ELDRITCH NIGHT (Rough Draft)

Chapter Five: Debrief

I pushed out with my legs launching myself away from the cliff face. The sudden movement caused the attack on my neck to miss, but a barbed talon tore into my shoulder. I felt the flesh sizzling around the wound in my shoulder as venom was driven into my veins. I immediately felt sluggish, but my poison resistance lessened the effects.

Two limbs wrapped themselves around my chest and I felt myself being drawn towards the mass of black flesh, limbs, and eyes. I struggled, but the segmented limbs constricted. I could feel ribs fracture and my left shoulder exploded in pain, most likely dislocated.

My right arm was still free, so I used it to do the only thing I could think of. I cast arcane missile thrice in quick succession aiming for the creature's eyes. She shrieked, slightly loosening her hold. I activated mana shield, which worked to push away her already loosened grip. Free of her grip I found myself falling before crashing into the spider's face, gaining a close-up view of her thousands of segmented eyes. It would have filled my nightmares if there wasn't already another, much larger and fierier eye filling that spot on a nightly basis.

I deactivated my mana shield to conserve mana, my hope was that I might be able to survive the fall by activated the shield immediately before impact. That turned out to be a mistake, a thin tendril of silk shot out and wrapped itself around my left ankle crushing the bones and dislocating my leg. I cried out in pain as my fall was immediately stopped.

The BMS was slowly drawing me closer to her waiting maw. I was being reeled in like a fish. The pain kept me from centering my thoughts or I might have tried to free myself. I already knew that my venom spray could dissolve her webbing. Had I not panicked perhaps I could have attempted to dissolve the silk that was slowly pulling me upwards. That "freedom" likely would have only bought me a long fall to a quick death.

Instead I found myself once more wrapped in webbing, but this time instead of dosing me with a spray of venom she speared me through the midsection with one of her barbed talons. As she ripped out her speared foreleg the barbs took with them chunks of my flesh. A warning screen appeared showing my health, highlighted red and in negative numbers and continuing to drop. I lost all control of my limbs, and I could feel the vitality slowly ebbing out of my body.

Warning! Health is critical, if the citizen is not stabilized immediately death is imminent.

My vision was limited and becoming blurry but just as I thought I was dead for good a powerful light cut through the darkness. It was a clean, white light that reminded me of a high-powered flood light, like the one I used to have on my truck. Even now, as I lay dying, I found myself reminiscing about my previous life.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, but what had it been? A couple of days? Three at the most. It had not been an interesting life, a very normal one by most accounts. I had a good childhood, had just graduated, and I had been accepted into one of my safety schools. I would graduate college, work the corporate line, maybe get married and have a few kids. It all seemed so ordinary, and yet then, when I knew it would never happen, I mourned for it. I cried out for what I would never have, not in pain or shock from my injuries but in loss and grief. I didn't want to die.

I cried out into the night and tried to reach out, but my limbs did not respond to my calls. I slipped into darkness.

***

"You're a man now," my fathers voice spoke to me in his familiar baritone. I turned around and saw his face, clean-shaven and strong jawed in a way that I was always envious of. I had inherited my mother's fair skin, oval face and softer features.

"I'm sixteen Dad," I replied. "I've been a man in many cultures for years now."

"Well, not in this one kiddo. Talk to me when you can vote, or drink." He smirked with his trademark half smile. "Maybe, I'll even buy you one when the time comes."