Chapter Text
Avid woke one morning with a horribly familiar feeling. A tiny thought telling him to kill something. He shook his head. No, it couldn’t be. His brain was jsut going back to a pattern it was used to. He continued about his day as normal without any more of those thoughts. It must’ve just been a remnant.
But it happened again the next day. Stronger. The thought louder and more frequent. It couldn’t be. They’d all left; he’d seen, there were hundreds of them.
A few days later, as the thoughts continued to grow stronger, he finally felt something he couldn’t deny. A twinge of pain and a terribly familiar itch in his veins. They were back, they were back, they were back, what could he do to make it stop???
Avid stumbled out of his house in a panic, running to Legs’s clinic. Maybe the doctor could help, could cut them out of him before they could make him hurt someone? He knew he’d start losing time soon. Being here in Oakhurst made them develop faster; he knew that. The thoughts hadn’t been this bad since… since a week before they’d emerged. He ran to the clinic but Legs wasn’t there, he was out doing something else. Avid sat on the doorstep, head in his hands, shaking. They were back and there was nothing he could do.
Legs found him there, trembling, after about an hour. “Avid what’s wrong, are you okay?”
“They’re back,” was all Avid could say. They were back.
“Okay, it’s going to be okay,” Legs said, gently helping the terrified man stand. “You’re going to be okay.”
Avid shook his head. He couldn’t survive this, not again. He’d hurt someone, he’d start losing time start attacking, start eating again and if he was in town he’d hurt people and he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t hurt them.
“Help me, please,” he whispered. Legs looked at him, very concerned. “It’s okay, I’m here, we’re going to figure this out, fix this.”
Avid whimpered as he felt the horribly familiar itching in his veins, the spiders crawling inside him.
How could he be okay??? Legs helped Avid into the clinic, the young man struggling to stand, to hold himself upright. His whole body shook like a leaf and his eyes were wide and bloodshot. Legs helped get him into a bed and turned to try to find some medicine, something to kill the arachnids that were crawling through his blood.
“Legs,” Avid whispered, “they’re going to take control again and I don’t know what they’ll make me do…”
“It’s okay,” Legs said. “I don’t think you’d hurt me.”
“I wouldn’t, but they would, you don’t understand I don’t have any control!” Avid whimpered, putting his head in his hands.
Legs sighed and tied Avid to the table, keeping the restraints loose so he could still move freely but couldn’t leave.
“Thank you,” Avid said, finally feeling somewhat safe. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, not ever, but the hunger…
Avid started to lose time, vanishing into his mind for hours at a time. Legs told him that he’d fight against the restraints, pulling at them, even gnawing at them, his eyes wild and hungry. Avid hated what he was becoming but there was nothing he could do, no way to stop it. Legs had given him everything he could think of, every medicine that could possibly kill them, but they hadn’t done anything. He could still feel them crawling under his skin, threatening to break free, to take control, to attack at any moment.
“I… don’t know what to do,” Legs finally admitted. He’d tried everything he could to heal Avid’s affliction but nothing had done anything. He was having… episodes… almost hourly at this point, and he’d had to replace his restraints every few times because he’d chew at them. Once, most recently, Legs had to stop Avid chewing on his own hand, ripping into it with his teeth and taking a chunk out of his finger before Legs could stop him. It was horrible…
The spiders prickled at Avid’s skin as Legs told him their last option.
“I could try to surgically remove them, but it would be long and intensive and I don’t have much anesthetic… I don’t know if it would even work.” Avid nodded.
“Do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. If it protects everyone, it’s worth it.”
Legs prepared Avid for the anesthetic, nervously rechecking everything as he placed an IV, made sure his mask and gloves were fitted properly, and finally switched the IV drip on. A mixture of anesthetic and fluids flowed into Avid’s veins and he winced as the cold liquid burned before his vision faded.
