Alex hated camping. Going out in the wilderness where all kinds of killer animals live did not sound like his idea of fun, his idea was more of a friendly sleepover inside where they were safe behind locked doors and windows.
With my luck, he thought, I’m either going to be eaten alive by a grizzly bear or contract some sort of disease from a mosquito. The only reason that he was going out into the forest in the first place was that his friend Marco, a self-professed nature nut, had bet that they would go on a camping trip if he won the next hand of poker. Sure enough, he won. Alex bristled at that memory and for a split second, he wondered if Marco had cheated, but he shook his head. “How could I think my best friend would cheat at a game to make me miserable?” Alex mumbled under his breath. “What was that, hermit crab?” replied Aurora. “Nothing,” Alex replied, “Nothing you need to worry your makeup over.” Aurora rolled her eyes at his admittedly lame comeback and went back to apply another layer of foundation in an attempt to make her even paler than she already was. Aurora was Marco’s sister who never escaped from her high school goth phase, even all of these years later. Her name was actually Cassie, but she had demanded that everybody should use her “true name” of Aurora. Alex continued to call her Cassie for as long as he could just to get on her nerves, but after a few too many punches in the shoulder from her made him decide that it was probably safer for him if he plays along. “Alright, you two,” Marco replied as he walked out of the gas station, clutching an armful of snacks and adjusting his signature letterman jacket. “You promised to try to get along over this weekend.” “Yeah, yeah.” Aurora responded with another roll of her blue eyes, “As long as we can go back to hating each other afterwards.” “Yeah,” replied Alex, “For once, I agree with her.” Marco sighed and shook his head as he climbed back behind the steering wheel, throwing the bag of goodies in the back seat beside Alex. He couldn’t help but miss the days when he, Alex, and Cassie would be an inseparable trio. But once Cassie started getting into the goth culture and demanding people to call her Aurora, it almost immediately seemed to cause a strong hatred between the two former friends, with Marco being stuck in between them. As he continued to reminisce about those times, Marco turned the key in the car’s ignition and began to drive the last few miles to the campsite that he had rented. The trip there was mostly quiet with Marco having given up on trying to get Alex and Aurora to work things out between them after his previous attempt at reconciliation ended in an explosive argument that made Marco glad that the two were on opposite sides of the car for fear of one strangling the other. After about half an hour of awkward silence, Marco was relieved to see a sign pointing them toward their campsite. “Alright, guys,” Marco said, turning around slightly to look at Alex, “Only a couple more miles and we’ll be at camp-“ “Holy crap! Look out!” yelled Aurora. Marco immediately snapped his eyes back onto the road to see what had caused Aurora’s out-of-character freakout and saw a large black shape in the middle of the road. In a panic, Marco tried to brake, but knowing that it would be too late, he tried to swerve around the thing. Unfortunately, he misjudged how close the side of the road was, and found his car gliding down into a large trench on the side of the road. He felt the front of the car slam into the dirt and stone wall, causing the airbags to inflate and that was the last thing he remembered before he slipped into unconsciousness. -- Groggily, Alex woke up and found himself lying on the back seat floor. At first, he was confused at what happened as he didn’t remember falling asleep, but then he remembered the car crashing and he sat up as fast as he could. “Marco!?” he yelled out to no avail. He sighed and then yelled out, “Cassie!?” He heard a loud grunt come from the front seat and he glanced up to see Aurora attempting to force the airbag away from her face. “For the last time,” she grumbled, “My name is Aurora.” Alex shook his head, even after a near-death experience, her priority was to insist on her name. It was so silly that he almost laughed. But before he could, he realized that the car was missing one person. “Where the hell is Marco?” asked Alex as he glanced at the empty driver’s seat. “How should I know?” Aurora replied, “I regained consciousness a few minutes before you and he was already gone.” “Do you think he went to get help?” Alex asked as he tried to bring himself to a sitting position. “No,” she replied, “If there’s one thing I know