I Am Alone

Chapter 28: The Broodmother

The ticking of hundreds of legs clack around the tunnel, we move slowly, and avoid every spiderweb we can, instead of bugs caught in the webs, there are bats, a bears that have gotten entangled in them.

Everything is bathed in a sickly green glow, the thousands of giant spiders resting and swarming above us, and the low hiss and buzz of a hive.

The bird keeps close, his head right over my shoulder, I finger my crossbow trigger, I hate spiders with a passion, and these are gigantic.

Suddenly, something big and black drops in front of us, eight spindly legs tapping on the cold stone floor, it's eight, black, beady eyes illuminated by the green glowing mushrooms that lines the cave.

A horrible choked hiss erupts throughout the cave as it's mandibles click together, I hold my breath as it slinks past, missing us by inches.

We skirt around the massive spider and find ourselves in a large, dome like room, every inch is covered in webbing and the very top of the dome, above us, was the most grotesque thing I have ever witnessed.

If the other spider was massive, this one is the size of a mountain, it's abdomen pulses and moves strangely and is an acid green, a silk hammock hold millions of large white eggs, and the mountainous spider lays another one-hundred eggs as we stare at it.

The bird is eerily quiet, and all that can be heard is the horrid squelching of the spider laying its eggs, I take a step forward and a stick let's out a concussive crack as I put all my weight on it.

The acid green, mountainous spider turns is head down to us, thousands of tiny eyes blinking and its huge hairy legs dangling down in our direction.

You are one-thousand precent dead.

It let's out a deafening screech as it jumps down to us, as millions of spiders come pouring like water out of every hole they can fit through, the scuttles of one billion spider feet.

I shoot into the crowd of spiders quickly advancing, but all thought that die are quickly replaced by thousands more, the BroodMother of the hive snapping her mandibles and having her children climb all over her.

The bird snaps and pushes as the spiders surround us from all sides, the hissing and buzzing deafening, I almost except that we are going to die, until I notice that the room is lit by natural light.

I glance around, and see a large hole at the entrance of the nest, covered it spiders, but large enough that both of us could fit through.

Me and the bird look at each other, it nods and bows down to let me onto its back, I climb on and feel a sense of familiarity as I grab its feathers.

"Fly!" It starts flapping its wings, but it's so big it takes a while to get off the ground, the spiders are gaining, a few have started leaping at us.

Right before we are completely swarmed the bird takes off, up into the hole we go as we barely squeeze through the hole at the top,

I few thousand spiders follow us, but they quickly fall back inside, now out into the open air, I sigh in relief.

I pat the black birds head and it coo's slightly, hovering in the air, and I hug the bare feathers in pure joy that I'm not being ripped to shreds by millions of spider mouths.

I hold on as the bird does a joyful spin into the air as it flys in the direction I point, the wi d whistles in my ears and the wind stings my face, but I feel entirely free. 

I feel the beating of the birds strong wings underneath me and I feel the breeze going through my matted black hair.

This guy needs a name, this sudden thought surprises me, and I realize I have zero creativity with names at the moment, probably due to the fact I was almost eaten.

"Hmmm.... How do you like Tribute?" The bird let's out a soft coo as one of agreement and I pet Tribute's head as we fly over snow covered pine trees.

A white bird with a rider meets us, and I don't have to be a genius to figure out who it is.

"Hey." I say as we hover next to Aphmau and her bird who looks at Tribute with a relieved expression.

"He- Woah, what happened? You look like you've seen a ghost." Aphmau looks at me from under her white hood, a concerned expression etched there.

"Oh, Trust me Aph, it was much, MUCH, worse."