Legs carefully cleaned his arm and made a small incision, seeing the terrible prickly shape poking up just enough from Avid’s skin to see. It tried to run away but the doctor grabbed it with his forceps and dropped it into his biohazard jar beside him. One down.
Legs had to act quickly since he didn’t have much anesthetic, but it still took him hours to remove the spiders. They were all throughout Avid’s limbs, and he could see a couple on his torso too that he removed carefully. All in all he had nearly 50 of them in the jar, all of them moving sluggishly from the anesthetic. Apparently it was affecting them too. That was good, it made it harder for them to escape.
Legs shuddered as he sewed up the last cut he’d made and checked over Avid again, not seeing any more of them. He sighed and lowered the drip rate, then lowered it again after a few minutes, letting his patient come out of the unconsciousness slowly.
Once Avid was coherent again, he mumbled to the doctor. “Did it work?”
“I got all of the ones I could see. There were a lot…”
“Thank you,” Avid said with a weak smile. He fell asleep again very quickly, exhausted from the ordeal even though he’d been out.
Legs hoped he’d gotten them all. He filled the jar of spiders with alcohol, disregarding his oath as he drowned the horrible creatures. He couldn’t let them infest someone else… there were so many and they were so big, bigger than any spider he’d seen before.
He didn’t know how Avid could survive having all these creatures inside of him. He supposed the spiders had evolved to not kill their host so they could keep using them… but it seemed physically impossible from all he knew about the human body. Still, the evidence was right in front of him. Avid, still asleep; the jar of spiders; the bloody scalpel in the sink. It was real, it was happening, and somehow Avid was alive.
Avid woke up to a horrible pain covering his body. He began to panic, only to remember the surgery and the cuts that Legs had had to make all over him. He shuddered. But at least the spiders were gone… right? Avid’s eyes widened in horror as he realized he could still feel it. The hunger. The itching in his veins, the constriction of his heart. They were still there, it hadn’t worked. He whimpered quietly. There was nothing that was going to fix this, was there?
Legs hurried over when he heard Avid’s sound of pain.
“Hey, it’s okay, how are you feeling?”
“Fine,” Avid lied. Legs couldn’t fix this, so Legs couldn’t know. He had to fix this himself.
A few days passed and thankfully Avid didn’t have any more episodes. He was eager to leave the clinic, but Legs wouldn’t let him, not until he was sure the spiders were gone. It made sense, Avid supposed, but he couldn’t fix it if he was stuck in here. The spiders weren’t gone; he could feel that. They hid under the bandages but he could feel his skin rippling as they crawled beneath it, tiny legs pricking his muscles and bones. He hated them, hated what they’d turned him into, hated it.
Finally Legs let Avid leave, though only on brief outings. That would be enough. It had to be.
Avid stepped out into the cool air, the fog lapping at his skin. He was finally outside the clinic, after what felt like weeks but he knew was only a few days. He had 30 minutes. Then Legs would expect him back. He had to go talk to some people.
Avid chatted with Shelby and Drift briefly, trying to update them on the situation without giving anything away about his plans.
20 minutes after he’d been released from the clinic, Avid left the town. He walked a short distance away from the gates, off the path. He hoped they wouldn’t find him, but he knew they would. They’d look, especially when he didn’t come back.
Avid held up a pocketknife. Hed stolen it from Shelby’s house. It would do. Avid sighed as he knelt in the grass, holding the knife. He stared at it. Was he sure he was going to do this? He thought about the townsfolk. He had to.
Avid raised the knife to his throat. The spiders werent strong enough to stop him, not this time, as he stabbed through his jugular, collapsing to the ground as blood poured from the wound. They’d finally be safe now.
Legs found Avid’s corpse after 10 minutes of searching. He was too late; the man was already gone, though he didn’t know if he would’ve been able to stop the bleeding even if hed been there when hed stabbed himself. Blood coated the tip of the knife and pooled below Avid’s body, already beginning to turn a dark brown as it dried.
