“Come here, Slave!”

        The ten year old looked up, but he continued scrubbing his section of the Grand Hall’s floor vigorously. Lord William never called his slaves by their names, if they had a name because some of them didn’t. Instead, he just called all of them “Slave”. Therefore, Felix had to look up to see whether or not if it was him being called or another of the multiple slaves in the room with him, cleaning their own section of the floor. Because of the uncertainty whether or not it was him or a different slave being called, Felix continued his task. He didn’t want to be lashed for stopping his work without being ordered to stop. He noticed that all the other slaves did the smart thing as well. He could see them from the edges of his vision while he stared directly at Lord William, and in turn, his master’s dreadful eyes glared back at him.

        “Yes, you,” Lord William said, pointing a scrawny finger at Felix. “Come here.” Lord William pointed to the floor right in front of him as if commanding a dog to come.

        Felix scurried to his feet, not bothering to pick up his cleaning materials. He slipped across the wet floor, avoiding all the other slaves who bowed their heads back down and continued their work. As Felix approached with quick steps, he saw one of the castle guards standing beside Lord William. Felix knew all too well that wasn’t a good sign. Usually it meant punishment, but he had done nothing wrong. He was doing all his tasks on time and he had done all of them just the way his master wanted them to be done. So, why did Lord William need the guard? Was Felix being blamed for something he didn’t do? He wanted to throw himself down on his hands and knees before his master’s feet and beg mercy because he was innocent of any wrong doing. But Felix controlled himself, because taking such an action would only encourage the back hand of Lord William or, if Felix was lucky, a kick to the face.

        As soon as Felix reached Lord William, Felix bowed his head to avoid Lord William’s eyes, but now Felix was seeing the ring on Lord William’s right hand. Felix’s cheek stung just looking at it. Felix looked down at Lord William’s shoes instead.

        “I have a new permanent guest and it is now your responsibility to bring it its meals. This does not lessen any of your other responsibilities. You will still have to finish all of your tasks as well as feed our guest. Do you understand, Slave?”

        “Yes,” Felix said.

        Lord William’s fingers gripped Felix under his chin and forced his head upwards. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you, Slave! Do you understand your new task or not?”

        “Y-yes. I understand.”

        “Good.” Lord William let go and looked up at the guard. “Take this slave out of my sight. I have other matters to attend to.” With that, Lord William let and Felix followed close behind the guard. He hoped that this wouldn’t take too long. He really needed to get back to his other tasks. He already had too many responsibilities; he didn’t need another.

        Felix followed the guard through the castle, passing by other slave going about their duties. But Felix walked with his head bowed and didn’t look at the hopeless faces that filled the castle’s halls. A voice filled with an unfamiliar tone to Felix said, “How old are you?”

        Felix looked up from the ground and saw the guard he was following had his head turned to the side. He was the one that spoke to Felix.

        “What?”

        “Your age, what is it?”

        “Ten… I think.”

        “You think? You mean you don’t know?”

        Felix sensed shock in the guard’s voice, but a different kind of shock that he was used to hearing. This was not an angry kind. Felix didn’t know what to think of this strange man. He had seen nothing like this man in the castle. “We don’t celebrate birthdays regularly.”

        The guard nodded and asked yet another question, “How long have you been here?”

        “Five years.”

        The man sighed and shook his head. This time, anger escaped with the breath, but it didn’t seem to be directed at Felix. “Do you have a name?”

        Felix hesitated and thought about it.

        “Felix,” he finally answered after several seconds. Have I been here that long? Have I been simply called Slave for so long that I nearly forgot my own name? But even after answering the question he still wasn’t all too sure about Felix being his name, and he added in a mutter, “I think.”

        They walked into the kitchen where the cook hacked the meat with a cleaver. The cook’s helpers were helping prepare the rest of Lord William’s lunch.

        “Sloane!” the guard called out.

        Sloane drove the cleaver into the meat and let it stick there before he turned his attention to the guard.

        “Is our guest’s meal ready?”

        “Over there.” Sloane pointed to a cart filled with meat. “Lord William ordered me to give his guest scraps until the guest behaves.”

        Scraps? These people consider this scraps? Felix couldn’t believe it. This was the most meat he had ever seen. He would have done anything to have just a little of that meat-

        “Don’t even think about poking you dirty fingers in there, if you know what’s good for you, boy!” Sloane said.

        “This is Felix. He’ll be the one taking the meals to Lord William’s guest.”

        “I see. So he’ll be coming in regularly. Well, as long as he’s still alive that is.” Sloane turned his attention back to the slave. “You better not take any of that meat for yourself. I’ve made sure to portion it at just the right amount for our guest, meaning that all the food will be needed. You will not want to still be around if our guest is still hungry.” Sloane turned back around, took the cleaver in hand, and continued preparing lunch.

        The guard left and Felix followed behind, pushing the cart of meat. The cart was heavy with the meat and the large bowl of water it carried, but thanks to the five years of slavery, he was used to the hard work. Who needs all this food? There were questions about Lord William’s guest, but Felix knew better than to speak his mind, especially when around such a strange castle guard. It was a slave’s job to do what’s asked of them, not to ask the questions.

        The guard turned down a corridor Felix didn’t expect to go down. He stopped, confused by the guard’s course. No longer hearing the cart’s wheels clatter against the stone, the guard stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned around. “This way,” the guard said waving his hand towards him.

        “The guest rooms are the other way. That leads to the dungeons,” Felix spoke out the first time in years.

        “Lord William’s guest isn’t really a guest. Now come on.”

        This food is for a prisoner! Felix realized as he turned the cart and followed the guard down the incline that lead to the dungeons deep under the castle. It was a long silent trip, giving Felix the time to think about this odd task and what people were saying about this task. What worried him most was what Sloane had said. He warned Felix about not eating the food, and that he would not want to be around the guest was still hungry. What did that mean? Why did this task seem so dangerous?

        The corridors grew darker and the halls became more cave-like. The halls grew larger and almost gave just as much space as the Grand Hall. Metal doors stretched across the walls on either side, but they were rarely ever used and all of them would never be used all at once. There were just too many. The only time Felix ever heard of the dungeons in use were when Lord William felt that chaining slaves up in the lightless cells for days were the best punishment for the most extreme of cases.

        Felix pushed the cart till he reached the only other life in the dimly light hall. Four guards were posted at a single cell, but the set of double doors to that cell were wooden and bigger than trees, putting the castle’s entrance to shame. What was just beyond those doors? In one of those massive doors, a human-sized door was carved into it. This was the door Felix would have to go through because there was no way that he and the five men would be able to open the entirety of those large doors.

        “So, this is the slave that gets to feed Lord William’s pet?” one of the guards asked.

        “That boy’s going to be swallowed whole sooner or later, if he’s not careful,” another guard added and the four posted outside the cell laughed.

        “Just open the door for him,” the guard Felix followed ordered.

        The guard nearest to the door frowned. He fiddled with the keys and turned to the human-sized door. The guard Felix followed whispered to Felix, “Just don’t cross the line and you’ll be out of its reach.”

        Felix nodded and the door opened. Felix pushed the cart through the doorway with wobbly legs. The door closed behind Felix. The guard that Felix followed shook his head and sighed. “The poor kid.”

        “It’s just a stupid slave. It’s not like they’re people,” the guard by the door commented.

        Once Felix and the cart were through the entrance, the door slammed behind him, causing Felix to nearly jump out of the rags wrapped around his feet. He turned around and sure enough his only escape was closed off. He wanted to back out of this new task. He wanted to forget about the cart and forget about feeding whatever was in the cell with him. He wanted to run up to the door, hammer his fists against it, and plead to be let out. But that of course wasn’t a good idea. First of all, there wasn’t any certainty that the guards would let him out. They could have been ordered to only release Felix once the task was complete and be punished if they released him too early. Even if they weren’t ordered to do so, Felix had a bad feeling about them. He had seen guards like them before. They take pleasure in the misery and fear of others, especially slaves. If he begged them to open the door, they might just keep Felix in there longer. And let’s not forget that if Felix failed to accomplish the new task he was given, Lord William would punish him severely.

        Felix sighed and looked down at the meat and giant water bowl in the cart. So, either I finish my responsibility by feeding a monster with the possibility of getting eaten myself, or I can decide not to feed the dangerous monster and definitely get punished, or maybe even killed, by a different monster. Either way, the options didn’t look good.

        Felix looked back up and scanned the room. The cell was the biggest room he had ever seen. He imagined what this cell alone would have looked like in a side to side comparison to the whole castle, but he had troubles doing so. He wasn’t good with numbers, but the height of the room alone was over two hundred feet tall. The length and width of the room was even larger. Only half of the room was lit with candles on the wall while the other half, the back half of the cell, was covered in darkness that the light just couldn’t penetrate. Even with the front half of the cell being lit by candles, it was still impossible for that light to brighten the entirety of his half of the cell.

        Felix stared at the dark half of the cell and noticed a white horizontal line painted on the floor right before the rest of the cell got dark. That’s why there isn’t any light on the other half of the cell. The monster is on that side, and no one bothered to light candles on that side of the cell. Maybe the monster is too dangerous for people to go near and they couldn’t light the candles.

        Felix focused his eyes on the dark half and searched for any signs of the creature, but the darkness was just too thick. The creature, whatever it was, could have been hiding anywhere on the other side of the cell. For all I know, it could be right at the very  dge of the darkness waiting for me to mess up and go over the line so that it could just snatch me up and eat me.

        He also didn’t even know the size of the creature; it could be as little as an imp or as massive as a dragon. However, due to the size of the cell Lord William decided to put the creature in, Felix had a bad feeling that it was one of the giant species of monsters. He didn’t know any stories about gentle giant monsters. In fact, the only stories he knew were the stories his master and the soldiers and guards told him about monsters that enjoyed eating slaves, especially little children slaves. Felix cringed. He imagined his master sacrificing him to a massive beast camouflaged in shadow just to give his master’s pet a treat for behaving. Felix realized being that sacrificed to the creature wasn’t far from the truth of what Lord William was capable of. Felix closed his eyes and pushed the nightmare away.

        When he opened his eyes, he saw movement in one of the far back corners, but the movement was slight and he didn’t know if it was just a shadow deceiving him. Nevertheless, Felix fixated on the corner. Gradually, his eyes adjusted and a shape formed. He thought he could see the outline of the creature, or at least part of it. His eyes deciphered colors: a bluish color and white. It could have been an oddly colored pillar or structure, if it weren’t for the fact that it was shuttering frequently.  He couldn’t tell what part of the creature he was seeing, but the white part was on top of the bluish color to make the bluish part look roughly the shape of a horseshoe. But whatever Felix was seeing, it only confirmed his fears that the creature was one of the giant monsters, because the base of whatever he was seeing hovered at least ten, maybe fifteen, feet above the stone floor.

        It wasn’t until the part of the creature he was seeing began to twist around that Felix was able to figure out what it was. Both the white and the blue twisted separately; the white twisted at a faster rate, but both still turned at a slow pace. The white revealed more of the blue that was under it. Actually, only the top of the white part moved at a faster rate. The bottom of the white seemed to cling against the bluish part. The white twisted and more of the blue revealed itself, and this time, it formed the profile of a face. I was looking at the creature’s back! The bluish color is its skin and the white is its hair! Its face and neck are blue too. But what Felix didn’t understand was that he didn’t see a lower half of the creature. Was it a different color? Did the lower half look human like the upper half did? It was still hard for Felix to tell, but he could see the faint bluish outline of the upper half of the creature and it did look human-like, just much larger. The head turned more and the creature’s eyes were revealed.

