Lone SurvivorIn a Wintermare tavern, two young people are talking about their plans when an old man approaches.
"You two aren't planning a hike up on the mountain, are you?" The stranger asks them.
"Yeah. We're going tomorrow morning. Why do you ask?" replied the young man.
"Are you planning to stay there overnight?" The old man asked, ignoring the question.
"Sure." the young woman said, answering instead. "The weather is supposed to be great for the next few days. We can spend a couple days up there hiking before we have to come back."
"But you'll have to camp up there then during the night." He looked at them expectantly.
"Yeah. We're not planning to hike at night, of course. That's too dangerous." The younger man answers with a bit of exasperation.
"But you'll be up there. With
it." The old man shudders.
"What? With what?" The woman asks in puzzlement.
"No one's told you about the Snow Spider?" The old man seems surprised.
The young man replies, "Uh, no. And why should we be worried about some bug? It's too cold for anything like that up there."
"The Snow Spider is no bug. Listen closely while I tell you about it.
"Up in the mountains of Wintermare, there used to be a secret research base that tried to alter sims so that they could survive extreme conditions of cold, low oxygen, & long stretches of time without food. They also wanted them to have some means of subduing attackers. Whether they used science, magic, or some combination is unknown. What is known is that if they succeeded, they must've signed their own death warrants, as none of them were seen again.
"I believe that they created a being called the Snow Spider. It's bald & thin-looking, with long limbs, huge eyes that are black from lid to lid, skin as white as snow, & a mouthful of razor sharp teeth. It has claws that have some sort of venom under them. It's fast-moving and merciless. If you're up there at night, it will find you, envenomate you so that you're paralyzed, & devour you alive."
After the old man finishes, the young man looks at him in disbelief. "You expect us to believe that? It sounds like something some wannabe horror writer made up." he scoffed.
"You can ask anyone around here about the secret research base. Everyone knows about it after that one scientist had too much to drink and blabbed about it." Then the old man then nodded thoughtfully. "I should've said that there was one witness who managed to escape while it was eating his paralyzed friends."
"Oh yeah?" The younger man looked at the older disdainfully.
The stranger shook his head. "Yes. I am the lone survivor. I was only grazed by its claws & the paralysis wore off while it was eating, so I was able to stumble away. I don't know how it didn't find me, but I escaped. I was lucky enough to run into some hikers the next morning. If I hadn't, I would've died that day or the following night when it found me."
The two were quiet while they thought about that.
"How old do you think I am?" The old man asks suddenly.
Jerked away from his thoughts, the younger man said, "What? How should I know?"
The stranger just looks at him silently.
"Okay. Fine. Um, 60's? 70's maybe?" he guesses.
The stranger laughs in a grim bark. "No. I'm 23. Its venom, & maybe the terror, did this to me."
He looked their faces over for their reactions. "I've warned you. Now you have to decide if you want to risk running into
it or be sensible and change your plans. I hope you do, but I won't be surprised if you're like the others and don't." He shook his head and shuffled away.
The two young people silently looked at each other.
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As my question about the story wasn't answered, I elected to try to condense it down for my entry, then add the full version here. I hope that's okay.
I also uploaded the
Snow Spider. You'll notice from her clothing that she doesn't really feel the cold unless it's
really bad. ?
I hope to start looking at the other entries tonight. I can't wait!
Edited to add the italics in place of the asterisks. I forgot that I could do that when I posted it. ?
