The Spider's Shadow

*SHATTER*

And a ball comes flying in.

There is a faint sound of children egging each other on to grab the ball in this dusty, dull, crumby house, one that hasn't been properly lived in for maybe 20 years.

"You get it!" Shouts one kid.

"No. Devan should get it! He threw it!" Yells another.

"You kicked it! And you broke their window!"

The running feet at a fast pace begin to slow down and abruptly stop at the creaky porch window.

A head pops through the broken window, peaking into the dilapidated house. Not only did the window shatter, but the pane is coming off the wall. The boy looks around, but cannot see much of the house. The natural light is being blocked by the old, residued windows so there is no luck seeing anything from outside.

"Go in Devan!" A voice shouts.

"No! This place gives me the creeps!"

"Do you see the ball?"

"Notta! That thing is gone." Says the peaking child.

"Go in and look for it." Says a voice beside him while he engages a sour face. "What are you afraid of? Spiders? This place is empty."

The boy acknowledges that it is empty and without turning to his friend he says, "Come with me then."

His friend begins to shake then states, "I'm game. You first. You threw it first before I kicked it."

The first boy begins to crawl through the window-

"You're not even going to knock first?! That's so disrespectful!" Yells one of the kids outside.

He ignores their outburst. He is already mostly inside and there's no turning back from here.

He takes a couple steps then hears a rough creak in the floor and immediately stops. He turns around and sees his friend staring at him through the window with a blank face and says, "You coming or what?"

He turns back around and sees a portrait of.. The house? There's a portrait of the house on the wall and a mirror beside it. And this is strange, in the portrait the windows are all mirrors. Concept art? He inspects the fancy mirror and it's frame while the wallpaper behind it is quite obviously aged. He hears a rough creak behind him and says to his friend, "Bout time. Look at this. it's the only other thing in this house besides me that isn't gross looking." He chuckles while looking at his friend Ross's reflection.

"It's just a crumby old mirror." The other kid states.

He and his friend look around for the ball for a few moments and they decide that it's no use, they've checked all possible areas where the ball could have reasonably landed. That. And the house is starting to give Devan the creeps.

He checks down a hall and flips a light switch that is extremely reluctant at first, but gives and provides electricity. When the light comes on there is nothing but webs all along the walls and the ceiling.

(Gross.) He thinks to himself and looks around for the ball.

He looks to the end of the hall and notices another long human sized mirror. This one is surrounded by webs and seems a bit more aged like the rest of the house.. And.. the Ball! It's directly beneath the mirror. He quickly grabs it and begins to stand while the floor creaks again. As he stands straight up the floor begins to give and he hears, "The shadows! They course! Awaken brothers!"

"AHHHH," He screams as he runs out of the hallway, forgetting the ball in his hands for a moment and trips on an exposed plank in the ground. He immediately begins to tremble as he then hears laughter. Children laughing. His friends are looking at him from outside, cutting up as if they are all just playing a prank on him. He blushes of embarrassment and grabs his ball and runs to the window and scolds, "That's not funny! I could seriously hurt myself!" And he looks to his friend. "And where the hell did you go?! You just left me in there?" They all go silent and his friend looks at him and says, "What'ya mean?"

"Devan just cussed. I'm telling Mrs. Maxwell."

"You left me all alone. You come with me, I went into the hallway and you just left? What kind of friend are you?"

"Devan..."

"No, don't give me that. You're a wuss." He says. "You're a big ole' wuss."

"Devan, what are you talking about? Ross didn't go in with you." One of the kids pleaded.

They all looked at him in silence. "What do you mean?"

Ross looks at him and says, "You told me to leave, you said get out after I called the mirror 'crumby.' Remember?"

"No?! When did I say that? I never said that."

"We all heard you. You were very mean to him, you chased him out of the house and he almost hurt himself falling out of the window."

"That's why we decided to mess with you. That's why we yelled, 'We're telling your brother.' Because we knew it would get you running."

"That's not what I heard." Devan remarks.

"What you mean? What'd you hear?" One of the kids in the back asks.

"I heard something about shadows, and awaken my brothers." Devan nervously states.

Immediately after saying that the house begins to shake, He begins to climb through the window, but the sill collapses under his weight and he falls to the ground. He panics and immediately jumps up and when he goes to jump out there is no window, no opening, there is a frame, a frame with a mirror. The mirror from before. "What.."

A creak from behind alerts him and he immediately twists to see what's there and it's his friend, Ross. "Wait. When did you-"

"The shadow," A terrifyingly familiar voice that is nowhere near the sound of his friend utters to him, "The shadow has awakened. You. Boy. You have set us back on our course. It's time to-"

"AHHH" The child screams as he dashes to the door only to find.. There is no door, but another mirror. This one is door sized and surrounded with more webs. He bangs on the mirror and attempts to shatter it.

"What are you doing?" His friend inquires. It's Ross. In Ross's voice.

"What do you mean? I'm getting out of here. This place is haunted, it's, it's gross and we need to leave!"

"But.. The ball." Ross states.

"Forget the ball! Something strange is happening and we need to leave!" He begins to lash out at his friend, but Ross appears to be unfazed. "Ross? Are.. Are you ok?" He asks with genuine concern.