Legs watched in horror as Avid’s body began to twitch. His skin rippled and his arms spasmed. This wasn’t normal. Even rigor and agonal breathing wasn’t this violent.
Legs grabbed the knife from the ground, trying desperately to ignore how it was sticky and watched in horror as Avid’s corpse dragged itself up to a sitting position, then to its feet. His cold, dead eyes bored into Legs’s, and the doctor could see the horrible pulsing movements in his joints that indicated the spiders were there, controlling him, moving his body even when all the life had drained out of it.
Legs ran. He ran back to town, slamming the gate shut to keep the… zombie? He didn’t know what to call it, but he knew it wasn’t Avid anymore.
He ran to the closest house. Drift’s. He didn’t want to do this, but he had to get help. He pushed open the door and met Drift in the entryway.
“Avid,” Legs panted, out of breath from running, from panic. “He’d dead but the spiders…”
Drifts eyes widened and she ran out the door before Legs could even explain, grabbing her sword from beside the door as she went. Legs followed her, but he didn’t know what they could do to stop him.
Avid just stood at the gate, his fingers scratching uselessly at the latch. His movements were clumsy and his body jerked unnaturally. The horrible gash on his neck still oozed blood, and Drift watched with horror as a small black spider squeezed its way out of the wound and scuttled away.
Avid’s head turned to look at her. It wasn’t him. Not anymore. Drift raised her sword but Legs put a hand on her shoulder.
“It won’t do anything. They’ll just keep controlling him.”
“What do we do then?!” Drift said, her voice cracking with fear and grief.
“I think…” Legs shuddered, “I think we have to burn them. Or drown them, something that’ll kill the spiders, not his body.”
Drift winced at the thought but then rushed out of the gate, Avid following her with clunky, awkward movements. He was slow but unstoppable as Drift led him toward the lake, Legs following at enough distance that Avid didn’t notice him. They made it to the lake, and Drift stood in ankle deep water.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she watched Avid stumble toward the shore, stopping just where the water started to lap at his feet.
She lunged forward, grabbing him by the front of his vest, and pulled him into the lake face down. He struggled weakly, but the control the spiders had was weakening as water flooded Avid’s mouth, filling his lungs, infiltrating the gash in his neck. He began to thrash and convulse but Drift held him there.
Legs watched as spiders started to emerge from his body, frantically digging out of his skin. Legs stomped on the spiders as slowly Avid’s body stilled. The spiders inside of him had either fled, only to die to Legs’s boots, or drowned with their host. Tears streamed down Drift’s face as she looked up at Legs.
“What did I just do?” she said, voice shaking.
“What you had to,” Legs said grimly as he took her hand, helping her up before lifting Avid’s body out of the water. He deserved a proper burial. After all, he’d done this to save the town, to save them.
Legs wished it hadn’t come to this, but he knew it was Avid’s decision. He’d only acted to protect them all. And maybe he was right; after all, Legs had tried everything to get rid of them but the spiders still poured out of Avid’s body there in the lake.
He’d failed again.
Another person he couldn’t save.
Finally Avid could rest, though his body was broken and battered. His clothes damp, his hair a mess, wounds all over his body, but he could rest. He could see his partner now, Legs supposed. He’d spoken about Elle when he’d been in the clinic. He hoped Avid knew that they were safe, wherever he was now. He didn’t exactly believe in an afterlife, but he hoped there was one, so Avid could see Elle again and could see the town. They weren’t fully safe; after all, Scott was still at large; but Avid had eliminated a threat. Even at the cost of his own life.
Avid’s face was added to the flashes in Legs’s mind, the people he couldn’t save, those he’d failed. But Avid was gone. His body buried deep, but his memory never forgotten.
Drift laid in bed, crying about what she’d done. Townsfolk spoke about him fondly, sadly. He’d done so much for them, and they hadn’t fully appreciated it until he was gone.
But Avid was gone, and their stories had to continue without him now.