The complex that I’m currently residing in is exactly that, complex to say the least. There’s rules to follow and more lessons to be learned than there are stars in the night sky.
I’d do anything to be able to feel outside once again. This place and the thing that runs it is a warden and a caretaker depending on how you treat them. I’ve been doing good and my room has been getting some upgrades after I’ve lost everything when I disrespected this place. I finally have a mattress again and even some of the cracks in my ceiling and wood in my floorboards have been fixed while I was asleep. Small progress, but progress at least. The laptop I was given is the only thing keeping me sane right now and I think was only provided to warn others, but I think there’s a problem.
I’ve noticed that there was a small black spider, no bigger than my pinky nail with only 7 legs, in my room that has been…watching me. I know this sounds crazy, but I woke up on the floor like normal a few weeks ago and on the floor was a small spider. I wasn’t moving and was about a foot or two away from my face just watching me. When I started to get up it scurried away under the broken floorboards and disappeared. I don’t have arachnophobia or anything, but if it belongs to what I think it belongs to then I may be in trouble. As crappy as this room is now, the door is completely sealed. No room for even the wind to get in. When the rules say, Your room is safe, they meant it. It must’ve either followed me in or was on my person when I came inside from before.
The next day after I first saw it I woke up to it again a little closer and once again it hid in the floor when I woke up. So after a couple of hours I came up with an idea. I went to my front door and slept as close to it as I possibly could. I laid there for a little over an hour with my eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. Just like before I “woke up” to it watching me again in almost the same distance away as last time. As predicted it hid inside the floor again. I got up and opened my front door and tossed my shoes outside to simulate me walking out. As softly as I could I stepped far over when it had crawled into and laid down eye level with the floor. I swallowed my breath and held it. I luckily can hold my breath for a long time since I loved swimming as a kid.
Very slowly and cautiously I watched the small spider crawl out of the floor facing the door that I allegedly left out of. Once it was fully out and watching the door as it crawled slowly I waited until it was above a solid holeless spot. I quickly slapped my hand with a cupped palm over my tiny intruder and captured it. Due to rule #4 I know I could’ve killed it since it intruded into my room and that it couldn’t harm me due to rule #1 and #3, but I never like killing pests. Even if they meant harm to me. Although it could just be a normal small independent spider nothing living in this complex, no matter how big or small, will ever have the courage to break one of Winthorp’s laws. As tight as I could I cupped my hand together as delicately as possible I trapped my new guest in my palms. I awkwardly used my elbows to open my door while holding the spider hostage in my hands. It took a few tries, but I eventually got my door open.
I walked a good distance away from my room before walking up to one of the ancient cheesy gold framed hallway paintings that decorated the pathways. I cautiously released the spider onto the painting and after hesitating slightly it slowly crawled onto the decor and turned to face me. I told her to be more careful next time and to have a good day, my friend. Being alone in this place long enough will have you talking to anything that won’t harm you. I was just glad to be able to speak out loud for once. It’s been weeks since I’ve even heard my own voice. The small 7 legged spider watched me gather my shoes and retreat back into my room. As weird as it sounds I miss the company already, but not if she belonged to The Host.
I’ve seen The Host a few times throughout the complex, but The Host isn’t always the same host; if that makes sense. You see The Host isn’t just one being like Him and Her, but more like a collective hive. Whenever The Host makes a new host it’ll look different at first since it’s fresh, but after a while they look like The Crypt Keeper from Tales from the Crypt covered in small black spiders, small holes and egg sacs. The spiders have a united hive mind and separate individually to spy. That’s how they find weak prey. I had the misfortune of seeing this in the lobby of all places a little over a month ago. A place I thought was safe since we were in the presence of Winthorp. I was sitting in the lounge area reading one of the old books that are provided for minor entertainment and enjoying the company of the gay ape like humanoid couple that I met.
Jim is a big dark brown apeman and Jon is a grayish/white cryptid and yes, I asked, apeman and cryptid are their pronouns. They spoke 3 languages each, luckily they both knew english very well. Really smart and nice guys, but never call them BigFoot or Sasquatch. Turns out those are racial slurs. Jim was patient enough to explain how offensive those terms are, but not until after Jon hit me across the lobby a few days prior in a blind rage after I accidentally whispered those terms outloud in awe at them. Turns out they also have amazing hearing. We’ve been cool ever since though. We were peacefully enjoying each other’s company in the lobby, reading when suddenly the peace was broken by a single loud scream.
