Chapter 2 - Contact
He was Choking, Drowning, Dying! He bolted up off the cool bedding below him and opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. He looked around and saw nothing but darkness.
"He is Awake." A voice rattled through his head.
"He is faring well, in comparison." He winced as another voice grated along his eardrums. "open your eyes, little one." The thought confused him, His eyes weren't open? He felt his muscles one by one.
He clenched his fingers and curled his toes, Bent his arms and stretched his legs. He tightened his breathing and rolled his head. He curved his lips, and finally tugged at his eyelids, he found them unyielding like a ton of bricks. He pulled up as hard as he could until finally a small glimmer of light shot in.
He gasped and dropped the effort as he tried to make sense of the faint picture he had caught.
"Mom!" He cried, but he received no response. The only sounds were a faint chattering coming... From all around him. He tensed as he pulled his eyes open again, and reeled backwards in shock as they slammed open.
His world exploded into light, and he spent a moment trying to decipher everything. He was in a brightly lit room, but the walls seemed to be made of a dark thread. He was surrounded by vague shadows, and he took little notice of them until one of them moved. It seemed to be misshapen, possessing a multitude of legs and three distinct portions of body.
"What are you?" He asked as it came into the light and the mandibles on the front of its face became prominent.
"I am a Felic." A voice echoed from around the room. "We apologize for your discomfort, Some people are more discomfited by our venom then others. Your brother in particular."
"My Brother? Whats wrong with my brother!"
"I apologize, I have misspoken, Your brother is fine. He was just incapacitated by a reaction to our venom. He is currently recuperating at about the same level you are."
He glanced around the room and discerned a spherical shape to it. "Where is he?"
"Near us, but he is asleep. We, you and I, must talk. And we must be quick as it will determine your fate."
"My fate?"
"Yes, if you cooperate you will be returned to your family unharmed. If not, Then the safety of our colony is at risk and you will never return to your family if indeed you live through the day."
He sat back and surveyed the room again, "What do you want?"
"Your word that you won't intentionally reveal our presence here to the rest of your colony, and that you will return.?
"Return?"
"We need to understand the human psyche. You and your brother will be an integral part of our research."
"Let me see my brother and we have a deal." The Felic waved one of its many appendages at the wall, and the walls faded into transparency.
He gulped as he looked down into a brightly lit city that wrapped around itself and stretched taught before relaxing into a looser shape.
"Where are we?" He asked in a whisper.
"You have already seen this city, albeit from another angle." A second voice spoke from the shadows
His mind returned to when he had entered the room.
"But it looks so differ-... After you bit me, I saw this!" He looked back at the shadows and looked intently at the shadows. After a second, the darkness dissipated and revealed 3 other Arachne resting within them on their back appendages. He screamed and moved back,
"What have you done to me?" He screamed at the spiders.
"Without this, You would be dead. The rest of our colony would have smashed your bones to dust between Iron mandibles." The third one stated as it reared its torso from its earlier relaxed position into a sort of barbaric salute.
It turned towards the invisible wall and motioned towards a small darker orb, contrasting the bright city as it swung delicately suspended by threads. It seemingly floated up 'till it had reached the same level as them, and a window cleared in the side of it, giving view to the inside of the sphere.
Inside lay a deathly pale Charlie, his black hair had turned to a bleached grey, and remained fallow on his head. "What did you do to him?" He whispered, horrified.
"We filled him with a light version of our concentrated venom. He seemed to be exceptionally weak, unlike you he will be affected by this his entire life. Though, without it his life would have been extremely short."
–
His mandibles clenched in hunger pangs as he watched the others feed from the Nest mothers Catch, A bouquet of rats lined with savory slime. He always had to ask about everything hadn't he? He turned from the atrophying meal, and descended down to where the humans had lain. He laughed a silky laugh as he reached the spot. The elders had changed them, altered them into stronger hardier beasts.
If they left then they would have greater control of their body and mind then any other over-world species save the felic. His mandibles clenched together in anguish as another smell floated through the air. While it did not bear the customary smells of raw flesh its aroma still woke his hunger.
He brought his torso up and tasted the air for the smell. His eyes squinted in pleasure as the aroma drifted past him once more. He dropped close to the ground and crawled to up the side of a wall before disappearing through an open vent.
–
"He was going to die?" Andrew asked bewildered.
"Yes, he was in the long-term stage of a disease humans refer to as SD12 or Advanced Spawn Degradation. One more death, and he would have been maxed out. Now, he has a different registry and his Spawning is safe." The Quieter Spider finished before retreating once more with a bow to the other two.
