The spider hissed furiously at me, waving forelegs in an aggressive manner. But as I got myself back to my feet, it still wasn’t charging again. It had chased me off, but then stopped. Why? If it had attacked while I was down, it could have maybe made short work of me. Wounded as I was, I didn’t feel able to put up much of a fight, especially without the sword.

But the creature didn’t know I’d lost my best weapon. It didn’t seem to recognize the relevance of the sword laying there on the cave floor. All it saw was a person who’d killed a whole bunch of its little spider buddies. Maybe it saw me as a threat?

Testing the theory, I slashed out with the obsidian shard, making wild cuts through the air in the direction of the spider. “Back off! Rawr!”

It reared back, waving its legs even more. Definitely got a cautious vibe from it. The entrance was behind me, so I took a careful step back. The spider didn’t move. I took another step, and then a third, closing the distance between me and the passage out.

But before I could get any closer to escaping, the creature blurred into motion. It scurried across the floor to the cave wall, climbed rapidly up the wall, and then came at me across the ceiling! I dove sideways, and the spider came down directly in front of the way out. Clearly, it wasn’t interested in letting me go.

“Bad move, spider,” I told the thing. I rose from my roll, coming back to my feet with more grace than I’d expected to have, tired as I was. Then I raced across the cave toward the sword. I scooped the weapon up, swapping the dagger to my left hand so I could carry the sword in my right.

I whirled in place, raising both weapons in a guard. The spider was moving too. It was already almost on top of me! I slashed down with the sword, severing one of the spider’s pedipalps. It screeched in a high-pitched sound like a hundred nails running down chalk boards, but it kept coming. I ducked down as it came up to me, slipping under its bulk. The spider couldn’t slow its charge enough and ended up directly above me.

Before I could take advantage of the situation, the spider’s hindquarters spat out a burst of web. It slapped against the cave floor and my leg, pinning me in place. One of the spider’s legs stabbed down, barely missing my belly. Another darted down and cut into my already wounded leg.

I gritted my teeth to keep from crying out and stabbed upward with the sword for all I was worth. The rusty blade punched through the spider’s carapace, stabbing deep into its belly. A rush of fluids poured down the blade and my arm.

The spider screeched again and turned in place, the movement jerking its body around with such force that the sword wound turned from a puncture into a two-foot slash. More spider guts dumped out of its body, briefly blinding me. I dropped the knife and wiped at my face wildly, trying to clear my vision. Bad enough to be stuck beneath a monstrous spider, but not being able to see the creature was much worse!

I cleared my vision just in time to see the spider’s black eyes glaring down at me. The sword was somehow still in my hand, and I stabbed out toward those eyes. The tip bit deep into the spider’s head, but it took the wound. Already dying, the creature impaled itself still further on the blade, using its mass to push itself forward, driving the sword deeper into the wound. And its fangs closer to my arm.

Before I could stop it, the spider’s fangs bit down hard on my right arm. As the creature died, it pumped venom into me. I staggered backward, feeling the slow spread of the spider’s venom killing me by inches. The fire burning through my veins was excruciating I yanked my arm back and curled my body around it. I was dimly aware that the spider was dead, that I’d managed to kill the thing at least. But I felt fairly sure it had done for me as well.

 Any doubts I’d had about whether or not this whole mess was real were long since gone. Nothing imaginary could possibly hurt this much.

The knife was just within reach. I forced myself up into a sitting position, set the sword down beside me, and grabbed the obsidian shard in my left hand. I brought the sharp edge closer to the swelling mass that was my right forearm. The skin bulged where the spider had bitten me, and there was a growing purple spot in the center of the wound.

“That can’t be good,” I muttered.

I was weakening. Running out of time. Steeling myself, I sliced into the spot where the spider’s fangs had sunk into my flesh, drawing a cut in a thin line between the two puncture wounds. I cried out in pain as the volcanic glass sliced me.

Blood and nastier fluids poured from the wound, easing the swelling around the injury. It made the cut hurt like hell, but the relief I felt immediately after was incredible. Now if I was lucky, enough of the poison would bleed out of the wound to keep me alive. No guarantees on that score, though.

I leaned back and my left hand bumped the giant spider’s corpse. It vanished into mist like the others, and I saw a sparkling pile of crystals on the ground where it had been. Not that some rocks were going to do me much good at this point. I needed something to counteract this venom, not gems!

I winced, wondering if I could loot the other large spiders I’d slain inside the cave, but I lacked even the strength to rise.

“Damn it,” I gasped out. The poison was still ticking away, and I had no idea how long it was going to keep going. “Is this thing going to kill me even after it’s already dead?”

What a stupid way to go, killed off by a giant spider. This sucked.

I lay back down, the cave floor cool against my burning arm. The venom coursing through my system was spiking my body temperature as I tried to fight it off. I didn’t think my kidneys or liver or whatever were going to be up to the task. Every tick of the poison’s damage weakened me further. Blackness swirled in from the edges of my vision.

Then I heard the faint call of a stranger’s voice from somewhere. Not too close, but not far away either. “Someone’s come this way, look. Footprints.”

Another person? Maybe they could save me. I opened my mouth to call out, but only air escaped. Was I already too weak to even call for assistance? No! I wouldn’t let myself die that easily. Not while there was even the smallest chance I could get help. I’d never given up before, and I wasn’t about to start now. I summoned all the air I could breathe in without coughing, licked my lips to wet them, and then forcefully expelled the air to shout out one word as loud as I could.

“Help!”

It came out as more of a croak than a yell, and I lacked enough strength to try again. I waited a few moments, trying to gather whatever bits of energy remained to try one more time.

But I felt done in. I couldn’t even gather the energy to inhale again. Sparks of light drifted in front of my vision and darkness swirled in from the edges.

“Here he is! I knew I heard someone,” the stranger’s voice called, this time from much closer. “Tania, get in here. He needs healing fast or he’s a goner.”

There was a shuffling next to my side as someone came up close and knelt beside me. Then a yellow light took over my vision, obscuring pretty much everything else. My wounds began to feel better almost immediately.

“Hang in there, buddy. You’re gonna be OK. Looks like you’re one hell of a fighter,” the stranger beside me said.

Those were the last words I heard before I faded off into unconsciousness.