Just slightly off the center of the lobby The Host had what looked like a powerless pure white skinned elf girl pinned down. It had her wrists and ankles anchored down, but not enough to harm her and this zombie looking creature held her in place. This caught the attention of everything in the lobby. She screamed and pleaded in a language I didn’t understand and kept looking towards the concierge desk where Winthorp was reading the paper and giving the commotion no mind. The bellhop in the straw hat that we know as god in this place just kept reading its newspaper and leaning back in its wooden desk chair while everything else watched.
Once the poor girl realized that not it or anything was going to help she turned back to her captor and struggled with all of her might. No one and nothing wanted to intervene as to not accidentally break rule #1. We all watched as The Host opened its mouth and what I thought was a long white bubbled tongue was actually a giant spider egg sack. It moves around like a worm looking for dirt. The poor girl screamed and cried in horror and when her mouth was wide, it dropped. The giant egg sack wiggled and crawled into her mouth and forced its way down her throat. After the deed was done The Host released her. She ran away crying and The Host just got up and limped away like nothing happened.
I asked Jim and Jon what the hell that was all about and they explained what The Host was. The Host is a collective of tens of thousands of small black spiders. Their “room” is The Host. They explained that the girl is doomed. That egg sac that was its tongue is covered in a venom that’ll numb her nerves immediately, making her immune to all feelings. Even if her mouth was shut that egg sac was lubed in that venom would’ve just gone into her nose, ears or eyes. The eggs are tiny at first. Small enough to get into your tightly shut eyelids and past your eye. It makes the process painless, but that’s just the beginning. Even if only one or two got in the job still would’ve been done. It would only make the process longer. When those eggs hatch the babies will slowly eat her from the inside out, but she’ll never feel it or anything ever again. They’ll replace everything they eat with their web and her fluids with that venom so as to not damage their new home.
Those spiders are omnivores and will eat her down to the bone. Her body will rot, but hold together with webs and after a while they will be able to control her every movement with those webs. She’ll become trapped in her own living corpse and unable to feel or move anymore, like a living puppet. Then she will become The Host. They only do this when the old home is fully decayed and with no more nutrients. They leave as much of your brain intact as possible and they’ll force feed you using your own body as a puppet or use those holes your body is covered in as tunnels to carry anything you need inside you. When they’re done they’ll just let whatever is left of you die on its own of dehydration, so they technically didn’t kill you either. Since this is the process they didn’t break any rules. So now she will wait and will never know when the conversion is fully done. She will beg for death, but you know Winthorp will not let it come until theyre done with her. Even the deaths and reapers know better to answer her call or else they’ll break Winthorp’s laws.
I didn’t want to hang out in the lobby anymore after that, as much as I do miss Jim and Jon. I still see them in passing, but it’s been awhile now. Yesterday I ran out of food and had to make a trip to Don’s Market. A room in the hotel that has a faded red and blue neon OPEN sign where the room number should be. A Costco sized market filled with almost any food imaginable that shifts constantly and run by one man named Don who is a nephalem. It usually only appears nearby when your room’s food supply is almost or completely gone. That room is a whole other story for another day. I was on my way back to my room, both hands had bags full of groceries. I was looking over my goods when I exited and you’re unable to go back inside if you have supplies. The door shut and in my moment of distraction I looked up and realized I was in between the now sealed door and The Host.
It was just a foot or two away from me. The once beautiful white skinned elf girl from a few weeks ago is now only recognizable by the branded body tattoos her body had. She was bald, but the spiders gave her a head full of long gray webs for hair. Her galaxy colored eyes are now an open pocket and the other a giant egg sac going from its left eye to ear. Her body is covered in open holes for the spiders to easily access her insides and they were running around all over her like a busy New York sidewalk. It was like looking into a decade old dried up corpse. Her jaw hung loosely open and only being held on by old flesh and webs. I can see the new tongue egg sac that wiggles around impatiently for a new host inside.
Inside where the right eye used to be was a small black shine that moved slightly. I was frozen in fear and didn’t realize it was now just a little over a foot away from my face. I was trapped. What I thought was the remnants of her left eye began to come forward into the light. Out of its open eye socket emerged a golf ball sized spider. If The Host was a hive like collective then maybe this was the queen and/or mother. Once the spider crawled out more, that’s when I noticed it had only 7 legs. We stared at each other for a minute and in a raspy voice from The Host’s mouth came, “F-frieend”. The decaying air that escaped made me almost puke. Pops and cracks were audible as The Host controlled their new home and began limping into Don’s Market past me.
If not for a small act of kindness I might’ve become The Host, but it seems maybe I’ve made a new friend, for now at least. I can’t wait to tell Jim and Jon about this when I see them next time, but I think I’ve had enough for now. I think I’m going to stay in my room again for a while. I know better than to get too comfortable in The Pandemonium Complex.