The shock from the attack continued for a long time after it had ended. Even 3ish hours after the bird’s sudden appearance, people were still searching the skies, checking whether it was still clear. Luckily, the clouds had parted a long time ago.

If people had barely been talking before, there wasn’t a single person now. It wasn’t just that someone had died, but that it was done in an instant. There were only a couple of seconds for warning before she had been plucked off the ground. 

I was left similarly on edge, but the spider was always pretty good at distracting me.

The spider herself was also surprisingly still affected by the attack which could be felt in her mood. But not enough to halt her questioning.

*Why make guns though? I thought that before ‘that room’ humans didn’t have any enemies?* 

“Well, though we didn’t have ‘predators’, other humans could be a threat,” I answered

*Oh, so is this just a special case?* she guessed, referring to the group.

“No, well, erh.” I had to give myself a second to formulate myself, “People fight all the time, but usually as large groups, and more so over stuff like land or materials for building the ‘strength’” She stayed silent for a while, leaving only the sound of crunching gravel from under her feet, which masking the sound from mine.

*do you think I could talk to that other other huma-, Eric?*

‘Hearing’ a name from her confused me, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. 

“Honestly don’t know,” I stopped addressing her, and turned towards Eric, who once again, had been nearly entirely silent, “Eric? I know it's a weird question, but do you want to speak to the spider?”.

He doubletaked at the peculiar question. I would be just as put off if I had been asked that.

“Do... does it want to talk to me?” he asked. After answering “yes” he asked the follow-up question “And how? You haven’t said anything about a skill soo?”.

“No. I would need to repeat everything, so it would be a bit awkward,”

I was surprised at how he wasn’t apprehensive towards the idea, more so, he seemed genuinely interested. 

*So does… Eric wants to talk?* she couldn’t understand English, so the only thing she could understand was my feelings, which obviously aren’t enough to get a proper picture of any conversation. 

“Would you humour her? She’s very impatient,” I asked Eric and took- she took offence. Apparently, I had broadcasted that to her as well.

*Hey, Why would you say that? Hey!* 

Taking a deep breath in, Eric eventually exclaimed “Eh, Fuck it, why not?”

Getting verification, I returned that to her “he said ‘Fuck it, why not’” After saying that, I realised how that might sound when ‘translated’ to however she understands me ‘speaking’.

But that luckily didn’t seem to be the case. 

After I repeated that, Eric muttered “This is going to be painful”. 

*why don’t you repeat what he said?*.

“It wasn’t directed towards anyone,” 

 

*didn’t you say talking to yourself was weird?” she asked, but decided to ask that later. “Well, I heard that people usually do jobs, Like my human figures out how the world works. What did you do?* 

It took a bit of regearing in my brain to acknowledge that it wasn’t directed towards me, but I finally got there. Rewording it to English also took time, since I needed to find a way to add the supplementing emotions. 

“Yep, This is going to be a fucking mess,” he muttered, chuckling a bit, “well, I er, supported people in obtaining possessions,” 

I repeated what he said to her, who immediately understood the sarcasm and asked honestly *what are you making fun of?* 

I repeated what she said, trying to be expressive to convey her emotions.

Eric gave me an odd glance, but did respond “It's, erm, like a, your description of. My god this is hard. Your description was… dramatic, I guess.” then addressing me asked, “It understand sarcasm?”. 

I chalked it up to that when I relayed something she would ‘hear’ it as what I understood the original message to mean.

Though I didn’t think it was enough of an explanation, he didn’t ask more about it.

*Hello?*

“Oh, sorry, right” I was reminded there was something else I was doing.

So I repeated what he said.

*Dramatic, oh, but?  Ah, okay, that makes sense,*

*so what did you do?*

Taking a second to put words to it, I repeated to Eric.

“I just stood at a register, eh, in shops?” he flailed his arm around at me, probably asking if he explained properly. I waved off his concerns. 

“If she doesn’t know or understand, I can just explain it,” before repeating what he said.

 

*so making sure that nothing was taken without money?*

“...Yes”

*so you had used one of those ‘gun’  things if they tried to steal?*

“No, no, the most we’d do is tell them to stop, or call the police,”

*So you just had to trust people not to steal then?*

They continued to have this slow conversation. It was slow since I needed to translate everything the spider said. 

“Can I ask you a question? Since you’re a spider, is there… do you, You are a spider, right? So do you care about the smaller spiders?”