about Marco is that he wouldn’t leave us, especially with us both being unconscious.” Alex was about to agree before he yelped in pain. “What’s wrong?” Aurora asked, genuine worry sneaking into her voice. “I think I screwed up my ankle when I fell on it,” Alex replied, “I can’t move it.” “Okay,” Aurora responded softly, “Hold on, I’ll check it out once I get the doors open.” She attempted to open her door but found that it was stuck. “Probably got damaged during the crash,” Aurora muttered. She then tried to force the car door open by slamming her shoulder against it and after a few attempts, she got lucky and the door swung open, accompanied by the sound of metal scraping against metal. She got out of the car and opened the backseat door, which was luckily less damaged than the front. With help from Aurora, Alex limped out of the backseat and onto the dirt ground. As he sat on the ground, Aurora checked his ankle to see it swollen up three times the regular size. “Well, the good news is that it’s just a sprain.” Aurora stated, “But the bad news is that you’re probably not going to be able to walk on it for a few days.” “A few days?” he responded, “How am I going to get out of here if I can’t walk?” Aurora sat beside him and thought for a moment when she had an idea, “You have your cell phone, right? We can call for help!” “Why did I not think of that?” Alex responded with a light laugh as he checked his pants pockets for his phone. A few seconds later, he found his phone but the screen was completely cracked and wouldn’t respond to Alex’s attempts to unlock it. “Crap, I must have landed on it during the crash.” Alex said, “I guess this is what I get for not following Marco’s advice and getting a case for my phone.” Aurora couldn’t help but laugh at that, even if she knew that he was just trying to lighten the mood. “Hey,” Alex said, as he suddenly sat up, “What about your phone?” “I-“ Aurora stuttered, “I don’t have one.” Alex gave her a confused look, “I thought everyone had a cell phone these days.” “Yeah, well...” started Aurora, “I didn’t want the government and tech companies to know my location 24/7, y’know.” Alex burst out laughing, “That sounds more like something I’d say.” “Oh god, you must be rubbing off on me,” Aurora said with a playful smirk before joining Alex in laughing. “What are we going to do then?” Alex asked as the laughter subsided, “There’s no way we can just wait here in hopes that someone will drive down the same road and see us.” They both sat there for a few moments, trying to think of some way to get a person’s attention. At first, Aurora was going to recommend trying to climb out of the trench, but she quickly shut that idea down as there was no way that Alex would be able to get far with his ankle. Then an idea dawned on her. “I think Marco packed an emergency flare in with the camping gear.” She told Alex as she stood up. “I’m going to go check.” “Good idea!” replied Alex, “I’ll be here when you get back.” Aurora rolled her eyes and chuckled as she walked a few feet away to the wrecked car to look through the equipment in the trunk. She was looking past the tents and found a Swiss army knife, a map, and she had just grabbed a flashlight when she heard a scream from behind her. She turned around to see the same big creature they had almost run over previously, quickly dragging Alex towards what looked like a cave entrance in the dirt walls. In a panic, Aurora grabbed the Swiss army knife & flashlight and tried to run after the thing. But whatever this thing was, it was faster than she had expected. She couldn’t keep up with it, even as it dragged a grown man along with it. As she entered the cave, she turned her flashlight on and moved it around; trying to figure out which tunnel the monster took Alex. As she looked around, she couldn’t help but feel unsettled by the walls of the cave. They looked almost like human flesh and she could almost swear that she heard the walls breathing, but quickly shook that idea out of her head as that was too insane. “As if this whole situation wasn’t already insane,” Aurora muttered as she continued to check the tunnels for her missing friend. Finally, after what felt like hours, she found Alex. He seemed to be hovering in thin air, but the closer she got to him, she realized that he was trapped up high on what looked like a gigantic spider’s web. “Alex!” yelled Aurora, “Are you okay?” “I... I don’t know.” Alex stammered, “I’m alive, at least.” “Hold on,” she replied, “I’m going to get you down from there.” She then pulled out the knife from the Swiss army knife and tried to cut apart the parts of the web securing it to the cave’s walls. As she was going about doing