#lmkocmonth

At first he hadn’t really thought much about it. Why would he? LIke a wolf didn’t think much about the sheep beyond how to best tear into it, he knew what it was but didn’t ponder the moral quandaries of filling his starving belly.

Huntsman would return to the cave with a bloody bag made of his own silk that would twitch every so often and give out pathetic moans and yelps, announce his catch with a cry of ‘Dinner!’ and it would be dinner. Cooked into stew or carved into pieces by the Queen. When carved into pieces he would oftentimes get the worst slices, mostly gristle and fat in comparison to the others, but he was well aware of his status at the bottom of the social ladder among the others.

He hadn’t thought much about it.

But now- now he couldn't ignore it. He couldn’t just not think about it anymore.

There’s not a lot of subspecies of demons that still eat humans.

Most didn’t need to in the first place, and would only do so as a show of power, or personal taste. But Spiders were not among that count. Spiders needed to eat humans. It was part of how they’d evolved, and part of their dietary necessities. The specific chemical makeup that humans had in their systems and would then be in their muscle fibres.

Like most things in his life nowadays, that was simple when he didn’t remember his past. It was simple because as far as he’d been concerned, he was a spider demon too, and humans were an ‘other’ that the autonomy of could be easily ignored. But now that his mind was for the most part back in order, now that he remembered- it had gotten much more complicated.

‘Human’ was the people above the cave systems. Something he used tobe but not anymore.

Human was- was his older sister. scrappy, tough, sleeps with a baseball bat beside her head on the off chanse they’ll be attacked in the night, she was tough and strong, but if the Queen grew tired of her-

Human was his Ex-wife, his parents, his old coworkers, his old friends. He used to be human, if he hadn’t been valuable to the clan for his intelligence he would have been on the menu.

Human was Minyi.

It really put all those nights he’d spent not sharing a thought toward the person they’d devoured into a different perspective.

It hurt to think about, both emotionally and physically, the idea that before he’d known better he could have been complicit in the murder and consumption of someone he’d known, maybe even someone he’d cared about. It made him nauseous, made his head throb in pain. A voice in the back of his head screaming at him to run or fight but not knowing who he should be fighting or running from.

So he’d opted to meet the opposing forces halfway and just.. Start politely refusing the barely edible meat left infront of him, citing that he wasn’t hungry or had already filled his plate with the grain and vegetables and more identifiable hunks of meat that his daughter and sister were eating.

He saw the smug grin that Xiuying would shoot Huntsman when she thought he wasn’t looking.

And it worked… at first. He was still getting enough calories to fuel himself for the days, and he was still able to think straight. So the sudden aches and pains in his joints had been easy to brush off as exhaustion or stress.

Then the bruises started appearing. Even things that wouldn’t have phased him entirely on the pain scale were starting to bloom dark violet bruises on his body. The smallest bumps and thumps making dark irregular patches that ached and stung.

Green slivers of hair began to appear in number in the shower drain, and he knew the pattern for his family, he wasn’t due to start losing his hair until he was in his fifties and he was barely over thirty now!

And then the hunger began.

Like a pit had formed in his stomach as his body begged him for a specific type of nutrient that he hadn’t been indulging in. He knew what it was that he was craving, he knew no amount of noodles or curry or macaroni would ever fill the void in his gut now. It demanded only one thing and he knew exactly what it was. And he couldn’t indulge it anymore.

It was fucked up that his biology was demanding it of him, as if his body had forgotten entirely his own roots. He pushed through it as best as he could. It was distracting at times, which meant his productivity was steadily slowing, but he was working through it. The others in the clan were starting to watch him with careful eyes. The bowls of cut meat being pushed into his hands he had to physically restrain himself from devouring were steadily getting to be better cuts as pity began to override derision. Huntsman once implied he was doing this to ‘prove a point’ but the eye rolls and the sneers evaporated quickly when his gaze went blurry and he suddenly had to pull out his limbs just to keep himself from toppling over.

‘You’re malnourished’ he’d stated instead and insisted he was going to go to the queen and have her demand he start taking care of himself again, but he couldn’t- he’d stand his ground against the Queen on this because he couldn’t just do that anymore.

