The Gold of the Firepines

Mailman's Log, Stardate 1968.129

The tension of being sandwiched between obstacles of imminent danger could be stretched on for weeks, but of course, the time was not that lenient. You stared down the aggressive 3-foot brown fiddler; doing so would at least work as an intimidation factor so you had that on your side for now...not that it would stop it from lunging suddenly.

You knew you didn't have much longer to sit with your wits, so whether you did it out of panic or if you had some partially genius mental manifestation, you swiftly held the torch behind near the web. Spiderwebs usually melt, but this one caught fire - the dust particles caught on it being flammable enough. The spider made a monstrous cry before throwing itself at you, so just as you partially thought through in the moment, you jumped out of the way at the first sign of lunging and let the spider fly right into the flaming web.

Finally you were out of that situation, but you didn't lose the arachnophobic nightmare - you merely delayed it. The fire on the web didn't sustain for long, and with the spider's sturdier exoskeleton, the heat was practically nothing. It was crawling back out...and past it, you could see even more webs...

And suddenly you were hit with an idea- a bit of a cruel one, but an idea nonetheless...you just had to get close enough to the other webs.

With a plan, you felt more confidence pulse into your movements. Even if the spider looked more freaky with the new smoky background you just set, the leftover flames were enough to brighten the area for you a little more to assess how you were going to move in this environment. The recluse had the home advantage, so every little bit counted.

Like a matador in front of a bull, you waved your torch and egged the beast forward, half expecting it to charge then and there...but it was smarter than that. It began to crawl around so you were both side-stepping outside of an imaginary circle...it was as though the spider was smart enough to see what you were playing at.

A spider with size and intelligence? This really was a rare specimen...too bad it decided to face you; no way were you about to back down.

If the beast wasn't going to fall for the charge-and-dodge tactic again, it looked like it was your move...or so it motioned by a wave of its front leg. All you had to do was avoid getting bit - that was the major thing...so you charged-

You bursted forward in a short sprint and the spider pounced, trying to get on top of you. You waved the flames in front of it so it couldn't have a clear shot at biting or jumping on you however, but now your plan to kick it out of the way was foiled. Three-feet was such a horrible size for a spider - it was too small to wrestle like another person, but too big to get past and ignore. You swung your torch, going to smack it with the flames, but the moment your hand moved back to execute the proper 'swing' the spider jumped on your leg.

Your mind flashed with a memory: back when you noticed a little spider on your leg when you were a kid. You remembered how you shrieked and stumbled to swat it off - all the emotions of terror and shock you went through as a child in that very brief moment...you think you may have cried about afterwards like the baby you were- But this? Oh, this was so much worse-

Nothing leapt your heart up into your throat like a massive mutated poisonous spider with intelligence creeping on your leg. Your mind entered a state of 'no think,' and letting out a much more pitchy yelp than what you had even expected, you swatted the spider off with the torch before it could bite you. The deadly fiddler was shoved off successfully, the grip on your torch however was weak and was taken to the stone ground with it. On top of that, the flames were close enough to you to happily spread to your shorts- the dry leaves and grass which stuck to you on your trek here not helping one bit.

"Shit-!" You cursed- how were you supposed to stop and drop when that would roll you right to the mercy of this eight-legged beast? And it was back up and snarling, going past your greatest defense and coming for you-