Webber's POV

We had to relearn how to walk. How to fight. How to hunt. How to see.

We had to relearn how to live.

The day we had woken from our pseudo-coma, we had been made incredibly aware that we were different. The injuries our body has sustained were nasty, and our dominant hand would forever weaken us. The spiders... my sister, and WX had done everything they could to save the hand, but I could tell there would be little use. The bones healed nicely, but everything else... everything inside, had been destroyed. We could curl our fingers, but not enough to make a fist, and independent finger movement was completely out of the question.

Our depth perception was awful.

During those first few days, after WX had brought us to the frog ponds and we had gotten a good, long look at the bloody injury slashed across our face, we immediately knew that our life as a fighter was coming to a close. With only one working eye, obstacles that were once minor inconveniences became major problems.

And then there was Wilson.

WX had explained the entire situation to us; something had taken Wilson's body and used it as a tool to hurt us. After two failures to end our life, it had given up. But every single time...

"Webber?"

Immediately, we found our body flying into a defensive position: fur bristling, fangs bared, and body curled to defend our stomach and neck. Wilson stood above us, his gray eyes turning into the smallest of frowns before he looked away.

"Um... it's been awhile since you were out of camp... WX wanted me to ask you if you wanted to go hunting with us."

"Hunting?" Despite Wilson's presence, our whiskers angled forward and a surge of hope flooded our system. "We can hunt with you guys again?"

"Well..." He shifted on his feet, staring down at the dirt. He never met our gaze anymore. Somehow, that hurt almost as much as everything else. "Um... I guess... you can try...? But... uh... I think it would be best..."

Our shoulders fell. Of course... they wouldn't trust us to mess up a hunting trip. Even though summer, and the hunting troubles that came with it, had passed, we still couldn't be trusted for something like that. "Oh... of course." Instinctively, we noticed that our good hand had reached up and was scratching around the scar across our eye. We forced our hands to fold together instead, not willing to remind ourself of the injury.

"WILSON, WE CANNOT STAY HERE ALL DAY. ARE YOU COMING OR NOT?" WX's voice startled us. We turned slightly to see that the robot had come up from our blind side. When he saw that the scientist had been talking to us, his face creased into a deep frown for just a moment. "WILL YOU BE JOINING US, TOO?"

What would be the point of us joining them? We would just be sitting on the sidelines again, watching them provide for us. Our stomach growled slightly, and we began scratching at the scar again. "...maybe we could... go on a walk... instead..." I mumbled. We wanted to be out of camp, but we didn't want to be coddled any longer. Maybe some fresh air away from any others would do us good.

We tried to ignore Wilson and WX's shared gaze. There was something in both of their expressions that we really didn't want to see. Wilson's... pain, guilt. WX's... anger, fury.

"Will you... um... be alright on your own...?" Wilson's eyes flickered to our injuries then back to the ground. "Don't do anything... urm... don't hurt yourself, alright?"

"We'll... we'll be fine. You don't have to worry about us every moment that you aren't watching us, you know."

"DO NOT BE RIDICULOUS," WX scoffed. "YOU MAY HAVE HEALED, BUT EVEN YOU KNOW THAT YOUR CURRENT STATUS IS UNDESIREABLE. YOU ARE STILL AT SEVERE RISK, EVEN IF YOUR WOUNDS HAVE CLOSED UP AND YOUR STRENGTH HAS RETURNED. WE ARE RIGHT TO WORRY."

Our teeth bared at the robot in fury. His words stung so deeply that we instinctively acted in anger, a deep growl rising from our chest. "Even half blind and lame we're stronger than both of you!" I snapped. We didn't want to see their expressions. We knew what their eyes would say. And so, before they could react, we flipped around and ran away, as fast as we could.

We ran until we tired, which was much faster than we were comfortable with, then found a decent tree to lean against and buried our face. We took several deep breaths, trying to refill our lungs. Our claws reached upward again and began to scratch at the scar across our eye. We stared down at our damaged hand, closing the fingers as tightly as we could in an attempt to see if it was any stronger than the day before.

It wasn't.

We frowned, then used our good hand to close the fingers together. They felt stiff and tight, even when they weren't doing the work of closing.

"What do you think, Webber?" I asked. "You're in this predicament as much as I am. What should we do?"

"I'm surprised you would ask me."

"There's no one else I can ask," I replied wryly. "You at least... understand."

The spider was silent for a long moment. "Well... it is true that our current condition is very disheartening. You should have killed the scientist."

An image blasted in my head. Fighting back. Ripping Wilson's throat out before he had the chance to injure us.

I hissed, covering my head with my hands and shaking ever so slightly. "I couldn't," I whispered. "Even if I could've... look at us now. We couldn't harm a rabbit."

