Underground, where the subways roll, where the smells are unfamiliar and uncomfortable, where secrets aren\u2019t buried but simply lost, there\u2019s a spider casting its web.<\/p>\n
She waits for you. Her webs are thin but strong. She\u2019s got a hundred eyes. She\u2019s no bigger than your fist, with legs. She\u2019s mostly brown, with red, and a set of fangs that will split your fingernails and crack your bones.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s got eleven types of venom in its bite. Three of these, individually, would kill you inside a minute. One\u2019s necrotic and will rot your skin. One\u2019s an anesthetic, so you\u2019ll barely even feel it. One will paralyze you.<\/p>\n
The spider\u2019s a mom. She birthed a hundred baby spiders a month ago. At birth, they were no bigger than your fingernail, translucent, and hungry. They\u2019re still hungry.<\/p>\n
The spider is old, even ancient, maybe as older than the concrete walls of the subway tunnels, older definitely than the fading jeans advertisements.<\/p>\n
It walks across its webs without a sound. It wraps its prey in silk and saves bits and pieces for later.<\/p>\n
And sometimes, when it\u2019s feeling adventurous, or particularly hungry, the spider will crawl from its holes and venture nearer the light, where it can be seen but not heard, where it can set its incredibly strong webs to catch larger prey.<\/p>\n
It will take more than a month to liquefy and digest a fully grown human. It knows this because it\u2019s done it before.<\/p>\n
So when you step so close to its web, all unaware, waiting for the 7:53 to the suburbs, its pincers get all excited, its venom glands activate. If you listen carefully, very carefully, and if there wasn\u2019t any other sound in the train station, you might hear the clicking of its legs as it approaches. You\u2019re close enough. It know it can take you down.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s a train station. You hear nothing. You\u2019re busy playing with your 3G phone. You\u2019re drinking coffee in an attempt to wake, but you\u2019re not quite there yet. You don\u2019t see it, you don\u2019t know the danger. One meter. Half a meter. Soundless clicking steps, it comes closer. If the spider had lips, she\u2019d be licking them. Your ankle is exposed. No sock will protect you. She can deliver venom through your leather shoes, I don\u2019t care how much you paid for them.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re anxious, yes, but only because of the time, only because the train is late, only because you might miss that meeting. And finally, finally, you hear the telltale screech of the subway gliding down the tracks. You see the faintest hint of its lights coming around the curve of the tunnel.<\/p>\n
The spider rears back to attack.<\/p>\n
You step on her. Quite unconsciously. You don\u2019t even heard the crunch as her body snaps. Venom spurts from her glands, harmlessly, between the leather of your shoe and the concrete of the platform.<\/p>\n
You board the train.<\/p>\n
You make your meeting.<\/p>\n
You never, never realize your luck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Underground, where the subways roll, where the smells are unfamiliar and uncomfortable, where secrets aren\u2019t buried but simply lost, there\u2019s a spider casting its web. […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,6,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.darkfluidity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}