        Felix became too stunned to do much of anything. Those eyes were like nothing he had ever seen before, and it wasn’t just because each of those eyes was large enough to encompass at least two adult sized fists. Those giant irises were the color of rubies. Felix was frozen in awe and could only stare up at those magnificent, yet terrifying eyes, and those eyes never looked away from him. The skin on the back of Felix’s next as well as all down his back prickled, as if multiple needles stung him like an angry swarm of wasps, and Felix knew it was all because of those eyes. He looked away, but that didn’t stop the prickling. He still knew that its eyes were on him.

        How long had it been since he entered the cell? This is taking too long. I need to finish this task so I can finish my other duties on time so that I can eat dinner. Lord William’s slaves didn’t get three meals, only breakfast and dinner.  In between those two meals, the slave had to finish all of their tasks. If they didn’t finish on time, they didn’t get dinner, because slaves aren’t allowed a late dinner. If they’re not there when dinner is served, they get nothing.

        Felix pushed the cart towards the darkness, but his eyes switch his gaze from the creature to the white line in the floor and then back to the creature and so on and so forth. He didn’t want to lose sight of either of them, because he wanted to know where the creature was at all times as well as make that he didn’t accidentally cross over the line. His heart throbbed faster and harder against his chest. More sweat trickled out of his skin which still prickled. His legs grew weaker than they already were. The fear was overwhelming, but Felix pushed on. He expected the creature to move, maybe approach the line where he was heading just to put Felix in an even worst predicament, but it didn’t. It just stood in the corner staring back at Felix with ruby eyes. Every time Felix glanced back up at those eyes, he witnessed something in them that seemed familiar, but he pushed that thought aside. He needed to keep focus. If he lost his head, he could end up dead.

        He reached the white line and stopped right in front of it. The creature stayed where it was. Felix looked at the meat in the cart and the water bowl. Now, how am I going to do this?

        The creature was going to need to be able to reach the food and water, but he couldn’t just push the cart across the line and be done with it. The cart would be needed for the next meal. As for the large bowl of water, he could always bring a large container of water and fill the bowl up when he came back. But he still needed it to be in reach of the creature which meant-

        Felix gulped and looked back at the corner of the cell. The creature sill stared back at him from the dark corner. Felix picked up the bowl of water and walked over to line. His hands shook and the water in the bowl rippled and some splashed over the edge.  He knelt down in front of the line and looked at the creature. It was still where he last saw it. Felix reached over the line with only his arms and set the water bowl on the floor. As soon as it was down, Felix retracted his hand quickly, but the creature didn’t move from its spot.

        He walked back over to the cart and pushed it over the line and lifted his end of the cart so that it tipped forward. The meat spilled out of the cart and onto the floor. Once the cart was empty, Felix set his end of the cart down and the wheels smacked the rocky floor. Felix looked back over. The creature still didn’t move.

        Felix was relieved, but that relief quickly died when he tried to pull the cart. The cart didn’t budge.  The wheels were caught on something and no matter how much he pulled, how much high he lifted his end of the cart, or how much he swiveled the cart, the cart didn’t move. The sweat on Felix’s hands caused him to lose his grip mid pull and he fell backwards. He didn’t fall on a rocky surface, but whatever he fell on wasn’t thick enough to soften the fall.

        He groaned and tried to sit back up, but something sticky beneath him kept him on the groan. “What?” he muttered as he tried to move his arms and legs, but they too were stuck. He turned his head as much as he could and saw that he was on some kind of white sticky substance it almost looked like an oversized version of… Cobwebs!

        He followed the cobweb he was stuck on and it continued to stretch out into the darkness. Oh no!

        “Help! Help!” he screamed. “I’m trapped in its web. Please, someone!”

        That was when he heard large chains scrapping against stone. And that’s when the creature’s eyes grew nearer.

        Felix’s heart and his body thrashed violently, but Felix could not escape the web. It was just too sticky. Every time he was able to lift one of his limbs, the stickiness pulled it right back down. “Help! Somebody!” he screamed.

        He turned his head towards the door, but it didn’t open. None of the guards ever came. No one came to save him. His eyes began to blur from the tears that coated his eyes. He clenched his eyes shut to allow the tears to escape and clear his vision, but as soon as he opened his eyes again, more tears formed around his eyes again.

        Felix turned to face the creature. It was closer; the chains clanged louder against the rocky floor. Even through watery vision, Felix could still see those ruby irises in the dark, getting closer and larger, at least through his perspective. More of its outline became more defined and Felix would have been able to see more of the creature if his eyes weren’t filled with tears. He did realize that the creature’s skin wasn’t blue but a pale purple.

        The ruby eyes stopped in front of him, just behind the white line. The eyes lowered and Felix quickly felt his body moving beyond his control. No, his body wasn’t the one moving, the webbing underneath him was moving. The net shaped web Felix was stuck to dragged across the floor heading for the dark side of the cell. His body was been dragged closer to those giant ruby eyes and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Felix shut his eyes tighter than he had ever done before. Tears soaked his cheeks and continued to leak out. Felix stopped struggling. It was hopeless. He was powerless. He was just a slave and no one would save him. No one would risk their own lives to save him, because he was a slave. He was less than human. He was nothing and no one would care about his death.

        His body dragged past the line and he was cast into shadow. He opened his eyes and standing over him was the creature. The outline became more defined. The upper half of the creature looked human except for the light purple skin, the ruby irises, and it was larger. Its hair was pure white and long. The darkness still camouflaged the age of the creature, but now he could see more of the lower half of the creature. From the waist down, Felix saw a giant insect body. It exoskeleton was the same shade of black as the darkness surrounding it. Felix couldn’t see all of the insect body and he couldn’t quite tell what type of insect its lower half-

        A spider! It has to be part spider. I’m in a web. And now it was going to eat him. The creature bent over and large hands descended towards him. Felix turned his head away, shut his eyes, and screamed one final plea, “Don’t eat me!”

        While he looked away waiting for the hands to grab hold of him, he didn’t notice the hands stopped their descent and hovered over him with hesitation. Felix was too busy crying and shivering to see what the hands above him were doing. But after that moment’s hesitation, the hands came down upon him and pulled him of the webbing. The fingers of both hands wrapped around his chest and under his arms. The hands nearly covered up his entire torso. He felt himself being lifted, but kept his eyes closed. This was it. This would be the end of his pathetic life.

        His body began to lower, but instead of his body being set on a larger web, he felt the floor beneath his feet. The fingers unwrapped and the giant hands pulled away from him. Felix opened his eyes and looked up at the giant creature that just retracted its hands and looked down at him.

        Felix didn’t wait. He couldn’t squander this new opportunity. He turned and ran. He crossed the line quickly and continued towards the door. He stopped halfway to the door and realized he forgot something. “The cart!” He needed to get the cart for the food of its next meal. Felix turned around to get the run back to the cart, but stopped when he saw the creature’s hands grab and lift the cart. Felix froze.

        The ruby eyes examined the cart and then looked back at Felix. Whatever Felix saw in those eyes was still there, but Felix still couldn’t tell what that look was. The eyes gazed back down at the cart in its hands and set it on the stone floor. Then it pushed it hard and the cart rolled across the line and towards Felix. Felix rushed to the cart, grabbed it, and pushed it to the door.

        “Let me out! I’m done!”

        A panel in the door slide open and the guard looked out. “You feed it?”

        “Yes, now please, open the door.”

        “How’d you get out of the webs?”

        So they did hear him and did nothing about it. “I wasn’t on its side and it wasn’t strong enough.”

        The panel shut, the door clicked and then opened up. He pushed it through the doorway and hurried down the hall to get the cart back to the kitchen. As he left, he heard the guards talking and one of them said, “Looks like you owe me some coin, the slave survived.”

        All throughout the rest of his duties, all Felix could think about was the creature
in the cell. It invaded his mind and rooted itself deep in his brain. When he scrubbed the floors and the water still pooled, all Felix saw, replacing his own reflection, were those ruby irises in the dark. He also saw this image in the bucket of water. Just everywhere he looked the creature’s eyes stared back at him.

        He continued the brainless and mundane tasks around the castle which allowed his mind to wonder about his first encounter with the creature. What exactly was it that Felix encountered? It appeared to be half spider and half human, but big as well. Not as big as a dragon, he imagined, but still big. He had never heard of anything like it.

        But that had nothing on the creature’s eyes. They were magnificently radiant and
hypnotically beautiful. If only those eyes were part of something that wasn’t a giant spider monster that ate people. But it didn’t eat Felix. It had him right where it wanted him and could have done anything it wanted to him. Yet, it let him go. Why? Why would it spare me? I’m not important. My life isn’t meaningful. I’m just a slave. And being a slave in Lord William’s castle meant being less than human. In fact, the creature might be considered more a person than a slave. It certainly had more rights that Felix when Lord William and his guards didn’t care whether or not a slave was eaten by the creature. It probably wouldn’t even be punished but encouraged if it ate a slave.

        Felix shook his head, trying to dispel the thought of the creature sparing him. It’s probably just a trick. It’s putting me in a false sense of security. And when it believes I trust it, it will eat me. But what he thought was still illogical. Why would it have needed to trick him if it already had him? I can’t allow myself to think that. I can’t allow myself to trust it. What I saw was a giant monster. It’s dangerous. That’s why it’s chained in a cell. If I drop my guard, I’ll probably be dead.

        But in his mind, he saw the eyes again and there was something familiar within those eyes. But he couldn’t quite place what those ruby eyes contained. He felt as though he should be able to place it, but it just wasn’t happening.

        He finished all his tasks before dinnertime, all except for feeding the creature
its dinner. Luckily for that one task, he was allowed to complete it after he and the other slaves had dinner, because Sloane wouldn’t have the creature’s dinner ready until later in the evening. He waited will all the other slaves in the slaves’ quarters when-

          “Dinner is served, slaves!” a guard yelled kicking over the cart and spilling its
contents on the floor. All the slaves swarmed around the pile like a pack of wolves, except there was less sharing and unification and more fighting and every slave for themselves. It was like this for every meal. There was no guarantee that a slave would get food, they had to fight for what they wanted, a reason why the young, the old, the sick, and the weak didn’t last long.

        Felix tried to get into the fray and grab some of the stale bread, but the wall of
slaves was too great. Eventually, Felix was able to crawl underneath them, but by the time he reached the center of the chaos, all the food was gone and the slaves dispersed leaving only Felix kneeling down where the bread once was. It looked like he was going to go hungry again that night, but as he looked around the room, he knew others were in the same position as him.

        A strong voice beside Felix said, “Here, you look like you need this, kid.”

        Felix turned and saw another slave handing him half a loaf of bread. Felix acted
quickly snatched the bread out of the other slave’s hand before the other slave could change his mind. “Thank you,” Felix said just before he tore into the food. He barely chewed it. He was just too hungry. The slave sat down beside Felix and Felix could hear the slave eating his own meal. Or maybe that was just Felix hearing his own savage eating.

        “So, you’re the slave charged with feeding Lord William’s ‘guest’.”

         Felix finally turned to look at the man. He knew who this slave was, everyone did. His name was Bowan and although he was one of the oldest of the slaves, around forty years old, he was by far the strongest of the slaves. His imposing body gained the respect from both slaves and castle guards. He was not a man to be crossed.

        Why is he talking to me? He’s never even noticed me before. And now he gives me some of his food? What does he want?

        “Yes,” Felix answered.

        “What’s in that cell?”

        “I… I don’t know.”

        “You don’t know? Did you not see it?”

        “I did see it, but I’ve never seen or heard anything like it.”

