something....or someone? living in my attic
OMG GUESS WHO FINALLY WROTE SOMETHING >:D
Tw: slight arachnophobia
enjoy the story!
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The attic smelled like dust and old cardboard, the kind of place sunlight only visited through a slatted window at odd angles. Sapnap had climbed up there to find the missing charger he was certain he’d left behind. Instead, he found a movement — a small, deliberate skitter across a stack of comic books — and the instinct that had kept him alive through awkward childhood encounters with bugs kicked in. He froze. The skitter stopped. Sapnap didn't think, he acted: a glass cup from a nearby shelf pitched down and thunked over the creature like a makeshift bell jar.
For a long, excruciating second, there was silence. Then, impossibly, a voice squeaked from beneath the rim
"P-Please let me out!"
Sapnap's hand hovered above the glass. His heart did that ridiculous flip where it tries to escape through his throat. He had trapped a spider. He had trapped a talking spider. He imagined the headlines. He imagined yelling.
"...No."
The voice went high with outrage. Tiny legs beat a rhythm he could feel more than hear against the cardboard floor. A pair of too-bright eyes peered up at him through the cup — not the cold, insect eyes Sapnap expected, but...they looked pretty like human eyes.
"Why?!"
the voice demanded. Sapnap swallowed. He kept his hand on the rim like an anchor in a storm.
"You scare the shit out of me"
he admitted, and the words landed between them, loud in the dusty light. There was a long, slow pause. Then, with a theatrical huff, the creature folded one delicate foreleg across its chest.
"What...? You're saying that you, the person who trapped me against my own will and made me try to deal with the fact I might die at any moment...is scared of me? of tthe tiny little spider?"
Sapnap snorted despite himself. It was absurd — this tiny creature, this drider with a humanish face and... suprisingly pretty talkative. He had expected animal instinct, maybe even teeth. Instead he was looking at a face that raised an eyebrow.
"..."
Sapnap rubbed the back of his neck.
"…In my defense the way you run freaks me out..."
"....and I'm kinda scared of spiders"
Sapnap mumbled. after a while of silence, the drider said.
"...im Karl by the way"
those words made Sapnap’s palms itch with the need to apologize.
"Next time try saying hello instead of playing toupée with the nearest household object"
Sapnap's fingers loosened. The argument made him laugh. He'd stolen something from himself in that moment — the panicked, reflexive part that flinched first and thought later. He lifted the cup. Karl clicked his mandibles once. He climbed out with careful dignity, legs folding like an exotic umbrella. Up close he looked even stranger: a torso that could have belonged to a small, wiry human, wrists ringed with too many joints, and a soft, rueful smile that almost made Sapnap want to reach out and touch him, purely to disprove the old spider myths in his head.
"So,"
Karl said, arranging himself on the desc he was.
"Now that I am not on the menu, can we talk about why you were rummaging through my attic?"
"...you live here?"
Sapnap asked. Karl shrugged, a motion full of silk and economy.
"Sort of. Borrowed space. I prefer low humidity and a steady supply. And humans always forget better things up here."
Sapnap asked what felt important for him: "Are you—like, dangerous?"
Karl laughed, a sound like somebody flicking a violin string.
"Dangerous? To what? To dust bunnies? To your fragile dignity? No. To people who step on me while distracted? Possibly. To those who underestimate conversation as a form of diplomacy? Absolutely."
They talked in fits and starts — Sapnap awkward and earnest, Karl merciless and sincere. He learned Karl loved the slow patterns of storytelling, the way a good joke has to be threaded like silk across a room. Karl learned Sapnap collected ridiculously lot of superhero comics and had, more importantly, a soft spot for rescuing stray animals, even if his rescue protocols were loud and dramatic. They were talking for a pretty long time. Outside, the rooftop sounded like a city readying for night, and inside, under the slanted sunlight, Sapnap and Karl found the odd, simple truth: fear makes people do funny things, but friendship — however small, however spider-sized — makes better ones.
