Meyer was running with all his might, trying to escape the lava flow foaming at the brim like an overfilled mug of coffee.
The volcano kept erupting, growling and rumbling.
He could feel the tips of his shoes sticking slightly.
The glass was melting. Even the shoelaces.
Out of nowhere, panting hard, he suddenly came face to face with a massive purple spider.
With sheer reflex, he chopped it in half and kept running.
The fact that he managed to draw two obsidian blades from his bag and dual-wield them in such a short instant was nothing short of a miracle.
He felt like he was sprinting through Temple Run.
Having a body that never tired and lungs that never struggled to breathe had always worked in Meyer's favor.
A pink spider appeared from the left — pale in tone, almost like an acidic magmatic rock.
Whatever… Why were they heading toward the volcano anyway?
Was this their natural habitat or something?
There was no time to think.
His heart was pounding wildly.
His glasses bounced up and down.
One more shake and they'd be flying off his face.
As the spider neared the lava flow, Meyer tried to split its head clean in two.
With a grin, he raised the blade and swung it—
Clank. A metallic sound.
"Shit," he muttered, then chuckled.
One more time!
Clang! The metallic ringing continued.
What he had just seen—no, what now stood directly in front of him—
Was that… an armored spider?
"This… this is really bad, man!" he stammered, stepping back in retreat.
More bulky spiders began to close in.
They all had limbs like strands of spaghetti,
but their bodies and heads were covered in some silvery, armor-like material.
The blades in his hands?
Not a smart choice.
"My choices are never smart," Meyer said with a grin.
With a victorious gesture, he flipped the safety ring on the obsidian dagger, stepped on it with his right hand, and launched himself upward.
He soared nearly two meters into the air, then hurled himself onto the spider's armored back.
Splat!
His hip now rested on this weird, round back-plate.
The spider, from afar, looked about 1.7 meters tall,
but up close felt more like 1.5 —
like a woman with her feet flat on the ground.
He glanced at the other spiders and swung a chain around its neck like reins.
"Move it!"
The spider began to walk.
"Wait—why are you walking?! One sec!"
It stopped.
"Actually… walking's better," he muttered. Then shouted excitedly:
"You understand me?! Then giddy-up!"
The spider trotted forward, the reins bouncing as it moved toward the others.
Now Meyer could easily slash at those hairy legs with his blades.
Wherever he went, the spiders followed.
Meyer, with fury burning in both arms, attacked from the left and right flanks.
These "flanks" were simply Meyer's muscular arms.
The spider beneath him was doing just fine.
When Meyer leaned left, the spider veered right.
This way, Meyer could move and balance at once.
Worst part?
The spider had a better sense of physics than Meyer did.
He had failed physics in school.
Actually, he'd failed all subjects.
Always. Whatever...
Black blood spurted from the leg of a bright white spider, tracing a parabola in the air before splashing onto the ground.
The fluid from its hind leg sprayed upward and splattered across Meyer's face.
Gagging at the smell, he grabbed his throat and vomited to the left.
The lingering trickles of lava didn't faze him anymore.
At that moment, something clung to his leg.
"Spider, I guess," Meyer muttered, uneasily looking down.
But it was a five-fingered human hand.
"It's me," said Huyger. "It's me. Pull me up."
"With pleasure," said Meyer, grabbing him by the arm and hoisting him up with brute strength.
Huyger couldn't wrap his head around how his eighty-kilogram body was lifted by a mischievous, wiry, and only moderately muscular twenty-four-year-old guy.
He sat upright and wrapped his arms around Meyer's waist.
Meyer noticed the swarm of spiders closing in behind them.
"They never freaking end, man! Take a blade!"
Huyger looked around in shock, holding the dagger handed to him.
"Ugh. I dropped my spray in the lava," he grumbled.
Sticky liquid coated his bronze arms — a mix of spider blood and molten rock.
Like lava-flavored glue.
"I'm turning around," Meyer said, steering the spider toward the upper right.
They both shifted at once, and Huyger's head smacked into the back of Meyer's neck.
Suddenly, the spider reared up, growling,
then lifted itself on its front legs and hurled its riders off.
It glared at the two humans it had flung like snot into the air.
The impact launched Meyer and Huyger nearly four meters high—
Then came the splat as they hit the ground.
"Ahhh!"
"Ahhh!"
This time it was Huyger yelling.
"We're falling!"
"You're realizing it a bit late!" shouted Meyer—
Then landed with a wet smack in the lava.
Bubbles formed in the air like balloons sent from above.
They floated around like decorative water balls carried by the breeze from the tunnel.
"Huyger! Where are you?! Where are my blades?!"
Meyer had lost his blades—
the ones that gave him power, that were him.
"Damn it! I'm so done with this shit!"
He spotted a spider approaching.
Its steps matched those of a sluggish but deliberate feline.
This one was like a prosecutor in how it judged,
and like a teacher in how it mocked.
Lava-colored fire glinted in its eyes.
Meyer stared at it—
and those eyes looked disturbingly familiar.
"Look, people recognize people. I can't possibly have a past connection with a damn spider, right?!" he shouted at himself.
From a distance, Huyger was thrashing around.
"Okay!" he shouted back.
"I wasn't talking to you," Meyer snapped.
It didn't matter where Huyger was right now.
What mattered were those eyes—
those eyes looking at him as if they knew him.
Suddenly, the spider lifted its massive body upright, standing on its legs.
A huge shadow fell across Meyer's forehead.
It spread like a virus over his entire body.
His hands and feet turned ice-cold—
even in this infernal heat.
This sense of familiarity…
It grew too large to control.
He didn't care about the other spiders anymore.
Only those eyes.
Those eyes staring at him with that unbearable, tearing grief.
The spider's right and left front legs slowly rose toward its head.
"Y-you…" Meyer whispered as the spider's head came off.
No—
It wasn't the head.
It was a helmet.
It gleamed under the dim moonlight and the glow from the deep below.
He couldn't look at it for long.
He didn't have the courage.
This...
This...
"E–Emma?"
The helmet slid off.
Blonde hair—dusty, faded, dry.
Framing eyes as pink as dusk.
Only then did Meyer realize the spider had been a robot.
Were the others too?
He didn't know.
All he knew was that it was her—
That girl.
The one looking at him from a place too vast to reach.
His heart split in two with a wound he'd known before.
Right then, another spider approached from behind.
It grabbed a blade off the ground with its front legs and hurled it at Meyer.
He was frozen.
His gaze locked onto Emma.
The muscles around his eyes relaxed.
He didn't move.
Blood burst from Meyer's body and splashed into the slow-moving lava stream.
Fresh, red, living blood spilled freely—
and disappeared into the magma.
His eyes…
His eyes remained fixed on Emma Tyle.
He looked like he wanted to say something.
His mouth opened.
As soon as his lips parted,
he coughed blood.
Pain spread like wildfire through every inch of his body.
All he saw…
Was Emma running toward him.
And that voice.
That uniquely hers, soft, anxious, feminine voice:
"Steve!"
Her voice echoed faintly through the scorched air.
He thought—
maybe he was dying.