         Bowan looked away for a moment and let out a breath filled with aggravation.

        Why did he want to know about the creature so much. Though Felix thought this, he didn’t dare ask Bowan out loud.

        “What did it look like?”

        “It was in the dark and mostly I could only see an outline,” Felix said. “It looked like it was part human and part spider. It’s upper half was human, but where its hips on down was a large spider body.”

        “A dridder? That’s it? That’s what’s going to be Lord William’s secret weapon? One dridder? He’s not only blinded by his need for power, but he’s lost his mind as well.” Bowan laughed. “Just a little dridder.”

        “I’ve never heard of a dridder and I’m not sure what they’re like, but this one wasn’t little. It was a giant.”

        Bowan quickly stopped laughing. His face became stone. “What did you say?”

        “It was a giant.”

        “How big was it?”

        “I’m not good with numbers and height, but it was at the very least taller than six of me.” Felix was a small ten year old, barely over four feet tall. Bowan on the other hand was closer to seven feet tall.

        “Dridders in our world don’t grow bigger than humans.”

        “I know what I saw.”

        “Then if what you’re saying is true, the situation is worse than I imagined. I only know of one place where dridders get that big, even bigger: Felarya.”

        “Felarya?”

        “It is another world that sometimes intersects with this one and others. It is the most beautiful and the most dangerous world you could ever come across. It is full of giant monsters that enjoy swallowing humans whole. It is a world where humans are near the very bottom of the food chain. And the worst part about it, there are giant creatures that are sentient.”

        “Sentient?”

        “It means that can think, talk, feel emotions like humans do. But despite this, it
is impossible to reason with them. They enjoy eating humans. It doesn’t matter to them we’re people; they’ll just eat you. We’re just a tasty, irresistible treat to them. To them, things that are littler than them aren’t a person at all. If it can be swallowed, it’s food, no matter what. There are even giant versions of a race that will eat their own littler versions of their species just because they’re littler. You can’t trust a Felaryan.”

        “You think the dridder is a Felaryan?”

        “It’s the only kind of giant dridder I know of.”

        “Lord William is insane. That creature can’t be tamed. It can’t be reasoned with or
bargained with. It’d just eat you. And dridders are one of the worst of a giant Felaryan species. If you get caught in their web, you’re as good as dead, because there’s no way you’d make it out alive.”

          “Do Felaryans always eat humans? Couldn’t there be one that doesn’t eat humans?”

        “Impossible. Felaryans are monsters.”

        “But what if one had the chance to eat you, and it didn’t. What would be its reasoning for doing so?”

        “I don’t know, but there’s no need to answer that, because it would never happen. If given the chance, a Felaryan will always eat a human. I should know.”

        Felix didn’t say anything else to Bowan and Bowan walked away.

        Then why did it spare me?

        Felix pushed the creature’s dinner along with a jug of water to fill the large bowl he left in the cell for the giant dridder down to the dungeon. But when he reached the cell, a guard stepped in his way and said, “You can’t go in there yet, Felix.” It was that strange guard that called Felix by his name and led him to the cell the first time he had to feed the creature.

        Felix wondered why he couldn’t go in to feed it, because it was his job, but Felix didn’t ask. Because of how different this guard acted, Felix wasn’t sure he could trust him. In fact, so many people have acted differently ever since he became the creature’s caretaker. First a guard, then Bowan, and even the creature seems different from what Bowan told him. Was Felix’s whole world going crazy?

        The guard must have sensed Felix’s confusion because he answered the question that Felix never mustered the courage to ask. “The tamers are in there.”

        Felix looked past the guard as he waited. Only two others were in the corridor. One was a guard known by the slaves for sleeping on the job, though he had never gotten caught by the other guards or the officers. The other was a brute of a man in fancier and shinier armor. His very armor lit the corridor up by the torchlight. Felix had never seen him before, but he knew who it was: General Ethan. He was Lord Williams most trusted general for his private army. General Ethan stood there with arms crossed, staring at the door leading to the cell.

        The door opened and the tamers walked out. Whips dripping blood were coiled in their hands. “Well?” General Ethan said.

        “I don’t think there will be any troubles breaking this beast. Tell Lord William to expect the dridder to be tamed and under his control in maybe about a week.”

        General Ethan left with the tamers.

        “You can go in now,” the guard told Felix as he stepped aside and opened the door. Felix pushed the cart in. He heard sniffing and fractured breathing that sounded like a shivering person breathing out. The sounds were coming from the creature’s end of the cell, but he didn’t see those ruby eyes. Before he could pinpoint what exactly he was hearing, the door slammed behind him and the sounds stopped. The giant eyes suddenly appeared in the dark and stared at him. There was something different about the eyes though. They looked blurry as if it was-

        As if there’s tears in its eyes. Felix started to put together the sounds with the watery eyes. Was the creature crying? Bowan did say there were… they were… oh what was that word? Never mind, he said they have emotions as well. Felix remembered the whips the tamers were carrying. There was blood on them. It was understandable why the creature would cry, even if it was a monster. He knew what whipping felt like and he started to sympathize for the creature. But then he shook his head, remembering what Bowan said. This was a Felaryan creature and even though it had emotions, could talk, and think like humans can, it still viewed humans as food, not people. He couldn’t trust such a monster.

        Felix looked away from those desperate looking eyes, and pushed the cart towards the white line on the ground. He stopped the cart right in front of the line and he looked around. He found the empty bowl he had to fill with water, but it wasn’t where he expected it to be. Instead, it was on his side of the cell. He looked up again at the blurry eyes that didn’t move and then back down at the bowl. It moved it. Otherwise, it would be on its side of the cell. It had to have moved it, but why? If it kept the bowl on its side, I would have had to go on its side and it would have had me, again. But, it had him before, and it didn’t do anything then. Maybe it had no intention to-

        No, this has to be some kind of trick. Bowan said that Felaryans eat humans. They don’t even see humans as people, just snacks. It sounds like he came from that world. So, he should know they’re monsters. This must be all some kind of game to it.

        The giant eyes were still in the same spot. Felix took the container of water and poured it in the bowl till it was full. But now he had to push it across the line. It was an easy enough task to do without crossing the line himself, but what if it was a trap? It could have coated the bowl with webbing and then it could drag him with the bowl, but that sounded ridiculous to him. He pushed the bowl across the line. There was no webbing on the bowl.

        Felix looked up, but the ruby eyes were gone. He froze and examined the area where the eyes had been closely. He thought that the creature could have just closed its eyes, but he couldn’t even see the outline of the creature. Thoughts pulsed through his mind as quick as his heart throbbed in his chest. What is it doing now? Where did it-

        Something purple reached out from the dark. Felix snapped his head just in time to see that it was one of the creature’s hands stretching out towards him. Though he was on his side of the cell and in no danger of the hand actually being able grab him, Felix jumped backwards and shuffled like a crab. The hand paused for a small moment and then continued stretching out. Thick fingers touched the bowl and raked it closer into the darkness.

        Felix calmed his breathing, but his breathing’s pace only picked up again when he saw two hands reach out for the cart, but because the cart was still on his side, the creature couldn’t grab it. Those eyes looked down at Felix pleadingly. It just wants the food. I…I can do that. All have to feed it diner after all.

        He stood but he almost fell back down due to his trembling limbs and fear stricken muscles. He took in a deep breath and held it just before walking over to the cart.  

        Felix gripped the end of the cart, still holding his breath, and stared up in awe at the ruby eyes that gazed down at him. The watery eyes were still pleading, but there was something eyes within those irises. It was that familiar emotion that he saw the last time he looked into those eyes when he first fed the creature, yet he still couldn’t figure out what it was he was seeing. He averted his eyes and focused on the outstretched hands in front of him. Felix let out a long breath.

        He looked back up at the giant eyes and just by thinking about what he was about to do, his legs and muscles trembled again. I know Bowan said that these creatures can think like humans can and they can talk and feel, but he also said they can’t be reasoned with. But are all of them as bad as Bowan says they are?

        “Um…” Felix started to say just before his throat tightened from shear nervousness.

        The eyes tiled slightly, or its head did.

        “C-can… can you… understand me?”

        The eyes straightened and nodded up and down to indicate a yes.

        “Okay, that’s good,” he whispered. He then asked the giant dridder hiding behind a thin shroud of shadows, “You just want your dinner, don’t you?”

The dridder nodded again.

        “I’ll give you the cart, but you have to give it back to me, understand?” Felix hoped that he disguised his fear will enough for the dridder to take his demand seriously.

        The dridder nodded in the dark.

        Fearing that he didn’t bold or brave enough for the dridder to follow his demand, Felix decided to add something smart that would insure the dridder’s corporation. “Because, I need the cart back each of your meals. If I don’t have the cart, I can’t bring you more food. Then, you’d starve to death.” Felix didn’t tell the dridder that he’d be dead too if Lord William found out he starved his new weapon.

        The ruby irises watered more and he saw something more in those eyes: fear. He knew that kind of fear, because he saw it all the time. It was the fear of being punished. His mind flashed back to the blood on the tamers’ whips. Felix couldn’t believe it, but he found himself regretting what he said to the creature. He lived with kind of fear every day; he never thought he would instill that type of fear in another, let alone a giant creature that supposedly enjoys eating humans. Felix couldn’t look at those eyes anymore. “Just give back the cart once you’re done eating,” Felix said. He pushed the cart over the line and the hands pulled it further into the darkness.

        The creature’s eyes only focused on the cart as it dug its hand in and took out the meat to eat. Felix examined the giant eyes. Suddenly, the familiar thing in those eyes that he couldn’t place became obvious to him. He saw it in all the slaves he passed by in the castle’s halls. He saw it every day in his own reflection. Hopelessness, complete and absolute hopelessness.

        Stop it. Stop thinking like that. This is not another slave. This is not a person. It’s a monster. It would eat me. Don’t imagine this creature going through the same things as me.

        But Felix couldn’t help it. It was those eyes that bore the pity for it right into his heart. Something in him told him that he couldn’t trust this giant dridder, but another part of him screamed that he should try to reason with it. Bowan said that Felaryans couldn’t be reasoned with, but he probably never came across one in this kind of situation. Maybe they could come to some kind of understanding.

       “Can you talk?”

        The dridder’s outline stopped taking meat from the cart.

        “I know you can understand me, so I assume you can talk, but can you?”

        The dridder nodded.

        “Then, why don’t you?”

        The eyes looked past Felix and at the door. Felix turned around, fearing the guards came in, but nothing was there. The dridder continued to stare at the door fearfully. It was that same look of fear slaves have when they feared punishment.

        “Are you worried that if you talk, you’ll be punished?”

        The dridder nodded.

        “Well, you can talk around me. I won’t do anything.”

        “R-really?” a quiet female voice said. The voice was also young, younger than Felix! But as soon as he heard that single word, the outline of the dridder suddenly raised its arms and covered its face, but not before the eyes shut tight and her head turned, showing more of her white hair.

        She’s really scared of me. But how is that possible? She’s so much larger and she’s the one that’s supposed to be the monster. She’s the one that eats humans. This doesn’t make any sense.

        Felix raised his hands up, showing his palms. “I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t have anything that can hurt you. You’re safe around me.”

        <i>What I’m I doing? Why am I willingly telling this creature that I’m unarmed and helpless against whatever it could do to me? This is all a trick. It’s a trick!</i>

        The dridder lowered her arms and opened her eyes. “I… I can?” The voice was so young, so fearful. “And you won’t tell on me?”

        “I won’t tell.”

        “Oh, thank you. And thank you for the food.”

        “Well, it is my job to feed you.”

        “You’re job?” the young dridder asked.

