The stub spider came after him again. He had no means of defending himself, but if he was gonna go out he wanted to go out fighting, so he found the only weapon available to him.
It was the shard of wood stuck on the side of his belly. So when the stub spider pounced on him, he fought against his fear, he knew it would be more painful than anything he'd ever felt, but he didn't want to die in the hands of that thing.
He braced himself and, in a swift move, pulled out the shard of wood from his side, hoping the pain would be lesser if he pulled it fast enough, but it wasn't.
Blood gushed out from his side, and the pain sent his head into a spiral, but with the stub spider on him, he didn't have the time to falter.
He stabbed the spider, puncturing its abdomen with the shard; it shrieked in pain. He threw the spider away. Yellow goo began to spill from its busted abdomen.
It moved away a little bit, seeming dizzy, it shook its head, and black blackness filled its pale baby face; it let out a piercing screech.
He quickly pulled himself away from it, and he let out his own scream; he had twisted the wound on his side, and there was nothing to distract him from the pain this time. He dragged himself into the green pool of glowing fluid to keep his distance from the stub spider.
The spider shook a little; it started making erratic movements, swaying from side to side, and it seemed unable to stand on its legs any longer as more yellow goo spilled out of it.
It let out a loud cry, it echoed through the cavern. Then it slumped over, fell on its face and died.
He was panting heavily and completely drenched in the green fluid. He looked down at his body and saw the many puncture wounds the spider had given him.
How am I still alive, he says.
A loud screeching cry echoed coming from within the cavern toward him; it was far louder than the stub spider's final cry, and he knew it was a response.
It's the mother
He quickly moved back, not minding the severe pain in his gut. He'd forgotten about the dead end, and all in his mind now was the fear of death.
He bumped head-first into the red corpse. He turned and saw its black, mangled face and rolls of sharp silver teeth and jolted back in fear. He saw a large puncture at the center of the head, perhaps the finishing blow.
It didn't scare him after that; he was more concerned about the stub spider's mother. It could be headed here now, and sure enough, he heard echoes.
He looked around for a way out of this but couldn't find any. He remembered Mr Dunn and Estiah. He remembered the day he'd asked for her hand; she smiled and said she'd answer when they were old enough, but she knew her dad had given her to him. He missed her and wanted to hold her at least just this once.
He heard the echoes get closer and closer, and then a green flash came from the red monster's chest.
What could that be, he thought.
He slowly turned, exerting his remaining energy, all to see what it was; he reached into its gutted chest, flakes of dried flesh fell on his hand, and he felt a bit slim on the inside; he grabbed it.
It felt smooth and cold to the touch. He pulled it out of the corpse, and the bones creaked like a door; light clouds of dust left the corpse and seemed more like mist.
He examined the ball, he looked at it, moving it around. This was his final moment but the green ball intrigued him.
What else could it do now? He was dying, and even if he wasn't, his ultimate doom was fast approaching in the form of a stubs spider.
The ball let out a green flash; he wasn't fazed; he was beyond that now. He just examined it with all his curiosity. He could hear the march of the giant stub spider coming from the darkness of the cavern; he couldn't tell if it was closer or far away but he could feel from the walls that it was large.
He felt the ball grow warmer and warmer; he was dying and didn't even know when his consciousness started fading; all he did was enjoy the experience, and he felt a warmth like nothing he had ever felt before.
The coldness in his system disappeared, he felt the warmth travel around his body, and soon he was engulfed by it; it felt primal, like a fire. A fire born out of the extremes of the basest instinct. The instincts to mate, to survive, and to eat. To eat!
Eat!
Eat!
Eat!
That word grew like a seed at the back of his mind; it started as a whisper but quickly grew to a screaming forest of primal fury.
He could feel his leg changing; he looked down at it and saw that it was red; he thought he was bleeding again. Then he looked at his hand; the green ball was gone, and his hand had turned red, too.
He felt new parts of his body grow, parts so unfamiliar, like the claws in his hand or the giant horns growing out of his head; he slowly got up as his body moved on its own.
He felt a deep, overwhelming hunger engulf his mind. A deep hunger for food, he didn't care whatever form it would take. This hunger was what controlled him now.
He felt spikes protrude out the middle of his hand and he felt new organs form, heart number two to four. He grew larger and larger when he saw the dead stub spider on the floor.
He jumped at it, and in a senseless bid to satiate his hunger, he consumed it all in a matter of seconds and turned his attention to its approaching mother. But the echoes were lower now
"It's running away!" He said in a groggy voice
He took in a heavy, deep breath and roared from the bottom of his lungs, sending a blast of sonic boom down the cavern as an attack on the spider. It went down the cavern and shattered the spider into bits on impact.
There's another!
In a show of bestial strength, he dug his legs into the bare, and with his hands, he threw his whole body mass; like a bullet, he shot through the cavern, destroying everything that was left behind him.
He felt his blood boiling, he crashed into the shattered stub spider carcass and began consuming it. He was eating like a mad beast, biting through its hard exoskeleton like butter.
Then the other giant stub spider screeched at him, he raised his head from the dismembered carcass. He saw the giant humanoid head of the adult stub spider; it had large black eyes and little gray hairs. It roared at him, opening his jaws and revealing its long fangs.
Hunger filled his eyes. He hadn't had enough and every bit of him was just as hungry as before. Then he leaped in the air, jumping into the spider's jaws.
After a couple of seconds, the spider collapsed. He had begun to consume it from the inside; he ate everything, eating and eating, even eating what the spider had eaten, eating its eggs and every little crumb, all to satisfy his century-long hunger.
In the darkness, he ate everything he could find; he ate every stub spider and even the smallest insect, his green eyes piercing through the dark. He ate till he was all that was left living in the cavern
And in his mind, the words echo, lines from an old cry, one forgotten to time,
"I am hunger; I am the primal drive; I'm the firstborn sin; I am Gluttony!"