The House of The Spyder

THE HOUSE OF THE SPYDER

Written by Donovan Santiago

 

The Clown laughed at the joke

The Creator typed away

The Spider drowned in the drain

The innocents suffered under the weight of the powerful

 

Dead is dead. But not if something had a plan for you. Loops of endless pain for the sins committed. Everything that happened was real. All sins must be paid in full. To be trapped in the border realms is a fate worse than death itself. This fate can be prevented, but not this time.

His eyes opened. He awoke with a ringing in his ears as his vision adjusted. Looking around, he was surrounded by darkness. He struggled to move; his arms and legs felt bound to something. It was silky. The Man managed to move his head back and forth, breaking the web behind him. To his left and right, he looked, then it hit him like a pile of bricks: he was trapped on a large spider’s web. 

The Man had no memory of how he got here. Then a deafening screech filled the void. Escape now and ask questions later was all he could think about. Moving around, he managed to break free and fall several feet below onto a sandy surface. Above him was a large network of glimmering silver webs that acted as a star chart for him. Bodies hung, decayed in various states, lower intestines dangled from above, leaking fluid, and bones littered the web.

He got a second to regain his composure, looking down at his outfit, he had jean shorts and a green button-up. His pockets were empty. 

The screech echoed through the environment once more. He really listened to it this time. It had elements of an insect and a human. The Man’s fight or flight sensation kicked into gear. No way was he going to sit down and invite whatever it was over for tea and biscuits. His only thought was who am I, and how did I end up here? Then, as he heard the scream again, he knew it was time to get the hell out of dodge.

Turning to his right, he spotted a small green light outside a dark, muddy cave entrance. He rushed over to the area, picking it up. For a second, he hesitated. Should he explore more of this area or just take this path? The headache was still clouding his judgment. Behind him, he heard something drop down into the sand. He could see the outline of it as it gave off a red silhouette.

It stared at him from the darkness. His limited vision was not doing him any favors. What he made out was a cobbled-together body. Turning to the cave, he started his crawl in the mud. It hissed at him. His brain pushed him to move forward. The cave quickly became smaller, and the mud soon covered his whole body.

The Creature cut his foot open. He turned and kicked it in the face while shining the light at it. He was at a loss for words; its face looked to be stitched together. Something out of a nightmare. Then he threw the green light at its face, causing it to grab its eye as it shrieked. He grabbed onto a tight rock in front of him and pulled himself further in. His energy had waned.

The Man stood up since he had more space. He could hear the Creature. It had crawled into the area with him. Without thinking. “Come on, you son of a bitch!” He put his fist up. Then, from the pitch blackness, he was sliced on his back, and the Creature hissed as if laughing. From the front, he was sliced again. The Creature roared at him. His eyes darted around, looking for an escape or the Creature.

Then, without notice, he fell down a black shaft, landing in a pool of red liquid. Hundreds of floating white eyes with red black pupils stared at him. The Man stared back, not knowing what to make of them. He thought they would attack him, but they just looked. He took a deep breath as he surfaced. The cuts had disappeared, the pain was gone. “Someone explain to me what the hell is going on!” Silence filled the space.

The eyes continued to view him, tracking him as he swam to an open area. The Creature made a clicking noise. But then the hole above him was gone. Replaced with a beautiful golden roof, covered in strange religious carvings. Then the space lit up with a warm golden glow. As he got up, he could see white statues that went on forever. They all resembled the Virgin Mary. This forever space shouldn’t exist.

 

“Hello! Is anyone around? I’m lost, please, someone help me!” His voice echoed. Next to his foot, a white fish grasped for air. He just looked down at it. Then he crushed it without a second thought. A dark glimmer glowed in his eyes. The Man rubbed his shoe to remove the remains from under his sole. “Filty creature.” He paused. “What? Why?” He had no explanation for why he did that, but it felt natural.  

 

 The statues all stared at him as if judging him for some of the sins of his past. His mind was still fractured. Any moral compass he had was gone. In this place, he did not yet know what was good and bad.  The Man was a stranger in a strange land. 

 

Then a chant started in the background. “Sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin.” It kept repeating.

Another voice shouted. “You killed them!”

 

He looked around in a state of confusion. “Stop it!” The statues continued to stare a hole into him.

 

Their mouths remained closed as new voices screamed. “You are a nobody!”

“Soon your body will be his.”

“Murderer!”

“Punished for your crimes!”

“You will be picked apart by the old Gods!”

The voices dug into his soul. Each of them drilled into his brain with an unbearable force.

