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”My name is Maya Schoppenboer. I am sixteen years old, and for my entire life, I have wasted away. Heaps and heaps of potential friends, paths, studies, grades... all things I’ve seen and let go. I’ve walked into walls, tripped down and up the stairs, faceplanted into my food, passed out in the living room... and despite all that, I still managed to wake up and move along to the next day...”
”But– as much as I hate that word– today, I believe I have reached my limit. Sixteen years I’ve lived, sixty more I thought I’d waste away... and sixty less my life expectancy has become. Because, in front of me, maybe only six meters away... there is a spider.”
Maya looked down at the lavatory tile floor, upon which sat a massive spider. It was brown in color and had thick, lengthy legs that sprawled out as it lay idly by, watching her– mocking her. Maya could see it, and it could see her... and somehow, despite Maya’s great stature in comparison to it, she was surely at a disadvantage.
How, O great kitten in the sky, did she end up in this situation? Maybe was it her shoddy sleep schedule? Or maybe it was the fact she actually bothered to eat dinner today. Regardless, she was here, quite clearly against her will, in a standoff against a beast of minuscule proportions. Was this how she was going to die? Cowering in fear of an arachnid no bigger than her palm?
”...I’m so fucked... I’m not going to go down there, and it’s 3 in the morning so I can’t call for help either... God, do you hate me? Is my life not miserable– OH MY GOD IT MOVED!”
As the great beast twitched half a centimeter forward, Maya flopped back against the wall as she pulled her spindly legs up and off of the floor. She stared down at the spider, eyes wide, with what little of her composure flushed down the toilet that she hid on.
”Okay, okay... Mr. Spider, I assure you, I do not taste good! You cannot even eat me, I’m much too large for your mandibles, big as they must be. I... God, have I gone crazy? I’m pretending to talk to a spider in my head... God, this sucks.”
Maya pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face into them. If she did not die of starvation or thirst, she was certain her own nerves would tangle in her throat and choke her dead. This was truly it. In these final moments of her life, she would die of a heart attack on the family shitter.
...No. She’s spent sixteen years saying she’ll stay passive and let the world beat her down. She may be Maya Schoppenboer, a terrible, cowardly person to be, but she would be Maya Schoppenboer no longer! From this day forth, she’d be a warrior! From this day forth–
”WHERE DID IT GO!?”
The spider was, alongside the budding confidence of the poor Maya Schoppenboer, completely gone. To the left, the corner and its accompanying crack in the wall had no spiders to be found. To the right, beneath the sink, there was certainly a quiet, undisturbed shadow, but a spider? None to be seen. That, then, meant that the spider was somewhere Maya couldn’t see. It was not in front of her, nor to her left, nor to her right... Which meant it was either behind her... or directly beneath her.
”...Okay...”
She took a deep breath, gulped the last of her inhibitions, and then leaped and hobbled her way to the bathroom door. She pulled it open, swiftly smacked the lightswitch, and then quietly closed the door. Now free of her fecal prison, Maya lunged her way through the hall and into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
”Oh, thank god...”
Maya fell to her knees, hands sliding on the wooden panels of her brown door. Finally, at long last, she was safe. Safe from the terrifying eight-legged beast, safe from the smell of her house’s dirty bathroom, and safe from...
As Maya turned, slowly, in anticipation of returning to bed, she was met with a terrifying sight. There, laid upon her computer screen...
