Of Men and Spiders

Charlotte watched as Alice wandered listlessly around the clearing shortly after Scott left. The young female poked and prodded at the dirt with a stick for a while. As Scott once said, "Her mind is elsewhere." However, that didn't mean she'd transferred her consciousness the way Charlotte had initially thought; instead, it meant she was distracted.

After a few minutes, Alice walked up to Charlotte and spoke. "Where's Scott?"

Charlotte tilted her head to better focus her vision on Alice. "He is approximately five hundred fifteen meters south southeast of here, traveling at one point six meters per second."

Alice looked confused for a moment before responding. "No, I mean, where is he going?"

Charlotte shook her head in the human gesture, meaning no. "I have been instructed not to tell you that."

After a moment, Alice asked another question. "Why?"

Charlotte was at a loss to answer that question. "I am unsure. Scott did not explain his motives to me."

This time, it was Alice who tilted her head. "What does motive mean?"

That drew Charlotte's attention again. "As Scott explained to me, it is a reason for doing something. Am I mistaken?"

Alice shrugged. "I dunno. I'm still learning words. You might know more words than me now!"

Given the more focused nature of Charlotte's inquiries compared with Alice's more general learning techniques, that was feasible, particularly concerning vocabulary. "Possibly."

After another moment of silence, Alice spoke again, her voice a little quieter than before. "Will Scott be okay?"

Charlotte tilted her head to examine Alice again. This felt like another one of those questions that had more to it than it seemed on the surface. However, Charlotte had found the best way to deal with the questions was simply to answer them and see where the conversation led. "To the best of my knowledge, nothing in the area poses a significant threat to human life. I believe Scott will be, 'okay.'"

Alice scrunched up her nose. "Why do you use so many weird words now?"

Charlotte understood the word weird but was unsure of its implication in this sentence. "What words did I use that are weird? Did I use any incorrectly? Many words in your language have multiple meanings depending on the context, so it is possible..."

Alice shook her head. "Words like that! 'Con-text' and 'inn-correct-ly.'" You didn't speak like that before!"

Charlotte was unsure of where this line of inquiry was leading. "That is because I did not know these words before. As I learn new words, I try to use the ones that best fit my intended meaning to avoid confusion caused by ambiguity."

After a brief pause, Alice seemed satisfied. Or at least wanted to discuss something different. "Do you want to play hopscotch?"

If this game was anything like tic-tac-toe, it would not take long to master, but seeing what activities humans created to train their minds was still interesting. Besides, Alice seemed to enjoy these games of hers. So Charlotte nodded. "Yes, please show me how to play 'hopscotch.'"

-

As Scott walked up to the nightmare cave, he started to have some reservations. He could just have Charlotte bring the body outside the cave and save himself the experience of walking through there a second time. On the other hand, he didn't feel much like talking to any spider monsters, especially not to ask favors or go back on what he'd already said... With a deep breath, Scott followed the "hand" inside.

Once again, Scott was unsettled by the strange warm tunnels, the odd musky smell that permeated the whole area, and the constant march of spider monsters everywhere. Even though he was pretty sure none of them would try to eat him this time, it made his skin crawl the way they scuttled to and fro, frequently coming up behind him and brushing past with little to no warning. More than once, Scott had to suppress a fight or flight reaction, though he noticed eventually, the spiders started giving him a slightly wider berth.

Eventually, he was led into a familiar cavernous room and saw the same large figure moving through the gloom as before. It seemed to be ignoring him, but Scott knew better. After all, Charlotte probably had "eyes" and "ears" all around this room, paying attention to him. As he was about to walk out of the room and into the next, he paused.

Looking at the massive creature that made "his" seven-foot-tall Charlotte look tiny, Scott couldn't help but ask the question on his mind. "So, are you really the real Charlotte? Even more than the one back at our camp?"

The creature stopped whatever it was doing and gazed at him, and then a familiarly disturbing smaller spider creature crawled out from somewhere and walked onto the enormous creature's shoulder. At least when it spoke, it didn't sound nearly as wrong as before, though it still sounded considerably more alien than the version of Charlotte he'd been getting to know. "I am Charlotte, yes, though no more or less than the other self I created to better speak with you."

Scott frowned. "Why bother to create a new body to begin with? Why not just bring this body out to speak with us?"

The other Charlotte eased itself down as it spoke. "This body requires considerably more resources to maintain and was created for the purpose of creating more selves. It would be inefficient to bring it over to your camp. My other self was designed to better imitate your words and mannerisms while being more self-sufficient, but all are one."

As he watched the large version of Charlotte move, he had to agree. This version seemed much more alien somehow. Perhaps it was that her movements were...off. Or maybe it was the odd-sounding voice coming from her shoulder, but he had to admit that if this had been the creature that first tried to speak with him at the camp, he probably wouldn't have accepted her as quickly.

But why was he bothering to obsess about this right now? He had something more important to do... With a deep breath, he asked. "How much further, until...you know..."

The giant spider mantis that was apparently also Charlotte pointed down the hall he'd been headed down. "The next room."

But, for some reason, Scott couldn't take his eyes off this larger Charlotte... No, that wasn't right. It wasn't that he couldn't look away. It was that he couldn't bring himself to look forward. According to this Charlotte, in the next room, was...

Despite everything, Scott closed his eyes. It wasn't the weird nightmare fleshy caverns, the countless spiders running back and forth, or even the giant spider-mantIs-friend-monster. It was the thought of what was to come that made him freeze.

After a moment, Scott took a deep breath, then a second, and finally forced his eyes open. "Alright. Let's do this..."

As he walked into the other room, it took a moment for Scott to process what he saw. There were body parts everywhere. A dissected arm here, an open chest cavity there, even an eye with the nerves still attached. Feeling a sudden irresistible urge, Scott ran outside the room and vomited the contents of his stomach onto the floor, then proceeded to dry heave some more, only stopping after every muscle in his body felt like it was screaming in agony.

Turning and seeing a nearby spider, Scot pointed back toward the room without looking. "That is NOT okay! That is COMPLETELY unaccept..."

Scott froze, something he saw in the room suddenly nagging at his mind. Slowly, carefully, he walked back into the room, ignoring most of the body parts and focusing only on the one thing that stuck out in his mind. There, sitting on the table, was the head. Like everything else in the room, it was partially dissected, but there was one thing off about it that had nothing to do with the dissection process. It had facial hair.

Swiftly walking out of the room and back into the cavern, Scott spoke to the extra-large Charlotte. "What's going on here? Who is that in the room, and what happened to our mom?!?"

The more alien Charlotte turned its attention to Scott as the mouth spoke again. "If that is not your 'mom,' then I do not know what happened to her."

Scott shook his head angrily. "No, you don't get to do that. You said you had our mom! Who's that in there?"

If this Charlotte was in any way put off by Scott's accusatory tone, he couldn't tell as it answered him. "I only stated that I found a human body at your camp. It was you who explained it must have been your mom. If that is not her, I have no further knowledge about her location or condition."

Scott was about to argue, but then he realized she was right. It was Scott who assumed it was their mother. If all that was true, then his mom had disappeared sometime between when he'd left to go swimming with Alice and when Charlotte had invaded the campsite, only to be replaced by a dead man. Where was their mom? Who was this man? Why was he dead? There were just too many questions...

Then, suddenly, he realized something: strange men were in the forest, and he'd left Alice alone! Turning back to Charlotte, he spoke urgently. "I need to get back to our new camp, to Alice, now!"