Lost Friends

"Wake up, Cress!"

Cress's eyes fluttered and she raised her arm to shield them from the blinding sun bearing down on her. A warm breeze blew threw the grass, caressing her cheeks as she rose from her afternoon nap.

"You said you'd let me sleep," she groaned. She covered her mouth with her hand as she yawned and glared at Mia. "'It'll take Marcel a couple of hours to get a wagon and horses, so feel free to get some rest' is what you said."

"It's been two hours, dummy!"

"Two hours?!"

Scooping up her sack and dagger, Cress jumped to her feet and dusted herself off. How had it been two hours already? She barely remembered falling asleep.

"Yep! We need to head out or we won't make it to the next town before nightfall."

"Is that such a big deal? Camping isn't that bad. Honestly I prefer it to all these old inns we've been staying at. They're riddled with rssipeds and they get mad whenever I complain."

"Well not everyone is as terrified of edissrp like you. How do you plan on being an adventurer being so childish?"

"I'm not childish," Cress huffed. "At least not as childish as Dian."

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. But don't think I haven't noticed how you two have been looking at one another across the campfire lately." Mia's lips pouted, kissing the air before she giggled with a taunting grin. "I though Marcel and I were bad."

"Shut. Up! Like I could ever like that womanizer. He'll flirt with anything with a heartbeat and a hole to-."

Mia shrugged and rested her maple staff across her shoulders. "Maybe before, but that rascal hasn't even looked at another woman since you joined the party. You might be a terrible adventurer, but just keeping a leash on that whorehound is more than enough reason to keep you around."

"Be still my heart," Cress sighed, walking in pace with Mia to the dirt road where Marcel and Dian were loading a wagon with supplies. Both were shirtless and Cress couldn't stop her eyes from lingering on the sculpted muscles of Dian's pliant body as he loaded a wooden crate. Likewise, Mia was practically drooling from the mouth as she stared starry-eyed at Marcel.

"Are you two going to just stand there gawking or are you going to help?" Dian called, wiping sweat from his brow with this arm. His shaggy blond hair was slicked back and Cress didn't have to wonder how he was so popular with the ladies. "It'll go quicker with more hands."

"Some gentleman you are," Mia grumbled frowning until she caught Marcel biting his bottom lip as she walked by. "But if you insist. Will you hand me that small crate over there, Cress? It should be pretty light."

"Sure," Cress said, crouching down and picking up the crate. "It feels empty. Are you sure we need this one?"

"Empty?" Marcel frowned, his gruff voice agitated by the news. "If that bastard duped us, I swear I'll go back and-"

"Don't get ahead of yourself. It was probably a mistake. Cress, can you check to make sure it's empty before Marcel kills someone?"

"Sure." Cress set the crate down and jammed a metal bar between the lid and the side of the box, prying it open slowly. The inside was dark and she couldn't see anything at first, but once she got it half way open, she stumbled back screaming.

"WHAT THE FUCK!" she screamed, crawling several steps across the dusty dirt road before standing up. "IT'S FULL OF SPIDERS!"

"Is that all?" Dian said, hopping down from the wagon and peering into the crate. "Ah, I thought so." The man reached his lean arm into the crate and Cress choked back vomit as dozens of bulbous spiders skittered over his skin, covering his slick skin with white silk. "It would have been really bad if we'd forgotten Marcel."

"M-Marcel?" Cress stammered. Her hand clenched the chest of her shirt and she took another step back. Something that felt like a small tree pressed against her back and she looked over her shoulder.

"How could you forget?"

Cress stared agape in wide-eyed dismay at the indomitable creature behind her. Its eight unblinking shadowed peridot eyes paralyzed her in place. Her chest heaved, yet somehow she felt like she'd never taken a breath in her life.

"Illia…" Cress whispered at the blood-soaked woman leering over her. Her warm brown hair was stained red, sticking to her face as she gave Cress a wide-mawed smile. Her sword was in her hand and there was a shimmer of delight in her monstrous eyes.

"S-Stay away! Mia, Dian! Help!"

Cress tried to run to her friends, but lanky brown fingers coated in sticky red clamped down on her shoulder. Pointed nails dug through the fabric of her shirt, burrowing into her skin until Cress collapsed to her knees, her face distorted with pain.

"Why should we help you?" Mia asked, stepping in front of Cress. Her dark eyes stared with indifference. "Why should any of us help someone like you?"

"I-I… It wasn't my fault! You told me to run!"

"YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED ANYWAYS!" Dian screamed, stepping beside Mia and grabbing Cress's cheeks with his hand. Red dripped from his mouth and more than half of his bared teeth were missing. "WE SAVED YOU AND YOU ABANDONED US!"

"It wasn't my fault," Cress sobbed, struggling to break free from Dian and Illia's grips. "Even Marcel-"

"Even Marcel what?" Mia's cold voice asked. "Tell me, what did he say? Why don't we ask him?"

Tears streamed down Cress's cheeks and she could only let out a series of coarse coughs when she tried to scream again. She tried to turn away, to look anywhere else, but Dian anchored her face forward so that she was nose to nose with Marcel's face. The skin of his face was worn and saggy, and his eyes were black empty sockets.

No. Not empty. Cress thrashed frantically, choking herself trying to beg for them to let her go before the thousands of thin legged black spiders burst out and-

"NO!" Cress's shriek echoed in the room and she threw her blanket off of her in a cold sweat. The white t-shirt she'd gone to sleep in was soaked through and there was a body shaped wet stain on her sheet.