you're a spider on the ceiling, and i'm nothing but a guy

Lucky saw men fall to their knees after a battle—a white flag of weakness, crumbling in defeat. He hated it as it happened, his knees buckling from the cuts compounding upon one another. Landing on his knees momentarily to look back up at Lionel was impossible. They locked immediately, and his head dove head-first into the warm earth like the cover of a book. The rest of him smoothed out like its pages.

Stop me, he begged mere moments ago. The words meshed with the taste of dirt brushing into his open mouth. Come on, stop me. And Lionel did.

"You are nothing. You are weak," he told Lucky, perhaps for the first time really did believe it. Mr. Ivan told him he had promise days ago as he cleaned the swimming pool. Was he lying, or did Lucky just let him and all of that promise go to waste?

His body fell limp on the ground, dying. Lucky groaned as Lionel inspected him, his voice falling silent into the crust beneath them. The mere touch of Lionel's hand made his face shiver while the boy pulled off his patch. With one last movement, his head rolled to its side, covering that side of his face from view. Letting the people see him as weak was one thing he would never allow.

Hate him, but never see him as weak.

The pain burgeoned him as the wings of Lionel's pet called him away. His fingers buried into the ground as his gasps for air grew more shapeless.

Mom. Dad. Mr. Ivan.

Rita. Xylia. Gunner.

Hal. Ines. Felicity.

Rhys. Xov. Lionel.

They crawl around him on eight legs each, weaving webs that shut his eye.

He was horrible to them, huh?

Lucky was just horrible.