It hurt to not indulge, but the idea of digging into human flesh made him nauseous. He’d accept not working at a hundred percent productivity anymore and they’d have to accept that as well.

Besides, he was working on a way to fuel his nutrition deficit without hurting anybody anyway. It wouldn’t be too hard to find a vitamin supplement that simulated the dietary needs his body now had.

The Spider needed flesh, but the human couldn’t stand the idea of it, he did his best to meet them in the middle.

And it wasn’t working. He’d tried as many different combinations of enzymes and hormones as he possibly could but none of them were quelling the constant craving in his stomach.

It helped in some small part, to be around his daughter and sister. To remind himself of why he couldn’t just give in the barbarous urges of the Spider within. Why it was important to cling to his humanity as he was now. To hold his baby in his arms and promisce himself he’d never become one of the monsters she feared lurked in her closet or under her bed.

And it made him strong enough to push through the pain of the ravenous hunger and keep going with the days.

He’d taken to avoiding interaction with strangers when he could, so the voice in the back of his head would stop purring how easy it could be to lure this or that person into an alleyway and just dig right in, He kept a greater distance with the other parents when walking Minyi to school, and spending more time in the caves to avoid temptation with their neighbors, even if Minyi would complain of how much less she was seeing him.

Huntsman had been dropping into the apartment more often anyway so it’s not like he was leaving her unattended. But the other spider kept looking at him with suspicion and, of all things, pity. He didn’t even think Huntsman was capable of sympathy let alone pity, but there it was.

There were always bowls left in the microwave when he returned full of cooked meat he knew wasn’t cow or pig, and he threw them out and took out the trash before he could give in to the urge.

But not before he’d wrap them in stretchy wrap and chucked some rat poison into the bag so if he had the misfortune of catching a whiff it wouldn’t make him absolutely salivate as his hunger pains made it impossible to even walk for a time.

He just needed to keep control of himself at all times, to always be intimately aware of what the spider instincts wanted from him, and to keep working to find that happy median so both human and demon got what they wanted out of it.

--

It hurt so much…

The hunger wasn’t even hunger anymore it was just pain. Pure unadulterated agony that couldn’t be filled with anything but what his instincts were demanding of him.

He didn’t know where he’d collapsed, the pain was so massive his eyes had stopped working, everything vanishing into a haze, and there was nothing but the starvation in his mind, not even any memories to tell him where he was.

His senses had for the most part shut down, sound distorted and strange, unable to be made sense of. Vision all but eliminated, only able to differentiate blurry blobs of color, the bruises that dotted his skin ached but not as much as the pain within, his limbs had gone numb.

But he could still smell.

He could smell blood.

He could smell flesh.

His mouth watered in desire, if he could stand he’d find the source of it, but he wasn’t even sure if he could move his fingers right now.

There was a sound, and as it got louder so too did the scent grow more powerful. He felt desperate strength return to him, just enough to prop himself up from the hard ground. The smell was overwhelming, his vision didn’t focus but he recognized colors he hadn’t seen before, a sandy tan and a black as dark as night.

Blood. Flesh. Food. Prey.

His arms latched around his prey, it squirmed for a moment but relaxed quickly. It made noises, calling for help? He couldn’t tell, he didn’t care to tell, he didn’t even know what it was.

But he knew it smelled delicious.

He knew it was the answer to the pain that encompassed him entirely.

He didn’t hesitate. The prey was small in his grasp. For how great the ravenous pit was inside him it wouldn’t be enough to satiate the hunger, but it would give him strength enough to hunt and that was all he needed.

His teeth dug in and the prey beneath him let out a faint squeak before he tugged, the flesh ripped away like it was nothing and it choked on its own blood beneath him.

It was wonderful. Euphoric. The relief at the metallic taste of blood on his tongue, the resistance of the cartilage as his teeth tried to dig into the prey’s larynx before it shifted just so and he was left only with a mouthful of blood, skin, and tendons, but it was so good he didn’t care. The red blood covered his blurry vision as the newfound vigor coursed through him, the one bite alone as he chewed and swallowed released the pressure on his chest and for the briefest moment made the pain go away; he could breathe again and he could think again.

The little hand coming up to ball weakly into his shirt, he could feel it without the pain of the faintest tug on a bruise near his collarbone.

