Creepies and Crawlies
You look at the costume you pulled out of your pack. Somehow, you managed to pull out what must have been the most disgusting costume in the place. Spreading it out in the faint light at the bottom of the dry well, you are both pleased and disgusted with your random selection - a giant spider.
The costume radiates a feeling of unpleasantness. You shudder. If your guess is right and the skin does what you think it does, getting out shouldn't be a problem. Spiders can climb up anything, right?
Still, even if those clothes granted you the power of the spider, what would the trade-off be? Would anything be... permanent? Not wanting to give in to the beconing magic before you absolutely need to, you try scaling the walls without any supernatural help.
ooof!
You don't get very far up before you slip and land painfully on your rear. The dark magics of the costume beckon, pulling harder on your mind. I can help... it seems to say.
Your stomach rumbles. With a sigh, you give in. Really, what's the worst that can really happen? Surely you'll just embarrass yourself where nobody can even see you, right?
Sensing victory, the costume seems to project a warm feeling of welcome, but as you pick it up you realize that woven tarantula legs can only be so welcoming no matter how nicely the parts are stitched. You close your eyes and throw the costume over your shoulders.
As the spider suit sits on your shoulders, you can feel it slowly enveloping you in a gentle embrace. The shifting sensation as the costume moves on its own is the scariest thing you've ever felt, and you freeze in place, to scared to even scream. It wraps you in a skin-tight embrace, and you're glad you can't see what you look like covered in braided tarantula legs.
Then the suit begins to melt and merge with your body. As it is absorbed, and its spider-hair becomes your own, the real changes begin. First, your skin hardens into segments and forms an exoskeleton. Then, as your skeleton dissolves to leave you one very gooey sack of organs, your butt - that is, abdomen - swells out like a balloon. There is a very disorienting sound as you fall to the ground when your two legs change, but you manage to catch yourself with your hairy spider-arms that are developing some very lethal-looking spider-claws where your hands used to be.
Finally, your jaw shifts as your mouth changes to accommodate the mandibles that are growing out. Then you are disoriented when you open your eyes. Then open your eyes. Then open your eyes. All without having blinked in between! You really don't want a mirror right now to see what kind of eight-eyed freak you've become!
Speaking of eight, shouldn't there be more of you to stand on? As if on cue from this thought, your sides start itching fiercely as your other four legs begin to grow. You roll on your sides in a futile attempt to ease the terrible itching.
Finally, you're on your feet. All eight feet. Your eyes look up at the rock wall. All eight eyes. You look at your giant tarantula claws.
Climbing up the side of the well is surprisingly easy, and before too long you've reached the top and are pulling your hairy spider abdomen out of the creepy old well.
You look around for what seems to be the first time. You suppose that, for six of your eyes, it is the first time.
Your abdomen hurts.
Written by Sam on 17 July 2007
The end (for now)