Chapter 1: The First Night
The child awoke with a blistering headache, the sun was shining in the sky and blinding his sight. Nauseated and lightheaded he tried to stand up, only to be met with failure. His limbs ached with excruciating pain and his head felt like it was splitting in two. He tried to view his surroundings by opening his eyes only to be met by the glaring sun, which made him squint with pain. A few moments passed before his eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight before hearing a rather dapper voice.
"Say pal, you don't look so good," the voice stated with a hint of sarcasm. "You better find yourself something to eat, before night comes."
The voice startled the little child. He hurriedly expended what energy he had in order to stand on his two feet. He regretted his actions greatly when he saw no trace of anyone, and met with the aching pain found in his muscles. The pain lingered through his body for what seemed like a few minutes. What really bothered the child was his head, he had a spitting migraine that wouldn't let up. After a few moments, he grasped his face with the palms of his hands.
"What am I feeling?" He stretched his hands across his face to further determine this strange sensation. It felt like fuzz, a little soft but totally foreign. That wasn't the strangest part though, there were these strange limbs coming out of his head. They had a strange sensation about them and felt like they were a part of his own body. The small child seemed to think of them as spider legs, but that seemed impossible. This thought seemed to go through his head since he has come to know spiders quite commonly. After all, the boy was known to have a deep interest in arachnids and had kept one as a personal pet.
"Wait." Then it suddenly hit him, "where am I anyway?" He surveyed the surrounding area which dwelled of a forest consisting of a small amount of trees and berry bushes, and then there was the ocean water that seemed to stretch out for miles. As he surveyed around by tilting his head, he caught a glimpse of his hand which caused him to flinch.
"What!" He stammered back as he witnessed his hand to be covered in dark, black fuzz and turned his attention to his entire body. "What on earth happened to me?" His entire body seemed to be engulfed in this new layer of black, fuzzy skin. The dark skin seemed to resemble that of a large spider. Strangely enough, it seemed he had pockets in the area where his pants should be. He reached into this pocket with his hand to take out a strange ball of white thread.
"What is this thing?" Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the ball had more of an oval shape and was the size of a fist.
"Egg Nest."
"Whoa, who said that?" But he received no reply. In fact, it seemed that the voice came from inside his head. The voice itself sounded strangely weird, but he couldn't help but feel as though it was familiar. Whatever it was, he felt connected to it somehow.
So he put this "egg" or "nest" back into his pocket and took a few steps towards the ocean to get a good look of his face. He struggled a little bit with his first steps as he was still sore in his legs upon waking up. There was still a considerable amount of pain in his muscles that caused him stagger as he tried to walk. After a few attempts, he was finally able to wobble his body over to the water. When he finally reached the water's edge, he was taken aback by his appearance.
"Ahhhhh!" He fumbled backwards and fell on his butt. He was startled to say the least, because there was a giant spider where his face was supposed to be.
"This can't be right." He looked at his reflection once more for clarity. This time though, he didn't jump back in fear. He saw that he had eight eyes and four legs growing at the sides of his cheek. Two large eyes were they should normally be, and six smaller eyes to the sides of them. His head also seemed to be engulfed in this new layer of skin. The legs growing to the side of his cheeks seemed to be spider legs the size of his arm. It looked like a giant spider had gone and swallowed his entire head.
"Is some kind of weird dream? I mean it has to be, right. How else could all this be possible?" The strangest element about this supposed dream is that it felt way too surreal to be anything less than reality. All of his senses seemed heightened to the extreme. Especially the pain he felt, right when he woke up.
"Okay Webber, think. What was the last thing you did?" Webber was having an extremely hard time trying to concentrate on the matter. In fact, after a few moments in deep thought, his headache was beginning to come back. Then suddenly, he remembered a rather tall, slender figure. He remembered some rambling he told him; promising a place with lots of friends and refuge from his everyday life. The sound of his voice was all too clear. It had a sort of charismatic tone that seemed all too friendly.
"Wait a minute. What was it that the voice said?" Webber seemed to recall a point in which the man warned him about food, quite recent actually.
