Writing Prompts

Prompt 1

"You never kill the spiders in your home, you just whisper 'Today you, Tomorrow me' and set them outside. Now, in your most dire moment, an army of spiders arrives to have your back."

I was around 6 when I first realized, spiders aren't really that bad. I never hurt them, didn't even flick them, I just let them be. They didn't bother me, I didn't bother them. My mom thought it was cute, and wouldn't kill the spiders. At least, not while I was there. I always knew my brother, Patrick, always thought it was weird, but he never said it. He was 16 then, he had a boyfriend named Pierce. They were a nice couple, and they loved each other so, so much. Patrick was an insomniac, so he took pills for him to sleep. My dad... Well, my dad was deployed right before I was born. He never came back, and nobody would tell me why. Nobody brings it up, because it always makes brother and mom cry.

Anyways, back to the spiders.

A few years later, when I was 10, I got into a fight at school, and got beaten, bad. After that, I realized that this probably wouldn't be my last fight. I knew, from that fight, that if it ever happened again, I'd need some kind of back-up, or I'd be screwed. That's when my 10 year old mind decided to, instead of ignoring the spiders, to pick them up and set them outside in the grass, where nobody else would kill them. Each time, I would whisper softly, "Today, you. Tomorrow, me." I never really thought about what it really meant, i just started it one day.

Fast forward to age 13, in 7th grade. I've saved a pretty big amount of spiders by now, at least 100 or so. I have a decent amount of friends, but I have 3 really good friends. All 3 are girls, Crystal, Kaitlyn, and Jaiden. All three are amazing people, all sweet, amazing, kind-hearted people. Of course, all of us are pretty big nerds. We all lay video games, watch anime, stuff like that. All 4 of us go to conventions together all the time, all cosplaying as people from the same anime. Things are great. This all lasted until 10th grade.

Then there was the accident.

Patrick had driven us to the convention and was staying with us for the long weekend. He was 26, still in college. We stayed at the hotel next to the convention center. It was the day of the big cosplay group contest. Groups had to perform some kind of act relating to thw origin of their cosplay. Me, Crystal, Kaitlyn, and Jaiden were all in costume as 4 warriors from a pretty popular anime at the time, Swords Online or something? I can't remember. Anyways, Mom, who had Pierce in the car, was driving up to watch us in the contest. They were driving down the highway, about a half hour away, and were about to go under an overpass. Then they heard the honking, and the next thing they knew, they were dead. A semi had lost control and went flying off the overpass, right on top of their car. They died on impact. We tried calling them, they were late. But nobody answered. After the show (we got 2nd place), we got the call. Mom and Pierce had been found dead in the smashed car. Me and Patrick started crying uncontrollably, Mom was really the only family we had left, besides Pierce, who was practically family. Both were dead, their corpses so mangled that it took hours to identify them. I was extremely upset, but Patrick... Patrick was just destroyed. He ran back to his room, by himself. We were supposed to spend the night there, and leave in the morning. I had just got my driver's license, but wasn't as good as Patrick, so he was supposed to drive us home. My friends all comforted me for the rest of the night, they got me food and everything. Patrick didn't leave his room all night, but I understood. He loved mom, he knew her way longer than I did. We all went to sleep, and knowing Patrick, he'd be ok by tomorrow morning.

I was wrong.

Patrick never answered his door or his phone in the morning. We had the hotel staff unlock the door, and that's when we found him. He was dead in the bathtub, with an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills. That's when I started getting depressed. I had no family, only my friends now. My friends couldn't drive, and I didn't trust myself not to drive my car off a bridge. So we put our money together and got plane tickets home. The funeral was when I fianlly realized, I had no where to go.  I moved in with Kaitlyn, and I graduated high school eventually. We still did cons and stuff, but less often. I started to turn to a life of crime, trying to cope. I was in a terrible spot in my life. I was making some pretty shady deals, doing some dirty work for people. It paid. But it was terrible. Life was bad. Yet, I kept saving those stupid spiders. They reminded me of what I used to have. I had saved thousands by now, I was in college (mom's, Patrick's, and Pierce's money (Patrick and Pierce had gotten married) was now mine, so I went to college for a computer science degree. My three friends all ended up in the same college as me, so we continued going to cons and such. I finally got out of the shady stuff I had been doing, and I regretted some of the favors I had asked for. Some weren't repaid, but I'm sure everything would be fine. I started collecting knives, some very decorative, but effective knives. I always kept one on me, a Rainbow Fade Spring-assisted, you slide a switch and the blade comes out. One day, me and my new girlfriend were walking back to our dorms from the local Chinese buffet. Then two guys in hoodies with their hoods up started following us. I realized this about 2 minuets after they started following us. I wondered, why do those hoodies look familier?

Then I realized

And they knew I did.

The one on the right grabbed Kira, my girlfriend, and held a gun to her head. The other one pulled a gun on me.

"J-Jeffery, help!" Kira yelled at me.

"Quiet down!" A low, raspy voice shushed her.

The other one, the one pointing his gun at me pulled his hood down, but I already knew who it was.

Gregory, someone who I owed a favor from a few years ago.

"Well, Jeffery. It's been 2 years. Where's my money?" Gregory asked.

"I-I don't have it, Greg," I managed out. The one holding Kira tightened his grip around her neck.

"Well, Jeffery, what's in that bag? Right there," Greg said, pointing to the messenger bag around my shoulder. Then I remembered, the knife in my bag... I had taken quite a few self defense classes... but there was no way I'd get him in time, he'd shoot me. And even if he didn't, Kira would be killed.

"Well, Jeffery, where is it? Where's my money?" Greg raised his voice. "It's either the money, now, or it's this girl's life. Which is it Jeffery?"

I was afraid, I couldn't let Kira die. There was nothing I could do. But, then, the bushes ratteled. And then it happened. The reason I'm still alive. The spiders, all the spiders I ever saved, and their descendants, flooded from the bush. The guy that was holding Kira was a huge arachnophobic, and he passed out. The spiders all began crawling all over Greg, distracting and effectively blinding him, and I took my chance. All in a span of 3 seconds, my hand wrapped around the familiar feel of my knife handle, and I slid the switch up, extending the blade out. I did this while pulling it out of my bag, all in one motion, then ran forward and thrust my knife, stabbing Greg directly in the chest. He dropped the gun, and fell on the ground. I grabbed the gun, pulled out my knife, and I thanked the spiders. We were equal. In my biggest moment of weakness, they had saved me. Me and Kira ran back to campus. I anonymously tipped off the police to where the two criminals lie, and then... Well, life went back to normal. I'll never forget that night, the night the spiders saved me.

THE END.