I Was the Fly

It started out as just a normal day. I lugged my backpack over my shoulders, wincing as it faithfully dug into my shoulders in the usual rutted pathway. My sister, Clara, lay on the couch, her fists balled up with tissues, her face strongly sustaining its pallid luster, reminiscent of the burnished silver of the moon. I stared down at her enviously. She was sick, she said, and got to stay home from school, while I had to drag my feet to the subway, desperately sucking on a smoothie straw, and stand motionless as the sleek grey train soared along the tracks. I have always hated the subway. They smell like cigarette butts and there is always gum underneath the hard, stiff seats. I usually grab hold of one of the round, sticky poles and jam my earbuds into my ear to block out other people's conversations. Clara loves the subway. She says she feels like she is in some mystery novel as she flies down the underground track. I trudged out of our apartment without looking back at her. She was laughing at something on TV. I dragged my fingers down the side of our building as I stomped along the pavement. Mrs. Rossi was walking her dog, Jingles, down the sidewalk, hobbling along. She nodded her head at me and continued on her way. I reached the corner of the street. And that's when the crazy thing happened. Something crashed into me from above. I screamed as I hurtled toward the pavement. A muffled yelp followed my own groan. I stood up, wobbly kneed and confused. Standing in front of me was . . . well . . . I didn't know what to call it. She had the head of a girl. A human girl. Her eyes shined like black stars, and her hair, a rich chestnut brown, fell in clumps in front of her face, a curtain shielding her from the merciless eyes of the outside world. She was trembling like something was wrong. I gulped and glanced down at her body. Thousands of stiff, bristled black hairs clung like moss to a round spider-like body part. Eight spindly legs branched out of the massive black sphere shape, four on each side, like barbed wire. She had red spots all over it, just like a black widow spider.  "What – I mean – w-who are y-you?" I stammered. She glanced up at me, as if I had just pulled her out of a sickening thought. She gathered up some silky silver strands of . . . rope?  "I am Arania. I – I didn't mean to frighten you. Humans are so . . . easy to scare. You mustn’t tell anyone that you saw me; Mother will be awful mad, and my siblings will tease me to death. Ugh, I'm such a clutz! I might as well be a beetle!" She spoke in a strange accent, kind of old fashioned and slanted. She elongated her Os and As, so that when she said awful it sounded like awwwwful. I backed away, reaching behind me for my bag, which had been flattened to the ground. I gulped again. My hands trembled like mice cornered by a cat.  "Oh, you're scared, aren't you? Please don't be mad at me or tell any other humans. We are supposed to be a secret, you know. Please will you not tell a soul?" her voice trembled as she said this. She bit her lip and slammed her forehead with the palm of her hand.  "I suppose mother won’t let me have dinner tonight. Oh, I hope she lets me sleep in the web!" She gathered up some more of the sticky, silvery rope, and began weaving it into a beautiful, intricate pattern. She lifted into the air on a strand of her magical stuff, spider web, I suppose. It was the most graceful thing I had ever seen. She seemed to fly through the air as she hopped in and out, creating a massive spider web.  "Umm . . . not to be rude, but – what exactly are you?" I asked, aware that I probably sounded harsh, but I couldn't think of anything else to say. Arania suddenly looked eager. She lowered down to the ground, and bended low on her legs, curtsying. "I am an Arachnide. We are spider people, that's what. We were started off by Arachne, Queen of Spiders," she did a sort of salute as she uttered the name of her queen, "She planted a batch of eggs and came out our ancestors. I never have seen her, I can assure you, she has been deceased ever since wretched Athena the Evil One defeated her. She was growing more powerful, she was, and she was beginning to take over. Athena, who had cursed her in the first place, went and defeated her. She killed our queen, beautiful Arachne, and now we Arachnides seek revenge. We have been coming to the human world to gather weapons and strength, then we will attack." She finished with a grit of her teeth and a newly replenished gleam in her eyes. She returned to her weaving. "Um . . . well, maybe you should get out of here. I don't think the . . . human race will be very kind when they find out about you. How did you crash into me anyway?" Arania blushed, a deep shade of crimson. She bit her sharp fingernails, which were almost like claws. "Well, Mother said we could explore the city for war weapons, but to stay close to the nest. She may have said not to build a web up to the top of buildings, but it looked so beautiful up there on that city skyline, and I wanted to to get a good view, so I lifted myself up to it. I was careful to avoid human eyes, but then I lost my balance at the top. Arachnides are supposed to be stealthy, and we can conceal ourselves in star string, but I'm not particularly good at weaving it. I usually stick to web. I – I won't do it again! Please, please, please don't tell Mother!"  I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. It was just dawning on me that I might have been going insane. Was it really a brick that had hit my head, and this was all a hallucination? I didn't know. I just knew that Clara was having a much duller day than I was. Arania suddenly gasped. I felt a cold shadow falling over me. A strong hand with an iron grip clamped down on my shoulder. I was thrust to the side. I glanced to the left and saw the stairs that led down to the subway. If I left now, the day could become normal again. Maybe I could hit my head and forget about everything. The subway suddenly didn't seem as unappealing anymore. And yet, for some reason, I stayed. I felt a strange pull to Arania. She was different – in a nice kind of way. I stared up at the thing in front of me. She looked like Arania but bigger and scarier, and less human. Giant pincers jutted out of her chin like curved clifftops. Her hair was a faded ebony black that cascaded down her back in a waterfall of black-gold ripples. I stared down at her legs and felt my stomach churn. One of her legs, bigger versions of the ones that Arania had, was ripped out of its socket. A giant leaf was stuffed into the hole that it had left behind. Arania had her own legs curled backwards in shame as she stared in fright into the eight eyes that beaded the huge Arachinides forehead like glistening black drops of perspiration.   "You fly head! What have you done? I don't know what I will ever do with you! You've decided to stray from the web and introduce yourself to a human, have you?" the Arachnide yelled in a booming voice.  "I – I didn't mean to . . . I just wanted to get the view. It has ever so much more web room up there, and I can see so much further out! I can find weapons in all corners of the city! Mother, please don't bring me to the, “gulp,” Corrector," Arania trembled, trying desperately not to burst into tears. I took a step forward, curious to know what the Corrector was. The Mother Arachnide turned to me and sneered. She clenched her fists and lunged at me. "You dare speak to my daughter! To the Corrector she shall go, because of you! You will make good practice for battle, though, human!" she sneered scathingly. She had me pinned to the outer wall of a nearby brick building. I felt my hands go ice cold and fought the urge to scream in terror. She began to gather up more web in her leather skinned hands. She was wrapping me in web, snapping her pincers every time I tried to wriggle free. Then suddenly it happened. Arania hurled herself at her mother. She stabbed the sharp tips of her legs into her mother’s spideresque hide. I watched as her mother screamed in surprise and rage. I gasped. Arania was saving me.