Jack went to scratch an itch on his neck, but his arm moved like molasses. He scratched. It felt wrong, damp, and slow. A new flare sparked on his left leg. He scratched it. Again, his arm moved in slow motion, and his leg felt numb and sticky.

  Tingling, this time above his right eye. He scratched in slow motion, urging himself to wake up. What the hell is going on?

  This didn’t feel like one of his usual nightmares. The annoying itches multiplied, subtle but spreading over his body.

  Jack forced his eyes open to a sheet of white. He moved his sluggish hands to pull the sheet away. More tingling sensations. The sheet was stuck to his face. He tried to tear it off, but it clung like glued bandages, peeling in sticky strips.

  The itching deepened. Or were those bites?

  Something’s fucking biting me! Panic overtook him. Jack clawed the last clump of sticky cloth from his left eye; his vision was blurry and tinged red. He blinked, and something small moved across his eyeball.

  “Fuugk!” Jack slurred. “Whakt thl flucgk igs hagkrnig…” His tongue didn’t work. Speech blurred into nonsense. It’s in my eye. It’s inside my fucking eye.

  He wanted to scream. All that came out was a thick, wet rasp. His face burned with prickling sensations. Itching, yes, but more than that. Crawling from countless tiny legs, scratching from the inside out.

  “Phugk…” His room came into focus like a fever dream viewed through a smeared fish tank. He peeled away another string of silk from his cheek; it twanged free like an overstretched cobweb. His fingers were trembling, numb, and clumsy. He felt cold, clammy, and light-headed.

  Jack’s skin moved; it rippled, writhing. Then the motion resolved into hundreds of tiny spiders. Bone-pale, and no larger than grains of rice, yet there were enough of them to turn his body into a shifting, living storm of legs.

  He tried to scream again, but only managed a wet rasp. They were on him; his spiders had hatched.

  Jack should never have brought them back from the forest. He hadn’t even meant to keep them. The original plan had been simple: hide the spider egg sacs in Polly’s bedroom, wait for them to hatch, and watch her shriek in horror.

  A fun, harmless prank; payback for the bucket of water she’d dumped over him last week. But when Zia moved into Polly’s room, the plan changed. He couldn’t scare the little girl like that. So, he’d hidden the old jerky bag of egg sacs on the bookshelf above his bed… and forgot about them.

  Now they were everywhere, across his chest, his arms, under his nightshirt, in his hair. His limbs grew heavy. A tingling numbness was passing over his body. When he tried to slap his leg, his hand twitched.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  He blinked at the ceiling. Thin sheets of silken webbing clung to the beams above, shimmering faintly in the low light. A few spiders still dangled there, suspended on invisible threads like they were watching him.

  Jack wanted to shout for help, but his tongue felt thick and alien. What came out was a gurgled cough. A fresh wave of bites blossomed across his chest, legs, and scalp. Something nibbled his earlobe. The paralysis was spreading. His right arm twitched. His left leg was a concrete log wrapped in fuzz.

  They’re biting me. Eating me. It was more annoying than painful. Move, he thought. Out. Now. Now! Jack rolled out of bed like a half-cooked sausage falling off a plate. He hit the floor with a low thud and regretted being alive. The impact snapped a bit of awareness back into him and crushed a good number of spiders.

  Silken webbing clung to him in stringy, ghost-like veils. He began crawling, elbows dragging him forward, with his mouth hanging open, dribbling saliva onto the floorboards. He heaved himself forward in sluggish jerks, like a dying eel stranded on land.

  He spotted the dragon toy on his desk. “PhenFragon,” he rasped. Nothing. Damn it! He tried again: “P-en-Dr-agh-hun.”

  The little automaton flickered to life, waiting for voice commands.

  He slurred with short, mangled syllables. “Sk-wri-sh sp-fy-ders.”

  PenDragon flew towards the nearest spiders and sputtered blue, harmless aether-steam. Dozens of spiders turned to the toy dragon and began webbing it up. PenDragon broke free and fired more aether-steam at the hatchlings, causing them to run around confused.

  Dozens more spiders left Jack’s body to attack the toy.

  Thanks, PenDragon. Jack continued to drag himself forward as PenDragon flew around, firing harmless aether-steam at the hundred or so spiders trying to disable the little dragon toy. As the amount of webbing grew, the toy slowed, and seconds later, the small toy was cocooned, twitching and helpless.

  The spiders began to return from disabling PenDragon. Jack groaned as more webbing clung to his arms and legs. The venom, or rather, the paralytic agent, was settling deeper into his muscles. His heart still pounded, so he knew it wasn’t a fast-acting poison. They didn’t want him dead. Not yet. They wanted him still, so they could feast.

  The distraction had helped; PenDragon had bought Jack enough time to reach the door. His hands trembled as he reached for the doorknob. His vision blurred around the edges. Black dots floated in the corners of his eyes.

  More biting. Always the biting. Fuck! They’re already eating me! He fumbled at the doorknob. Slipped once. Twice. Then, a click, and the door creaked open.

  The hallway stretched before him like a salvation he couldn’t quite reach. It looks so far away. His parents’ room was just across the landing.

  Jack crawled like a slug through salt. Each scrape of skin on the floorboards felt like dragging sandpaper across an open wound. His limb control was fading fast. A thin trail of drool slipped from his lips and soaked into the floor. He left a smearing trail of webbing and twitching spider bodies behind him; some dislodged or killed in the crawl, others still clinging on.

  By the time he reached his parents’ door, his legs were gone; they were slabs of numb meat. He face planted into the wood and used his forehead like a battering ram.

  He slammed his forehead against the wood. He did it again. Two small thuds. Not loud enough!

  He raised a fist and knocked. Once… twice. Still too weak, not enough.

  “Mohm,” he croaked. “Moh’m. Daaah. Helb me.”

  Jack’s strength failed him, his arm slid down the door.