A Dream of Many Legs

[Catche Jagger]

Sapphire was at home, laying in bed, alone.

The bedroom was a soothing place for her, though the primarily blue color scheme of the whole place had rubbed her the wrong way in the past. It was in times of dread and fear, like now, where the whole world could melt away against the calm, bastion.

But why was now a time to fear? She couldn’t recall… Papa?

The girl rushed from her bed and downstairs, only to find Nana waiting for her in the kitchen standing before the sink, a kindly smile on her face. Sapphire opened her mouth to speak, but her grandmother preempted her.

“Oh no need to worry dear, Papa is doing fine. He’s just resting a bit.” Her tone was kind and gentle, but there was something else to it, something masked. Then, the smile faded from Nana’s face, only to be replaced by one of deep concern.

“Dear, what’s that on your face there, just next to your nose?”

Confused, the girl reached up to touch her face only to feel a raised lump of flesh at the right of her nose, which felt akin to a massive whitehead. It sent a rush of pain across her face as she touched it.

Her hand shook. Where could that have come from…?

Did it just develop? With all the stress lately, something like this shouldn’t surprise her that she might see a surge in acne, but something like this seemed ridiculous. Still, Papa was healthy and she could just deal with this business.

“Sapphire… It just moved.” Nana’s voice shook as she spoke.

What? She hadn’t felt anything. Were Nana’s eyes playing tricks on her…?

The girl carefully touched the pimple once more, placing her fingertips against the irritated skin.

She felt her skin kick back against her.

In a panic, Sapphire, ran out of the kitchen and into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. She could hear the muffled calls of her grandmother as she gazed into the mirror in horror at what she beheld.

The raised, irritated part of her skin was a red, quivering mass, nearly the size of a fingernail, and seemed ready to rip free from her face.

Hand trembling, she decided to touch the inflamed area one last time, now morbidly curious as to how this thing would react.

“Sapphire! What are you doing in there?” She heard her grandmother call from outside. The girl would answer, but she needed to check this thing first.

At her touch, the mass burst open, releasing blood and puss, but also some sort of black substance that she couldn’t initially identify.

Then she felt the hordes of little feelers and feet rush across the skin of her face, starting at the new wound and spreading outwards across her face in all directions. It was only then that she realized that she was seeing hundreds of newborn spiders.

Sapphire started to scream, only for the tiny creatures to begin to crawl into her mouth. She began to cough and sputter as she felt their legs crawl across her tongue, the roof, the insides of her cheeks.

By the time her hands reached her face, they were already in her eyes though she desperately tried to swat and blink them away.

At some point, her feet left the ground and she found herself falling down… down… down… A single phrase echoing in her mind.

“Survival of the Fittest”

~~~

Sapphire’s eyes shot open and she instinctive brushed away at her face, her arms, her legs. It had been a dream, a nightmare that the girl had escaped only to awaken to another, one she couldn’t simply wake up from.

After managing to catch her breath, the girl could not help but feel sick to her stomach as she remembered how she’d gotten here, and what had happened to her classmates and teachers

((G078 - Sapphire Waters: START))

She found herself beside a calm lake filled with clear blue water by the waterfall she could also see in the distance. The area was beautiful, or at least she would have thought so if it wasn’t the site of some twisted experiment. Now, the calm was simply eerie, unsettling.

Beside her, she managed to find two bags, one a backpack and one a duffel, alongside some sort of ornamented spear. She knew that these things were all she had now to survive here.

As she rose to a squatting position and began to examine the supplies she’d been given, she wanted so badly to just cry, to give up and just implode on the spot. But Papa had always told her that if something horrible happened to her, an accident or somebody tried something, it was important that she keep her head on straight.

“Nothing’ll protect you better than a focused mind.”

Sapphire took a deep, shaky breath and tried to wipe the developing tears from her eyes. The girl could try to keep it together, but she still didn’t know where to go from here. So, she’d find somebody else who did.

Just throwing people on an island and threatening them was not enough to destroy the human decency she’d seen in her peers. Most of them would just want to get together and figure out their next move, right? Unless they were secretly crazy all along.

Gathering up the things she’d been given, pack on her back, duffel in one hand, weapon in the other, Sapphire set off into the unknown, unsure of what she might find.

((Sapphire Waters continued in Something Better))