        “Yes, among other things.”

        He could see the outline of the dridder start eating again.

        “Do you have enough food?” Felix asked.

        “What?”

        “Food, did you have enough food last time to fill you up?”

        “Yes, I did. I couldn’t eat another bite.”

        “Then, you should have enough now.”

        The cell fell silent for a while.

        “Is the food to your liking?” He didn’t know why he was trying to make small talk with the Felaryan.

        “It’s okay, but it tastes funny.”

        “Funny?”

        “There’s no blood, and the meat tastes different from anything I’ve ever tasted.”

        “Well, there’s no blood because it’s cooked.”

        “Cooked?” The dridder stopped eating again.

        “You’ve never had cooked food before?” But this was coming from someone whose food wasn’t cooked all that well either.

        “I’ve never heard of that word. What does it mean?”

        “It’s when the meat is put over a fire and heated till the blood goes away and the meat is no longer raw. I’m not exactly how it’s done either. I don’t work in the kitchen.”

        “Fires are bad. They bring the monsters.”

        “Then, you never cook you’re food? How do you eat?”

        “I eat whatever gets stuck in my web. If it’s more than a bite full, I wrap them up, bite my venom in them, and then drink them when they’re ready.”

        “You eat everything that gets caught in your web?”

        “Until today.”

        “Why didn’t you eat me?”

        The dridder’s eyes looked away. It looked down at the cart of meat, but did not continue eating yet. “You talked. I was going to eat you, but you talked and cried. I couldn’t do it. I don’t eat people.”

        “So, you think I’m a person?”

        “You can talk can’t you? Then you are people.”

        “Not just a snack because I’m smaller?”

        “People aren’t snacks. No matter how small.”

        “That’s right. Please, keep eating. They won’t let me sleep till you’re finished eating.” Felix looked at the cart and remembered how good the meat looked in it. He’d never had meat like that before. He didn’t even remember if he had ever had meat before in his life. His stomach growled painfully and he placed his hand on the pain.

        “Do you want some food?”

        “The food is yours, not mine.”

        The purple hand reached into the cart, pinched a small piece of meat between her thumb and pointer finger. The meat might have been small to her, but it was a large slice too Felix. The fingers stretched the meat towards Felix. “I’m giving it to you. You’re hungry.”

        “You don’t need to.”

        “It’s a gift. It’s a thank you.”

        Felix looked at the food hungrily. Saliva flooded his mouth, forcing him to swallow it, least he drown from it. He stood up and despite part of him screaming for him not to, he walked towards the hand. But he stopped before the line. The food was within arm’s length. He reached out slowly and took it. The dridder didn’t pull the meat as soon as he grabbed it. It didn’t cause him to fall so that it could grab him and devour him as well. It simply let go of the meat and Felix retreated back to a safe distance. He sat down and ate as the dridder ate the rest of its food.

        He bit into the meat thankfully and once his tongue got its first taste of the succulent and tender meat, he dug into it savagely. He finished it as fast as he could, a habit he obtained from five years of slavery. “Thank you,” he said after he finished.

        The dridder pushed the cart back over the line and drank from her bowl of water.

        “How old are you?” Felix asked.

        “Seven years.”

        “Do you have a name?”

        “Arachne. What’s your name?”

        “Felix.”        

        “What do you and the others want from me?” Arachne asked after finishing her bowl of water.

        “It’s not that has plans for you. It’s Lord William that wants you,” Felix answered still seated on the ground, cross legged, a safe distance away from the white line that divided him and the giant seven year old dridder.

        “Lord William? What is a Lord William?”

        “Lord William is the person that owns this castle and everything in it including all
the guards, soldiers, and slaves. Lord is his title. He’s in a lower position than the King, but he holds dominion over this mountain and a large portion of land. Apparently, not even all that land is enough for him. He wants the entire kingdom.”

        “But what does he want with me? Why am I here?” Arachne swung her right arm and the thick chains clanked against each other and the stone floor.

        “I think you’re part of his plan for ruling over the kingdom. He already has a private army and he already has other lords as his allies. He also has the element of secrecy, because his allies have taken an oath of silence for his plan, and it would be a death sentence for a slave or a guard to even mention it. But all that is not enough for him. Apparently, he needs something else. He wants you, Arachne. He wants you to be his secret weapon.”

        “A weapon? But, I don’t understand. Why me?”

         “Because of what you are and where you’re from. You’re a dridder, you’re a giant, and you’re from a world of giant monsters that eat people. Because of all this, he thinks you’re a monster like the others and he’ll want you to kill his enemies, maybe even eat them.

        “Kill people? He wants me to hurt people?” Arachne started to back away. She shook her head frantically. “No, I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t hurt people. He can’t make me.” Her voice grew louder and closer to screaming.

        Felix shot up. The dridder was getting flustered, distressed. He had to calm her down before he voice turned into screaming, because the guards would surely hear the full blown screams of a giant. “Arachne, please, calm down,” Felix said while motioning his arms as if trying to physically push down her voice to a quieter volume.

        But Arachne didn’t hear Felix and continued her fanatic mumblings that were rapidly getting louder. “I-don’t-want-to-hurt-anyone-I-don’t-want-to-kill-anyone-He can’t-make-me-It’s-wrong-It’s-”

        “Arachne, please.” His feet walked towards Arachne without his knowledge.

        “I’m-not-a-monster-I’m-not-a-monster-I’m-not-a-”

        “Arachne!” Finally, Felix yelled loud enough to get through to her. Those large teary eyes finally looked back at him. “I know this is hard take and I know that you’re upset, but you have to calm down. Do you want the guards to hear you?”

        Those eyes widened with fear and she quickly shook her head.

        “Then please, try to keep you voice down. Otherwise, we’ll both probably be in trouble.” Felix glanced back at the door, and it was still closed with the guards still on the other side. Not even the panel was open. He let out a sigh and turned his attention back to the dridder, but something was off. Things seemed darker. He looked down at himself and could barely see his own outline. No, it can’t be. He quickly looked back and saw the white line behind him. He heard the chain, signaling him of the dridder’s movement.

        Felix ran across the white line, back to safety. Only once he was over the line did he turn his attention back to the dridder. He stared back at those eyes and saw more tears seeping out of them. Felix just stood there stunned at the amount of tears he was seeing. This reminded Felix that this was a child he was talking to, not just some mindless monster. This creature, this girl had feelings. Those eyes pierced his heart and planted even more pity within it.

        “F-Felix, do you think I’m a monster?”

        Felix didn’t know what he should say. Part of him screamed, yes, of course she’s a monster, while the other part of him said, of course you’re not a monster. Felix couldn’t figure out which side he believed the most. “What makes you think that?” Felix asked.

        “You look scared.” Arachne sniffed and Felix could tell she was trying barricade the sobs within her building up and on the verge of overflowing.

        Felix hesitated and thought carefully about what he should say next to the giant dridder child across the room. But the conflict within him kept him from forming anything to say.

        “Felix, why are you scared of me?”

        "It’s just because you’re so big.”

        “Because I’m big?”

        “And maybe it has to do a little bit with you being a dridder from another world.”

        “But what did I do to make you scared? I’m not scary. I’m not a monster.” The dam bent from the increasing pressure of the sobs Arachne was holding in; it was on the verge of snapping. Felix could tell from her quivering voice.

        “It’s not because you’re a monster. It’s just that people are normally afraid of big creatures and things they don’t understand. It’s an instinct in us that makes us fear things that can hurt us.”

        “But I would never ever ever hurt you.”

        “It’s not that you will hurt me, it’s just that because you’re that I’d be powerless against you if you should decide to hurt me. If you met a creature of a different species that was bigger than you, wouldn’t you be afraid of it.”

        Arachne paused and fear reentered her eyes. She must have been imagining being in such a situation.

        “Do you understand?”

        “Yes, it’s scary, but I won’t hurt you Felix. You’re safe around me, I promise with all my heart. You don’t have to worry about me.”

        “I really want to believe you, Arachne. You seem like a nice girl. But it’s hard. Maybe, I just have to get used to you. Maybe if I get you know you more and understand you, I won’t be so scared.”

        “Could we be friends, Felix?”

        Felix couldn’t say no to those pleading eyes and eventually said that it might be
possible.

        “Good,” she said. “I’ve always wanted a friend.”

        “You’ve never had a friend before?”

        Arachne shook her head.

        “What about family?”

        “I’ve always been alone.” Arachne looked down at the floor.

        It continued to surprise Felix that with every new information he learned about the Felayran, the empathy he found towards the creature. He walked to the cart and said, “Well, I should probably leave now.”

        “You’ll come back tomorrow?”

        “Yes, I’ll come back in the morning. It’s my job to feed you.”

        “You promise?”

        “Yes, I promise I’ll come back, and I’ll see you three times every day.”

        “You promise not to break that promise?”

        “Yes, I promise not to break that promise.”

        “Good.”

        Felix turned the cart and began to push it to the door.

        “Goodnight, Felix.”

        Felix turned and said, “Goodnight, Arachne.”

        He then pushed the cart to the door, asked for the guards to let him out and walked through once the door opened.

        Felix noticed that the guard, known by all the slaves for sleeping, leaned against the wall with arms crossed and head bowed yet again sleeping on the job. The other guard, the one who originally led Felix down to the dungeons in the first place, closed the cell door. “What took you so long?” the guard asked over his shoulder while he locked the door.

        “I had to make sure the dridder was eating. Master wouldn’t be happy with me if I can’t even simply feed his pet.”

        The guard turned around. “How did you know it was a dridder?”

        Felix remembered that even through that human sized dridders were in their world, Bowan said they didn’t inhabit Lord William’s land. All Felix should know about were Lord William’s castle and the terrible monsters that roamed his land. There weren’t stories told about dridders in the castle. Crap. “It’s too dark in there to see it completely, but I can see the outline of it. I still didn’t know what it was, but I could tell it was part spider and part human. I told someone who knows more about monsters than me and he figured it was a dridder.” Felix told him the truth, he just didn’t mention names or tell the guard that he knew the creature was from Felarya and he especially didn’t tell him about his talk with Arachne.

        “Oh. I thought I heard you talking to someone in there.”

        “I must have been talking with myself. I do that all the time,” Felix said before he hurried off down the corridor. The back of Felix’s neck prickled, because he thought he could feel the guard staring at him the whole way down.

            Felix’s day started as it usually did. Some guard came in screaming and demanding all the slaves to wake up, if they weren’t awake already. Usually, Felix was awake by then, because this also meant breakfast and if you woke up early, you’d basically get first pick. But if you were still asleep when breakfast came, you’d be still trying to wake up while all the other slaves swarmed the food before you. This was why all the weaker and older slaves made sure they were awake before breakfast, because it may be the only meal they would receive all day. And if you thought that was bad, the guards make things worse. To make sure all the slaves woke up, they would randomly kick the slaves, making it harder to get a good breakfast.

        Unfortunately for Felix, he didn’t wake up at his usual time, and it was even more unfortunate when he was one of the slaves kicked by the guards. It felt like the steel-toed boot dented his all the organs around his stomach. He curled his frail body inward, clutching his thin stomach, trying to breathe between coughs. He looked up to see the guard smiling down at him, but that wicked smile was nothing compared to his master’s smile. Lord William’s smile would put even Satan’s smile to shame. The guard kicked Felix again. This time, Felix’s left hand, which was over his right hand and over his stomach, received the worst of the boot. Felix cried and turned his head to face the floor. The floor quickly became wet from his tears. He wasn’t kicked again, because he showed the guard that he learned his lesson, that lesson begin: never make direct eye contact with a guard. The guard walked away to harass another sleeping slave.

