I opened my eyes and sat up in bed. I yawned, stretching out my arms above my head. My alarm clock sat in the corner of my nightstand, playing my favorite radio station. I swung myself out of bed and got dressed.

“Kumoko!” my mother calls from the kitchen.

“Just a minute!” I yell back. I felt my teeth with my finger. Sharp. Just like my mother predicted, my “fangs are coming in.” You see, I’m part spider. Or, spider-spirit, to be exact. But on top of that, I’m also arachnophobic. Oh, the irony. Anyways, like all female members of my family before me, at the age of fifteen, changes occur.

I stood up and looked into my mirror. My naturally dark purple hair was beginning to lighten into an almost-white purple at the tips.

“Kumoko! Get out here!” Mother yelled again.

“Just a minute!” I yelled back. I hastily pulled on my clothes before rushing down the stairs to the dining room. My siblings were already there.

“Koko!” My little brother, Natsume, said. Because he is male, he already had his fangs. He smiles at me, waving his small hand at me and showing his small but sharp teeth.

“Hello, Natsume,” I said, tussling his white-purple hair. I walked around his chair and sat down in mine, yawning. Just then, my older sister, Mirai, stepped into the room. She rubbed her eyes as she plopped into her chair, having just woken up.

“What time is it?” She asked blearily as I made myself cereal.

I glanced at the clock. “Seven-thirty,” I told her.

“Uugh,” She said. “I got up way too early.”

“Not the case!” Mother said, leaning her head into the room. “You woke up just in time! Remember, you’re taking your sister to school today.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mirai said. “Do I have to?”

“Yes, you do,” Mother said.

“Oh, fine,” Mirai grumbled. She hastily poured her cereal and then started scarfing it down as fast as she could. I then finished mine and brought the bowl and spoon into the kitchen. I set them down in the sink and then went up into my room to get ready for school.

With quick, practiced motions, I packed everything I’d need. Pencils, pens, my notebook, my sketchbook, and my latest new manga. I zipped up my backpack and plopped down onto my bed again, waiting.

Thumping footsteps came up the stairs as Mirrai ran up them. She dashed into her room, quickly getting her things ready. I walked to her doorway and peeked inside.

Mirai’s room, unlike mine, was blanketed in her silk. A canopy was draped over the bed, and the corners of the room had been smoothed out by thick layers of webs.

Mirai stuffed one last thing into her bookbag and turned to face me.

“Ready to go?” She asked me.

“Yep,” I said. The two of us walked down the stairs and outside the house.

“Bye-bye Koko!” Natsume said from the kitchen.

“Goodbye!” I said, waving to him. Mirai unlocked the door of her car and hopped inside. I followed, sitting down in the front passenger seat.

“Let’s go!” Mirai said. She pulled out of the driveway before going as fast as she could legally go down the road to my school.

“Goodbye!” Mirai said as I stepped onto the sidewalk outside my school. “Happy Birthday!”

“Bye!” I said. Mirai then drove away, leaving me at school. I turned and started walking toward the only bunch of trees on the school grounds. When I finally reached it, I stepped through the drooping leaves of the willow tree into the small clearing in the middle.

“There you are!” my best friend, Fei, said. “I’ve been waiting for you!”

“Hi,” I said glumly.

“Why are you so gloomy today?” Fei asked. “It’s your birthday!”

“Well, yeah,” I said, “but it’s the day that, you know…” I trailed off.

“Oh, right,” Fei said. “The whole… spider thing.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well, how is it so far?” Fei asked.

“I dunno,” I said. “Kind of not noticeable.”

“Well, that’s good!” Fei said. “What’s changed so far?”

“My teeth,” I said. “Look.” I opened my mouth, where my teeth had progressively gotten sharper over the day.

“Woah,” Fei said. “That’s kinda cool.”

“You really think so?” I asked.

“Uh-huh!” Fei said. “Definitely!”

“Thanks,” I said, grateful for my friend. Fei is the only person outside of my family who knows about me being part spider spirit. She first found out years ago when Mirai accidentally revealed it in front of her.

Ring! Came the bell.

“Time for class!” Fei said. “Come on!” She grabbed onto my arm and pulled me out of the trees. The two of us ran inside the main school building and toward our first class. We stopped right outside the door. We stood there for several seconds, catching our breath, before Fei opened the door. She walked inside, and I followed.

Fei went to her seat in the front, and I sat in mine next to a window and pulled out my most recent book. For several minutes, our classmates streamed into the room, chatting and sitting down, just like any other day.

“Hey there, loser,” someone said. I raised my head to see Ariel, the most popular girl in our grade, staring right at me.