"OK, How long have you 'Felics' set up residence here?"
The leader spoke up, "With the permission of your Government? Since this ship was decommissioned and retrofitted into a settlement globe."
"And my father knows of this?"
"We have his consent, as well as periodic checks."
He glanced once more at Charlie's disfigured body, and turned back to the three spiders. "You said you wanted to explore the human psyche." He said, and received nods from the threee. "Then my only request would be to learn in part how you build things like these orbs." Another set of nods and Charlie's pod solidified into a darker color and floated away from them as they descended into the bright city.
–
He followed the smell through the vent, mandibles dripping with saliva as the scent grew stronger. He tensed as he noticed light ahead of him, but the smell overwhelmed him. He quickly ascended through another vent and cautiously peered down into the lit area. Below him was a feast, A high table covered in succulent meats.
He pulled himself back from the vent as steps resounded beneath him. A blonde colored head appeared below him and made off with one of the plates. By her stance and demeanor, He gleaned that she probably wasn't supposed to be there.
So on her heels, he dropped down into the small area and made off with 3 plates. He hoisted himself and the plates back into the vent and devoured the food. He sighed in pleasure as his mandibles wrenched the cooked flesh from the chicken bones. Why didn't they eat like this? Why didn't they always eat like this!
Finally he finished guzzling the plates contents and not knowing what else to do with them lowered back down into the room and left the plates there littered with bones. He moved to head back to the colony, but then wondered what the bones themselves must taste like after being saturated in the Delicious flesh.
He scuttled back and looked down into the room. Loud voices proclaimed themselves and he stared in a mite of confusion. The blonde girl had returned and was holding her half eaten plate. While two other, bigger humans seemingly blamed her for eating the other three plates. He soon got bored of this interaction and waited for them to move away from the table.
Finally the girl slumped and walked towards the door with tears in her eyes and the other humans followed. Squeaking in victory, he noted the girls plate had remained at the table. Quickly he dropped into the area and snatched her leftovers off her plate and the bones he wanted from the others before retreating back up to the vents once more.
As he scuttled back through the vents, He heard loud proclamations of disbelief echoing behind him. He snickered as he returned to the colony, feast in hand.
–
He laughed in wonder as he watched the small planes fly acrobatics around each other, and around the strange off architecture of this colony. Two spiders sat side by side in silent repose, their torso's raised, and their eyes... Not closed but seemingly smaller, he turned to his guide
"We squint our eyes, releasing a gelatinous compound that places an unbreakable seal over our eyes. Allowing us to sleep, or stand extremely bright areas." He replied, two of his eyes roving over him as the rest watched the planes."
"Unbreakable?" He asked as the planes flew towards each other right up to the moment when it looked like they would crash, before one of them veered away at high speeds. Clanking resounded from one of the spiders as it gnashed its teeth together. A strange tittering echoed from the other.
"Yes, We have acid that we secrete when we stretch our eyes. It dissolves the compound while the compound itself renders the acid to a harmless liquid."
"Wow, sounds complicated." he responded, fixated on the planes slowly descending to the ground. "So, Who won?" He asked.
"It wasn't a contest. It was a training exercise between master and pupil."
"Training? For what?"
"We run reconnaissance around the globe, and we use our ships to ferry messages."
"Can I learn to fly one of these?" He said, crouching down to examine one of the two ships on the floor.
"If you were still a human then I would have to reply no. But you are altered so you may be able to control one. This however must wait for another time." Another Felic approached,
"Sires, The altered boy has been cosmetically rendered to his unaltered state." It glanced at his guide for a second. "The boy's father requests their presence."
"Very well," It turned towards him. "Andrew, When you return I will teach you to fly one of these to the best of my ability."
He crunched the last of the bone between his mandibles and savored the last of the flavor. He sat back and watched the human talking with the Nest father. It spoke with no dignifying tones, and lost no stature when the Nest father spoke.
He continued to watch in disgust as the Nest father lowered himself to speak in their language. Perhaps the Nest mother was right, Maybe they were taking this alliance too far. He turned his torso and passed another bone to his mandibles, He crunched delightedly as he listened to his Age brothers mowed through the last of the flesh behind him.
They would make the difference. One meal at a time.
thanks for reading. :D
TheUltiStar Thanks for reading, Here is the second chapter. I have this story too plotted out for any true OC's So sorry. :(
But if you want if you give name and race in the format below then I will take a gander at it. Just can't take any Background, special powers, etc.
Name;
Race(Human, Felic, Cognit, Brute);
Gender(Spiders have genders too.);