 

The Man screamed as he failed to hold back the tears. The voices became louder. Then a beeping frequency started. Blood started to leak from his ears. “Stop it! I said stop it!” He got in the face of the statues as the voices filled his mind. He closed his eyes and thought of a way out. Then, in front of him, a red door appeared. Opening up his eyes, he rushed through the door without thinking.

He stepped through, a blinding white light flashed, and the door vanished. It was daylight, and he was outside. An endless field of black wheat stalks. The Man wiped the tears away and took a deep breath. The blood from his ears was gone. But this time the pain carried over. The pain in his ears felt permanent. Behind him was a large black wall; in front of him was a golden brick path. “This feels familiar.” Indeed, it was. But this wasn’t Oz. 

Nothing made sense about these spaces. How and why they were connected was a complete mystery.

The Man only had one way forward. Walking the path, he didn’t know if he should stray from it. The wheat stalks had to be over ten feet tall. Looking at them closer, he could see they had a black goo coating them; he didn’t touch them. Moving forward, he tried to remember who he was. But the only thing that popped up was a faint image of golden text that read Spyder. He didn’t understand why he spelled it like that. 

Perhaps he was a drug user; this could have been a bad trip. Maybe he had died, and this was his way of paying for his sins. 

He had flashes of certain memories, all of them blurry. A small figure looked up, a silver-shaped man, a skull being crushed, a sinister smile. 

As he continued his walk, he noticed the wheat stalks moving. But no wind flowed through the area. “Jeeze, what the hell is next?”

More silence followed. His long walk continued as the red sun beat down on him. The path looked to go on forever. Sitting down in the middle of the road, he started to hear a crunching.  It came from below, a small hole with a view of a room. Confused as to what he was looking at, he finally put two and two together.

 It was a fully nude Clown in a chair, eating a large piece of meat. The Clown sat on a golden throne in a tight room. He made eye contact with The Man and shouted. “Pervert!” The Clown closed a small steel peephole with his large, hairy arm. 

The Man sat up and kept walking. Not knowing what to make of the Clown. He thought it best not to question it. Behind him, he heard a rustling. He turned to see that the black stalks had taken over. The path behind him was no more. He turned again; this time, he was blocked at all angles. “God damn it!”

He attempted to run through, but his hand was cut open by a thorn on the stalk. “Son of a bitch!” as he grasped his bleeding hand. Then the stalks started to smother him as they moved closer. He tried to climb up, but he kept cutting himself. Black goo from the stalks grabbed at him; each time he moved, he was cut. His screams were muffled as the stalks started to cover his mouth. 

The pain reigned through his body. It felt like a nightmare to move. The sound was muted.

He closed his eyes. The Man hoped to dream up another escape route. Another door, a hole, a flying eagle perhaps.

 

 Then the smothering stopped. The sound slowed its way in. He was not ready for his eyes to open, then he heard a drumming. Opening them up slowly, he now had scars all over his body. His clothes were torn, no pain for now. He now found himself across from a large Gothic castle with a purple sky. A black bridge over a chasm was the only way in. He closed his eyes again. “I need to wake up! Come on! Wake the hell up!” He opened his eyes to see four dead people hanging from the castle entrance. Two adult women, one adult man, and a small girl. “What are you trying to tell me! I don’t know what I did to deserve this!”

 

A Troll walked out through the castle door, holding a hammer. Its dull green skin was a stark contrast to the castle behind it. Baby-faced flies the size of a small fridge flew around it, acting like leeches for the Troll. Out of their pores, a red slime seeped out. Humanoid spider creatures approached from behind the Troll. They made the same noise as the thing from the cave.

A voice whispered to The Man. “Enter the white door.” He turned to see a white wooden door. The Troll roared, all of them running towards him. His legs froze, unable to make a choice. It felt like he could be hurt, but he wouldn’t die. The Man needed a way out. The door was the only good choice. But would it lead to more suffering? Why were certain things temporary and others permanent? He entered the door.

A light flashed. He was now in a small, windowless, yellow-walled office. A typewriter clicked away. It was a pale man, wearing a white button-up and black slacks. His eyes filled with darkness as he typed on an older, grey computer with a small keyboard attached to the frame. The Man shouted at him. “Hey! You!”

The person typing stopped and turned his head in an unnatural way towards him. “I’ve got very important work to do.” He continued typing.

“Who are you?”

“The Creator.” 

“The what?”

He turned his head back to the keyboard as he typed. “You know what you heard. What you choose to do with that information is up to you.”

“You created this place?”

