit of her stomach. A giant arachnid, the size of at least a two-story house came lurking in through the only entrance of the cave. 

It was the colour of no colour, a deep black of which had not been seen by man before, a black that immediately and instinctually brought about feelings of death and decay. The body of the great spider seemed to drain the light emanating from the fire, it was entirely black, apart from a distinctive green stripe across its abdomen.

The sight of such a horror and the pain of the ever-increasing contractions took Sasha's feet out from under her and she found herself lying down on the cave floor flat on her back. The monstrosity of a spider edged towards her until it loamed large over top of her, Sasha was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to look away. As the contractions worsened Sasha began letting out thunderous screams, to the seeming delight of the being hovering overtop of her. The hundreds of other spiders that sat along the cave roof above her watching begun chanting in some indistinguishable guttural language, Sasha could not make out anything being said, but from the tone and look of the giant spider over top of her it seemed as though they were praying or perhaps worshipping the giant spider loaming over her. An intense feeling of cramping from the waist down kept her on her back as she instinctually begun to push. Something was coming. As she felt the birth begin to crown what had felt like one solid mass suddenly burst into an uncomfortable sensation of hundreds of tiny hairy legs pulling themselves out from inside of her body. Raising her head up as far as she could, Sasha saw a swarm of tarantulas burst forth from between her legs and begin crawling down her thighs and up her stomach, across her chest and all over her body. The chanting from above grew louder as the tarantulas covered her body. Looking up Sasha found herself staring deeply into the many eyes of the giant spider standing over her. Its face was not contorted like the others, it was exactly as a spider's head normally looks only far larger. It stared back at her and somehow Sasha knew that the arachnid was happy. 

She screamed even louder and was finally brought out from the vivid, horrible dream and back into her dorm, back into her bed. Her screams turned to a struggle for breath, hunched over in bed panting and shaking she slowly came back to herself. Regaining some composure, she reached over to turn on the bedside lamp, smacking her hand against the table top trying to flick the switch. 

Light exploded outward, filling the room, Sasha's heart sank as a wave of inescapable dread washed over her. The walls were covered in some two dozen arachnids, all devoid of colour. They slunk across the walls in perfect unison, each step choreographed and in time with all the others. They moved closer and closer towards her with an unsettling and methodical determination. Sasha squeezed at her forearm, pinching her skin, trying to wake up again. She hoped and prayed that this was just another dream,but no luck, she was awake. She shrieked and leapt out of her bed, running straight for the door she just barely managing to grab her purse and a pair of shoes on her way out. In yesterday's clothes and reeking of the nights booze Sasha left campus and wandered out through the night in search of a hotel or some other place to stay. She no longer cared about wasting her money on a room, she did not even care if she returned to school, she just wanted to be away from that dorm. 

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