"I feel better than ever." He rebuttals in the most monotone voice with the most blank face he's ever seen his friend make.

"Well.. Well, we need to get out of here. This place isn't safe." He says to his friend.

"Ok." Ross plainly states.

He begins rushing around the dusty, almost empty living room, "There was a door here, but now all I see are mirrors." He looks around and begins to retrace his steps, he's still wondering how Ross got in there with him and what happened to the window. When the window collapsed did he hit his head? Maybe he fell through he floor and the basement has a similar layout to the living room. Come to think of it, the whole room is different now. (maybe I did hit my head) he thinks to himself as he slowly approaches the stairs. "Ross, Come on!" As he begins his journey up the staircase.

There is still an unsettling feeling to all of this, Where did Ross come from? He was the only one in the house, they all said it. Even though he saw him come into the house.. No.. He heard him come it earlier. They all mess with each other so it's probably just another prank. Very distasteful and how he's bumped his head, could have cut himself on the glass if they weren't careful.

*CRUNCH*

A sudden startle at the bottoms of his feet.

He immediately looks down and notices the glass of a large, stair sized mirror has cracked beneath him. There are cracks all throughout it and millions of trillions of pieces of glass stuck to his shoes. (odd) he thinks to himself. Why is there a mirror in the stairs? Is this another prank? What's the deal?

He makes it to the top of the stairs and opens a door and he sees a long room full of webs. It's the hallway, except at the end of the hall there is a broken mirror. A sad sight honestly. It was in great shape before and now it's shattered with a large ball imprint in the bottom quadrant of it, he inspects for a moment: "Did we do this?" He says aloud to himself.

A hand rests on his shoulder with an unsettling touch. He turns around and anxiously screams, he backs away panicking again, and falls back onto the floor and pushes himself away from the monstrosity before him. He hits the end of the hallway, it's the mirror, broken with a ball shaped gash right where his head leans upon as he runs out of space to keep backing.

What is before him is a humanoid spider Ross. It has several spider eyes and a hefty collection of fuzzy legs. It slowly creeps toward him, "What's wrong, friend? Don't you recognize me? I'm like you. I breath, I eat, I play, we are much more alike than you think."

"You're a freak!" He yells as he kicks at the spider Ross.

It grabs his leg as he squirms and looks at the bottoms of his shoes. There sticks millions of trillions of pieces of broken glass. The spider Ross calmly lets go and says, "Are you hurt? That's a lot of glass."

Devan yells again, "Get away from me you freak!"

The spider Ross asks, "Freak? How so?"

"Have you seen yourself? You're disgusting. Take a look in the mirror you beast!" Devan screeches loudly while he violently tears the mirror off the wall and shows it to the spider Ross.

"I'm. A. Monster?" He asks with an immediate shot of depression in his voice.

"But, We're friends. I thought. I thought we could play some more together." Spider Ross responds.

"No! EWW! get away!" He yells as he bashes the spider Ross over the head and scrams around.

"The shadows! They course! Awaken brothers!"

He hears behind him as he darts out of the hallway and begins running, yelling, eyes closed, panicking for the life of him, he stumbles once again on the loose floor board and rolls around the creaky floor.

He shoots up and leaps for the window.

*SLAM*

As he falls out of the broken, glass-less window and pops his head up he notices all of his friends surrounding him. He gets up and looks around as a couple of them chuckle.

"That's not funny! I could have seriously hurt myself!" He scolds them as if he's been through this before. "And where the hell is Ross? Why did he abandon me like that?"

"Devan just cussed. I'm telling Mrs. Maxwell."

"Ross?" One kid inquires. "He went in looking for you?"

"What?.." Devan's heart drops. "He did?"

"Yeah! He walked out saying you told him to leave, but then he heard you screaming so he dashed back in there looking for you! You didn't see him?"

"No! Which way did he go?!" Devan asks expressingly.

"I'm not sure, but don't go back in. You'll hurt yourself." says one kid.

"Forget that! There's monsters in there. We need to save him. We need to-" While he's talking he turns around to go back through the window, except there is no window.. just a mirror, facing him, outside of the old, dusty, decrepit house. He stares at the mirror, inspects the entire frame up and down and looks at the wall surrounding it in total astonishment. He sees movement on the mirror and looks behind his own reflection to see Ross, standing there with a bored face staring blankly at him. "What are you doing?"

"Ross." Devan states refusing to turn around and remains looking at the reflection of the two of them.

"Why do you keep looking at that crumby old mirror?" He asks.

"It's the only thing here that doesn't look...

...You know what?" He ponders.

"What?" Asks Ross as Devan turns around.

"Forget the ball. Let's go play with something else." He says to Ross. "What if someone's home? You're not even going to knock first? What a wuss." Ross aggressively says.

"You first. You kicked it in."

"But you threw it!"

Devan looks at him, gives him a light shove while Ross responds with one of his own and the two of them walk away from the mysterious house. Together.

"Who puts a mirror on their front porch anyway?" Is heard at a far enough distance from the house to be faint and disputable as to who actually said it.