Eight Legs Too Many || ONC 2021 and 2022

Chapter 2: Shiori kills more spiders (and unwillingly talks to a stranger)

The man in their garage didn't look like he'd just survived a maelstrom of spiders.

Shiori had expected to see him fumbling his way out of a hazmat suit—or else writhing in pain, slowly dying. One got used to these sorts of things when Death ruled your city, and Shiori wouldn't have batted an eye.

But he was doing neither of these things. That was what was so odd.

True, it was hard to see clearly through the dim light of the garage, the fogging face-shield of the hazmat suit, and the drying streaks of spider goo. But Shiori saw enough to tell he was immaculately dressed, from his button-down shirt to his tidy jeans all the way down to his squeaky clean sneakers, which lacked the barest wisp of cobweb.

If he had a hazmat suit, it was nowhere in sight.

He must've taken off his suit and put it in his suitcase while I was killing all the spiders. It was the only logical explanation. Still, it was weird that even his rolling suitcase, which trailed behind him, was devoid of arachnids. It was like seeing someone walk out of a blizzard dressed in flip-flops and a bikini.

"I'm Devland. And you must be Shiori."

Belatedly, Shiori saw the newcomer had extended his hand. She offered the hand that was still in her hazmat suit, realizing too late it was covered in spider corpses.

The newcomer eyed it with amusement.

"Um," said Shiori, glad the dirty suit hid her embarrassment, "Why don't you go into the kitchen and hang out with Yoko while I clean up...all this?" She gestured awkwardly around the spider-splattered garage and then glanced at his suitcase. "Is that all the luggage you brought?"

"Yup." His tone was friendly. "I travel light."

He started for the stairs to the first floor. Shiori stared after him, apprehension warring with her loathing for unfamiliar human contact. Something was off about this man, though she couldn't put a finger on what. Would Yoko be safe? She squinted at his blurry figure as he strode up the stairs, wishing she could see him properly through the spidery facepiece of the hazmat suit....

"Do I have something on my back?"

Shiori froze, like a child caught gluing toilet paper to the family dog.

He must have noticed her staring. (Or... squinting through the gaps in the dead spider bodies on her visor, as it were). Shit! she thought. Shit, shit, shit! "...No?"

"Thank goodness." She couldn't see his face very well—it was blocked by a giant squashed blob of spider leg—but he sounded amused. "I was afraid I'd picked up a spider—or worse. Do you know, a friend of mine carried around a baby crocodile in his pocket for a whole day without noticing? Ate his whole wallet, credit cards and all. You can never be too careful these days." He paused. "Do you want some help cleaning up?"

"No. Um, I mean, no, thanks."

"Then I'll say hi to your sister and unpack."

The moment he was gone, Shiori buried her face in the gloves of her hazmat suit, promptly regretting it when even more spider carapaces smeared across her visor.

Dear God. As if this day could get any worse. He'd probably thought she was ogling him from behind. 

How humiliating!

Why couldn't he be like the last roommate? Shiori didn't think they'd exchanged five words the entire time they'd lived together. Already this new idiot had surpassed Shiori's daily threshold for Acceptable Amount of Conversing with Strangers and was blazing toward the realm of Utterly Unacceptable Chattiness.