THE MOMENT
"ABBY!!!" a high-pitched scream startled Abby out of her sleep. She sat up and opened her eyelids. She did not have eyes. Instead, her eye sockets housed a large tarantulas each: Lefty and Skeeter. She could see through their eyes and looked towards where she heard the scream. Eury was huddled on her bed covered by a swarm black spiders.
"What the hell?" Abby asked herself and hopped off the bed to help; she willed the spiders to disperse off her best friend. The effect was immediate and the spiders crawled off Eury and back towards Abby. They crawled up her legs and into her skin as she walked past.
"You okay?" she asked Eury. She nodded with closed eyes. Eury could kill people by looking at them, and she couldn't help it. She normally wore a visor over her eyes but the spiders startled her awake too. She debated killing the swarm, but she didn't know if Abby had any attachment to them. She also didn't like seeing her friend's spider-filled eyes and preferred when Abby wore her black visor too.
"Nightmare?" Eury asked. She could tell that the spiders were gone and reached for her visor. Abby shrugged as she returned to her nightstand for her own visor.
"I don't remember," she said. "I don't think I had any dreams."
"Great," Eury giggled and looked at her friend now that their eyes were covered. "Now I have to worry about you sleep-spidering." Abby giggled as she checked the time on her node. It was almost time to wake up for school anyway. It helped explain why Lupe wasn't there for the commotion. She liked to be up early to work out with Flutter.
"Think it's related to your upgrade?" Eury asked, hoping to finally get some sort of explanation. Abby was missing for over a week and didn't seem to want to give too many details about it. But, Eury hoped to take advantage of the rare moment when it was just them two. Abby shrugged.
"Maybe," she said. "I still don't know all the spiders it had access to," she added as they each made their beds.
"It?" Eury asked. Abby glanced at the door to make sure it was closed, then she walked closer to Eury.
"It was a Unique; but also a giant spider. Whoever kidnapped me tried to feed me to it; but, I'm awesome," she winked. Eury tilted her head at Abby.
"That's amazing...why don't you want anyone to know?" she asked. The fact that Abby took advantage of their time alone meant she was intentionally stonewalling everyone else. Abby giggled and shook her head.
"Remember how Araña's get stronger?" she asked. Eury nodded.
"Yeah. They eat another...,ohhh," she could barely finish the thought before her stomach disagreed with the imagery in her head. She imagined Abby chowing down on a giant spider leg covered in thick, green ichor. She was glad she hadn't had breakfast.
"We're only freshmen," Abby said. "The last thing I need is to be known as the girl that ate a giant spider for the next four years." Eury's stomach turned again, but she had to know.
"How big was it?" she asked. Abby laughed and shook her head.
"Almost the size of a sem.i.. but I obviously didn't eat it all. As long as I have some Araña flesh in my stomach before it dies, I get its soul. But, you know no one's going to care about the details."
"So you had to bite into it while it was still alive?" Eury's face scrunched up in disgust out of pure reflex. Abby nodded.
"Well, it was trying to eat me too, so I think it's fair." Eury giggled and agreed with a nod.
"If we don't have a lot of homework later, we should see if we can find out what new spiders you have and what they can do," Eury offered. Abby smiled and nodded.
"Yeah, that sounds like fun. Thank you."