        Felix’s left hand throbbed and when he tried to slowly shift his right hand out from under it, his left hand shrieked in agony. Felix clenched his shut so hard that his eyes ached. When he opened them again, black spots randomly appeared and disappeared for a long time. When the pain past, he tried to lift his left hand again, but he soon learned the pain wasn’t completely gone. It was just dormant, hiding deep inside his bones and whenever he moved his hand, the pain came back to life searing his hand from the inside. It’s broken again.

        He kept his hand close to his chest and winced every time he moved it. He eventually recovered enough to walk over to where their breakfast was dumped, but by the time he got there, there was nothing left. He walked out of the slave quarters and hurried to the kitchen.

            It took longer to push the cart to the dungeons, because he could only push it
with on hand. Felix realized that the cart went faster when he pushed it with his shoulder, but that caused him to have to bend down really low and he could only do this when he had to go straight. With much difficulty, he eventually arrived at the cell. Different guards were outside the cell. Luckily, they were too groggy to torment him, but they did mutter complaints when Felix asked for them to open the door so that he could feed the creature.

        As soon as he entered, he looked around the cell, searching for Arachne’s ruby
eyes. But he couldn’t find them. He waited for the door to shut and lock before calling out her name in the loudest whisper he could. “Arachne. Arachne, where are you?” There was no response in the darkness. “Are you awake? Arachne? It’s me, Felix.”

        Arachne’s magnificent eyes suddenly appeared and shot up from the floor. In an instant, those eyes went from tired to something else. Felix wasn’t quite sure what that second emotion was; he’d never seen eyes like that before. “Felix, you came back!”

        “Arachne, please try to keep your voice down, one of the guards heard us last night. He didn’t hear what was being said, I don’t think, but he heard voices.”

        “I’m sorry, Felix,” Arachne said in a quieter voice. “I’ll be quieter, I promise.”

        Felix continued pushing the cart the rest of the way, using his shoulder.

        "Felix, what’s wrong?”

        “Nothing, I’m fine.”

        “No, you’re not. You’re pushing the cart funny and you’re holding your arm against your chest. What happened?”

         He had to stop the cart. The tone in Arachne’s voice perplexed him. He had only heard that kind of tone once before, from that strange guard, but this tone seemed more intense. It sounded stronger. But, there was something about that tone of voice that comforted Felix, as if the dridder child actually cared about him. He couldn’t quite explain it. He looked up at those eyes again and saw sadness creeping tears back into those giant eyes that stared down at him, but it was a different sort of sadness. Is that sadness directed at me?

        “Felix, you’re hurt.”

        “I’ll be fine,” Felix lied, not wanting to look at those eyes any longer. But his lie didn’t change the look in those eyes.

        “Felix, what happened?”

        “My hand hurts, but I’ll be fine. It’s no big deal.”

        “Felix…”

        What is she? A mind reader that could detect lies? “My hand’s broken, but it will be fine. It’s been broken before. It’s not a problem.”

        Arachne gasped. “You… you broke you hand? How?”

        “I guard kicked it.”

        “A guard? Why would he do that to you?”

        “The first kick was to wake me up; the second was because I made eye contact.”

        “A guard kicked you? But he’s one of you. Why?”

        “I’m not one of them. We may be the same race and species, but I’m not one of them.”

        “I don’t understand. You look like the others, just smaller and not shiny.”

        “I’m a slave. To them I’m lower. I’m not even a person, just because I’m a slave.”

        “What is a slave?”

        “It means I have a master who owns me. I have to do everything Lord William asks.”

        “You should stop doing what he says. He’s mean. He’s a monster. Just stop being a slave.”

        “I can’t just stop. It doesn’t work like that, Arachne. By law, I’m not a person. I have no rights. I’m just an object he owns, lower than animals. And if I don’t do what he says, I get punished.”

        “But that’s not right. Felix, you’re hurt.”

        “It doesn’t matter. I have to finish the rest of my tasks before diner or I don’t get anything to eat and I haven’t had breakfast, so if you could just eat you’re breakfast and-”

        Felix pushed the cart over the line and Arachne took a large slab of meat between her fingers. She automatically offered it to him. “Please, eat this.”

        “I’ll be fine, I’ve missed breakfast before and-”

        “If you don’t eat this, then I won’t eat my food.”

        “Arachne, I don’t have time to-”

        “Just eat. You need it, please.”

        Felix stomach overruled him and he ate the food Arachne offered him. He still couldn’t use his left hand, making it difficult to eat. He didn’t know what kind of meat he was eating. He just wasn’t able to eat enough meat to be able to tell the different tastes between animals. But he enjoyed it nevertheless. The whole time they ate, Arachne stared at his hand. Concern. Is that the unfamiliar thing in her eyes? Does she really care about me? But, no one does, I’m nothing.

        They both ate silently. When he finished eating, Arachne had already finished and drank the water from the jug, giving Felix one last job to do. She even pushed the cart as hard and as far as she could to help him out. “Felix, be careful.”

        Felix pushed the empty cart to the cell doors and left.

        It took Felix longer to finish his tasks and though his left hand gave him troubles, he didn’t openly complain. He didn’t want another injury that would hinder him even more. Lunchtime for Arachne came faster than Felix would have hoped. He still had too many tasks to do. <i>I’m not going to have diner today.</i>

        He picked up Arachne’s lunch and pushed the cart to the dungeons. Standing in front of Arachne’s cell were those terrible guards again, the ones that bet whether or not Arachne would eat him. Felix brought his injured hand closer to his chest and he lowered his head. But hoping that these actions would keep them from noticing him, but that was just too much to ask for.

        “Look who is back, still not dead I see,” one of the guards said. “You willing to risk being eaten again? Maybe this time the beast will get an extra snack.”

        “I don’t think it will eat him,” another guard said.

        “Why would you think that?”

        “That monster in there may be a man eater, but I don’t even think it’d put that filth in its mouth. Would you eat something that dirty? Besides, that slave is all skin and bones.”

        “That slave wouldn’t be all that filling to a giant monster.”

        All of the guards laughed.

        Felix didn’t know what angered him more: that fact that his too much of filth to be eaten of the fact that they called Arachne a monster. Anger built up inside him, but he didn’t lash out or say a word. He knew it would only get him into more trouble. Slaves do what they’re told. They are what others say they are. Slaves don’t complain. Fearing his anger might force his facial expression to change, Felix kept his head bowed, but that still didn’t stop them.

        “Aw, did the little slave have an accident?”

        Something stopped the cart. Felix glanced up to see one of the guards clutching the other end of the cart, keeping Felix from moving forward. “Please, I need to feed the creature.”

        “Right, it’s feeding time for that monster. What a waste of perfectly good meat. Lord William is wasting his time with such a monster. He should just kill it and be over with.”

        Felix gripped the cart tighter, tight enough to see the veins and tendons bulge under his skin. His right hand now ached as much as his broken left hand. It took all of Felix’s control to keep a calm voice. “Please, just open the door.”

        The guard let go of the cart after a long moment of silence and opened the door. Felix walked through the entrance, but just as he was passing the guard that opened the door for him, the guard snatched Felix’s left hand and twisted it. Felix screamed and fell to his knees. Though his vision was blurred from the tears, he still saw the guard’s smile.

        “Now, get in there and feed that beast.”

        The guard kicked Felix and the slave tumbled inside. The door slammed as Felix curled into a fetal position on the cold, rocky floor, cradling his hands against his chest. The pain was all that filled his mind. His hand was all he could feel, because the pain ran along his arm and consumed his whole body. He could only see the back of his eyelids. He couldn’t hear Arachne worried whispers calling out to him.

        While Arachne waited for Felix to return with lunch, she tried to take a nap. She approached the nest of webbing that she built in the corner. She laid her spider body flat on expansive and thick bundle of webbing. Because of the layers upon layers of webbing, it was comfortable to sleep on. Then she bent her human-half forwards to lie that down on the web bed as well. She reached over to the side and pulled an extra layer of webbing that she used for a blanket. She crossed her arms and laid her head on those arms. Although this new bed was designed like her old one and was still just as comfy as her old one, Arachne just couldn’t sleep. I didn’t get any sleep last night. I’m tired, but why can’t I sleep?

        She kept her eyes closed, but her mind wouldn’t shut down. The cell wasn’t much different from her old cave. The only major differences were the chains and the fact that she was in a different world. That is if she understood Felix correctly. He said one of the reasons Lord William believed her to be a monster was that she was from Felarya, and Felix made it sound like Felarya was a different world from his own. But if that was true, how did she come to be in another world? She just didn’t understand it. One night she slept in her cave and when she woke up the next morning, she discovered she was in the middle of a forest she didn’t recognize. Confused and terrified, she sought shelter before a monster spotted her out in the open. She didn’t even notice that the trees were different and smaller than the ones she was used to seeing. (The trees were still bigger than her, but just not as enormous as Felaryan trees.)

        She scurried through the forest and came across small, strange looking creatures. She stayed back at first and curiously examined the large group of small creatures. They were small, but some of their body parts were similar to her own: torso, neck, head, arms, hands, and fingers. But they only had two strange legs. Their lower half was so peculiar. How can these creatures get around with just two legs? Their skin shined in the sunlight. No, that wasn’t skin; it was like some sort of outer shell, and for some reason, it entranced Arachne. She watched the creatures long enough to hear them speaking in the same language as her! This meant that the tiny creatures, although doll-sized compared to her, were people. Still thinking that she was in Felarya, she thought she would be able to relate to them, because the monsters ate smaller creatures and she used to be as small as them. Surely if she tried to befriend them, they would befriend her. She didn’t realize the flaws in her logic. Now that she was bigger, smaller creatures considered her to be a monster, despite the fact she used to be smaller and understood what it was like to be small in Felarya. Also, she wasn’t in Felarya anymore and that made more complications.

        Arachne stepped out of her hiding spot and approached the tiny creatures. She asked if they could help her find shelter from the monsters, because surely they had to have some form of shelter if they were still alive. They just had to have something to hide from the monsters. But as soon as she showed herself, the creatures surrounded her and attacked. Being very young and unwilling to harm another person, Arachne just cried and pleaded for them to stop. The next thing she remembered was being ordered into a large wooden cage on wheels just big enough to fit her, and she was carted off to Lord William’s castle.

        She opened her eyes, because it was useless trying to sleep. Her mind wouldn’t stop thinking, worrying actually. And her mind wasn’t worrying about what Lord William wanted her to do or the terrible creatures that whipped her. Her mind worried about Felix, the closest thing she had ever had to a friend. Even if he was one of those creatures, Felix was the only good thing about this other world she was trapped in. She couldn’t stop thinking about Felix’s broken hand and how he got it. How could they do that to him? He’s one of them. If those creatures couldn’t even treat one of their own as a person, what chance did Arachne have with them not viewing her as a monster? And what Felix said he was, a slave, that concept she didn’t want to understand. How could something like that be real? What those creatures were doing to their own kind was worse than what the monsters from Arachne’s world did to people. Was it possible that Felix’s life was worse than hers? Maybe not for long, Lord William wanted her to be his new slave, but in the form of a weapon. He wanted her to become one of the monsters she had nightmares about all her life.

        The lock on the door clicked, signaling Arachne that someone was coming. She did what she normally did when she heard that sound; she cowered and hoped that the Felix walked through those doors with his cart full of food. She peeked when she heard the door open. She saw the familiar cart of food with Felix pushing it. She shot up and had to stifle the excited cheer that wanted to greet Felix once she saw him. She remembered his warning about her speaking too loudly. The guard might hear her, especially with the door opened. She held her breath to keep all the relief and excitement that wanted to explode out of her.

