Monster of the internet

*This story is under my folder titled “Oddities of the internet”. Gacha Club character designs are under this forum: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=116005&start=1140. This story is based off a Halloween tale from my story “31 horrific Halloween tales” from my folder “31 Halloween tales”. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!*

Introduction

In the internet, there surfaced a red, blurred monster, killing a little boy. Captioned underneath the picture were the words: “Excitement is on your way”.

Being the internet, the image was never truly discovered until years after it appeared online, by an unfortunate young thirteen year old girl named January.

The story of January is one to be told another time. At this moment, the origin of the monster, the abomination that takes away those unlucky to see its picture, will be told as best as it can be.

It all began with a man and his daughter…

Chapter One

Zane woke up to the morning sun streaming through the white cotton curtains of his window. It was his first day at the town of Eldritchville. Zane heard stories of a cursed forest in the town where people were turned to monsters, hence, the name of “Eldritchville”.

But the town itself was beautiful, filled with blooming flowers and green trees. It was absolutely perfect. Even his daughter, Semyazza, agreed and she didn’t like anything.

What were a few ghost stories to the pure and simple fact that the town was just that, a town?

Chapter Two

A FEW MINUTES LATER

“Semyazza! Time to get up.” Zane said, knocking on her door. He was all dressed up and ready to go, but Semyazza was still half-asleep. He knew that she was only half-asleep because when he was young, he was never fully awake in the morning.

“Just another minute!”

“We have to go, now! We have to get apples for the pie!”

The “cursed” forest in question had a wide array of apples during the autumn season, which would be perfect for their annual Fall party.

Every Fall, Zane invited family members over for a celebration of crisp, new season. They ate apples and pumpkins, drank cider, and told tales of their lives.

But it wasn’t complete without the apples and Semyazza had to get up.

A low groan came from Semyazza’s room.

“I’ll get up.” Semyazza said.

Chapter Three

AT THE FOREST

Zane let Semyazza lead the way in the forest with her lantern, lighting up the dark path. He hadn’t expected the tree branches to cover up the sky so much.

Zane didn’t mind, though. The dark was comforting, sweet and safe. It reminded him of nights where only his window was a crack open, moonlight streaming through.

The soft scent of apples was in the air.

Chapter Four

Zane and Semyazza were walking for a long time. They smelled apples, but they didn’t see any apples.

“Are you sure that there are any apples here?” Semyazza asked.

“Yes, I’m sure! That’s why we came here, for apples. We just have to keep looking.” Zane said.

But inside, the doubt was creeping in like a bad omen. What if there were no apples? What if they had gone to the forest for nothing?

“Dad, you have to see this!” Semyazza yelled.

“What, what is it?” Zane asked, running towards her voice. She had gone so far ahead that he couldn’t see her.

“Just come here!” Semyazza replied.

“I’m coming!” Zane said.

What did she want to show him and why did she sound so…excited?

What was going on?

Chapter Five

Zane joined Semyazza, who was pointing at a spider web that seemed to be thick and big enough to be a wall. It had iridescent raindrops, only it hadn’t rained and there was no sun to make the raindrops shine.

Yet, it glowed, a wall of nature’s jewelry, tucked away in Eldritchville forest.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Semyazza asked.

“It is. I’ve never seen anything like it.” Zane said.

It was the strangest, most magical sight he had seen in his entire life. He never thought that he would live to see such sights.

“I’m so glad you love my home.” A soft voice like the sound of feathers said behind them.

Chapter Six

Zane and Semyazza turned around to face the owner of the voice.

He was a silver and black streaked young man, with maroon red eyes and graying curls. From the waist down was the body of an inky black spider, little hair visible on the legs.

Zane pulled Semyazza away from the spider creature, heart racing at the sight of him. They couldn’t run forward, the spider was blocking the way. They couldn’t run behind them because the web was right there.

The spider only laughed, bone-white teeth gleaming in the darkness.

“You don’t need to be scared. I don’t mean any harm.” He said.

“You don’t?” Semyazza asked. Zane sighed. Why, why did she speak to him?

“I don’t.”

Chapter Seven

“I just want you all to be happy, that’s all.” The spider said.

“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Marcel. I have lived here, all alone, for many years, until you two came along. What do want, my friends?” Marcel asked.

