Inheritance of the Flame Spider

“Hahaha, Owen come on, we have to get on the ship now.”

“mmmm”

“I’m coming Nami, hehehe.”

Boom!!!

A loud crash coming from downstairs woke me from my sleep. Still lying-in bed, I stare at my ceiling as I hear my parents arguing. “Well, if you weren’t such a lazy father maybe they’d be up already” my mother screams angrily as she cooks breakfast.

Turning over, I look at the time. “It’s only 9:47, why does she always do this? It’s a Saturday'' I murmur under my breath as I try to fall back asleep and keep on dreaming about Nami from One Piece, the love of my life. Just as I begin to doze and close my eyes again, I hear my mom scream “Kids hurry up and come down, your breakfast is ready!” On days like these I don’t really like to go out or do anything, just sit in my room and watch anime, but it's hard because my parents are always yelling and arguing about something. Mainly me.

I am what you would call a black sheep. I’m the middle child of five kids, and I look nothing like any of my siblings or even my father for that matter. My birth caused a lot of turmoil within my family because I came out darker than my other siblings with jet black hair, and given that most of my family is light skinned with dark brown hair, everyone thought my mother cheated on my father with someone else. Not only do I get blamed for the start of my parent’s marital problems, I get blamed for nearly everything under the sun and my parents swear I’m going to be a failure because “I don’t work hard enough and I don’t belong” but it doesn’t bother me anymore because the first chance I get to leave this house and this family, I’m taking it.

I get up and get ready to go downstairs even though I don’t want to. Making my parents even angrier is the last thing I want to do right now. As I walk down, I smell the sweet aroma of honey pancakes and strawberries. One of my favorites. When I reach the kitchen, everybody is there waiting for me with my parents giving me a nasty look. Before they get the chance to say anything, I say, “sorry for taking so long, I was in the bathroom.” With that my father told me to hurry up. “Nobody cares, just hurry your slow ass up” I can tell he's still mad that I didn’t qualify for the state track meet, but in my defense I didn’t really care. It just would’ve added more stress to me, and it would’ve meant more practice too, which I was not down for. If I’m being honest, I had just used sports as an excuse to get out of the house, but little did I know my parents would take them seriously.

When I take my seat at the table, it’s quiet for a little bit until my little sister spoke out.

“Did you guys know that some lab downtown was broken into and like 2 super important spiders that they were experimenting on have gone missing?!”

“No baby I didn’t, but that sounds interesting” my mom says with a big smile on her face.

“Tell us more” my dad exclaims as he’s stuffing his face with food. “Are these spiders Dangerous?”

My parents are always nice and care about my other siblings. They can go on and on talking about trivial nonsense like my little sister is and they’ll sit there and listen to them without yelling at them or giving them nasty looks. They actually parent my other siblings and care about the things they do, even if it doesn't benefit them; Unlike me who if I’m not doing anything to benefit them or doing anything to get out of the house, they always get mad at me and start going on and on about how I’m lazy and this and that.

As my little sister keeps talking about the spiders and the lab, she brings up something very interesting. “They said that they were working on infusing the spiders with some of the elements and that they were going to pick five people to be test subjects, but it was dropped all together after the spiders became too unstable to handle and one of the scientists died” Piquing my interest, I start to listen more closely as I wasn’t before. “He died the same night the lab was broken into and that was also coincidentally the night the spiders were supposed to be destroyed!” I can tell my sister is getting excited talking about this stuff because she’s nearly standing in her seat and has a huge smile on her face. Insects and stuff like that are her thing, but it really creeps me out because she keeps a bug collection in her room and sometimes, she lets them out to crawl around her room. “From doing more research, the 2 spiders that got away were fire and lightning, with the fire spider having a flame on its back and red legs, and with the lightning spider having purple and blue streaks running along its abdomen and legs like lightning streaks!”

Listening to her talk about these spiders reminded me of Spider-Man’s origin story and how getting bit by a spider gave him powers. I start to get lost in thought and start to daydream about how cool it would if I was Spider-Man. But like all goods they must come to an end, and I was interrupted by mom shortly after.

‘’Owen, speaking of spiders, when are you going to clean the shed, that may I remind you, is full of spiders?” she says sharply as her head turns to me.

“I thought I told you to get it done a couple of days ago?” my dad says as he chimes in giving me the same look as my mom was.

Before I can say anything they both tell me to forget breakfast and go clean up the shed. “Stop being so lazy and scary and go get it done” As I begin to get up from the table, still hungry and now a little bit angry, I hear my mom mutter something under her breath, but I couldn't make out what it was.

When I reach the shed, a little bit of panic starts to set in. For all I know the most venomous spiders in North Carolina can be in here, and I don’t even want to imagine what else. I opened the old wooden doors and was reminded why I didn’t do it before. There is stuff everywhere. The number of things we have in here is ridiculous. “This is going to take me all day. I’m not even gonna get to watch any anime” When this thought starts to set in, it made me even angrier than I already was.