*No? Well I fought a spider before the ants attacked, I didn’t have any ‘familial bond’, It was like fighting anything else*

He pondered on that for a while and eventually found something to latch onto, “wait, there were other spider monsters?”

 

*When that happens, I just-

….

…

“Realy? So you need to-”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore,” I interrupted his sentence, “my head I going to explode,”.

Eric nodded slightly, but then shook his head, “Your head? I could get if you were getting bored but, you have literally just been repeating what We’ve  been saying?!”

“No, It's more like, I’ve been translating the text of a poem from thirteen hundred that describes what colours look like for 40 minutes, while instead of on paper, It's being lasered into my brain by an enormous bug!” my tone had started calm, but only grew louder.  

“My brain is completely fried,” we walked for a while in silence for a bit, but Eric just had to add on.

“She’s an arachnid, not a spider,” knowing exactly what he was doing.

I creased my brow with my hands and groaned “They’re the same fucking thing,”.

“No, they’re not, I thought the one who ‘Figruers out the mysteries of the universe would know that;” He was obviously joking around, but that didn’t stop me from getting riled up

“What’s the difference huh? There is none, it's just some people who wanted to be special, so they said ‘Oh no, it's not a bug, it’s an arachnid,’ and people just decided to go along with it,”

*what?* 

Apparently, I had ‘said’ that the her as well, so sort of needing to, I explained, “It’s just, spiders aren’t ‘Technically’ bugs, they arachnids, which Eric found sooo needed to mention,”

While I was being a bit antsy, It was all in good fun… mostly.

…

…

…

It was now early in the morning. We had stopped moving at night because, even though we knew the town wasn’t that far off, we didn’t have anything to light our path. So now it being light, we could continue to walk. It only took 2 hours before we found the first remnant of civilisation since the ransacked petrol station. It was a house somewhat close to the road. Some of us checked it out, and the sight made me uncomfortable. It was like all the other houses in the other city, broken down doors, smashed windows, and empty of any life. There were signs of a fight, like old blood by a bed, and a chair that was bashed in, but no bodies.

I grew unsure of the decision to go here. Who’s to say this town isn’t in the exact same position as the other one? 

Noticing my uncertainty, the spider started to talk *I don’t think there is anything in there. That wasn’t it? What is it then?*.

“I’m just not sure about going here is all,” I said, trying to keep my voice down. 

But I wasn’t quite enough, since one of the people searching the house with me walked into the room asking “Who are you talking to?”.

I replied “The spider,” oblivious to how ridiculous that sounded

He knotted his brows and opened his mouth, closed it and just left. 

*didn’t you say people thought you talking to ‘The Spider’ was weird*

“Yeah, but I’m so used to talking to you that it doesn’t seem to-” I cut myself off, something caught me off guard “How did you know I was replying to someone?”

*It was pretty obvious, you were talking to me, got a little surprised, then said something that only makes sense as a reply, and since I didn’t ask a question and it wasn’t even directed at me, you were answering someone else.*

It still impressed me how she could figure that out.

After we finished scouting the building, Dave told John what we had seen.

“Do you think we should turn back?” someone asked, thinking the same thing as me.

John, without hesitating, replied, “It might be safer in the short run, but we wouldn’t last too long continuously walking around. It’s safer to take the chance here than aimlessly wander out there. Especially if there are more unknowns like the bird monsters out there, we need to have a cover.,”

Though his words seemed to calm their nerves, I was still left with uncertainty.

*Well, if something comes up, I’ll just kill it* she tried to practice joking, but was still a little lost, so it seemed more like a ‘console’. Though I guess that was what the ‘joke’ was supposed to do anyway.

“It’s-” I cut myself off before drawing attention I drew any attention, I was still ‘talking to myself’.

*Could you please stop getting so uncomfortable, it really messes with me*

Like I’m supposed to just not feel things? 

John addressed some other people's worries, largely just by saying the same thing, before we moved on our trek.

The place was what I expected from a rural town, a couple of houses jotted some distance away from the road, which grew more condensed as we reached the centre. Since there were so few trees, It was pretty easy to see the centre before we got too close. We then slowed to a stop.

“Ok, group B1, B2 and B3  group, come here.” 

The B1, B2 and B3 groups were the ones made before, with me and Eric being B2. We walked towards him, while I told the spider what he had said.

When we were all there he told us what he wanted

“Check the road ahead and make sure that there isn’t anything there, report back to me after scouting up to the town centre,” addressing all of us. 

