Nothing happens, but I have a hard time sleeping anyway.

You weren’t a fan of new places. Where you slept for the first time, you never felt truly safe. Not to mention, Clova’s skinwalker story kind of unhinged you. A few times in your travels, you speculated something was amiss but never had you ever had something physically invite you somewhere.

A small whisper left your lips, a find of prayer that was asking for sleep as you closed your eyes one last time for the night. A sense of peace drifted over you, and you exhaled. Before you knew it, you were out like a light, and your mind was filled with pleasant thoughts and decent dreams.

The following day, you were stirred awake by Clova as she was dressing herself in her uniform. In the soft glow of the lanterns she had lit when she woke up, she looked kind of creepy yet elegant with her pale skin and toned body.

You smacked your lips and yawned before you worked out a loud wolf whistle. “What a sight to behold in the morning.”

Clova peeked over her shoulder as she adjusted her bra, her brows furrowed angrily, and her eyes narrowed. “You moan in your sleep.”

You blushed and worked yourself from the sheets. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. You have some kind of fucking wet dream or something? Shit, you were loud.”

You blushed harder, now standing up. “I wasn’t dreaming about anything.”

“Whatever,” she slipped into a black shirt and reached for her jacket. “Get dressed. We need to get moving. I’d like to reach the destination before noon.”

“Can do, captain.”

You walked over to the side of the room where you had thrown/haphazardly organized your gear and weapons. You took your new Garand from its oversized sock and stowed it near the door as you strapped your boots on. Clova passed you and threw you some of your M-bloc clips as she checked her plastic M16, warning you to keep all of your things together.

Cold air whipped itself all around you as soon as you stepped into the darkness. You crept outside of the tunnel looked up at the dark sky. It was a little after 5 in the morning, but it looked as dark as midnight still.

Clova jumped in place, looking over the edge. “Fuck I hope we can make it down without falling.”

“Was that ever a problem?” You worry.

A long yawn left her mouth before she replied. “Not ever, but there’s a first time for everything, right? So follow me, and don’t talk unless you need to once we start leveling down. Who knows what kind of fucks are down there right now.”

You sigh and check your straps, ensuring everything is secured to your person and not just dangling free. “Could be a skin kid down there.”

A harsh snort comes out of Clova before she turns to descend the cliff. “Shut up.”

Once you hit the ground, you feel relieved to have made it. Your palms were sweaty, and your forehead was about to marble down with moisture. You couldn’t see Clova very well in the light provided, but you thought you could see her smiling when you jumped down the last 2 feet to join her on the frosty ground. No words were exchanged, just a slight head tilt and nod for you to follow her.

The forest was silent. Nothing was awake inside. Your footsteps sounded incredibly loud, but you suppose unless something was lurking and waiting for you in the brush, you could hear everything else you just fine. Then you remembered Clova’s stupid story and felt like maybe something was watching and lurking in the shadows. Your eyes darted around, carefully scanning where the moonlight was poking through the branches and brush. Aside from things that looked like they were human, you never spotted anything that looked like a genuine threat.

It was around 8 in the morning by the time you made it where you wanted to be. The morning sun had finally stopped being bashful at that hour too. It lit the forest up and called out the leftover birds that hadn’t yet left for the south. Clova found a rock, which looked like it had been used as a campsite once or twice before. Due to her lackluster reaction, you figured it was an old spot she had to use at one point. She dumped her backpack and set her M16 aside.

“What a hike. I thought we got lost a few times in there, but this has all looking familiar now. That cave we’re supposed to explore is no more than an hour away.” She dug into her luggage, finding some matches and tinder. “The last contractor we hired died horribly. He got lost, and we found his body three days after mauled to death by a bear or something else mean.”

“Well,” you sit on the ground after unloading your gear too. “I don’t intend in getting either lost or mauled by anything, so I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that happening to me.”

“That guy was a total tool,” Clova started a fire as fast as she got fire starting kit. “Always went on and on about how many women he fucked and how much money he got. If mother nature didn’t take him herself, I would have drilled his head with a bullet anyway.”

“Remind not to make you upset.”

“Hey, uh, Warren.” She stared at the fire for few seconds and then at you. “Don’t make me upset.”

You both smirk and then continue with the process of making breakfast. After you finished eating and packing again, you set for the cave, which you reach within an hour. You then self-noted that you weren’t ever going to gamble on her ability to tell how long something was going to take.

The cave was a cliché cartoon scene. It was deep, black, and ran straight into the side of a mountain. The entrance was muddy and rocky but had no obstacles that blocked the path inside. When you got closer, however, you noticed that something was strange. There was white silk around the corners that looked like a web. You reached out to pull it down but found it sticky, and it burned slightly.

Clova shivered as she stared inside, trying to shine her flashlight all the way in. She noticed the web-like silk too and made a face. “I prefer spiders over snakes, but if there’s an NSHS in there, I’m running out here so fast your head is going to spin.”

Your brows knit. NSHS? You hadn’t heard that term before.

Clova notices the face you are making and frowns. “New Sub Human Spiders,” she says like it was apparent, but then she sighed.

“Labs, shortly after the war, played with the people affected by the radiation. It made the Chernobyl incident in 1986 look like a fucking joke, as you might imagine. But, I- I digress.”

“Some of the pre-war labs were still open and ran boogeyman ops to kidnap some of the unfortunate souls outside when the warheads went boom, played with DNA to see if they could make humans a little more…fit for the new world,” Clova squinted as she continued down the tunnel. “Spiders silk is cool. Ever heard of a Spider-Man? Of course, you have, imagine that concept, but more…sci-fi in his use. Webs could have helped to rebuild the world, or so they thought.”

“You know a lot about this subject, don’t you?”

“Don’t get off the subject now,” Clova avoids. “I’m not an egghead. No one is my family was, but… Well…”

At the moment, you stepped on something…something sticky and unwilling to let go.

Clova trails off, shining her flashlight along the walls. Her eyes were widening with advent terror. “Holy shit…”

The silk you saw at the entrance was everywhere inside. Thick webs wrapped over the ceiling, the walls, the ground; it covered every inch of the surface. Clova stumbles but catches herself before she hits falls forward.

“We either stumbled into Shelob’s lair, or we found one of your spider mutants,” you mumbled, holding onto your Garand a little tighter. “What should we do?”

“As far as I knew, the tests were never successful. So this might just be some kind of terrifying mutation caused by the radiation in the area over the last couple hundred years.” Clova looks up and shudders. “Good Lord, this is gross. Let’s just set this cave on fire and leave.”

“That the official game plan, then?”

Clova nods. “I was planning on some investigation, but there’s no way I’m staying in here any more than I have to be. Take out my fire starting kit. It’s hanging off the back.”

As you maneuver to Clova, something catches your leg and trip to the sticky white surface of the web. Your sudden tumble causes Clova to spin in a surge of panic. She shouts your name and swings the barrel of her firearm around.

When you try to get up, you find yourself hopelessly tangled up in the silk. You curse, trying to get off of you, but to no avail. Clova tells you to hurry up and get up, but that’s easier said than done. Then, there’s a gooey hissing noise and a loud thud. Clova falls backward and, wrapped in a clear white net. She somehow manages trigger discipline, but you’re now working overtime to get yourself out of the strings of the trap.

While everything collapses, you hear something crawling above you and more of the hissing noise. It’s soft and constant. Clova must hear it too, but she can’t do anything besides struggle even harder. Then, just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, you feel something pinch down on your neck. It just takes a few seconds for what it was to take effect - your world fades in a blurry haze.