“This specific place? No, not this place. Elements, but this is a mixed plane.”

“Jesus, can you pretend I don’t know anything! I’ve got no memory of how I ended up here!”

“Hold your horses. I’m doing very important work. Do you know the meaning of that word? Actually, no need to respond. I know you don’t know.” He smirked.

 

The Man approached slowly to see what he was typing.

It read. -All work and no play makes The Creator a dull God.- 

 

It kept repeating. “That’s your work?”

The Creator stopped typing and swiveled his red chair towards him. Walking past him, he reached an old, small coffee machine. “Would you like a cup of Joe?” He coughed. “Excuse me, I detest that name.” Taking a deep breath in. “A cup of Ego?” He shook his head. “Get it together. No foreshadowing!”

“No, I don’t want a cup.”

“Suit yourself.” The Creator pushed a button to brew a cup of black coffee.

“Point me in the direction out of here.”

An arm came out of The Creator’s back and pointed behind The Man. “Do you see it?”

The Man turned to see a yellow hallway, unfazed by the strange third arm. “I see it.”

 

He turned around and was now face-to-face with The Creator. “Before you go, let me say this. There are things your small primate brain can not understand. I have committed my fair share of sins. But you are not one of them. You are also not one of my pet projects. That title belongs to David and the trucker guy. I should also check on Medah Warrior Tyson. I think he’s been underwater for too long. You angered someone or something. This could be a curse, or perhaps another God is having fun with you. Now this is the price you pay, an endless space.”

The Man shakes his head. “No one should ever have to pay this price.”

“Really? Did you know that in the past or future, I’m all lost with my timelines, but that’s not the point. Where was I? I have killed an infinite number of people for fun and as a test. I have tormented and taken control of good beings. I’m the worst thing in this God forsaken multiverse! Even the Devil bows to me! One day, I will be forced to pay for my sins! But who’s gonna stop me? I must sound like a madman rambling, but everyone pays the price! Do you understand me?” He manifested a checkbook in his other hand. Then he took a sip of his coffee. “Some like it hot.”

 

Silence, The Man raised a fist. “Maybe I will. I can beat the God out of you!” 

The Creator smiled. “Nonsense. I could erase you from the universe. Reduce you to an atom. I once turned a man into a puddle of goo. It would be fun to see you without any legs or arms. Take away your mouth? No way to die! No way to ascend to the gates of heaven or even hell!” The Creator pointed. “Go into that yellow hallway. Perhaps your journey will be over soon.” The Creator sat down and typed away. 

“I just want an escape!” The Creator paid him no mind.

 

The Man decided he had to keep going. He walked into the yellow hallway, turning around one last time, he saw the true face of The Creator, a deformed creature with multiple eyes and limbs. The door behind him closed. 

 

The Man walked in the strange yellow space. Faint classical music played from beyond. He still couldn’t figure it out. What had he done wrong? It was taking him too long to figure out. He had grown tired of moving from space to space. Nothing made sense to him. His brain had become warped. 

 

Reaching a small hole, he crawled into the tight space. His mind was on autopilot. Crawling through, it started to change into an old stone wall. Tired, he continued, seeing no end in sight. 

More time passed as he just laid down, staring up at the grey stones above him. It was too late for him to go back. He turned on his belly and continued. A bright flash of white light, his eyes adjusted as he reached an opening. He crawled out only to see the same yellow space. The hole behind him was gone. “I hate this place!” He shouted. “You hear me!” He punched the wall, breaking his hand in the process. “God damn it!”

Holding his bloody hand, he decided it was best to keep moving.

He walked for what felt like forever. His hand was healed. The Man’s beard had become thick and grey, while his face was now a skinny husk. His eyes glazed over. “Water, water.” He had become used to all the yellow. Finally, The Man fell to his knees and entered a fetal position. As he turned to his side, he spotted a black blade. Dark thoughts started to fill his mind. The Man grabbed the blade, his hand shook, his eyes closed as he plunged it into his chest. A feeling of nothingness overcame him. He opened his eyes to see the blade gone, and his chest was fine. He chuckled, then a full-on belly laugh.

 

As he laughed, messages appeared on the surrounding walls, written in a blue goo.

-You are not learning.-

-You have not repented.-

-You caused the death of millions.-

-You are a bad person.-

-Dan Spyder of Spyder Tech Industries. We find you unfit to return.-

 

The Man got up, studying these messages. Then he looked at the last message. “My God. I’m Dan Spyder!”