“You two-” nodding towards Dave and Alexander “-take the space left of the road,” and after they acknowledged him, turned to Eric and me “You two take the right side.” and then finally to Brandon’s group “and you guys take the road itself.”

“When you reach the centre, turn back on yourselves, back to here. Try making it back in an hour. And obviously, don’t engage a large group”

*he’s going to ask me to stay here* she guessed after I muttered his warning.

“Dan, if something happens to you, do you know what the spider will do?”

I knew the answer obviously, there wasn’t a world in which I would assume she’d do anything, but just to calm his nerves I asked her. “What would you do if I died?”

She, like she somehow always does, understood why I was asking and said *obviously, I’d eat everyone?*

It was closer to a joke, I guess?

“She wouldn’t hurt anyone if that's what you're asking,”

He didn’t seem completely convinced but decided to leave it at that. 

“Well, could you make it stay here?” he said.

“You were right,” I told her, getting a smugness in response, and also got conformation, “She’ll stay here,”

 

After all preparations were made, our groups spread out to the areas given. 

We moved through everything relatively quickly, but finding the way around was a bit difficult. Unlike the suburban area in the other city, this place was made of more winding roads, meaning we had to double back on ourselves to check everything. It wasn’t as if we needed to be very thorough, the thought being that if there was anything that would be dangerous, it would be somewhat apparent. Eric's sensing ability was the final failsafe. That was uncertain though, since we have clearly seen that all ‘monsters’ don’t follow the same rules of ‘attack at any moment’. But in the end, even if something that we hadn’t noticed during our scouting lept out of the shadows, the spider would be able to deal with it.

Outside of the thought of hidden assassin monsters, the lacking signs of people were here was getting to me. 

I obviously didn’t like seeing corpses by any means, but the fact there was nothing only meant something had removed them. 

“What do you think about the lack of bodies?” I just wanted him to disagree.

“As long as I don’t need to see-” he stopped to rethink, “I’m glad”

I did agree with that. Even if there was something more ominous, I didn’t want to see any more decomposing or half-eaten bodies, and the general lack of smell was also a heaven-send. 

It wasn’t as if there weren’t any signs that people had been here., there were plenty. Like the standard car crash. 

That thought actually led me to something. 

“Hey, can you come here,” I asked, jogging to a car that had crashed into a tree. No bodies in there, but there was smeared blood, similar to a lot of other scenes, but my focus was on the door. It hadn’t been opened by the handle or smashed inwards. It had been pried open. 

“A person opened it,” I said, pointing towards the indent on the car door.

He seemed to realise what I meant because he took a step back in surprise.

“There’s something here,” 

Apparently, I had misunderstood. “where?” I whispered, in case this ‘something’ was close.

“Somewhere down the road… in one of the left buildings I think,”

The sensing skill he had, had leveled up, so he was able to sense possible danger from further away. It was still a bit iffy and didn’t always warn him, but It was better.

We crept down the road, both keeping an eye out around us. I would send looks towards him, to see if he had ‘felt’ something.

*Are you ok?*

She had been ‘talking’ even after we went out but had quieted down after a bit. 

She must have noticed my change in mood.

“Yeah,” I whispered under my breath.

As we passed a thin bookshop, he pointed in the direction, signalling that ‘it’ was in there.

The front door had been broken down, and broken glass lay sprawled on the floor.

As we walked closer to the building, we heard a slight shuffle.

We continued to walk in, stepping around the glass to not alert ‘it’ of our presence. We both walked together along one of the 3 aisles, me taking the front. The shop was much larger than the outside presented, it just continued and continued.

We eventually reached the end of the aisle, opening us to an unexpected sight. There was a woman standing by a bookshelf, trying to pick out something. Before we got the chance to say anything, Eric stepped on something which made a loud snapping sound.

The woman immediately spun around, and I noticed the silver-gold battle-axe she was holding. She didn’t hesitate at all and sprinted towards us with a violently angry expression while swinging the axe towards me. 

My body's immediate reaction was to push forward and attack. But I held that back. I wasn’t going to attack someone. 

But focusing on that delayed my dodge backwards.

The axe didn’t reach my shoulder, where it was aimed, but did leave a gash down my forearm. 

It hurt like hell, and blood poured out like a fountain. But I couldn’t let down my guard. 

‘How do I handle this’.

I didn’t need to think long though, as the angry expression on the woman's face evaporated, turning instead into concern, and she dropped go of the axe.

“Fuck, Oh my go- So Sorry!”