        But just when Felix pushed the cart through the entrance, a hand shot out and grabbed Felix’s broken left hand and pulled it away from his chest. The hand twisted Felix’s forcing Felix on his knees. Arachne’s face was stricken with horror. Felix screamed the most painful scream Arachne had ever heard. She rushed to his aid, but was jerked to a stop by the chain attached to the cuff around her waist straightened out. She wasn’t even close to where Felix was being tortured. It was pointless trying to reach out, because eventually the chains attached to the cuffs around her wrists and neck would straighten and her finger tips would only reach the white line. Arachne thrashed against the chains, but they didn’t even give at the slightest. She was completely helpless to save Felix.

        Suddenly, Felix was kicked and he fell forward into the cell just before the door was closed and locked. Felix curled up on the floor and stopped moving. “Felix?” Arachne whispered hopefully loud enough for Felix to hear, but loud enough for the guards outside the door to hear. “Felix.”

        But Felix didn’t reply. He didn’t even flinch.

        “Felix! Felix, say something.” Her voice was not drenched with fear and concern.

        Felix still didn’t move.

        Felix is dead! He’s dead! No, he can’t be, he just can’t be. Oh, please don’t be dead, Felix. You have to be alive. You have to be.

        “Felix, please wake up,” Arachne pleaded. Tears burst freely from her. She didn’t want to lose the one person good in this new world. But when Felix still didn’t answer, Arachne began to sob harder than when she was first chained up in the cell.

        When the pain finally subsided, Felix senses came back to him. The first thing he noticed was the sobbing that had to be coming from Arachne. His body groaned as he slowly stood up using the cart for support. He could see Arachne’s outline sobbing into her hands. He didn’t realize they were tears for him. He shouldered the cart past the white line and stopped before he could go over the line as well. He stood up, still keeping his left hand against his chest and looked up. Arachne still cried.

        “Arachne!”

        Arachne paused immediately and peeked out from tear soaked fingers. When she saw Felix standing before her, alive, she uncovered her face and stared at him with wide eyes.

        “I’ve brought your lunch.”

        “F-Felix?” Arachne voice quivered in shock. “Y-you’re alive!”

        “Yeah, and I brought you lunch-”

        “I don’t care! Felix, that terrible person hurt you. You were already hurt and he
hurt you more. You can’t let them do that to you. It’s wrong, it’s-”

        “There’s nothing I can do about it. I’m a slave.”

        “But you have to do something about your hand, Felix. You’re hurting.”

        “I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse. It’ll heal eventually.”

        “Isn’t there anyone who could-”

        “There is no one that could help me. Other slaves are too busy worrying about themselves, the guards and soldiers could careless, and complaining to Lord William could get someone killed.”

        “C-could I do something?”

        Felix stood stunned.

        “I want to help. Please, let me help you, Felix.”

        She wants to help me? But she’s a giant dridder from a monstrous other world, and I’m just a worthless slave. I don’t understand. Felix looked down and sighed. “If I wrap my hand up in something tight enough, it could help. The last time I broke a bone, I used part of my clothes to wrap it up, but these clothes are so worn. I don’t have much left of them. I can’t afford to rip much more off them.”

        “Clothes?”

        “You don’t know what clothes are?”

        Arachne shook her head.

        Felix pinched part of his shirt and pulled at it a bit. “This is clothes. It’s something we wore to cover ourselves up.”

        “That’s not an extra layer of skin?”

        “No.”

        “Why do you wear clothes then?”

        “They cover up… certain parts of our bodies and keep us warm and it’s just indecent to go around in the nude. People just aren’t naked in public. It’s just. Wait, are you wearing anything?”

        “Why?”

        “Well, what about winter?”

        “Winter?”

        Doesn’t she know about anything? I know she’s young, but do I have to explain everything to her? Then again, I am talking to a creature from another world that never had parents to teach her things. Besides, I don’t even know what kind of customs or morals this Felarya might have. “Winter is when it gets really cold outside and it snows. Do you know what snow is?”

        Arachne shook her head.

        “Then, you’ve never been through a winter.”

        “Where I lived, it was always really hot. I think I would have been too sweaty in
clothes.”

        “None of that matters. The point is that I need to wear clothes; it’s just what we do around here. And slaves only get one set of clothes.”

        “You can have some of my webbing. You could wrap your hand in that.”

        Felix sighed. “I appreciate the offer, but I can’t accept it.”

        “Why not? I want to help, Felix. Please let me help you.”

        “And what happens if I do wrap my hand in your webs and the guards see it? What do you think they’ll think? They’d realize that you helped me. Let’s face it, as hard as that may be for them to believe you helped me, them believing I stole some of your web would sound far more outlandish to them. What do you think will happen if they discover we’ve been talking to each other?”

        “I—I don’t know.”

        “They’d punish you and probably kill me for just us talking to each other. That’s why no one must find out.” What have I gotten myself into?

        “So, we can’t be friends?” Arachne whimpered.

        “Only if everyone else doesn’t find out.  Now, please just eat. I’m already behind on my tasks and I need to get them all done before they’ll allow me to eat diner.”

        “It’s alright, Felix. You can have some of my food if you miss your diner.”

        “It’s your food though. It’s bad enough that I’ve ate some of your food twice.

        “It’s not bad if I want you to have some. You having one bite isn’t going to make me go hungry.”

        “A piece of meat may be a bite to you, but it’s a whole meal to me. If the guards
find out-”

        “They won’t find out.”

        “I hope you’re right.”

        Arachne finished her lunch in silence. She couldn’t stop looking at Felix’s hand. When she was finished, she pushed the cart to him and he brought it back to the door. He asked to be let out and the door opened. Before it closed, Arachne saw a metal fist smash against Felix’s face and he fell over in the corridor. Before Arachne could see anything else, the door closed, cutting off her view of the situation. But that didn’t stop her from being able to hear it. She walked back into her corner and cried for her friend. She wanted to be free of that dreadful place, but not without Felix.

        Randolph was again ordered to take the evening watch and guard the creature’s cell. And again, the stupid, sleeping oaf was to be guarding the cell with him. But again, the guard was sleeping against the rock wall. Randolph shook his head. How has he not been caught yet? He’s always sleeping on the job. Oh well, it’s better hearing him snore than sputter horseshit out of his mouth.

        Randolph heard the familiar clatter of the cart coming down the corridor. Time for that monster’s meal. Why does Lord William keep such a monstrous creature here? A giant dridder of all things.  How could he control such a creature, and for what? This is insane.

        He could hear the cart that would be filled with meat and water for the creature getting closer. What could justify sending a child in there to feed a giant creature? It’s dangerous enough for a man, let alone a boy. If that monster should get ahold of him, it would show mercy, even to a boy. Even if Felix is a slave, that is not a justifiable excuse to throw him in such danger.

        But what could Randolph do? He could speak out against Lord William’s decision. Even General Ethan, the highest ranking individual under Lord William and even Lord William most trusted, couldn’t even speak out against Lord William. His word was law and anyone who should defy it was punished accordingly.

        The poor slave came into view, pushing the large cart with his shoulder. Randolph quickly noticed that something was off. Felix held his left hand close against his chest and didn’t move a single finger from that hand. The young boy also appeared to be limping, but Randolph wasn’t sure whether it was because his leg was injured too or it only looked like he limped due to the way he pushed the cart with his shoulder. But the worst sight was when Felix finally came into Randolph’s light. The boy’s face looked like a disaster: a swollen lower lip, a terrible welt on Felix’s right cheek bone, and the purple skin around his right eye puffed out too much for his eye to stay open.

        Randolph couldn’t stop his face from expressing the shock he was feeling and he couldn’t stop his mouth or throat from uttering out in a horrified whisper, “Felix?”

        Felix looked down, hiding what had become of his face.

        Randolph turned his head. The other guard still slept. He brought attention back to the boy and crouched down. The boy immediately cringed and lifted his right arm as if to block any oncoming attack. Randolph wondered how many time fists had to have followed in order for the young slave to instinctively protect himself from any sudden movement of a guard. He just couldn’t understand the cruelty of slavery and how such a thing could exist, or worse, how a young boy could be subjected to such cruelties.

        “It’s alright, I’m not going to strike you,” Randolph said. “What happened to you?”

        The boy’s arm lowered slowly and while it still covered his mouth, he said, “Nothing.”

        “No, something happened. What was it?”

        “Nothing.”

        Randolph set his hand on Felix’s shoulder and the boy cringed again. “Who did this to you, Felix?”

        Felix looked into his eyes and quickly avoided eye contact again. “The… the noon guards,” he finally said.

        Randolph knew the guards that protected the cell during that shift. He hated all of them, and now he had more reason to hate them. He saw that the other guard was still asleep. “Felix, do you need me to come in there with you?”

        His eyes widened and he quickly shook his head.

        “You look too weak to do this. I can do it for you and-”

        “No, it’s my task.”

        “Then at least let me come in there with you so that monster doesn’t take advantage of your weakness. I could protect you.”

        “No, I’ll be fine. Please, just let me in the cell.”

        Randolph sighed, he didn’t like putting the boy in the cell with such a monster, but the boy just didn’t trust him. Maybe all the guards to the young slave were worse monsters than the creature in the cell, because at least that creature was chained up. “Alright,” he conceded and unlocked the door for Felix. Once the young slave pushed the cart through with great struggle, Randolph closed the door, but he opened the panel to keep his eye on the situation.

        Among the sound of the clattering cart, Felix heard an additional sound. He recognized it to be the panel sliding and clacking open, but Felix didn’t turn around to check if what he heard was true. That would look too suspicious. He saw Arachne’s eyes rise quickly in the darkness and instantly feared she would call out like she usually did. He shot his finger up to his mouth and although her eyes seemed confused by Felix’s action, she didn’t speak. When Felix was close enough to be able to whisper without the guard hearing, or at least he hoped it was far enough from the door, he asked, “Is the guard watching us?”

        He saw the eyes travel away from him to the door and then come back. He saw those eyes nod.

        “Then you’ll have to back up. We can’t let him hear us talking or see you helping me.” He could tell Arachne didn’t like this, but she backed up anyway so that it didn’t look like she was right on the edge of the white line. “I have to do what I did the first I fed you. So, I can’t stay long.”

        He was glad that the water bowl was on the edge of the white line. He reached out, after painfully kneeling down, and dragged it closer so he could fill it.

        “Felix,” Arachne whispered so softly he could have sworn the voice came from a human. “You’re hurt.”

        “Yes, but I’ll be fine.”

        “Are you sure? You look terrible. Why would they do that to you?”

        “I’m a slave. I’m nothing at all.”

        “Not to me.”

        “You don’t mean that.” Felix stood up and hobbled to the cart. He kept his gaze averted from the giant eyes that looked down at him filled with concern, a look that Felix still couldn’t understand fully.  “No one believes that.”

        He tried lifting the cart to tip the meat out onto the other side of the line like the first time, but with only one hand available, it was way too heavy for him. He struggled, but he couldn’t lift it up enough to spill the meat.

        “Felix, you’re too hurt. Let me-”

        “No, I can do it myself. I have to.”

        His muscles exerted to such an extreme they felt like they’d rip through his skin. He bent his legs and tried to lift with his shoulder as well, but he just couldn’t pry the cart upwards. All the excretion just weakened him even more. The vision he had left with a swollen eye faded fast.