“Apples!” Semyazza said brightly. Why, why did she speak? They were trapped!

“I can certainly help.” Marcel grinned.

Zane grabbed Semyazza’s hand and made a run for it. Apples could wait, they couldn’t stick around with a spider.

“Why are you running? I only want to help!” Marcel shouted behind them.

Zane’s heartbeat rose as he heard the fast, pattering crawling that could only belong to a spider chase after them.

Chapter Eight

Right at the end of the forest was the soft gray of the clouds, the sun hiding within. It was safe, it was home. Zane and Semyazza were almost there, they just had to keep running.

A pointed sharp thing pushed Zane to the ground. He lost his grip on Semyazza. The trees became dark, blurring shadows that melded against each other. Zane could not scream or yell as he was being dragged away. He heard Semyazza screaming and hoped that at least she had the common sense to run.

The world went dark.

Chapter Nine

Zane woke up in the spider web, staring up at Marcel. He could hear something moving next to him, but he wasn’t sure what it was.

“Don’t worry. The girl is here with you. You’re both going to get the greatest gift of all.” Marcel said.

Semyazza was with him? She was trapped too?

“Now, rest.” Marcel said.

Zane’s vision was spinning…everything lost depth….colors were contorted together…no…no…no.

It was too late already.

Chapter Ten

“Dad, where are we?”

Zane woke up to the sound of Semyazza’s voice. All he could see were colors melting together, creating a watercolored rainbow.

He got up from the…ground? It felt like the ground, but it was just as colorful as the sky above him.

Zane looked to his left. Sitting next to him was a shadow girl, with red hair and glowing white eyes. Her blue dress seemed to rival with the blinding, penetrating light of the sun.

“Dad, it’s me! I’m Semyazza!” She said.

It was her! It was her innocent voice hiding in the colorful shadow girl exterior!

“Oh good, you’re awake!” Marcel said from behind them.

Chapter Eleven

“What’s going on?” Zane asked. Why was everything so colorful? Where did the ground end and the sky start? What was happening?

“You’re in the middle ground of the world! I stumbled across this place when I was exploring the forest myself and became this!” Marcel beamed, gesturing to the spider half of his body.

“I was frightened at first, but then I learned that I could travel through dimensions! You can travel through them, too! We can go together!”

“We can travel through dimensions? What are…dimensions?” Zane asked. He never heard of such a thing in his life. Dimensions sounded like a secret code to the universe that he would never solve.

“I’ll show you!” Marcel said.

He crawled over to both of them and scooped them up in his arms.

“Can you please put us down?” Semyazza asked.

“It won’t work.” Marcel replied.

Again, the world around them melted into fading colors. Again, Zane felt the putrid puke boiling within, but too congested to come out.

Chapter Twelve

After a while, they had made it to what seemed to be a backyard. In front of them was a small brown house, with one window that was open a crack. The sky was velvet black, with only the pale ball of the moon to cast light.

“This…this is my house.” Marcel said dreamily.

He placed Zane and Semyazza gently on the ground and skittered over, apparently unbothered by his appearance.

“Wait!” Zane called out. He wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen in dimensions, but Marcel crawling out into the open felt like a bad idea.

“Come on!” Semyazza said. She got up and started running towards Marcel.

Zane threw his claws up in frustration. Why wouldn’t they listen?

Wait, claws?

Zane looked down.

What used to be human legs was red ropes in different shades cascading around his body, covering him entirely. His own hands weren’t hands anymore, but jagged burgundy claws. What was he?

Zane shook himself out of his thoughts. There wasn’t much time to process his new form, he had to retrieve Marcel and Semyazza.

Chapter Thirteen

Once Zane was in front of the house, he crawled on the walls and opened the window, slipping inside through the crack.

It appeared that he was in a child’s room, with miscellaneous toys strewn about the floor.

Except, there was a strange item on the table that looked like a black box framed by solid white lines.

A little boy sat on a chair, staring up at him in shock.

Chapter Fourteen

Why was the boy looking at him? Why didn’t he move?

“Excitement is on your way.” Zane said, walking towards the boy.

“W-what are you going to do?” The boy asked.

Zane was walking towards him, claws extended, a smile growing on his face. He grabbed the boy by the collar of his shirt and threw him on the floor.