I go to the back, where the mess is the worst and where I know the spiders are and start trying to strategize on the best way to clean. I decided to start by moving the futon first, but when I started to move it a wave of spiders started rushing out. I start to panic but I still begin moving the futon further out. This is out of the ordinary for me as normally I would’ve run away by now, but it's like something is keeping me here.

After I get the futon fully moved, it reveals a wall full of spiders. One in particular is standing out.

“That…”

“…That’s one of the spiders my sister was talking about, the one with the flame on its back”

As the reality of the situation starts to settle in, I notice that all the other spiders are gravitating towards it. Frozen in place, my eyes are locked onto this spider. It has the most beautiful red I've ever seen on its legs, and the flame on its back looks as if it’s alive. Something in me wanted to touch it even though the rest of me was scared out of my mind. As I reach to touch it, the spiders around it start to scatter, and it jumps on my neck. In a frenzy, I start to spin in circles and run around to get it off me. I guess I scared it too and it bit me with everything it had, causing me to smack it and kill it. The effects of the bite set in almost immediately after. My insides felt like they had been set ablaze and my entire body was hot, making me grow more and more faint. I could feel my body growing heavier like lead as I walked to the entrance of the shed. Everything was beginning to go black which caused me to panic even further due to it still being the morning and the shed was well lit. As I reach the entrance, my body shuts down and I fall, causing me to blackout completely.

When I finally woke up it was pitch-black outside and judging by how I still woke up on the floor of the shed, no one had come to check on me. I go back inside the house and it's dark in here as well. “They’re all probably in their rooms” I tell myself as I head to my own. When I finally reached my room, I realized something. I have just been bitten by some super spider and I’m still alive, so I must have some super cool abilities. “If Spider-Man became Spider-Man by getting bit by a spider, maybe I have too” I say this as I’m getting kind of excited. I walk to my window and open it to test if I have any superpowers and also to keep damage to a minimum if I do. “What is the best way to test this theory?” I’m asking myself as I look out the window into the night. “Oh, I know, I just have to do the Spider-Man hand thingy and it should work. Right?” As I do the Spidey thingy, a large amount of webs start shooting from my wrist. An extreme wave of excitement started rushing over me as my new reality was starting to set in.

“This is it”

“This is my chance to finally leave and be free” 

My first order of business was to pack a bag as I decided that I was leaving tonight, but a few problems arose. Problem 1 was that I had nowhere to go. Problem number 2 is that Spider-Man is kind of useless unless he’s in a big city, so I decided to choose one, and no place is better than New York City for a Spider-Man like myself. After figuring out the solution to those 2 problems, another came along. “So how will I even get to New York? I don’t have enough money to fly and when I get there I won’t have anywhere to stay.” As I’m thinking this to myself, I just decided to take the Amtrak, because it’s the least noticeable and the cheapest. Nobody really rides trains anymore so my family shouldn’t suspect a thing. As for my living arrangements, I’ll just figure it out when I get there. I gather all the belongings I’ll be bringing with me, clothes, shoes, and of course a suit. It’s kind of bootleg, because it’s just an all-black hoodie and jeans and an oversized beanie that I cut out for my eyes and hair that I got for Christmas that seems like it was made for an airhead.

I quickly solved my money issue, kind of. All the money that I saved in cash was barely enough for me to buy my ticket for the train as I wasn’t bringing anything that people could use to track me. With that I remember that my parents keep money hidden all over the house. For what? I have no clue. After going around the house and taking all the hidden money I could find, I ended up with $277 on top of the $120 I already had. “With this, I have enough money for food for about 2 weeks if I use it sparingly.” Now it was time to leave. I jump out of my window and then onto dark parts of the sidewalk, trying to not be seen by any security cameras in the neighborhood. I started walking to the train station, which was about a 2 hour walk from my house. “The train leaves at 6:45, so I should get there with some time to spare if I walk at a nice pace.”

The walk to the station wasn’t that bad as I had some time to think about what I was doing and if this is really what I want. In conclusion, it is. This is an opportunity very few people get, and I am one of those very few, so I’m going to take advantage of it. Not many people were waiting for the train and the lady who gave me my ticket at the desk was nice. She didn’t ask questions like why a 16-year-old kid was alone at a train station at 5:30 in the morning, and it was honestly really appreciated. Still trying to stay low and keep quiet, I find a bench to sit on and just wait. When the train finally arrived, I was the first one on and went to find a comfy window seat. “My journey is starting” as I mutter to myself with a smile, barely containing my excitement.

“New York City…”

“Here I come.”

“The new Spider-Man”

The End of Chapter 1- Inheritance of the Flame Spider