        Something slipped and his body lurched forward and he toppled beyond the white line. Instead of trying to stop his fall with his right hand, he tried to use his working hand to grab the cart, but the card only slid from his fingers and he toppled into the darkness. He completely forgot about his legs and instead his broken hand hit the rock floor first. But before that pain even took full effect throughout his body, the rest of his body fell into his broken hand, worsening everything. He tried to scream, but the sound settled in his throat and the pain kept it there. The pain wouldn’t even allow him to breathe. His mind and body shut down and he faded into blackness.

        When Felix fell, it took all of Arachne’s will power to keep her from rushing to his aid. But she couldn’t allow the guards to know about her and Felix. If she were to be the cause for more injury to Felix, she wouldn’t forgive herself.

       Felix did not uncurl and he did not move, just like that afternoon. “Felix?” she whispered. It didn’t take too long for her concern for his well-being to overcome the fear of the guard seeing. It no longer mattered that the guard saw her care for Felix; all that mattered was that Felix was alright. She ran to him and placed some fingers on his small shoulder. She gentle shook him, and when he didn’t wake up, she carefully turned him over, but she saw him wince while she rotated him on his back. She had to keep in mind to be careful, because Felix was small, smaller than she remembered, and hurt. She didn’t want her own hands to be responsible for hurting Felix more.

        “Felix, please wake up,” she said.

        The door opened and she saw one of those tiny creatures with the shiny outer shells, the type of creature that hurt Felix in the first place, standing in the doorframe. No, it can’t have him, it can’t! She pinched Felix’s shoulders and lifted him just enough for her to scoop her hand under him. He really did look smaller, or more likely, she experienced another growth spurt without noticing it. Quickly yet gently, she positioned him so that he lied along the length of her right hand. He was still longer than her hand, but not by much, only half of his shins, his ankles, and his feet rested on her wrist. She brought her hand against her and used her free hand to cover the other side of her right hand, ensuring that Felix would not fall. She retreated to her corner, hoping the shiny shell creature wouldn’t follow her.

        Once she settled her spider body on her bed, she cradled Felix while simultaneously stroking his side with her pointer finger. Tears welled up and only proof that Felix was alright would stop the tears. But he wouldn’t wake up.

        Randolph pressed his hands against the door and he leaned his eyes closer through the opened panel when he saw Felix fall. “Get up, get up,” he said as if his whispers were going to save the young slave from being eaten by that beast.  He hoped that Felix would quickly get up and retreat back over the line, but the boy didn’t budge and the purple outline of the creature’s hands drew nearer to the defenseless boy’s body. Randolph snapped his head in his fellow guard’s direction and he was still sleeping. To Hell with it, Randolph couldn’t allow himself to just stand there and watch a ten year old boy be devoured by a monster.

        Never locking the door back up after letting Felix in the cell, Randolph threw the door open, but the monsters giant hands came down on him. He snatched one of the everlasting torches on the wall (the torches never went out unless they were doused with water and once doused, it becomes useless), unsheathed his sword, and ran for the giant hands that lifted Felix away and retreated into the darkness.

        After swinging his torch around in the blackness for quite some time, he eventually came across the corner that the creature was hiding in. The dridder’s size was intimidating and its massive black spider body was frightening, but Randolph had someone else’s life to try and protect.

        “Where is he, beast?”

        The creature’s giant head looked away from whatever it was hiding against it and looked at him.

        “Where is the boy? What did you do to him?” Randolph pointed the fire at the giant monster.

        “You can’t have him!”

        “Where is he?”

        “You can’t have him! I won’t let you take him!”

        “Let him go! He’s just a boy. Are you going to eat a boy? Are you that heartless?”

        “You can’t take, Felix. I won’t let you hurt him again!”

        “Where did? Did you just call him Felix?”

        “That’s his name. You’re not going to hurt him again.

        Randolph paused and took in what he didn’t realize before. The dridder was definitely holding something in her hand and the other hand blocked it from his view, but the dridder wasn’t hiding it as if trying not to get caught. It seemed to be holding it protectively. Felix? And the dridder’s face, it was young, younger than even Felix. The monster is only a child? And did it accuse me of hurting Felix? Why would it care, it’s a dridder!

        “What do you mean hurt him again?”

        “You creatures, you’re the same as Felix, but you hurt him just because he’s a slave. I don’t want you to hurt him anymore. It’s not right.”

        The dridder’s cheeks were wet. It was crying. Tears leaked from those ruby eyes, real tears. “I’m not one of those guards, but why do you care?”

        The dridder looked down at what she was holding and the hand blocking it from Randolph’s view began stroking the thing. “He’s my friend.”

        Randolph was astounded, but he believed the creature. It was the creature’s face, its eyes. “I’m not like the guards that hurt Felix. I came in here to help Felix, because I thought you were going… I thought you were going to hurt Felix.”

        “You… you wanted to help Felix?”

        “Yes, please, let me see him.”

        The dridder brought what she was hiding closer to her and looked down at it before looking back at Randolph.

        “It’s alright. I may be able to help.”

        “You promise not to hurt him?”

        “I promise.”

        The dridder looked down at what she was holding once more before lifting her blocking hand away to reveal that it was indeed Felix she was holding. Gingerly, she lowered her hand down on the rocky floor in front of Randolph. He knelt down and started to put his hands under Felix.

        “Please, be careful.”

        She really did care about this boy. “Don’t worry. I will.” Randolph picked Felix up and placed him on the floor, the torch and the sword were on either side of Randolph.

        “Is he alive?”

        Randolph placed his hand on the boy’s chest. The chest moved and the heart beneath it pulsed. “He’s alive, but unconscious.”

        “He fell on his hand. It was broken before he fell on it.”

        “The pain must have been so great he passed out. I can help his hand, but I’ll need some of your webbing.”

        “We can’t use my webs. Felix said that if guards saw my web around his hand, they’d know we’ve talked and bad things would happen.”

        “I know something that will cover the webs, but the webbing would be a stronger wrapping.”

        “Okay.”

        “Wake up.” The voice came with a nudge on his shoulder. “Hey, kid. Wake up.”

        Felix opened his eyes and saw Bowan kneeling beside him. His large hand left Felix’s shoulder as soon as the boy’s eyes opened.

        “Just thought you wanted to wake up before breakfast comes so you can get a head start when it finally arrives, on account of that hand of yours,” Bowan stated.

        Felix sat up and discovered he was indeed in the slaves’ quarters. He and Bowan were the only ones awake. It was earlier than Felix ever woke up before, but it was for the best if he wanted to grab some food before the other slaves devoured it all. His hand felt different. He looked down and saw cloth wrapped around it tightly. He didn’t recognize the cloth; it wasn’t slave clothing or rags, that’s for sure. It didn’t even look like it came from clothing. It looked like actual bandages. “How?” This was all Felix could udder while a brigade of questions stormed his mind.

        “The guard that carried you to bed probably wrapped your hand up.”

        “A, a guard carried me here?”

        “He did. Just came in here, carrying you in his arms, and set you down in the closest vacant bed, and then walked off. He didn’t say a word.”

        That would explain how Felix ended up in the slaves’ quarters, but the last thing he remembered was… passing out in Arachne’s cell! The guard had to have gone in there to take in out; he had to have walked in the cell to pick up Felix’s unconscious body. Why would a guard go out of his way, leave his post, and help a slave? But other horrible thoughts came to mind. What did the guard see? What happened in there while I was unconscious? Does he know about Arachne? But the only question that escaped his mouth was, “What about the cart? Did he take that back to the kitchen?” Because he couldn’t let anyone else know his secret and his real fears.

        “Don’t know. All I saw was him carry you to bed.”

        “Why?”

        “You mean why would he do that?”

        Felix nodded.

        “In my experience, I’ve found that people are only nice to you when they want
something from you. There is no such thing as kindness for the sake of kindness; people always want something in return. Who knows what the guard wants from you. For all you know, he could be someone who fancies boys.”

        Felix hoped that wasn’t the case. He heard too many rumors of slave women being raped guards and even some of Lord William’s guests. He didn’t know which guards had their way with women, but they were all the same to Felix, all of them had the same face to Felix, except for the strange one who only seems even stranger now. When Bowan said experience, Felix remembered that Bowan apparently used to live in Felarya. Felix wanted to ask him about those experiences in Felarya, but Felix deemed it foolish to ask. Clearly, Bowan didn’t have the best life in Felarya on account of his hatred towards the place and the creatures that that lived there. Bringing up bad memories of the place would only anger the man.

        But by avoiding that question, Felix let out another question that he immediately wished he kept back as well. Other than talking to a giant dridder that was supposed to eat humans, this question was probably the boldest and stupidest thing he did. “And what’s your reason for helping me?” Did he really say that? Did he say that to the only slave built stronger than even most of the guards, a loner with a frightening reputation? Felix sealed his mouth shut and held his breath. Bowan stared back at Felix with cold, unblinking grey eyes. Felix didn’t study the man’s expression for much longer and instead looked down at his legs. He hoped that if he avoided eye contact, Bowan would lose interest and forget the question. But in the unbearably long silence, Felix knew that Bowan’s glare never left him. Felix prepared himself for the blow.

        But instead of hitting Felix, Bowan said, “Let’s just say that it has something to do with that monster.”

        Felix didn’t understand what Bowan meant, but he wasn’t going to make things worse by asking him to elaborate. Felix just sat there and kept his mouth closed. Never in his five years of enslavement was he so glad to see the guards come with breakfast. He ran over to the pile, grabbed a loaf, and stayed far away from Bowan as he ate.

        Felix entered the kitchen and was relieved to see the cart there, already filled with Arachne’s breakfast. When he approached the cart, Sloane took one quick glance before returning to his work. “Thought you was dead, boy.  When I saw Randolph returning the cart ‘stead of you, I thought Lord William’s pet ate you.” Sloane’s eyes never left the counter full of food Felix would never be able to eat. Sloane’s voice was empty of concern. Clearly, the chef didn’t care whether the young slave was eaten or not; he was just stating a fact.

        Felix gave no reply and pushed the cart with his good hand and shoulder, but the cart didn’t move as far as it should have with the force he exerted. It was heavier. He examined it and realized that the cart was indeed fuller. Felix pushed again, still barely moving it, but at least he was making some progress. I wish I had both my hands.

        Sloane must have heard Felix’s grunts. “Lord William says it’s finally going through its growth spurts. They’ll become more frequent till it finally reaches the height it should be at its age. Then it will grow normally. That hand of yours better heal quickly, the cart’ll only get heavier and Lord William will not want his pet to miss a meal, unless he deems it needs to be punished.”

        Felix realized that he hated every time the chef called Arachne “it”. He had to hold back the need to correct Sloane and tell him that Arachne was a “she” and not an “it”. She had a name.

        He managed to push the cart out of the kitchen.

        Felix eventually brought the cart to the dungeon corridor. His hand tingled, but that was less of a concern. His body was exhausted and he wasn’t even at the cell yet. Hell, this was only breakfast; he still had all his chores and two more meals to bring to Arachne. How could he hope to last throughout the rest of the day?

        It relieved him when he finally stopped the cart in front of the cell guarded by two very tired guards. “I’m here — with breakfast.” Felix said.

        Felix expected to hear a grumble or maybe a complaint from at least one of the guards due to how early the day was, but he didn’t hear anything from the guards. He looked up at the guards to see one of them already turned around and opening the door. Felix looked up at the other guard who only stood beside the door and stared down the corridor behind Felix. Felix looked back, but nothing else was coming down the corridor. The guard stared at nothing and the guard’s expression just as blank as his eyes. Felix recognized the empty expression in the guard’s face. It was a face that could only belong to one of Lord William’s puppets: soulless men and women whose bodies were completely under Lord William’s control. Felix didn’t know how Lord William was able to turn people into puppets, but knew that most feared dark magic was involved. However Lord William is able to do it, once he turned someone into a puppet, nothing of the former individual remains. Their thoughts, memories, personalities, wants, and feelings were wiped clean, leaving nothing else but an empty shell that has no choice but to follow Lord William’s exact instructions. Everything that once made them a person, everything that made them human, was taken away. Puppets were the ultimate slaves.