The boy screamed, but Zane ignored him. He bent down to the boy and plunged his claw deep into the boy’s chest, earning strangled screams and the sound of squelching organs within.

That will teach you to stare. Zane thought as he pulled out the boy’s heart.

Chapter Fifteen

Zane blinked at the boy’s limp corpse, his heart still in Zane’s claws. What had he done? Why did he kill the boy? It seemed so alien, so strange…

“Dad! Come here!” Semyazza called out.

Zane dropped the heart and ran out the door. He had more pressing matters to deal with than the horrors of murder.

Chapter Sixteen

Zane ran down the stairs, to Semyazza’s silhouette. When he made it to the bottom, he saw that Marcel was standing over two bodies cocooned in thick, white webs…

“I finally have my parents!” Marcel said brightly, with the enthusiasm of a young boy.

“Marcel, what’s going on? What is this place? Why did you bring us here?” Zane asked, walking up to him. He didn’t understand much of what was going on. Heck, he didn’t understand himself.

But Marcel turned them into monsters in the first place and he was certain from the look in his eyes that Marcel brought them to the house on purpose.

Chapter Seventeen

“Years ago, I ran too far from home when I was but twelve.” Marcel said.

“I thought that I’d find a way back, but then…I slipped.”

Marcel’s eyes were darting around in their sockets. Zane could see him thinking back to a farther, distant time.

“I slipped into a strange place with colors and lights and no ground…and…and then I turned into this!” Marcel laughed after that, the cracked, lost kind.

“I was a man and a spider. They made me grow up and turned me into a monster! I tried asking to be changed back, but nothing happened. Nothing happened! I was just screaming into nothingness!”

Zane reached his claw out to comfort Marcel, as he would with Semyazza when she was frightened, but Semyazza lowered his claw, shaking her head softly.

“Instead, I was put into this old-timey place-“

“What?” Zane asked. He didn’t understand what Marcel meant. It all sounded foreign to him.

“No offense, but you live in the past. This is the present.” Marcel said.

They were in the past? But…but it was their present! How could it be that…that…

“It’s okay, though. I still wanted you two to be my friends, even though you’re different. I wanted you two to come with me, to my home, so that I could kill my family and then turn them into monsters. We would all be monsters. We would all live together.” Marcel said.

“You don’t know us. How can you-“

“That’s okay! I’ll know you in time.” Marcel said, cutting off Semyazza.

Marcel got off of his parents and started to skitter up the stairs, Zane and Semyazza trailing behind.

Chapter Eighteen

Marcel stopped in the middle of the hallway. He hadn’t gone into the boy’s room yet.

“Oh, I remember now. I made you kill him! I don’t need to-“

“You what?” Zane asked. Did Marcel just say that…that…

“I made you kill him!”

“You made me kill a child?”

Chapter Nineteen

“I know it sounds bad, but-“

“Sounds bad? It is bad!” Zane argued. He thought that he was a monster, that he had secret evil in his veins.

But the whole time, it was Marcel, the spider creature, who was pulling the strings and playing as a puppeteer.

Chapter Twenty

“You used me and lied to us both, you-“

“I just wanted us all to live together!” Marcel cried out.

“Live together? We don’t even know you, how do you expect us to live together?” Zane asked.

All he wanted was a nice outing with his daughter and Marcel had to ruin it all.

“I saw you in the woods! You were lonely! You-“

“We were not “lonely”. We were perfectly fine. It was you who-“

“Can you two please stop? I don’t like this either, but it’s no use yelling at each other. We might as well learn to live with the circumstances.” Semyazza said.

Zane looked at Marcel, a young boy trapped in the body of a monster. Marcel’s eyes were brimming with tears that wouldn’t come out.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” Zane said softly. He never would have yelled at Semyazza, so there was no reason to yell at Marcel.

“It’s okay.” Marcel said.

Epilogue

Zane and Semyazza didn’t live with Marcel for long. Dimensions were pulling them into different realities, into different worlds.

Somehow, the moment when Zane killed the boy, surfaced throughout the internet with the caption: “Excitement is on your way.” Anyone who saw it would suffer the same fate.

For all Zane and Semyazza knew, Marcel was living happily ever after.