There was a soft growl. "You're right! Because you keep letting those worthless creatures tell you that you couldn't do anything! What is wrong with you!? You have turned soft, Tyler. Pathetic. You never let injuries stop you before. You were so determined to live that you overtook the mind of a creature that tried to eat you. Where is that child!?"

"You're... being surprisingly encouraging."

"I refuse to suffer in the way you are determined to make us suffer. You have to prove to yourself that you are still strong."

"You don't understand!" I snapped. "I'm left-handed, Webber! We can't even hold a weapon with my left hand anymore!"

"You have two hands."

"Our eye is destroyed."

"You have another eye that works."

"That's not the point!" How could I get through this if even my own split personality didn't understand!? I took several deep breaths. "When a spider gets injured... when a spider loses a leg or loses an eye, they have seven others to fall back on. I've only ever had two eyes and two hands. You know that I can't use your legs, not like hands anyway, or your other eyes. I can't fight anymore."

"Because you keep telling yourself that you can't fight. If you can't use your left hand, then use your right. If you can't see out of your right eye, then use your left."

I looked up, whiskers twitching as I sensed something big nearby.

"Are you going to live the rest of your life believing that you're just easy prey!?"

I slowly got to my feet, smelling the air deeply. "No."

"...What are you doing?"

"Exactly what you said. I'm proving that I can still fight."

There was a foul smell in the air. It was heavy, musky, almost sour.

"Tyler, think about this. You can't go from being a deadweight for weeks to fighting a Giant. This is suicide! I... I can't let you do this."

"You can't stop me!"

"I certainly can!"

Against my will, I threw myself onto the ground, teeth grinding painfully against each other and claws digging into the dirt. "W-We-bber!" I roared. "Get out... of my... head!" In a flash of rage at my other half, I reached up and dug the claws of my good hand deep into the skin of my cheek. I tore away at the fur, leaving a profusely bleeding wound in its place. "You c-an't con-trol me! You n-ever could!" With that, I tore another chunk of flesh from my arm. "I'm tired of being treated... like I don't know anything! I'm tired... of being a spider! I'm tired of hearing you!"

"Tyler, Tyler, calm down! You're hurting us-"
"I'm going to get rid of you if I have to tear you away!"

"Tyler, please-" I could hear him gasping in pain. I couldn't feel it. All I could feel was his weakening presence, his desperate pleas-

Arms grabbed me, pulling my arms away from myself and holding them together. Just as I reared my fangs to attack, someone started shushing me and pulled me closer.

"I'm tired of being useless!" I struggled from the person's grasp, but they held me tighter. They were surprisingly muscular, the only thing that really keyed me in to... I didn't know this person.

That was what finally forced me to relax.

As the grip on me loosened, I struggled free and flipped to face the newcomer...

And found myself incapable of speech.

It was a human. Another human, another survivor. She had charcoal black hair pushed out of her face by a tied red headband. She wore torn overalls covered with dirt and grime, which also covered parts of her face and hands. A moment later, I realized she was staring at me just as intensely as I was staring at her.

"...Who... who are you?" I asked. Webber had fallen silent.

Before she could answer, the ground trembled beneath us. I felt my heart sink into my chest as the sour smell washed over us.

"Watch out, kiddo!" The woman grabbed our arm and started pulling us along, away from where the beast was. Immediately, we felt a growl rise in our throat and we yanked away from her before she could take us too far. "What are you doing? That beast can and will eat you!"

"Wouldn't be the first time."

"Seriously, kid, listen, it's too dangerous around here. I promise I'm not going to hurt you. I'm... ha, I'm too thankful to see other living beings here to even think about hurting you. But that thing? That thing will kill both of us without a second thought!"

"No! We're not running. We set out to prove them wrong and we're going to do that!" With a twinge of regret, we added: "if you want to run, then do it. We don't need you anyway."

"...They? Are there others?"

Her hopeful question was cut off as the Bearger made itself shown. Its gazed passed over the woman without issue, but those beady black eyes locked onto us with a sort of pure rage that we wondered if we had done something to it before.

"Kid... kid, listen. Back away slowly, don't make eye contact. It will just pass on by-"

"The name's Webber," I informed her with a slight growl. "And we don't intent to let it pass by."

"Grrr, fine. But I hope you have a good idea of what you're doing..."

We don't. We didn't have anything on us... no weapons, no tools, not even Popsicle. How did we intend to kill it?

"What's your plan?"

We didn't have a plan.

It roared at us, yellowed teeth stained with faint red juice. Our fur began to prickle. It took another step forward and...

We ran.

The woman let out an indignant shout as we left her behind, but we could hear her footsteps faintly behind us a moment later. Further back, the Bearger was giving chase.

