Del stepped out of the bathroom, blowing a soft breeze into her cobweb-coated apartment. Carefully she crept up to the front door and fumbled with the doorknob. From somewhere in the apartment, she heard rapid scuttling of eight legs grow louder. She pushed herself away from the doorknob into a sprint back into the bathroom, barely making it as the guttural roars of the 7-foot creature lumbered behind her. Quickly, she shut the door.

"Fuck," she thought. Another failed attempt.

The thing that waited for her was her spider. Everyone had one and had learned to live with theirs. She had not. No. She'd rather die in struggle that to coexist in a parasitical relationship with the giant spider that lived in her apartment.

Hers was a hungry spider that had long not eaten. She craved freedom, it craved her. Del had long fought for her freedom and all she had to show for it were to stumps where her right ring finger and pinky finger used to be.

She didn't know what it was that kicked in her but she felt -- no, she knew -- it was time to make a last stand. Live dead inside her bathroom or die by the gaping maw of Wendy, the spider. She gave the spider the name. Or she could die by starvation in the bathroom or live free through earned freedom.

That night, Del snuck out again as the spider slept, black as the night. It had camped out outside the bathroom, nestled in her web. Del looked at the creatures ferocious features and felt a pang of terror. Shamefully, she snuck back into her bathroom. She stood on a stool and took of her shirt. She tied the shirt on the shower curtain rack and tied the other end around her neck.

© Dustin Julian Domingo