that, she heard what sounded like scuttling come from behind her. She stopped her cutting and looked around behind her with the flashlight but found nothing. “Cass- Aurora,” Alex said as he quickly corrected himself, “I’m sorry for being so mean to you. I guess I was hoping that if I was mean to you, you’d get out of the whole goth thing. Please leave me here and get out of here for your own sake.” “Stop talking like that!” yelled Aurora, “I’m going to get you down and we are both getting out of this together.” But as soon as she finished yelling, she heard the scuttling behind her again, but even closer this time. She swung around with her flashlight and was relieved when she saw Marco’s letterman jacket in the flashlight’s beam. “Oh, thank god, you’re okay, Marco.” Aurora said, “Help me get Alex down and we can all get out of here...” Her words quickly left her as the beam of light expanded to show that it was Marco, or at least, his torso. But from the sockets where his arms and legs would normally be instead contained several elongated spider-like legs and his head more resembled a giant ant than anything remotely human. She screamed and just stood there, frozen in fear. Meanwhile, the spider-Marco continued on its way as if it didn’t see or hear Aurora at all and began climbing up the web toward where Alex was trapped. She was snapped out of her stupor by Alex’s screaming as the spider-Marco got closer to him, but all she could do was watch as it walked over him until it was standing above Alex. She watched as the monster’s head split open, covering Alex’s head between the pieces of its divided head, and then abruptly slammed its head closed onto Alex’s head with an ear-piercing snap as blood sprayed everywhere. As she felt Alex’s hot blood cover her, Aurora knew she had to get the hell out of there. She turned and ran as fast as she could. She could hear what sounded like several of those things scuttling behind her as they tried to stop her from escaping, but she refused to turn to look, knowing that it would just slow her down. She continued to run until she was outside of the cave, back under the sky. Swiftly, she sprinted towards the car and climbed into the backseat and locked all of the car doors. As she sat there, she felt the adrenaline leave her as she broke down sobbing. Not only did she lose her brother, but possibly the only real friend that she had. She didn’t know how long she sat there, keeping a watch through teary eyes for any more of those spider monsters to come crawling out of the cave. Thankfully, they seemed to have lost interest in her and eventually, she passed out as the exhaustion of the day overtook her. -- She was awakened by a loud banging on the car door, she was almost too afraid to look in fear of it being one of those spider monsters trying to get inside. But as she looked, she saw the concerned face of a firefighter mouthing if she was okay. She carefully sat up and unlocked the car door as the firefighter helped her into an ambulance’s stretcher. “Ma’am, are you okay?” asked the firefighter as the medics checked her over, “Was there anyone else in the car with you?” “Yes, two other people” Aurora pointed towards the monster’s cave, “They were taken by a large monster to that cave.” Both the firefighter and medics turned to look in the direction that she was pointing towards, but there was no cave or tunnel anywhere on the trench’s walls. “Ma’am, are you okay?” repeated the firefighter as he looked worriedly toward Aurora. “No, there was a cave there and there were giant spiders that killed my brother and friend and...” She replied in a frenzy as she felt tears forming in her eyes again. “She must be in shock, sir.” One of the medics responded, “We’ll take her to the hospital.” “No, I’m not in shock!” yelled Aurora, “I didn’t imagine it! They must still be in there!” But even as she continued to insist, they just put the stretcher she was on into the back of the ambulance. After a few attempts from Aurora to jump out of the moving ambulance, they injected her with a sedative. As she felt the sedative take hold, she slowly lapsed back into sleep as she heard nothing but the ambulance’s sirens. Even after months of searching, they never did find Marco or Alex. When she was eventually let out of the hospital, she went back down the trench where they had crashed, but no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find any semblance of the cave. But to this day, she insists that it did happen and that on some nights, she swears that she can still hear the spider monsters scuttling around her house, waiting for another opportunity to catch her.
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