And he could process the squeaky noise his prey made as it died.

A strange last dying noise to make. It didn’t sound like anything, like a garbled half-word, slurred through the wheezing of the punctured windpipe

“Da-...”

“...Ddy…”

...

‘Da’ ‘Ddy’?

‘Daddy’?

Everything stopped.

His world snapped back into focus-

And promptly shattered.

--

He didn’t scream when he awoke.

He couldn’t.

It was too much for a scream.

He was silent as calmly stood, walked to the bathroom, and threw up. For a moment the nausea was the only sensation. The bitter taste of bile and stomach acid and the unpleasent sensation of all of the muscles in his abdomen flexing in the highly specific way required to eject the contents of his digestive tract. When the first round of heaves turned into coughing and a stray gag, the omnipresent hunger returned. Thus started the second wave of heaves. The tears welling in his eyes could have been from either the physical strain and stress, or even frustration that, even now as he felt like his own internal organs were being turned inside out the source of all of his woes remained.

The second round ended, and the nausea settled.

He wanted to stand back up to clean himself up properly, but his legs felt weak and useless beneath him, and even using his limb enhancers felt like more energy than he was willing to expend.

So he eventually just closed the toilet lid and rested his head on the seat as his breathing slowly evened out again.

He recognized vaguely that he was probably going through some sort of shock. Surely, waking from such a vivid and horrific nightmare should have left him in a state of panic or despair. He should have woken up with a scream, struggled out of tangles of bedsheets until he’d fallen out of bed. He should have been a sobbing wreck, completely inconsolable and rushing to his daughter’s room to ensure that she was still peacefully sleeping with her stuffed animals keeping silent vigil against her own nightmares. Probably waking her up in his panic and putting her in the position of comforter as if part of some inverse parody of your average parent and child scenario.

But he wasn’t. The aching void in his gut wasn’t going away, and his limbs felt heavy, and he could practically feel his hair falling out in clumps, bruises forming at the smallest of bumps, and he wasn’t getting to his feet to check on his child after having a brutal nightmare where all of those symptoms combined until the agony was so great he’d forgotten who or what she even was and-

And he’d killed her. No- no he couldn’t get away with using pretty words like ‘kill’. He’d devoured her. Dug his teeth into her neck until he’d tasted blood and pulled.

It was just a dream, just a horrible, terrible, nightmare. He felt the claws of panic begin to try and dig themselves into his numb brain, and he didn’t know if he should welcome them or fend them off.

His stomach still ached.

But before he could decide on what to do he felt a hand encompass his shoulder, turning him until he was facing four eyes, as green as his own, glittering strangely in the dark.

Huntsman huffed, and if Synatx’s night vision was better he was sure he would be scowling at him.

“Here.” The brute grunted, pressing something into his hands. It was too dark to see properly, but it was somewhat squishy to the touch, he felt some sort of liquid drip onto his fingers from the grip and-

And oh it smelled heavenly.

He knew what it probably was. He was disgusted at the knowledge of what it was. Yet his jaw ached in desire to bite in.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Shut up and eat.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Well I don’t wanna spend every night perched outside your room to make sure you don’t go into a Frenzy while you’re sleepwalking, so you’re taking care of this.” that gave him pause.

He knew he did develop a habit of sleepwalking a little after the stuff with the Lady Bone Demon, but the way he’d said how it could combine with sleepwalking… “Wait- how did you get in, you left for the caves hours ago-”

“Find a better spot for your spare key, the fake tile by the door was too obvious.”

“Huntsman-!”

“Eat. You’ve been starving yourself of prey too long, you need it raw and bloody so eat it while there’s still blood on there.”

“I’m not gonna-”

The other spider’s hand darted like lightning and gripped the loose collar of his pajama shirt tight, but the words were spoken slowly, carefully. “You think i’ve been sneaking in to guard your door just for kicks? Until you start quelling the craving you’re a threat. To the clan, to your neighbors, to Minyi,” the fear nipped at his mind again, the frustration handling Huntsman brought forth only a temporary distraction. “Eat.”

He’d never heard Huntsman call Minyi by her name before.

