The White Rose

Chapter 4 - Spider venom, starry skies and graceful ghosts.

"The stars shall fade away, the sun himself grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, but thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, unhurt amidst the wars of elements, the wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds" - Joseph Addison.

Ivy found me a few minutes after I found myself back in the present, still able to feel all the pain Emilie had to endure.

Ivy was leant over me, her eyes wide. “What happened Leila?” she asked, but her voice sounded distant. I couldn’t speak. My mouth opened and I could taste blood. It trickled out of the corner of my mouth and started to slither down to my neck.

“Oh my God, what did you do?” Ivy yelled. “Leila? Leila!”

Her voice got further and further away as I started to slip deeper into unconsciousness. The last thing I saw as I closed my eyes was – instead of Ivy – Emilie yelling my name, her wide red eyes inches away from mine.

Over the next couple of days, I kept drifting in and out of consciousness. When I was asleep, I would dream of Emilie and she would whisper my name. When I was awake, I would see a shape move across the room gracefully, as though her feet weren’t touching the floor, her short black hair still covered in blood.

I could still feel venom in my veins, as though I was in transition from angel to spider, but I wasn’t changing. My body was full of warmth and I lacked a hunger for flesh that Emilie said she had felt.

I was paralysed, but I could feel my blood searing with heat as though I had been injected with fire. My whole body was covered in a thin layer of cold sweat, every vein in my body seeming to protrude from my skin, my heart beating faster than it ever had before. I was sure I was going to die, and it was so painful that I actually, at times, wanted to.

I could barely think, but when I did, my mind was focused only on Emilie, and what I had witnessed. It had only been a dream – or rather a nightmare – so how could this have happened? How could I be experiencing every thought and feeling she had that night? I was scared and in pain. I didn’t know what I would do if I turned into a spider... I’d have to kill myself.

I fought back the screams just like my mother did, and a few times I bit my lip so hard that it bled. Although I managed to stop the screams, I couldn’t stop the tears for long. Every time Ivy sat at the end of the bed to comfort me, all I could see was Emilie’s face and it was hurting me more than the fire licking the inside of my entire body.

Spider or not, I knew I’d never be the same when it was over.

I was right. When I finally woke up properly three days after the incident, in the evening, I felt different. I wasn’t a spider, but I had the strength and agility of one. My heart was still beating, but it was protected by impenetrable skin (like an exoskeleton). I felt no love for extravagance, and I could certainly feel remorse but all of my senses and emotions felt heightened somehow.

Ivy walked in and was taken aback.

“What is it?” I asked, slightly worried.

“It’s just... You look... Different.”

“Different how?”

“Your teeth are sharper and your eyes look colder. Not really a big difference but definitely noticeable.” She smiled but I knew she was wary. She suspected that I was a threat.

“I’m not a spider Ivy,” I reassured her. “I feel different, but I don’t have an urge to kill or feed off you or anybody else. Trust me.”

She didn’t say anything else for a few moments; she just straightened the quilt on the bed.

Then she said “Do you think Emilie did this?”

“Do you mean make me re-live what happened to her?”

She nodded.

“It seems impossible, but I have no other explanation.” I shrugged.

“You saw her... While you were lying here. Didn’t you? You said her name a few times.” She wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“Yeah it was like she was watching over me,” I admitted.

“I don’t get how this could’ve happened. You weren’t bitten but the venom felt real.”

“The venom in my system must’ve been weak. Like ghost venom, because otherwise my heart wouldn’t be beating and I’d be craving flesh and blood. I have all the traits that make spiders good predators; my skin, my strength, my agility and my heightened senses... But I’m not what makes a spider a spider. I have my soul.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

“So what you’re saying is that although you have the strength and speed of a spider, you don’t feel the need to kill? You’re practically indestructible as it is,” She noted.

“I wouldn’t say I was, or am, indestructible. Aria can still destroy me,” I sighed.

“She may be able to destroy you, but you can destroy her just as easily.”

I looked out the window. The sun – finally visible after the rainfall – was setting. The now cloudless sky was painted with deep crimson and blood orange. This beacon of light – this symbol of hope and goodness – seemed to be clinging onto this world for as long as it could before being pulled away by a chariot of Gods. I wished it would never set. Spiders were creatures of the dark and when the sun vanished, they would welcome the hopelessness and evil with open claws.

We couldn’t stay here anymore.

We ran out of the door and down the path, the gravel crunching under our feet.

We stopped in our tracks when we heard a noise. Footsteps were getting louder, voices nearer and danger growing. We couldn’t go in the direction that we wanted to. We’d have to go back into the town.

Two fires. I couldn’t decide which of the two I would rather jump into.

I didn’t have much time to make a decision, so Ivy made it for me. We would hide somewhere safe in the town until we had a plan. Then we’d fight.

As we got closer to the city, the sky became more tainted with rising smoke. The stars were barely visible when we reached the tall buildings and the cold, concrete ground. Aside from fires crackling in buildings around us, drawing me in with their warmth and fierce beauty, an almost sinister silence greeted us. It felt like we were being watched, which made a shiver run down my spine, paralysing me with caution and terror.

As we waited and listened, a light breeze made the ash beneath us glide along the floor, like a wave of debris grazing the shores of this damned planet.