s h e l o b // andy + macromantula [day 2]

This thing is absolutely hideous. It’s so much bigger than me so it only emphasizes the long, lanky legs, the thin hair on its body, and the grotesque shape of its eyes. Its outline in the fog is something I would have only pictured to come out of a horror novel (but I tended to avoid those because my imagination always took those monsters way out of proportion and scared me at night), a living and breathing reminder that dark things do lurk in the shadows.

I stagger back after attacking the cretin, slightly satisfied with the stab I managed to give it in its back. So far so good, but the thing is nowhere near dead. I don’t need to understand body language to know that I’ve angered the spider in some way; it moves its pinchers, eyeing me like it was doing earlier but this time with much, much more malicious intent. Do these things purposefully have a taste for human flesh? I grip my sword tighter, taking a few shaky steps backward and running into a few strands of web, but it does not stop me. My full attention is on the spider, watching its every move and trying to anticipate its actions in order to protect myself.

The spider lunges, striking out at me. Unfortunately I’m too slow to react: its fangs graze my thigh, leaving a shallow mark. I jerk back out of both shock and fear. The bite itself hardly hurts at all – it’s the microscopic things that terrify me.

Spiders are poisonous, that I know for a fact. Is this mutt poisonous? A good portion of me wants to examine the scrape and search for the signs of poisoning but the looming threat of another attack shoots the other one right out of the water.

My leg is trembling. I raise the sword again, eyes locking onto the hairy cretin. It shouldn’t be that hard to take down, right? Ignore the poison and worry about that once you kill the damn thing. I set my jaw tightly, sucking in air quickly before lunging out once again at the thing.

[attacks spider – gladius (sword)]
[dice=200+1000]
Miss -- 0.0

Sweat plastered the red hair to his face; his lungs expanded and retracted, eagerly pulling in as much air as the two vessels could hold in order to keep his muscles functioning at full capacity. The pain put a hinder on his movements, though; his arms were beginning to feel like lead and his legs were shaking. Fear also paralyzed him – despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins he felt completely rooted to the ground through his feet, unable to flee due to the horrific creature before him.

Wide amber eyes stared up at the arachnid. This thing has a conscience – it can anticipate my movements. No spider he had ever come across was able to almost predict where he would stomp on it, but this mammoth one made him think that it was almost human in terms of reactions. It’s a mutt of course. Mutts always seemed to have some element of a human-like conscience in order to ruthlessly slaughter any and all tributes and not just attack other mutts. That was always terrifying to Andy: the mutts only ever sought out human blood and flesh.

Andy took a step back, quickly shifting his weight when pain suddenly erupted from his thigh. A short whimper escaped him and he cast his gaze down, trying to see through the slashed armor in order to determine how bad the cut was. Dark blood was already seeping through the cracks and a strange numbness started to surround the afflicted area, causing worry to show on his face. When he looked up the worry became much more evident.

The spider was in the process of climbing up a tree, hoisting itself up much higher than Andy was tall. He shakily gripped his sword tighter, backing up once again and raising the weapon as if it’ll protect him more. He breathed heavily, swallowing hard against the lump in his throat, fighting back a terrified scream. His thoughts trailed back to the walkie-talkie in his backpack – where are my allies? More fear mounted itself in his core once he realized he was alone. Terribly alone in this hellhole with not a single other soul. He so desperately wanted to reach back and grab the walkie-talkie and find the location of his allies (and better yet see if they’re still alive) but that would mean he had to lower his sword, which at this point he knew would cost him his life. Don’t let go of the sword for anything.

The spider turned toward him, using its legs to pull silk out from itself. A surge of icy panic filled Andy as thoughts raced through his mind: spiders usually wrapped up their prey in order to make it easier to kill them so is that what it’s going to do to me? The spider twirls and twirls it and then strikes out suddenly; Andy reacted as best his numb and wounded legs would allow him but a sharp pain hits his calf, causing him to yelp. Andy lurched to the side, thrusting out his hand to catch his balance, dropping down slightly to come to a stop. He then grit his teeth, steeling his weak will against the pain and forced his limbs to move, darting forward and swinging his blood-laced sword at the cretin.

[attacks Greta the greedy – gladius (sword)]
[dice=200+1000]
Miss -- 0.0

The ginger muttered swears under his breath, ashamed at himself for missing so much. His hand continued to tremble, though, giving an excuse to as to why he was doing so badly. I can’t keep doing this by myself. The exhaustion was wearing him down and the lack of sleep was mischievous to his eyes, playing tricks and lacking in the area of tracking. Though the white fog surrounded him, the spider appeared to almost blend into its surroundings. The silk for sure blended in, only every now and then giving a few shiny reflections whenever the spider put weight on it. The creature’s whip was also shining, silky surface reflecting what little sun was able to seep through the dense fog; it terrified Andy, seeing the arachnid using the silk as a whip in a very unnaturally professional way. The wound inflicted upon his leg stung with a white-hot intensity and caused him to be unable to bear very much weight on it, giving him another reason to be upset over his lack of landed attacks. I can’t stop here. I need to see Deimos and Yaa and Mik again, I need to prove to everyone that I’m better than that damn low training score. I’ve already killed a human being, what’s a mutt then?

The spider moves again, lashing out again with the whip. Andy tried to dodge, jumping back but still feeling a full-force blow on his armored vest. It knocked him back a step or two before he caught himself, replacing the fear in his core with sudden burning anger. Why couldn’t he land an attack on this spider? Why was he suddenly failing at the one thing that saved his skin during the first few hours of the 64th Games? He mustered up his dwindling strength and struck out again.

[attacks Greta the greedy – gladius (sword)]
[dice=200+1000]
Deep Gash on Right Calf -- 8.0

Relief flooded through Andy as he landed a deep gash on the cretin’s leg. He took the moment to drop the sword and reach back, plucking the walkie-talkie off of where he had it attached. His shaking fingers fumbled with the buttons and he struggled to keep it in place for very long, anxiety causing him to try keeping an eye on both the spider and the machine at the same time. His finger pressed down on the large button on the side and he raised it to his mouth, fear obvious in his voice as he yelled into the walkie-talkie. ”Yaa! Mik! Deimos!”

He stared hopelessly at the walkie-talkie, willing any one of them to answer. Silent seconds dragged by until he shook the object a little, pleading under his breath for any wisp of a reply. The static continued, crackling almost in a mocking way at him; he focused his entire attention on the walkie-talkie, the threat of the spider moving to the back of his mind until he heard a very unnatural shriek.

Andy’s focus snapped up, wide fearful eyes looking off past the forest of webs. There was nothing else out there that he could see. What the hell was that? The fog covered up any being that could have made that noise and it left a nauseating anxiety in his belly. Are there more spiders out there?

A sharp pain on his arm cause him to drop the walkie-talkie. Another yelp escaped the boy and he jerked his arm back, quickly grabbing for his sword. The walkie-talkie wasn’t going to go anywhere anytime soon so for the moment that was the least of his worries. The spider hissed and started moving faster and it terrified Andy. This fight had drawn on for far too long – am I even capable of taking this thing down? Clearly it had the advantage, staying up in the tree where he could hardly reach it, but Andy refused to remain here alone any longer. Kill this spider and return to his allies, that was all he wanted.

[attacks Greta the greedy – gladius (sword)]
[dice=200+1000]
Shallow Cut on Left Shoulder -- 3.5

filler #2 cause andy needs to get his act together

[attacks Greta the greedy – gladius (sword)]
[dice=200+1000]
Shallow Cut on Right Shoulder -- 3.5