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Giant spiders were reported at the Destiny City Botanical Garden, but upon police arrival none of the spiders could be found. This either means that everyone there had a mass hallucination, or worse…There are Giant Spiders still out there, lurking in Destiny City. You might have been at the Gardens, you might not have—but you’re about to get up close and personal with a giant spider while you are out one night. At first, nothing seems amiss; the spiders have no energy signatures and can creep silently, but they appear out of nowhere. They are easily the size of a small car and can appear alone or in groups. Their legs are strong and sharp, and they have long fans the size of steak knives. Toxic foam dribbles from their mouths, so if you’re fighting them—be careful. The spiders can be defeated or will run away if they are too damaged, but another spider will always arrive to claim the carcass of the fallen. You can run, fight, call for help—anything—just be careful. Those spider bites are a pain…
The day had been one of those ones that on the face of it should have been a pretty straightforward day, but by the time that she had hit eleven Saffron had known that it was going to be one of those days that was anything but straightforward.
Breakfast had ended up being a couple of cups of coffee, whilst lunch had been more coffee and a hastily grabbed sandwich, that had been even more hastily eaten between meeting two and meeting three.
It was at the four o'clock mark that she had finally given up on getting home anytime soon and dug out her phone so that she could order takeout via app - well make that takeout and cake, because by then Saffron had felt that she could really do with a cake pick-me-up.
It was getting to be close on ten when she had finally finished for the day, a part of her glad that she had opted for the heaviest (and thus warmest) of her coats as she walked out into the Destiny City nighttime, heels tapping smartly against the sidewalk as she headed towards the bus stop - or at least started to–
It didn't take long for her to decide against it however, a part of her still on edge after her encounter with her doppelganger a couple of days back - and whilst it had seemingly been nothing, the woman with her face and the cruel smirk seemingly disappearing - the memories that the encounter had evoked had yet to fade.
A taxi would be safer she decided as she made her way towards the taxi rank around the corner to the office, because there was usually at least two there–
Or so it seemed on every night but this one, the taxi rank for once unusually empty.
The bus was still an option, but Saffron found herself reluctant to stand around the empty stop, which was how she found her feet taking her further downtown towards the bars in the hopes of perhaps finding and managing to flag down a passing taxi en route - but it seemed that this night of all nights was either insanely busy or insanely quiet with nary a taxi to be found.
She had made the decision to stop by a bar and call a taxi from there when she saw it. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that she heard it, the clicks and hisses familiar - horribly familiar–
After all the same sounds had been present during the botched event at the Botanical Gardens and even now her little cousin was still recovering after getting bitten from the source of one of the sounds.
There wasn't any handy maze to escape into, or a box of metal stakes but it didn't stop Saffron from running, her heels pounding across the quiet sidewalks as she tried desperately to put some distance between herself and the source of the sound.
One street, two, the bar had to be somewhere close - it just had to be.
Turning the corner, Saffron crossed another street and kept running - well at least she did right up until the point where she ran out of street–
Whirling she took a few steps forward, only to find herself backing up as the spider crawled down the side of a building and blocked the only exit.
She backed up further as the thing started to turn towards her, brown eyes darting frantically between trying to keep an eye on the thing and find something - anything - anything to avoid being the things next meal, before finally lighting on a dumpster–
And on an ordinary day she wouldn't have been seen dead near a dumpster - but this day was nowhere even close to ordinary, which was how she found herself making a run for it and ducking behind its dubious cover as her hands picked over the ground in desperate attempt to find something, anything to somehow get her out of her perdicament.
Her hand felt something small but hard and closed around it almost automatically and then started as it burst into glow drawing the spider's attention to her presence.
She was unaware of changing as she heard the thing scuttle closer, was unaware of anything except the approaching eight-legged nightmare–
And perhaps it was adrenaline or perhaps fear, but she found herself shoving the dumpster right at it.
It hit with a loud clatter, the spider hissing as it reared back, leaving just enough space for a crazy person to squeeze by - or at least a desperate one...
And she was desperate - so very desperate.
Saffron - no Iðavöllr, newly awakened Page of Polaris - took the chance and ran.
-- 796 words --