As if on cue, a sharp sting of pain entered his gut. This type of pain was beyond anything Webber could even dream of; the pain halted any thoughts held in Webber's mind.
"Jeez, I need food." He stated bluntly. The thought of hunger never really posed any threat to Webber before. Sure, every once in a while he would be a little unfilled and complained about it. But this felt a whole lot different. Every sense in his body was telling Webber to seek any source of food to fill his empty stomach.
Out of sheer instincts, he reached into his other pocket to take out a rather disturbing looking meat that seemed to have hair growing on it.
"This looks awful." Despite Webber's verbal comment, the piece of blue meat seemed incredibly appetizing. His mouth began to water to the aroma that the meat began to emit. He couldn't think such a smell could cause him to crave the meat and consume it whole.
"But I can't eat this." Webber was forced on his knees when his pain increased dramatically. He was experiencing agonizing, sharp stabs throughout his gut as he clutched his belly with one arm. The other was still holding onto the perplexing, blue meat. His thoughts seemed to fade as his ravenous sense of hunger seemed to take over. He desperately tried to regain some of his common sense but to no avail. The piecing, strain of his insides were being torn apart every moment he didn't consume anything. His gaze fixed upon the deteriorating piece of meat which he raised closer to his face. The voice inside him was desperately influencing his emotions as Webber fought to control his appetite. Webber was at war with his thoughts as if he were fighting for dominance over his body. He appeared to have less control over his actions as the intense throbbing over his stomach expanded. It was then that the pain was too unbearable for the young boy. He no longer cared for anything else, the only concern he had was of the raw flesh that he found in his pocket.
"Meat."
Like a ravish animal, Webber tore into the meat with his sharp, fangs. Never in his life has he tasted anything so delicious before. The taste just danced between his taste buds and delivered a kind of ecstasy. In less than two minutes, the rotten meat was gone. Webber found himself savoring the flavor by licking his hands clean. He let his meal set in for a few minutes before he seemed to calm down. Finally, his senses came back. Webber looked at his hands once more before pondering over his sense of regret bestowed before him.
"I guess, I was just really hungry." He thought trying to reassure himself.
Which reminded him of the earlier comment the man stated when he first woke up.
'You better find yourself something to eat before night comes.' The thought lingered in his head for a few moments.
"Alright, from now on I will always have food so that I never have to eat eerie meat again." He stated with a sense of resolve. Of course, that was easier said than done since he didn't even know exactly where he was. He was now sure that the man in the suit had brought him here for reasons unknown to him. Plus, he still didn't know why he looked like some sort of mutant, spider kid. Even so, his new appearance really didn't appall him all too much. He had always thought that spiders were beyond cool! They did have eight eyes after all! Unfortunately, now he doesn't have his precious pet spider anymore. Through all the difficulties in his life, Webber always enjoyed the company of his irreplaceable spider friend. This saddened Webber tremendously.
"No, get yourself together Webber. You're lost in some forest without any food or shelter. In order to survive, I have to stay focused. I should probably set up camp somewhere until I'm rescued."
With his new resolve set in motion, Webber headed in the direction of the woods and started by picking berries found in the bushes for food. He didn't want to resort to his oddly, strange, animalistic behavior like what happened before. He also picked up rocks so that he could make a fire pit which he had learned from precious experience back at summer camp. Though, it took him a while to pick up a good amount of medium sized rocks in the forest. Once he was done arranging the rocks in a sort of circle, he gathered some grass growing in the forest along with some sticks from some tiny trees. There were very few patches of grass growing but the sticks that he gathered made up for it.
The problem now was how he was even going to start a fire. He had no lighter or matches to get it going. Plus he didn't even have enough grass to make himself a proper bed like he had wanted.
"No problem Webber, I'm sure if I search far enough I could find some more supplies. As long as I don't get lost or lose track of how to get back, I should be fine." The thought about getting lost in the wilderness at night definitely terrified the little spider boy. He had always been afraid of the dark; anything can be lurking behind it. Creatures lie through the empty void with its unknown features. Poking its red beat eyes that subtly glistened through the charcoal sky, its claws just hugging the edge of what little light is available in the pitch black area.
"Webber, this is no time to creep yourself out. I need supplies, and I should probably get them before it really starts to turn dark."
