Normalcy
By Invader-Hime
A loud crash caused Fang to jolt awake.
His eyes shot open and he knew immediately that something was wrong.
Everything just looked too good.
Nothing had the crimson tinge it normally did, rather, every color was vibrant.
He bolted up in his bed and realized he did so far too easily than he should have. His head felt so much lighter than normal, as if he didn't need any extra support for his heavy, spider head...as if he didn't have any...
An alarm sounded in the spider boy's mind and he looked around the room. There was a dresser with a mirror hanging above it, complete with a jumble of everyday artifacts. He clumsily made his way out of bed and over to the mirror and what he saw took his breathe away. From the neck down, he looked exactly as he always did...but...but from the neck up?
He didn't look anything like he was supposed to...or did he? He didn't look at all like he ever had in his life. He never had a face like that...a peachy face with two eyes, a nose and lips. His eyes were a sanguine red hue and his hair was light grey with two black steaks running from the back to the front. It was like the pattern he was supposed to have on his spider face.
Something was wrong.
This was not right.
He was a monster, not a normal teenage boy.
"Fang!"
A voice he had never heard before called to him from somewhere.
He heard a stomping and the bedroom door opened, revealing a blonde girl with large blue eyes in a pink ensemble. Kitten?
"Fangie...come on! What are you doing? We're going to be late! Your mom's going to kill you!" she squealed.
"Kitten? What...what's going on?" Fang stammered.
Kitten rolled her eyes.
"Duh. Today is the big convention. We're supposed to take your brothers,"
"Brothers?" Fang asked.
"What is with you today?" She asked, disappearing into a closet and coming out with a t-shirt and leather jacket.
"I..I don't know," Fang sat himself down on his bed with his head in his hands.
"Arms," Kitten said lightly, indicating the shirt.
Fang raised his arms as Kitten pulled it over his head. She mussed his hair and smiled down at him.
"Come on. Your mom made pancakes," the girl bubbled and pulled him up.
Fang followed her dumbly down the stairs.
A series of family portraits were on the wall.
They were all of people he had never seen, but this...normal version of him was there in many of them. He couldn't figure out how it had happened. He had no idea what was going on. The house smelled like fresh breakfast and Fang soon saw where the crash that had awakened him into this bizarre world had come from. Two younger boys were fiercely trying to clean up a shattered bottle of syrup. An older woman was flipping sizzling sausages and pancakes in two pans at the same time with her back turned to the scene. There was something so normal about the whole scene that it almost blew Fang's mind. This was too normal to be his world. What was this? He was supposed to wake up alone in a dingy room in a science building, not some cushy suburban house.
"Don't worry, I got him up. Need any help?" Kitten bubbled.
The woman blew her brown hair out of her face and responded without turning around.
"No, I'm sure my son was enough trouble. Have a seat, Kitten dear,"
Her son? That meant she was..his...his.
"Mom?" he asked.
He'd never seen her face. He couldn't even imagine what she looked like, never having anything to go off of based on his own face. He wasn't even sure if he had a mother, or if he had been spliced together in some scientist's experiment. But now, now that she was here, he felt a stinging longing just to see her.
"Yes, dear?" she asked as she started to turn around.
There was a flash of light.
He didn't see her.
He saw a room.
A blank white hospital room that had a crimson tinge over it. He was strapped to a table and he could feel wires digging into the back of his neck. He wanted to cry, but felt eerily relieved. Now he felt empty. That wasn't real. None of it was. He wasn't really normal. He never had been. It was all a lab simulation. He felt the spider-legs on the sides on his head flex. Back to reality. He knew it was too good to be true. Still, he wished he had seen her face, even for a moment. It probably wasn't what his mother really looked like anyway...but it would be something! Something to visualize, to connect with...but he never would have that. He'd accepted that a long time ago, but this new promise and subsequent denial crushed him again effectively.
The door opened and Kitten burst in.
At least one thing was consistent.
She punched some buttons on the side panel next to the table he was placed on. The restraints holding Fang quickly released. The little lady threw herself on him.
"Oh, Fangie Poo! I'm sorry! I didn't know Daddy was running this experiment today or I would have told you. Come on, let's get you upstairs and out of here," Kitten said smiling.
She aggressively pulled him up and out of the room.
Within a short series of minutes, the two of them were sitting together at Kitten's kitchen table nursing two mugs of hot chocolate. Kitten was strangely quiet as she watched him. Fang didn't feel like talking, but he wished she'd say something. She looked over at him thoughtfully with her wide blue eyes.
"So...what did you see in there?" she asked.
Fang's grip on his mug tightened and the heat from the liquid within burned slightly.
"Stuff. You," was all he said.
Kitten smiled.
"Aww...that's sweet. What else?" she leaned forward slightly.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing," he answered.