“What do you want?” I asked her. She just smirked at me, pushed my book onto the floor, and walked to her seat. As one of her ‘cronies’ walked by, they kicked my book even further. I sighed and went to pick it up before sitting down again.

Just then, our teacher, Mrs. Nguyen, stepped into the classroom. Everyone then quickly sat down in their seats and were silent. Mrs. Nguyen walked to her desk and sat down.

Then, very suddenly, a quiet buzzing sound came from nowhere. Everyone was startled, looking around to find where the sound was coming from.

And then everything was an intensely bright light.

And then blackness.

Complete and total darkness.

And then I fell, down…

Down…

Down, into…

What?

Quiet blue light seeped through cracks in the blackness around me. Odd chittering sounds in the background reached my ears. I tried to move, and my hand hit something cold and hard. I poked at the light. In it, I saw my hand was not a hand. It was a small, insect-like leg. I yelled out, rolling back and forth. I felt the hard object around me crack where the other cracks were. I scrabbled at the light, finally breaking open at the top. I scrambled out of it and lay on the ground, panting.

I then turned my head to look at myself. What I saw was four spider legs connected to a large white abdomen. I yelped and scrunched my eyes closed. No. This could not be happening. I couldn’t have become a spider. Not even Mother could do that.

Sighing, I tried to stand up. The first time, I fell flat on my face, but the second time I succeeded. I stood there, testing out my new legs. I looked around and saw that I was surrounded by large white eggs speckled with black dots. To my left was a small puddle of water, which I realized could be used to see my reflection.

I took one step before falling again. Walking with eight legs is harder than it seems. I tried again, and I succeeded! I walked slowly and carefully, getting better as I went. I stop at the small puddle of water and peer into it. What greeted me was a strange face. Unlike the spiders I’m used to, my head looked much more like a plushie.

I turned around again, scanning the rows and rows and rows of eggs. One nearby shifted in place. A small chittering sound comes from inside it. There are several cracking sounds before the top pops off. A spider very similar in coloration to me crawls out of it. It looks around before climbing down and scurrying off toward a sound in the distance.

Then, another egg shifted. It rattled and cracked, right before something inside let out a yelp.

“Get me outta here!” A voice inside yelled. I gasped, rushing over to the egg, and then began to help break whoever was inside out. Together, the two of us manage to break open the shell. Inside is another spider with a plushie-like face.

“Aaah!” They yelled. “Get away from me!”

“Don't worry!” I said, trying to act calmly.

“Wait, what?” the other spider yelled. “How is a spider talking?”

“Well, you’re talking, so why shouldn’t I be?” I asked.

“Well, I’m not a spider!” The other spider said.

I sighed. “Take a look at yourself.”

The other spider looked at themself and then yelled out.

“Aaaaah!” They said, “Why am I a spider!?”

“My best guess is that there was an explosion of some kind and we died,” I said. “And then we’ve been reincarnated.”

“Oh,” They said. “Well then, who are you?”

“I’m Kumoko,” I said. “What about you?”

“Oh, it’s you,” my former classmate said. “I’m Mira.”

Mira? Ugh. Mira is, or, was, I should say, one of the kids who was with a group that only hung out with themselves. She also highly disliked me for reasons unknown to me. But anyway.

“What should we do now?” Mira asked. “I’m hungry.”

Crunch. Crunch. I turned around to see a bunch of the other spiders, my ‘siblings,’ clumped together around something they were eating.

“Well, there’s that,” I said. I started walking toward the clump of other spiders. “What’s for breakfast?” The spiders move aside for me, revealing another much larger spider covered in bloody cuts and bite marks.

“Yuck!” Mira said. “Why the cannibalism?!”

Just then, a huge, thick leg slammed into the ground next to me, stabbing through another spider nearby. I looked up and saw that it was attached to a huge body, belonging to a gigantic spider. The gigantic spider brought its leg up and to its mouth, where it ate the smaller spider it had stabbed.

“That’s a big one,” I said. Mira barfed.

“We need to get out of here,” she said. The spider brought another of its legs down exactly where I had been standing.

“Run!” I shouted. Both Mira and I ran as fast as we could through the system of caves. The large spider behind us roared, blasting the caverns with sound. But we ran farther and farther until we couldn’t hear the roars.

“Whew!” Mira said. “That was awful!”

“I know,” I said. “At least we’re safe now.” Just then, we heard a crack. I looked down to see it was right underneath me. It split more, stretching to cover the ground underneath both me and Mira. And then the cave floor collapsed, dropping us down, down, down into the dark caverns below.

Only ten minutes into life as a spider and I'm already falling down a cavern.