Webber discontinued his paranoia so that he may explore deeper into the woods. To his delight, Webber found a brick path with two directions to travel to.
"Alright, this should make it easier not to get lost. All I have to do is follow one of these paths; once it looks like night is coming I'll just follow it back."
Webber than preceded through the brick path on the left with quickened speed, the smooth trail made it easier to tread along without further pressure on his feet. Because of this, Webber was able to move a lot faster than traveling through the unleveled, forest ground.
The surrounding area seemed to contain less trees and fertile soil after thirty minutes or so. Webber picked up any resource he deemed reliable, which wasn't a lot since there wasn't much grass and he could barely carry enough with just his pockets and hands. He did however manage to pick up a few berries but most importantly, some flint.
"Sweet! Back at summer camp, I learned that hitting two of these rocks together could create sparks. I'm sure that I can make a fire using this." Webber felt tremendously relieved when he no longer would have to be alone at night, in the horrible darkness. With this new set of determination, he headed along the trail with higher hopes of important resources.
His high hopes, however, turned into fear when he spotted what seemed to be a human skeleton.
"Oh man." Webber sighed with great grief. Just along the trail was what appeared to be a skeleton stretched out on the ground, with a backpack on its bony shoulders. Needless to say, Webber was aroused with great sorrow.
"So other people have been to this island…but he didn't make it." Webber felt tears already sliding down his cheeks followed by his conflicting emotions.
"What if I end up here dead too? What if no one ends up finding me and I starve to death?" Thoughts of negativity swirled around the tiny mind of our young, spider child. The unbearable thought of loneliness and isolation purged deep within his head.
"No! I can't think like that! I just need to focus on survival and eventually…someone will come find me. Someone must know that I'm…gone. I just need to focus." He stated softly. With the thought of survival, Webber's eyes fixated on the backpack attached to the fateful fallen. He seemed to ponder taking the backpack for himself; it'll certainly be handy when carrying all the grass he'll need.
Wiping his tears away he says, "I can't do that, it's…wrong. This used to be someone; he was alive just like me." Even so, this person perished long ago and Webber knew at least that much. If he was to survive, he would have to do some things he might not agree with; which included taking the goods of the dead.
Reaching down, Webber aimed for the backpack. He pulled back when he came into close contact with the body. After a few moments of hesitating, he finally gripped the satchel and gave a small tug. It didn't budge right away, so Webber applied some more force until it finally came apart.
"I'm really sorry, honest."
After a few moments, Webber reached into the bag to find an axe and a shovel. At least that's what it was supposed to be, but to him it looked like a piece of flint tied to a long narrow stick. The flint have been carved and sharpened so that they may function as tools. Even so, Webber felt he could make better ones than these since they seemed in pretty bad condition.
"Although, I don't think I would have even thought to make these sorts of things; at least now I know I can get creative with flint. Maybe I can even make a pickax to mine those big boulders that are spread out through the forest." Webber than stuffed the tools in his bag when an idea came to his head after skimming his eyes across the shovel.
After an hour of nonstop digging, Webber figured the hole would finally be big enough. He then turned his attention to the bony structure. After a long sigh, Webber grabbed hold of its shoulders and carefully laid out the skeleton down in the hole. It took a lot of effort to create a hole as big as a person, but Webber felt satisfied. He then covered the hole with dirt and stuck a nearby rock at the end of the dirt. He engraved a little saying onto the tombstone which he had placed and then sprang to his feet.
"I know it's not much, but I sure would like it if someone buried me…if I ever died." After a few moments, he replied, "Thanks for the bag, I really appreciate it."
With that said, Webber began to tread through the path once again in search for more resources along with his new bag strapped behind him.
At first, Webber felt a little optimistic on his journey onward. But after an hour or so of treading and finding very little grass, he was having some doubts. He thought of returning back to his camp to set up a fire so that he could get all cozy before nightfall. That is until the terrain turned to that of a savannah, and along with it was grass as far as anyone would even hope for. Seriously, he should not be this happy for grass.