        Thankfully, Lord William didn’t decide to make every one of his slaves and guards into his puppets. There were just as many rumors about why Lord William didn’t just make everyone his puppets as there were of how he made them his puppets in the first place. Why would he allow people to still have their free will (if one could consider those enslaved still having free will) when he could so easily take it all away from everyone and not have to ever worry about being disobeyed again?

        Maybe Lord William had a tiny sliver of a heart, because who would want to rule a world full of puppets? It would be too lonely of a life. After all, puppets couldn’t even speak.

        Believing Lord William had any kind of heart was too difficult for Felix to imagine.

        Maybe it was because the spell (if it came from him using dark magic) was too powerful for Lord William to use whenever he pleased. Maybe it took too much out of him to turn everyone into puppets.

        Felix hoped that was the truth, because it showed that Lord William was indeed still mortal and could be weakened. Felix feared a different rumor was the truth.

        Maybe he kept himself from turning everyone so that he could still cause others to suffer. A puppet didn’t complain or feel anything, even pain. If he allowed some people to still have their minds, he’d still be able to make others suffer.

        The sounded more like Lord William.

        Felix wondered what these guards did to become puppets. It could have been anything. There were no set punishments for breaking the rules. It all depended on how the guards, or in worse cases, Lord William felt that day. One slave could steal from the kitchen and only get a whipping for it, while another could miss a single spot when cleaning and get turned into a puppet. Punishment was unpredictable. There was no telling what the guards did.

        The guard finished unlocking the door and opened it. He turned to reveal a similar blank face that resembled the other guard. The guard held the door open until Felix pushed the cart through. The door immediately shut behind him.

        The familiar sad, worried eyes greeted Felix on the other side of the cell, but those eyes were bigger as if the concern that filled them was too great for the eyes to contain and all that concern forced the sockets and the eyes themselves to expand. But of course that was a ridiculous idea. Felix knew that the eyes were bigger because Arachne grew just like the chef said she did. Felix could now fit his whole head in each of her eyes and still have room in them. And she was supposedly still growing. How big could a seven year old dridder from another world get? And how big would she be when she grew up? Felix just couldn’t imagine it; she was gigantic enough already.

        But even though Archne’s new size still scared Felix, those eyes made her less frightening. It was the concern, the kindness, and the gentleness in her eyes which made her appear harmless. But of course, he kept in mind that anything that size was dangerous, no matter how gentle. Accidents could still happen.

        Felix looked away from the eyes and focused on the cart full of meat, because he felt strange whenever he saw those giant ruby irises. He felt good. He felt like he was no longer alone; he felt like someone actually cared. It happened whenever Felix entered the cell and it grew stronger every time he came to feed Arachne. They were feeling that Felix couldn’t understand and every time he felt them, he force those feelings back down, because when one’s life was filled with suffering for longer than one could remember, one didn’t know how to react to something good. Good was just a foreign concept to Felix. His first reaction was to deny the good feeling. He told himself it was a lie, he told himself that the dridder only pretended to be nice, because why would something so large care about something so small and weak and a slave of all things. And this time, Felix had Bowan’s words to help fuel the denial and suspicion:
There is no such thing as kindness for the sake of kindness; people always want something in return.

        What does this dridder want from me? What does anyone in this castle want? Freedom, a way out. Is she only pretending to be nice to me, because she thinks I could help her escape? If Felix’s suspicions were true, he couldn’t allow her to catch on that there was nothing he could do. He knew of no way to escape and all his hopes and dreams of someday escaping had already evaporated long ago. He had been a slave long enough to not want to escape. Escape was pointless. Besides, what would he do if he were to escape? Where would he go? The only thing Felix knew was how to be a slave, and the castle was all he had ever known. He would know what to do with freedom.

        He was halfway to Arachne when he noticed the silence, well, except for the clattering wheels and his heavy breathing. Archne hadn’t greeted him; she had yet to utter a single word. He noticed her eyes no longer focused on him, but on the door behind.

        Felix almost froze in place, but instead he did something more foolish: he turned around. Did Lord William assign the puppets this morning’s shift to spy on him? Did the guard tell his master about him and the dridder? But that wouldn’t make sense. If he told, would Felix still be allowed to feed Arachne? He looked to the door and discovered the panel was closed and no one was peeking in. Felix let out the breath he held in as soon as he realized his first assumption about why the puppets were there must have been true: they assigned the puppets that shift because no one wanted it. They always force the puppets to do the least desirable jobs, because puppets didn’t complain. “It’s alright to speak, Arachne. No one’s watching us.”

        “Oh good. Felix are you alright? Does your hand still hurt? What happened? What did that guard do to you? Did he hurt you or-”

        “Please, Arachne. You’re asking too many questions at once.

        “Sorry Felix, I just want to know if you’re alright.” Why did she have to make sure he was alright every time he came to feed her? It was always the first thing she said when he entered. And why did she have to sound so sincere?

        “My hand won’t heal for a while, but for now it is fine.” The tingling came back, but Felix ignored it.

        “But what happened? What did the guard do to you?”

        “I don’t know, but as far as I can tell he wrapped up my hand and brought me to bed.”

        “You don’t remember?”

        “I was passed out.”

        Felix pushed the cart to the line and was exhausted. “Felix, let me just take the cart this time. I don’t want you hurting yourself again.”

        “Fine by me.” Felix plopped down on the floor to catch his breath while Arachne reached out and pulled the cart the rest of the way over the line. Felix looked down and tried to control his breathing.

        “Felix?”

        Felix looked up to see that Arachne wasn’t eating but looking back at him with those concerned eyes. “I’m just tired,” he told her. “The cart’s heavy and it’s not helping that I only have one hand I can use. And it’s just going to get heavier.”

        “I’m sorry, Felix. I wish I wasn’t going through my growth spurts. I don’t want to make things harder for you.”

        “There’s nothing we can do about that.”

        “I don’t want to be big if it’s going to be harder for you.”

        Does she really mean that, or is that all part of the act?

        “Do you want some food?”

        “I’m not hungry. I ate breakfast.”

        “Oh.” Arachne began eating her food while Felix just rested.

        Felix couldn’t take it anymore; he just needed to know. “Arachne, what happened last night?”

        She swallowed a mouthful of meat. “What do you remember?”

        “I only remember pushing that cart, trying to lift it, falling, and then waking up this morning in the slaves’ quarters.”

        “You fell on your broken hand again, but you didn’t wake up this time, but I couldn’t do anything about it because that guard was watching. But then he came in, and I was worried he was going to hurt you like the other mean guards and I took you with me to the back corner where I sleep.”

        “I fell on your side?”

        “Yes, and I picked you up and took you to the back because I thought the guard wouldn’t cross the line to get you. I wanted you to be safe from him.”

        However, if Felix would have been awake at the time, he didn’t think he would have felt safe in the back of a dark prison cell with a giant dridder whose hand he could fit in. It wasn’t comforting to know he was at the complete mercy of a giant spider child. But he was still alive; that was something to grateful for.

        “But the guard did cross over and he demanded that I give you to him, but I told him no and I told him I wouldn’t let him hurt you and, and.”

        “What happened, Arachne?”

        “He knows!”

        Felix’s heart dropped and the back of his neck prickled. “How much does he know?”

        No longer eating the food and sounding like she was on the verge of crying, “I didn’t think he’d follow me, only the whip creatures pass the line, but he did follow me and He wanted me to give you to him, but I told him no, I told him he couldn’t have you and I said… I said. I said your name! I’m sorry, Felix, I shouldn’t have said your name but it slipped out and now the guard knows we’ve been talking and I’m sorry, Felix, I’m so sorry.”

        “Arachne, please calm down.” Her voice was getting louder and she was getting closer to full-fledged sobs. Holding in the sods forced her body to shiver and her breathing to stutter. She no longer looked like she could possibly be faking it. To Felix it looked real. She looked miserable and sorry. Her gigantic size only made her look even more miserable, because giants were big and strong and had the power to do whatever they wanted to humans. Someone like Felix didn’t stand a chance. Plus, this particular giant had a spider body, making it terrifying. One could easily take one glance and consider Arachne a vicious and evil monster by just her appearance, even though Felix had never really seen her completely just her outline because she was always in the dark. Dridders were supposed to be monsters, creatures that ate humans; they were creatures that deceived humans and ensured them in webby traps; they entombed humans in web coffins and then they bit them, injecting the human prey with digestive acid, melting away the human’s internal organs to mush before sucking it all out for nourishment. However in a giant dridder’s case, it could just swallow the human prey whole, because Arachne could probably swallow someone whole, well maybe not an adult but a smaller human for sure, and she was only a child herself. Surely giant adult
dridders were big enough to swallow human adults. A monster with all that power and a creature that terrifying shouldn’t be able to cry; it shouldn’t look miserable and weak; it defied all logic of what monsters were. The crying made her seem human; it made her seem like she was truly sorry, and not just because  she may have ruined her chances of escaping by revealing to a guard that she and Felix talked. There was something more, as if she were crying because she failed Felix. Felix felt like getting up, walking over to her side of the prison cell, and helping her. He never experienced such a feeling: to want to help someone else. To think about someone else over himself was unheard of. He stayed seated.

        “I’m sorry, Felix. I said your name and he found out we are friends.”

        Friends? She thinks they were friends? Was it just another trick to get Felix to trust her, or did she really feel that way? Felix didn’t know anymore.

        “I still told him that I wouldn’t allow him to hurt you, but he said that he didn’t want to hurt you, he said that he came in because he thought you were in trouble, he thought I was going to eat you, I told him that I would never eat you, you’re my friend, Felix, I could never hurt you. Never! I’m sorry, Felix, he knows everything.”

        The guard ran in the cell to help me? He risked his life to save me, even if Arachne claims I was never really in any danger, but he didn’t know that. How could someone do that?

        “I told him about your broken hand and he said we needed to wrap it up.”

        Felix looked down at his hand. “So he did do this.”

        “I helped. It was his idea, but I did help. Is it alright?”

        “It tingles a bit, but what did you do to help.”

        “I wrapped it in my webbing, and he wrapped the cloth over it to hide it.”

        Felix fiddled with the bandages and sure enough, his hand was wrapped in webbing under the cloth.

        “It’s not too tight, is it?”

        “No, it’s fine. Could you please keep eating, Arachne? I need all the extra time I can get.”

        “Sorry, Felix.”

        “And please, could you stop saying you’re sorry.”

        “Sorry.” She began eating faster.

        Once she finished, she sniffed and asked, “Felix, did I do the right thing?”

        Felix sighed. “Given the outcome, you did the right thing.” Unless that guard tries something else.

        “Good.” Arachne pushed the empty cart back to Felix after she drink the water. “Felix, I still don’t even know what kind of creature you are?”

        “What?” He looked up at her eyes again.

        “I’ve never seen tiny creatures like you and the others. What are you?”

        “Would that matter?”

        “Well, just because I’ve never seen one of your kind before I ended up here, it doesn’t mean I’ve never heard of your kind before. I may have heard the name of your kind.”

        “I’m a human.” Felix turned the cart and left the cell.

        “A… a human? Felix is a human!” Arachne said with a horrified voice. She backed up and curled up in her web bed.