The Insides of an Arthropod: A Short Story of Webber

[~Matt]

Preface – The Background of a Story Arachnophobic People Probably Shouldn't Read

 

Webber is currently my favourite Don't Starve character, both in concept and for playing, and since I really like writing, making something that involves him/them just seemed logical. However, I have been postponing this for quite some time, and some days ago I had enough of doing that, so I went on writing.

 

My first thought was to go over an adventure as Webber in a world of Don't Starve, but that just felt like it would be boring and wouldn't draw people in, so I thought about making something involving the boy that would become the Webber I know and love, and here is what I entitled The Insides of an Arthropod: A Short Story of Webber.

 

On what reoccurs

 

The smell of canned beans for the two hundred and fifth consecutive night really opened the little boy's appetite, though it definitely did not do the same to the husband, judging by his explicit frown. The mother, however, felt really happy about her cooking. The last time she improved on that particular trade was, if memory serves, eighty six days before.

 

Dinner was served, and, as usual, the husband nagged about the beans, got up from the table before even starting his prayers, grabbed a dirty bottle of Tabasco and poured the red and spicy liquid all over his food. As a matter of fact, every day that passed made the colour darker and the taste worse, but it looks like the husband never notices it. The mother, as usual, feels disrespected by the act, but does not voice her thoughts. You see, she was educated to be a servant to men since childhood, if you can even call that a childhood. Two brothers, the mother had, and both had her do most of their chores, much like the grandfather always asked the grandmother to cook something for him, and nagged not much differently from how the husband now nags about the mother's food. Logically, if the men's act were the same, the women's reaction followed the same rule, and the mother stared at the husband's face, noticing how his deep brown skin wrinkled more and more by the day, and how his eyes looked as tired as they did every other night. It's impossible to tell what the women thought. Maybe they were watching their slavers slowly die, or maybe they were looking for a sign of anything other than apathy or heartlessness. Or maybe they were just thinking about how frail and dependant the men were.

 

The little boy, unlike the husband, enjoyed his beans like they were, smiling every time some food reached his tongue. Earlier today he was talking about how school food was bad, and about how the metallic taste that a boy's punch left in his mouth was so much better. He also said that despite the pain on his cheek and teeth, it was marvellous how the boy's skin was like marble, so different from his own, and talked about the word he had never heard before and forgot how to pronounce, but understood that it was something that the marble boy used to refer to him, and that it was a very funny name, because the marble boy's friends laughed when they heard it.

 

After dinner, the husband sat on the big green couch, coughed three times because of the dust, and about this he did not nag. Meanwhile, the little boy and the mother would wash the dishes and think happy thoughts together, common examples of which involved living somewhere better, visiting other countries, and helping people in similar or worse situations. Let's not make a mistake here, though. The two never said a word to each other about this, it would disturb the husband's hearing of what the white men in the television were saying.

 

On noises

 

That night, they had rice with the beans, and the husband even bought a new bottle of Tabasco, with a liquid that was of a very vibrant red, different from any red the little boy had ever seen. The mother was ready to serve dinner, smiling brighter than ever, for that day she brushed her teeth with a better paste, and the husband's skin looked less wrinkly, appearing also softer, though keeping the beautiful colour, of course until the red and blue glow made it look different, unpleasantly different. The noise did not help. It filled the mother's ears as much as it did the husband's and the little boy's, and in fear of what the armed marble men could do, the woman rushed to grab the child, and in no time had him locked in the attic, instructed not to do anything regardless of what he hears.

 

On the swallowing of little boys

 

It was a hard order to follow.

 

There were screams coming from the street, and the smell of not very distant smoke started to mix with a very close and pungent smell, that got the little boy thinking about the insecticide the mother used to try and kill a spider described by the woman as “a huge and scary mess of black fur and milky white eyes”. Those characteristics were all there. It was bigger than the little boy's head, had fur so black that it seemed to be absorbing the moonlight that still came through the window, and do not dare mention the eyes around the boy, who at this point was clawing the wooden attic floor, screaming at the point of no sound being produced, trying to remove his legs from inside the animal's mouth.

 

It was as hard to swallow the little boy as it was hard for him to follow the mother's orders. The huge and scary mess of black fur and milky white eyes had been starving for months, living only on the corpses of animals it could find.

 

After swallowing the boy, it could not move. Neither could the boy, but the huge and scary mess of black fur and milky white eyes was heavily compelled to go out of that window and keep its life going. One could even theorise that it wanted to know what happened in the night it swallowed the little boy, driven by the same will that the human would have. But instead, it slept.

 

The little boy woke up before the spider, but before the surprise of being alive came, a smell like rotting flesh filled his nose, and a vision of the strong sunlight coming through the window in the attic calmed him.

Then, the little boy noticed he was not being digested, and that his arms and legs were compressed inside the spider's body, and so he pushed.

 

The huge and scary mess of black fur and milky white eyes woke up screeching in pain, trying to move wildly and push the little boy out of its mouth.

 

The little boy felt progress and kept pushing, and because of the effort it was to make the spider's flesh and exoskeleton extend to better house his limbs, he did not even notice the sound it made, only that it was moving so much that he needed to apply more force.

 

The huge and scary mess of black fur and milky white eyes blacked out in pain as the little boy started moving, crawling first, then standing up as the spider's body adapted and his muscles relaxed, and walking towards the window.

 

On the man who said he could help us

 

The broken window fell as the little boy inside the huge and scary mess of black fur and milky white eyes pushed it, with him falling shortly afterwards. It was enough of a shock to wake up the spider, that swung itself around and moved the four legs it still had control over, compressing the little boy's body and trying to regurgitate him.

 

The street was desert. Only locked doors and barricaded windows stared at the strange creature that looked to be fighting an invisible enemy, except, of course, for the people in the black car that came slowly into the street and stopped few metres away from the floundering little boy inside the huge and scary mess of black fur and milky white eyes.

 

A tall man, with skin even more marble-like than the bully, came out of the car and calmly walked towards them, saying only and repeatedly that he could help.

 

The little boy and the spider both stopped their senseless effort at the clear sound of those words.

 

He called them “little webber”, and he could help.

 

The mother said not to talk to strangers, but he could help.

 

He could help, they had to trust him.

 

No one else would treat them like that, he could help!

 

He could help, but, say pal, they don't look so good.

 

Do they?

Edited September 11, 2015 by ~Matt

[Auth]

it was ok