"Alright! Now all I have to do is stuff as much of it as I can into my bag and head on back." He ran to the nearest patch and started his work. As Webber continued his harvest, a foul stench slapped him across his face.
"Geez, what's that awful smell!" His eyes navigated itself to the source.
"Is that poop?" Just like he thought, there was a big lump of manure just a couple yards away from him.
"Wait," he pondered, "if there's poop, then that means there must be some sort of animal around here." Webber thought about searching for this animal. On one side, he could find a potential means of meat. On the other, the animal could be heavily dangerous.
After a few moments he replied, "I'll just take a look at it from a distance and not approach it. I'm in a savannah; it isn't that hard to spot something a good distance away, right. Plus, I can still gather up some grass while I search for it." Webber seemed to like his reasoning and followed as proceeded. While his search was on, he noticed a lot of rabbits lying around the savannah. He tried to catch one only to be met with failures, and a lot of pratfalls. He soon gave up on the little fuzballs and diverted his attention to the sound of a wild beast.
Webber tilted his head in the direction of the sound to see a large hairy beast in the distance. He stood there amazed of the sheer size of the exotic creature. It looked like the size of a cow, maybe even a bit bigger and seemed to weigh a ton.
"Holy cow! There's no way I could hunt that. I wouldn't even know how to fight it, and there's probably more just like that one. If I tick one of them off, they all might just come after me." Webber immediately abandoned his hopes of hunting the beefalo, the name he came up with, in order to gather sufficient meat. Even by some miracle that he managed to lure one out and kill it, there's no way he could lift the carcass back to his camping spot. Therefore, Webber gathered an abundant amount of grass before deciding to head on back.
Suddenly a familiar sting of pain managed to pique his gut. He was hungry again. Not as much as the previous time where he had given into his bashful behavior, but enough so that he would stop for some berries. He took off his bag and reached in for the berries that he managed to pick along the way.
"I think it would be better to cook these but that's too long a wait, besides I need the strength and energy to be able to go back." With this in mind, Webber tossed the berries into his mouth and chewed thoroughly. It wasn't the best meal in the world but when you're hungry, anything tastes good.
"It might be good to find a way to catch those rabbits around here. Maybe I can make some traps and lure them into it." He thought about it a little more. "Well, I'll think about it tomorrow when I get a good night's rest." After his little meal, Webber was displeased to find so little berries left in his bag. Sure he had more at the camp, but he thought these would last him at least a couple of days.
"How long does it take for berries to grow from bushes again?" From his worldly experience, Webber concluded that it was too long. He then packed the rest of his berries into his bag and was set to travel back to his camp.
Strangely enough, the sky then turned to dusk, night was soon approaching. This set Webber on his nerves, as he feared he would not make it back before the sky plunges into total darkness. But that wasn't the only thing bothering him at that time, the evening seemed different than the usual night that he was accustomed to. It held a negative atmosphere as almost as if it were alive. Like someone was watching him in the shadows.
"I better get going before it gets any darker."
He hurried along the trail with twitched motions, the slightest sound would cause him to flinch or stop in his place. He was extremely nervous. Here he was stuck on an island, with no one but himself, and it was about to get dark. It was everything he feared and more, he just absolutely needed to get back as quick as possible. It's just that this was even more difficult since he was starting to feel fatigued for all the traveling throughout the day. The only thing that really kept his feet moving was the thought of being stuck in the dark with no light whatsoever.
In a little less than two hours, he finally made it back! And he couldn't be more relieved.
"Ok, calm down Webber. All you need to do is make your bed and get the fire started." Needless to say, he started with the fire. Webber piled on small kindling grass before attempting to set it ablaze with his two pieces of flint. After a couple of tries, he was able to start a small fire going. He then gently piled on some small twigs on top on it to further fuel his light source.
"I wonder if I have enough sticks for this fire, I probably should have cut down a tree for firewood. After all, I do have an ax now." He seemed to ponder this for a moment. "Nah, I'm sure I'll be fine. Either way, I just need this fire until I could sleep." Webber than prepared his bed as best as he could. It didn't look like the most comfortable bed to sleep in but it sure beat the hell out of the floor.