Branches whipped at our face, tearing scratches through our fur and causing our remaining eye to water painfully. Without our depth perception, we couldn't even run. We couldn't get away. We just doomed ourself and this innocent fellow survivor to death.

Then, we realized something. Our whiskers were twitching furiously, vibrating almost, as water began to block our sight completely. We could feel the wind brushing against the tips of them, cutting suddenly and reappearing with the flashes of trees.

And we could sense the thickness of the ground below.

Our light footsteps passed over the ground with ease and without even the slightest of creaks. The woman wasn't far behind, and we could sense the ground groaning slightly under her feet.

The world was falling apart from the inside, and we had just stumbled across one of the weakest areas of the ground.

We skidded to a halt, and the woman ended up running into us unceremoniously. "You can't stop to catch a breath! Come on!"

"Wait," I responded. The Bearger's huge size meant that it was having more trouble getting through the undergrowth than we had. It had resorted to swiping at thick foliage and tearing through the smaller trees in order to reach us.

We could see the moment it realized that it had been lead into a trap. One foot hit the thin ground, and the earth groaned in pain. Its momentum carried it into the next step, and then a third. By the fourth, the ground was beginning to crumble at its feet. It let out an enraged roar, lunging forward, but its massive body was tipping backwards as it attempted so.

And then, it was swallowed up by the darkness of the cave, its white fur blurring into nothingness as it fell down... down... down...

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall," I said calmly, staring into the abyss as the woman's gaze stayed blankly on us.

…

"How long have you been here?"

Nighttime had fallen, and we were back at the woman's camp. She had nothing compared to us, just a firepit and some strange contraptions that she brought no attention to. She had to speak loud enough to overtake the sounds of the crackling fire that we sat beside.

We gnawed hungrily at a cooked rabbit as we thought of how to answer. It was a year now, wasn't it? It didn't feel that long. "A year... about."

It took her many moments to process what she heard. "A... year...? How...? How have you been here that long...?" She suddenly seemed to look at us through a completely different lens... one of mutual respect other than a careful protectiveness. "I see... did the Bearger give you those wounds? It couldn't have, could it?" She motioned towards the healed gash across our tightly closed eye and the various, still-bleeding wounds we had inflicted on ourself earlier.

"No."

She said nothing, seemingly waiting for us to continue. How much did she want us to say? How much did we want to say? I wondered, and realized... we wanted to tell her everything. We needed someone to talk to, to understand...

"No... our, um- our campmate..." We started scratching at the scar again. "There was an incident... he wasn't himself..."

"Hey, hey, I understand. If it's too painful to talk about, you don't have to talk about it. Go ahead and unload whatever you want on me, but don't force yourself..."

"Mmm..."

"Come on... anything?"

"We're not a full human." What better place to start at than the beginning.

"I can see that. I chose not to question."

How could she be so casual!? "We were eaten by a spider. We live as one, now."

"That explains the 'we' talk."

We growled. "Why can't you just react like a normal person? Scream, run away, or whatever you do. Don't patronize me."

"Hey, don't act like I'm patronizing you. Listening to you is not the same as patronizing you."

Change the subject. "How did you get here?"

She sighed. "The same way I'm assuming everyone did... a promise of something you lost."

That piqued our interest. "Something you lost?"

"My sister. I haven't seen her since the San Francisco Earthquake, back in 1906." She scratched at her head, under her headband. "I haven't stopped in my research attempting to find her since the day she disappeared with that no-good rat of a man..."

We had no idea what she was talking about, but nodded anyway. This felt... nice. Talking to someone we had never spoken to before. And despite our confusion and frustration that she wasn't reacting to us like most people did... it was nice.

"I thought... I thought I saw her. But the next thing I know, I'm waking up here..."

"How long have you been here?" How long have you been alone? Are there other survivors?

"...a week, I think... tell me about the others."

"What?"
"You mentioned others, and a campmate. Are they friendly?" Her gaze shifted to the scar across our eye, but she look away quickly.

Why couldn't we figure out how to answer that question? There had been so much strife between all of us that we couldn't even confidently tell her that they were good people. Look at how much WX has helped us... without him, we would probably be dead right now.

"...You can say that."

She frowned slightly.

"Are you wanting to join us?"

"Are you kidding? I'd kill to be part of a team again! As long as you and your group are okay with that..."

We looked up at the sky. It wasn't quite dawn yet, but the sky was beginning to brighten up. "You can meet them... it's your choice if you want to stay with us." We finished the meat we were eating and wiped our mouth. "You never told us your name."

"Oh jeez, you're right. We're both getting ahead of ourselves, aren't we?" She grinned. "My name's Winona. I've been looking for my sister, Charlie."