Spiders (A Short Story)

hailthorn011 · #1

Spiders
By: Christopher Goss

Spiders. They covered the walls. They covered his bed. They covered his bookshelf. They covered his computer monitor. They covered his face. They covered everything. Spiders were all consuming- tiny, beautiful Gods and Goddesses who judged him with a cynical eye.

Jett sat bolt upright, causing his computer chair to tip over and dump him on to the floor. He heaved a grunt as he hit the floor further detaching him from the hideous image that he had just witnessed. Sweat beaded the light colored skin of Jett's face, rolling down across his lips, down to his chin, and even further down to his chest.

"What....is wrong with me?"

Jett slowly sat up, his eyes turning to the lone source of light that radiated from his computer like some sort of alien beacon. For a few minutes, he wasn't entirely sure what he was looking at. And then it slowly dawned upon him that he was looking at a computer screen. His computer screen.

Clack!

There was some sort of grid being displayed on the screen. And alternately black and white stones slowly filled the intersections of the grid. Or was it a board? A board game? Possibly. His disoriented mind couldn't make sense of what he was seeing.

Curiosity getting the better of Jett, he got to his feet and slowly re-balanced his computer chair before taking his seat.

"That's right," he muttered to himself. "This is... a board game. Right. It's called.....Go. Right. It's an oriental board game. Players play with black and white stones and take turns placing these "stones" on a wooden board, or on a server board like this one. And the winner is the one who amasses the most empty intersections within the confines of their control.

Is this a game that I play? Or are the spiders showing this to me to mess with my mind? Are they real, too? Or are they fake? Could this whole scenario be some sort of intricate setup? Are my memories of this "game" even real? I don't quite know..."

But Jett was quite fascinated by what he saw on the board. The person playing black had just played a move that caused a massive amount of white stones to disappear off of the board.

"That...that's called capturing. Right? Sure. Maybe. Because the black stone eliminated the last liberty that the white group had and thereby removed them from the board. Those captured stones are now prisoners....." He shivered at that statement. "Is that all I am? Am I a prisoner just like the stones? Have I been captured by the spiders?"

Jett leaped to his feet again. His heart was pounding feverishly in his chest. His fingers were trembling. Sweat continued to roll down his face and his body, leaving him drenched. But it wasn't hot. Jett was afraid.

And then he noticed a mirror, the kind that was small and circular. It hung on the wall beside his small, unkempt bed. Jett sauntered over to it as he focused intently on making sure he didn't fall to the floor. When he reached it, he gasped. A male with haunted blue eyes gazed back at him. This male had dark brown hair. The light from he computer monitor allowed him to see that much. He could also tell the male was very thin, and shaking.

"That's me. My name is Jett Daniels. I'm a 24 year old male. I teach first graders at North Star Elementary. I'm a good man." A vision flashed before his eyes, burning itself into his brain. "No, I received some sort of weird powder from this guy I met at the Go salon...."

He pondered that for a moment. Since when did he go to Go salons? No, he went there quite frequently. The places were filled with people of Asian descent for the most part. At least this one was. He wasn't sure if that was the fact or the exception to the rule. All he knew was that he hoped the spiders didn't return.

"Oh God, I'm going insane..."

He walked back over to his computer chair and sat down, observing the game once again. Now that he gave the screen a second look, he noticed there was a little rectangular section where words kept appearing.

"That must be other people observing the game and discussing what is going on, and how they think the players should play. I believe this is called kibitzing. That's such a weird term."

Jett tried to focus on what they were saying, but he couldn't. The words were jumbled together like mush. He placed his hands on the keyboard to type a message, but his hands felt weighted like lead. They fell onto the keyboard. Abruptly a disorganized jumble of letters appeared on the chat input rectangle.

"Did I do that?"

It didn't make sense to him. No, of course he had. He had just accidentally pressed his hands against a bunch of keys. Of course he was the one who had done it. Right? Right.

Abruptly the board on the screen- this was what the intersections were on- suddenly separated into two different boards and re-sized themselves into the same size. They were swaying as if captured by a gentle breeze. Stones appeared on the same intersection on both boards as the players continued to play.

"How are they playing on two boards at the same time? And how are they playing two stones at exactly the same rate of speed?"

His eyelids were drooping, and soon his eyes shut. Jett really didn't feel so good. He opened his eyes-

Spiders.

They were back. Tiny black spiders. Spiders with red eyes. They were crawling all over his computer monitor. The black stones on the Go boards were slowly morphing into little black spiders, too.

His heart pounded. Sweat rolled even faster. And abruptly his body felt as if it were on fire. The spiders were crawling on his body. He had to move. He had to get out of the situation.

Jett leaped to his feet.

"Get off of me!" He shrieked into the room. He waved his arms and legs in an effort to rid himself of the spiders. They flew everywhere. But the room was full of the little spiders.

Clack!

That sound was coming faster and faster. The players playing the game of Go must be creating the spiders. They were using some kind of wicked black magic to make him feel as if he were going insane! He had to stop them!

With a grunt of effort, Jett picked up his computer chair and slammed it against the computer monitor. A loud sound of glass breaking filled the room as the computer screen disappeared. The Go board vanished. But the incessant Clack! still filled the room.

"How are they doing it," he cried out. "Make it stop, please, just make it stop!"

Gripping the chair again, he slammed it against the system unit. There was a weird clicking noise. The disk drive abruptly popped open. Spiders. They were pouring out of the disk drive! He slammed the desk chair against the system unit again and again. And then the spiders vanished.

Jett stood there, panting, and drenched in sweat. The computer chair clattered to the ground. The evil computer had been vanquished.

Clack!

"No, no, no, no, no!" This can't be real! This has to be fake!"

And then suddenly the spiders were swarming him from all directions. They covered the walls, the floor, the bed, the ruined computer, everything! And then everything faded to black and he passed out.

Jett awoke several hours later in a daze. He sat up, and looked around, fearful that the spiders would be there, but they were gone. The room was filled with nothing but the things that were supposed to be there. Somehow, the computer, the monitor, and everything was perfectly fine.

But Jett remembered hitting it with the computer chair. That was very strange. He realized that a soft light flooded the room. It must be morning. So he assumed that it was all a dream. And then-

Clack!

Spiders (A Short Story)

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