"I'll probably want to build a tent soon. I'll probably need to find some sort of strong fabric to hold it together though." He thought to himself. "Well, more plans for the future." After a few moments, he threw some more twigs into the fire and relaxed a little bit.
Then, darkness came.
The surrounding area became engulfed by the crimson, dark shade. Everything around him seemed to slowly fade until the only thing visible was the lighted area given off by his small fire.
"Stay in LIGHT!" the voice inside him screamed.
Webber began to panic upon hearing this.
"But why, what's wrong?"
He received no reply, but for some reason he believed that voice. It was the very same voice that he felt connected to and spoke to him earlier throughout the day.
Webber's heart nearly stopped when he saw his small fire slowly fading. He hurriedly gathered the rest of the twigs and grass that he collected, which wasn't much since he didn't bother on gathering a whole lot. Plus most of the grass that he stuffed into his bag was used to build his bed. Nevertheless, he threw the remaining twigs and grass onto the dying fire. The fire greedily took in the food fed thrown into it, but craved more.
It was really close to going out and if he didn't do something soon, darkness would swallow him whole. He reached for his bag and grabbed hold of his ax; he went to the nearest tree available to him and began chopping. After ten minutes of hard, blistering whacks across the tree trunk. The tree graciously fell down, it wasn't the biggest tree in the forest but he didn't have time for that. He quickly chopped up the tree into smaller pieces and lunged across to his fire.
The fire was on the brink of going out by the time he was there with small logs, the light emitting from it only reached a radius of two yards. Webber was incredibly tense as he caved in to despair and fear. His heart was beating faster than it ever did in his lifetime. His palms were sweaty and small blisters could be seen starting to form all over his hands. His breathing was exponentially high as he struggled to keep calm and focus on the task at hand.
He gently placed one log onto the dying fire hoping that it wouldn't go out and accept his offering. As the fire dimmed slowly he began to hear the hissing of some form of monster. It crept behind him, only coming closer with every inch that the darkness had swallowed. It released a negative pressure that drowned Webber into great despair. He could hear it slowly approach him from behind while his little fire seemed to fade. The sheer, utter sensation of a figure towering over his small frail, little body was enough to make him cringe in desperation. The dark, entity was ready to pounce in a moment's notice. Webber could now feel the ominous sensation of said creature prickling along his back.
*Crackle
The fire finally ate away at the log of wood laid around it as light began to slowly reappear. At first, the creature did nothing. Webber was stuck in a horrid trace as he felt the very aura of a beast right behind him.
He never dared turn around to face the monstrosity. Luckily for him, the fire grew and bestowed upon him light. The creature slowly backed away as the light threatened its very existence. It was still close enough to hear its exasperated breaths that tormented those near it. Upon time, the fire increased and the creature drew back farther. Webber felt it necessary to add more fuel to his savior in order to keep the beast at bay.
However, he was tremendously frightened to do so much as move a muscle. But to ensure his survival, he knew he had to act. Therefore, Webber slowly reached for another log with imbalanced, rigid motions. After grasping a hold of one end of the log, he dragged it across the ground closer to himself. With his other hand, he clasped it with both his hands and held the log over his fire.
*Thwamp.
Webber accidentally dropped the log on top of his fire which caused it to falter. The fire began to dim in size and brightness. With a few light footsteps heard behind him, Webber huddled to his knees as to avoid the upcoming onslaught. Except it never came. His fire stood lit. After a few moments, it became a steady, sized fire. This caused the creature to back away and return into its shadows.
Webber was dumbstruck. He did not move or even tilt his head. He sat next to his fire, where he presumed he was safe. After all that has happened throughout the day, Webber was now sure of one thing.
He is not alone.
Author's Note:
To start off, this is my first fan fiction and I hoped you all liked it. Feel free to leave a review and provide some feedback, I would really like to improve. I'm basing this off of Don't Starve Reign of Giants so there is a lot more to come. I might add other characters, not entirely sure yet. I want to focus this story mainly on Webber. I also want to provides some realism to the story along with the game structure that defies the laws of physics. I hope to have each chapter around five thousand words or so. I'm determined to make this a really long story and hope to finish as soon as I can. I think that's all I want to say, enjoy the rest of your day!