“What are you doing? Hello, anyone in there.”

I stare blankly towards the window sill, completely ignoring his voice. My eyes were glued to a small, seemingly insignificant creature climbing on silver threads.

“Earth to Emma, what in the world are you looking at.”

His voice drifts back and forth like a continuous wave, but my hearing grew fuzzy. Purposely. I watched as the creature became clearer and clearer with each passing second; long, spindly black legs scaling effortlessly up a glittering web, pulling a rather portly, round body. Tiny eyeballs dart to and fro as it carefully analyzes its next step: should I climb to the stable strand in the center or risk my chances on the outer rim. Its ascent zigzags like a mountain trail till it reaches the safety of the inner web. Patiently, it stalls, scanning its surroundings till eight eyes find me, sitting solidified in my chair, a frozen prisoner. Though her snout is too small to see, I don’t even have to imagine a hungry smile spreading across her lips, flushed with stolen blood.

“Geez, are you deaf or something?” Zack’s voice becomes the light at the end of the endless tunnel I cannot escape. The walls are crawling with more black-bodied creatures, nimbly scaling the bricks with skinny legs. They swarm around me like the plague, creeping ever so closer to my bare skin. No jacket in the world could protect me now.

A blurry image suddenly scattered the scuttling arachnids, waving up and down like a vertical see-saw. Zack’s hand.

“You’re as white as a sheet,” he says, his green eyes filled with concern. I stare into those emerald orbs trying to clear the fog from my thoughts. But all I can cognize is a bold black body slowly creeping towards me.

I peer trembling, past Zack’s shoulder looking for the creature lurking in the silvery web. The web appears startlingly empty.

“Where is it?” I shriek lunging backwards, as my chair topples helplessly to the floor.

“Where’s what,” Zack shouts, spinning around to look.

“The spider, where’s the SPIDER!” I moan, pointing to the empty web. Jack follows my line of sight to the web and shakes his head.

“You scared me half to death. It’s a harmless little spider.”

“Harmless!”

“Whoa, whoa, take it easy. It probably crawled into a hole in the molding or something.” He rests a comforting hand on my shoulder, but I shrug him off.

“Are you kidding? What if it’s crawling on the counter right now.”

He laughs and sweeps his index finger across the granite surface.

“See, no creepy crawly. You sure freak out about those things.” He thumps me on the back and I hear him chuckling as he disappears into the den.

What an idiot, chides my thoughts. Of course he wouldn’t see the spider; he keeps one as a pet in his room! I glance down the counter, beating up my nervous senses.

Don’t be such a baby, Zack’s probably right. The spider’s just as scared of me as I am of her.

A black dot catches my eye, awkwardly sitting in the mismatched granite tiling. The worn smile on my lips vanishes and my knuckles turn white gripping the counter.

This is ridiculous, I’m so psyching myself out, laughs a small voice in my head. The dot slowly begins to crawl across the tiling. My laughter fades. Long legs sprout from the dot as it creeps closer and closer to my outstretched hand.

Oh man, chokes my thoughts. I try to move my fingers away, but they’re frozen to the cold granite. My throat locks up as the creature pauses, inches from my bare skin. It flexes its prolonged legs and contemplates my petrified face. Then it starts moving, again.

My hand refuses to release from the counter, I cannot escape. Long pinchers are a mere inch away from my pale pink fingernail.

“Zack!”

Eight eyeballs lock onto my hand and a black leg eagerly strokes my fingernail.