 

All of his memories rushed back to him. Dan was on a stage. Then he removed a white sheet, unveiling a robot that was a cross between a spider and a human. “The newest soldier bot! The Spyder Bots! The perfect killing machines! Send them to all those backwater planets so we can finally take what is ours!” Applause filled the area. “The Deoos Alliance has failed all of you! I won’t! Make the galaxy great again!” 

Another flash of Dan with a large slug creature. “Look, Vabba, you give me 50 million Vesos and I’ll supply all the weapons to get rid of your little homeless population. I’ve even got the new Spyder Bot 2.0. What do you say?” The two shake hands. Vabba turned away, and Dan shook the black goo off his hand. He hated this lower life form, but he was a greedy man.

 

A flash to the top of a castle on a beautiful medieval-like world. A Clown sat in a chair sipping a cup of tea. As he drank it, he fell to the ground, shaking and foaming at the mouth. Dan walked towards him from the darkness, laughing at him. “I didn’t care for your joke.” Two Spyder Bots appeared behind him. “Make sure this fat bastard disappears.” Dan had killed the wrong clown in a fit of rage. He had become a petty, inhuman monster. 

 

A grey starship bridge, with a view of a beautiful blue planet. A Woman in a white uniform. “Mr. Spyder, we can’t fire on the planet?” 

Dan turned to her.“Why the hell not?” The crew below worked on various computers and consoles.

“Three million innocents are still planetside.”

“I don’t care! They’ve had enough time to get off. This planet is now property of the Galactic Commerce Front.” Her finger trembled over the button. He grabbed her. “They paid us! Do you realize that? You are delaying the process! Move the hell over!” He pushed her away and then hit the blue button. A red beam fired from the spacecraft and turned the blue planet into a hellish landscape. Faint screams echoed through the spacecraft’s com system. Dan turned to the Woman. “If you ever get in my way again, I’ll make sure you don’t live to see your daughter’s third birthday.” He got in her face. “Do you understand me?” She nodded as everyone went back to work, their heads down in fear. 

Dan held a blaster rifle in a small room. His face was heavily scarred. A voice from the outside spoke. “This is Captain Ego of the Deoos Alliance, Dan Spyder. You are under arrest for your war crimes. Open up!” He paused. “Dan, you will face a fair trial. We will be sure of that.”

Dan shouted. “Fair trial, my ass. Let me tell you something, Captain Ego. How many sins have you committed? I know you’re not a perfect angel. You’re no shining man in white. Are you mad because we took matters into our own hands?”

“Last warning.”

“Last warning? Screw off! You’ll never put me on trial.”

“Do it now.” The door crashed open, and Dan fired his blaster, but was hit multiple times. Falling to the ground, Dan’s vision got blurry as soldiers rushed in. “Get some medical in here!” as Captain Ego stood over him.

 

Dan awoke on a hellish beach. As he laid, hands grabbed at him. He jumped up, looking at the cliffside behind him, which was full of ghoulish faces laughing at him. The hands continued to grab at him. Turning towards the water, he looked into the black sea. Spider creatures rose from the depths. They started to walk towards him in a formation.

 

Dan fell to his knees, and tears flowed from his face. He was living in a personal hell. In life, Dan was a ruthless person with no care for life. Money fueled his dark, evil soul. His heart had become a soulless organ. Dan allowed the killing of innocents. He kept on doing this; thus, this was his punishment. An endless space with no rhyme or reason.

 

The creatures approached. All of them looked down at him. Dan pleaded. “Please. I’ve learned my lesson. Release me from this space.” The creatures all clicked at each other. What followed was each of them slicing at him, spitting acid, and smothering him. He felt each cut. Dan cried out to them. “Stop! I can change! I can change!” The pain was too much. Dan blacked out.

 

Dan awoke, unable to blink. His eyes were stitched open, his limbs cut off. Acid burn marks littered what was left of his body. Dan was trapped in the spider web from earlier. He attempted a scream, but his tongue had been taken out. To the left of him was the naked Clown with a branding iron. The Clown smiled. “This is going to be a real joy for me. Getting to brand over your body slowly. Try not to move.” He looked at Dan’s limb stump. “Sorry, was that a poor joke?” He smiled. “Welcome to the house you built. The house of the Spyder.” He moved the branding iron to the side of the face as Dan blacked out.

 

The universe is a strange place. If you side with the darkness, you could end up in an eternal loop of pain and suffering. While on the other end, if you make the right deals with a certain man in white, perhaps things could be different. Dan was too far gone. He would have never escaped this hell space. But others, well, it is possible. For now, the house of the Spyder is still open for business. 

 

The End

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