~ In a village where dreams decayed, a girl bloomed in the dark ~
They called the village Noreldusk, but even the name seemed to be fading. It sat buried between mountains no map cared to name, where the fog rarely lifted and time itself felt weary. The villagers moved slowly, spoke softly, and avoided looking at the sky too long as if afraid it might look back.
Stories said the village had once been lively. Bells had rung. Bonfires had danced. Wishes had once held weight. But now, the wells were dry, and so were the hearts. People whispered more than they spoke. Children were told to avoid mirrors, never follow whispers, and never never speak of the night of the Blood Moon.
Because that was when Spidey was born.
It was not a normal moon. It bled across the sky like a fresh wound, casting everything in crimson. That night, the crows didn't caw. The cats didn't purr. The village priest locked the chapel doors before sunset.
And in the smallest, crookedest house at the village's edge, a scream broke through the stillness. A baby, wailing not from fear, but fury. And silence answered her.
An old midwife had stared into the child's eyes, gone pale, and muttered,
> "The moon marked this one."
---
Spidey was never like the other children.
She didn't cry when scraped. She didn't laugh when tickled. Instead, she'd sit by the cracked window with a soft, focused look on her face listening to something no one else could hear.
"Stop talking to yourself, Spidey," her mother would snap while scrubbing the floor with cracked, raw hands.
> "I'm not," Spidey would whisper. "I'm talking to the house. It hums when it's tired."
Sometimes she giggled at shadows that flickered across the walls. Other times, she'd sit perfectly still under her bed for hours, whispering to spiders that curled in the corners.
Her father had left when she was five. Her mother said he couldn't take the "strangeness." But Spidey never cried for him. Not once.
*She held back herself*
---
By the time she was ten, villagers crossed the street when she walked by. They tugged their children's hands tighter. They muttered prayers under their breath.
At thirteen, a boy named Elric threw mud at her.
"Witch!" he screamed. "We don't want your kind here!"
Spidey didn't flinch. She simply looked at him with those storm filled eyes and said softly,
> "Your grandmother's been crying at night. She misses the ocean."
Elric's face drained of color. His grandmother had died months ago. She'd never once mentioned the sea.
The next day, he left her alone.
---
Her only joy came at night, when everyone else feared the dark. She'd sit at her window, humming lullabies with no origin, watching the stars like they were old friends. The spiders came then, weaving intricate webs between the wooden beams, and she'd feed them bits of sugar crystals stolen from her mother's cupboard.
> "You understand, don't you?" she'd whisper, letting one crawl gently onto her palm.
"You don't mind the dark. You live in it."
Sometimes, they pulsed gently in reply.
---
On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, the air changed.
The village had been quieter than usual. Even the crows refused to perch on rooftops. Clouds swirled unnaturally above the mountain ridge, and thunder grumbled from a sky that hadn't known rain in months.
Inside her room, Spidey sat cross legged on the floor, candles flickering around her. She had drawn a crude spiral on the wooden boards with charcoal a symbol she didn't remember learning, yet her fingers traced it with perfect memory.
From the other side of the door, her mother's voice snapped:
> "Don't stay up too late. And for the love of the gods, blow out those damn candles."
Spidey didn't respond. Her eyes were locked on the mirror across the room.
It had begun to fog. Not from heat. From the inside.
> "Do you feel it?" she whispered to no one and everyone.
"It's coming."
A creak sounded from her window. Not a wind. Not a knock.
A tug.
She turned slowly. Her breath hitched.
A thin white line like silk stretched across the glass. And as she leaned closer, words etched themselves, from the inside, onto the pane:
> "It's time."
Spidey blinked. Then smiled.
---
Her mother burst into the room.
"What in the blazes are you smiling at?" she barked. "Didn't I say—?"
But she froze mid-sentence.
There, on the windowsill, was a spider unlike any other.
Midnight black. Sleek and gleaming. Each of its legs etched with glowing red runes, pulsing like ancient language. It stood with a quiet, regal posture not like an insect.
>Spidey breathed. "You came."
Her mother shrieked, fumbling for a broom. "Get that thing out! Kill it! Kill it now!"
The spider turned slowly, deliberately and looked straight at her mother.
She dropped the broom.
And ran.
---
Spidey approached the window, calm.
The spider bowed.
> "Mistress of Webs," the creature spoke — not aloud, but in her bones, in her soul. "The realm calls. The Web is breaking. And only you can weave it again."
Spidey's heart pounded. Her hands trembled.
> "I always knew I was waiting for something," she whispered.
"I just didn't know it would have eight legs."
The spider tilted her head, amused.
> "My name is Nyxi. And your true story has just begun."
Lightning cracked. The mirror behind her glowed white.
Spidey turned to it saw it ripple like water and without hesitation, stepped toward it.
Her bare foot touched the glass.
And vanished.
---
She didn't even look back.
Not once.
---
TO BE CONTINUED…
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