Which was what he was musing on as much as he possibly could as he began to do as asked. His body practically moving without him after the first bite to begin to dig into the limb he’d been presented with, ripping and tearing and this was another time he felt like he should have been more emotional than he seemed to be feeling.

But it wasn’t until the only remaining part of the leg he’d been given was the bone, cracked and sucked dry of the marrow, did he feel anything.

Relief. His stomach was finally full with what it had been insisting it needed and the pain was steadily fading. He wouldn’t get better all at once of course, and he might just have to deal with his hair getting a jump start at thinning a bit, he felt like he could breathe again.

Exactly as it had felt in the dream.

When he’d-

When he had-

He stood, the energy to do so finally in his grasp again and strode right past Huntsman. He let him go, but he could still hear footsteps behind him--purposeful, Huntsman could easily make himself undetectable if he wanted to--as he left the restroom, then left his own room, strode down the hall until he reached the door with the little wooden sign on it covered in sloppily painted flowers.

And there she was. As always. Curled up against her prized stuffed rabbit Dingding, her second and third favorite stuffed animals--the dolphin Haddock and the polar bear Snowy--standing silent vigil on either side of her pillow. His daughter’s chest rising and falling in an even rhythm as she dreamed her own dreams.

He got near the bed and sat on the edge, unworried about waking her, Minyi was a heavy sleeper. Sure enough she made a thin humming noise and nuzzled her face into Dingding’s belly and didn’t stir.

For a time he watched her. Wondering not for the first time how it had even been possible he’d forgotten someone as important as she was when he’d first turned into a demon.

Blood flashed infront of him, pouring down her neck like a flood, watching the tendons move and shift as she struggled to breathe, slowly drowning her, little hands twitching as she’d gripped into his shirt, big dark eyes looking up at him confused, not understanding, it had never even occurred to her that he could ever hurt her it just wasn’t processing in her mind as something he was capable of.

Why would he hurt her? She didn’t think it was possible, she didn’t understand.

He was her daddy.

“Da...Ddy-”

He tried to close his eyes, to block out the memory, but it appeared behind his eyelids anyway. It was a dream. He wasn’t capable of hurting her.

He was if he let himself ever get that bad again.

He knew it was selfish, and he would still work on the supplement idea so at least he and the rest of the clan wouldn’t have to deal with being outcasts even among other demons if it should ever be perfected, but for now, he’d have to be okay with properly taking care of his more spider-like needs.

He could never be a danger to his baby, he couldn’t care anymore if that meant people had to die, and he had to partake in eating them. He knew it was selfish, but he also knew he could survive it, he had before he could do it again, but if something happened to Minyi because he was denying taking care of his instinctual needs and- and he did something to her…

He wouldn’t be able to survive that.

Her hair was soft, almost downy, it stirred something distant in him of a childhood he didn’t really remember anymore, and it was soothing to smooth the few tufts that had fallen in her face out of the way, for a moment at least, then he spotted a few flecks of drying blood still on his hand that had still stuck around from his ‘dinner’ and flinched.

So he gave her the quickest kiss on her temple and left.

Huntsman was waiting by the door, arms folded, gaze locked on him like a hawk about to swoop down and snatch a mouse.

The door shut with a quiet ‘click’ and the two spiders shared an awkward, uncomfortable moment.

“You’ve been making sure I wouldn’t hurt her when I'm not conscious.” He could see Huntsman stiffen a bit under the observation.

“You sleepwalk, combine that with the instinctual frenzies starved spiders can slip into… Well-! You’d be a useless mess if something happened to the brat. Completely worthless to the clan if all you’re doing is staring at her baby pictures crying and moaning, I have no personal investment in the runt’s wellbeing, she’s just a pain in the neck to me, i’m just looking at this objectively and-”

He’d been sneaking in, every night since this all started, coming back after he was sure everyone had gone to bed, using the spare key and just-... sitting outside his door every. Night. Just to make sure he didn’t go crazy in his sleep. Just silently keeping watch to make sure he didn’t do something terrible against his will.

He felt he was a little deserved in surprising Huntsman with that hug.

And the shaky, barely held together ‘thank you’

And like a child with nowhere better to do it, he finally cried.

And Huntsman stayed with him, And for that he was thankful.