This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/vernichtungX23 on 2025-12-18 02:41:41+00:00.

Lisbeth Ventura pulled the pin and flung the grenade. The ground rattled, the boom filled her ears with static. The blast cleared a dozen or so of the still raged and swarming M. terribilis, but there were hundreds more. 

Her rifle was empty.

Her hands reached pointlessly to her sidearm for a moment. It was a token gesture, no more. Even if she'd had a spare magazine, there were too many. She'd kill another handful, and be quickly divided into neat bites of meat by the rest. They weren't even hungry at this point. They were just angry. Females went berserk when the few males were killed.

Ventura darted into a steel locker meant for emergency supplies and slammed the door. It wasn't unassailable, but it would at least take time for the spiders to either give a shit about it or corrode the door with their venom.

She fished out a torch from her combat jacket, then rummaged for the roll of duct tape she should, with any luck, have in a pocket somewhere. 

There it was.

She'd taken a class in this back when she first joined the military. There was an art to it. You didn't simply throw a few disarticulated spider limbs together and tape them to your back any old way. You had to mimic their natural posture and their natural body language. 

'It works like this,' Sergeant Yamanaka had explained. 'First, you gather whatever molts you can get your hands on, or limbs from M. terribilis corpses. You then arrange them centrally so they're pointing out, like an asterisk. You need to tape that whole assembly together, and then lash the middle part to your back. The spiders aren't smart, and can't see fine detail - they're longsighted. What they do notice is overall shape and positioning.'

Ventura found the courage to open the door a crack. 

There were skittering noises and enraged shrieks still going on in the other side of the building, but none here. The spiders had tired of waiting for their prey to come out, and gone to find some other target for their fury. 

Clamping down the urge to gag, Ventura drew her combat knife and set about collecting the requisite number of limbs from the spider corpses stretched across the floor. One. Two. Three.

Eight.

She bundled the monstrous trophies together like Sergeant Yamanaka said, then heaved the assembly onto her back and bound it in place, praying the shriek of the duct tape didn't attract them before she was ready.

Time to go. 

Down the hallway. Slowly, terribly. The cacophony of human screams and shrieks from the frenzied spiders drew closer, blared louder. 

Into the communal hall.

The adult female M. terribilis towered overhead. She stared coldly at Ventura, and she uttered a deafening high-pitched screech: why aren't you angry? Why aren't you helping us avenge the only male in the swarm? 

But she made no move to lunge, and while her mouth gaped wide in battle-fury, no fangs snapped shut on Ventura's neck. 

Through hallways and habitat blocks, past more ceiling-high orb-bodies sprung on eight-coil suspension, past more sets of dark eyes that had no iris and no pupil. Too many eyes. 

Another female loured at her, confused at her lack of blind hindbrain rage. Why aren't you furious, frenzied? Don't you know the humans took our only male, our only chance at passing on genes?

Now to the exit door, and Ventura had to take her combat knife and slice away the macabre costume to quickly dart through. Immediately her heart pounded. That was a mistake. She should have taken her time. She was defenseless now with no camouflage and not nearly enough ammunition.

A fresh din roared fit to shake loose the bones of her inner ear. This one was two-tone, first the whirring of helicopter blades, now the thunder of heavy cannons. The craft pulled sharp turns as it swooped down to fire at the spiders now stampeding from the building.

'VENTURA!' someone bellowed as the gunfire went silent for a second or two. 'GET THE FUCK UP HERE NOW!'

A rope dropped from the sky, and she grasped the end and held fast, and the ground fell away as the helicopter regained altitude.