Just a small one shot that I thought up a few months back but finally finished it today. Hope you like it. Enjoy.

Arachnophobia

There was a spider's web in the corner of the attic next to Mr Smith. A small gentle breeze blew in through the window and rocked the web causing the spider that was sitting on it to hold on to it for its life. The spider itself was a small widow spider was beautiful. There were red and yellow markings on its back like eyes, giving the impression that it's looking straight at you, waiting to turn you in to spider chow. Luke stared at the arachnid as it lowered itself on a thin silk thread. How could something so graceful and...small scare so many people?

In his opinion, spiders were incredible. They were so uniquely designed that they were, in Luke's opinion, the most sophisticated creatures in the world. Having eight hairy legs gave them perfect balance and detection, they had venomous pincers which gave them the ability to numb its food and make it easier for them to devour. They were clever and patient enough to wait for their prey to come to them and then strike when it was in range. Spiders even helped decrease the amount of flies flying around and spreading diseases.

So why were they scary to some people?

Maybe it was because they were so small and out of the way that it made you think that there was nothing dangerous about them. This seemed like a quite plausible theory but Luke still wasn't convinced that this was the reason why. Maybe it was because of the Tarantula, the common spider's long distance brother (well, sister if the common spider was a Black Widow spider) that lived mostly in the Amazon Jungle. A Tarantula was a lot bigger than a spider so it was reasonable that people would be scared of them but even then that is an irrational fear. Like most animals, Spiders are more scared of humans than humans are scared of spiders, so they just keep to themselves. So it's not as if they were going to attack out of nowhere with a crowbar.

Maybe it was because of horror movies. Clyde and Rani had shown him loads of different horror and thriller movies, even though most of them weren't very realistic and just played on people's paranoia of irrational fears. When Rani had watch the movies with them on the sofa, she always jumped when a vampire appeared out of nowhere or hid behind a cushion when a character was going to be killed. She even grabbed Clyde's arm one time before hastily letting him go when the credits started to roll up the screen. But in every film, there were spiders involved either creeping along the ground or lowering itself from a web on to someone's head before burrowing in to their ear. That's impossible, spider's can not or would not do that, thought Luke as he continued to stare at the spider in the corner as it intimidated a poor fly stuck in the spider's web.

Or maybe it was because of stories. Like the Greek myth of Arachne. Arachne was a girl in Ancient Greece who was a weaver who had thought that she was better than the Goddess Athena at weaving. So Athena challenged her to weave a picture over one day. When they finished Athena had weaved a picture of the Gods and Goddesses on Mount Olympus, whereas Arachne had weaved a picture of them drunk and falling over like idiots. Athena was angry so she turned Arachne in to a spider to weave webs for the rest of her life. Maybe people were scared of spiders because they think they would get turned in to one themselves.

The spider in the corner pounced on to the fly and began to feed on it. Luke frowned in thought as he stared at the spider in silence. The door to the attic opened and Sarah Jane walked in to see her son staring at a spider's web thinking.

"Luke, Clyde and Rani are here." She interrupted his thoughts making him jump slightly.

"Okay Mum, I'll be down in a minute." Luke replied and gave one last look at the spider before exiting the attic and leaving the spider in peace to eat its lunch. Perhaps he would never know the exact reason why people are scared of the small eight-legged insects. I'll ask Mr Smith later. He thought before pushing his thoughts to the back of his mind and greeted his friends in the kitchen.