Don’t Look Up (Graves)

It was early. The unlikelihood of Stephen being awake was more easily explained as not waking up early, but rather waking up very, very late. He had fallen asleep at eight in the morning after a night out at the club the day before and somehow managed to sleep through the next twenty hours. Scolding himself, he took a shower, made himself an omelet and tossed on an old shirt and shorts. He did not run often, but at five in the morning, there was a little less to do.

Central Park was quiet at this time of the morning, possibly the fault of the bleak weather. The emptiness did not bother Stephen; rather, he enjoyed the feeling of owning this open space in the middle of a crowded city.

It was a considerable time before he anyone crossed his path. There was a cute redhead calling around for her dog, Rex. Stephen laughed to himself; it was only a few days ago that he was pretending to look for a dog to trick Sventlana in this very park. He was the only one around, so he thought he would be polite. He jogged up to her, offering his help, "Can I help you look for your do--"

He unknowingly jogged right through a spiderweb strewn across his face. He flailed, cursed and pulled away the web, running his fingers through his hair hastily to make sure there was no spider on him. Once he was sure of his spiderlessness, he regained his composure, his cheeks now as red as the hair of the woman who watched his spazzy display. "Well. Yeah, sorry about that. So is your dog missing?"

Stephen focused on getting the excess color to flush away from his face; he liked to be more in control of his emotions and reactions, especially after his unflattering first impression. Thankfully, she seemed willing to laugh it off; at least he could redeem himself from there.

"Mind? I'd be a shame to all the good southern boys if I refused." He gestured her to lead the way.

Now that he was getting a clear look at her, he could not avoid feeling like her face was familiar. Definitely not a personal acquaintance; he had a knack for remembering faces he met in person, especially redheads, (who admittedly were a weakness to him.) There was just something about her that he could not place his finger on. "So what kind of pup are we lookin' for?"

Stephen had dealt with bad weather before, but this just felt... ominous. It just felt like the sort of morning where bad things could happen.

His inability to place his finger on why he knew who she was started to annoy him. He did his best to ignore his curious mind and be polite, scanning around for any signs of a small, scurrying animal. He turned to see her measurement of Rex. It was not until she pointed behind him that he turned and noticed it.

Not much rattled Stephen, but as he already established, spiders were a weakness of his. He could handle a spider if he was expecting it; he had even let a tarantula walk on his hand once. (He wasn't exactly "relaxed" about it, but he handled it.) It was when spiders caught him off guard that he lost his cool. And this spider was somewhere between the size of a puppy and a house. A foot or two away from his shoulder.

What happened next was what could best be described as a logic blackout. Abandoning rational thinking, Stephen jumped back, raising his shadow high, forming a large wave, encompassing the spider and smashing it into the ground. Two more waves pounded the remains for good measure.

His shadow receded and Stephen calmed down. He turned to become aware once more of the woman he had until that moment forgotten was there. Damn, I was liking being in New York. Desperate subject change. "So, that spider was pretty darn big, huh? Definitely not norma--wait a second." With obvious distracting circumstances, it took some time for Stephen to process the last thing she said. "What sort of pet has eight legs? This ain't a dog, is it?"

She was reacting casually, so he started becoming less concerned about revealing his mutation. "Yyyup. It is very dead. So... paper clip octopus. Going out on a limb that you're a mutant, too?" Wait, the idea of an octopus made of paper clips actually sounded like something he had heard before, and that was not the sort of idea one hears commonly. "Wait a second... now I know why you looked familiar! You're Maxine Ralls, right?" Stephen kept his eye on the news. He had only caught her program a few times, but some of it was her mutant stuff; controversial but brilliant.

She was so brilliant, in fact, that she was able to ascertain his main weakness. "Exactly what you think would happen, oddly enough." He was tense; total darkness put him on his guard. He normally carried a mini flashlight, but it was in his apartment. Why would he need it for a morning jog? He grabbed his phone; the screen created a small amount of light that gave him a small, faint shadow. Better than nothing.

"I gotta be honest sugar; I'm startin' to think this is just a big nightmare." He used the light to find her. Beyond the dim glow of the phone, nothing could be seen in the jet black night. "Any clue what's going on?"

>> “Guilty as charged. To whom should I make out the autograph?”

She really was cute. She was clever and she knew it, which was always a fun plus. He would have to keep this in mind when they were not lone in the dark. Well, at least not this dark. Something was different, and at this point, he could not even be sure if she was joking about Cthulhu. "The name's Nate Holloway. If we make it out of this Lovecraftian affair, maybe then we can talk about autographs. Hell, we make it out of this and I'm pretty sure I'd buy you dinner."

He used his light to find her wrist to hang on to it. "Sorry if you have space issues, but if not for this, we could actually lose each other in darkness like this. Also, you're cute, so that doesn't hurt."

He tried to use his cell phone to survey their surroundings, but the light was barely strong enough to reach a foot or two away. "Don't suppose your mutation has any offensive applications?" The odds for that were low, and with his small shadow, they did not have much to work with.

Stephen felt something skitter across his foot. Already on his guard, he flashed his light straight down and used what was left of his shadow to punt the stray spider at least thirty yards. "You mighta figured this out by now, but I am not a fan of spiders."

There was not enough light to get a good look at it, but by the location of the zippering sound, it was obvious. "A fanny pack, eh? Not the time for comments, I know, but that's adorable." She found her phone, adding its glow to their cause, expanding his shadow slightly. "Well well, adorable and useful."

Maxine pulled out a box of paper clips, which seemed to be a key component of her power, whatever the details of her mutation were. "If it'll help give us any sort of sight, I'm all for it. We really have no clue what's causing this intense darkness or those," he shivered at the next thought, "giant freak spider. I guess our first choice is whether to stay here or try to find a way toward any possible light or way out. I'm for moving, but we don't know what we'll run into... what do you want to do?"

It was bizarre to watch two handfulls of paper clips flit around like tiny fish, but as impressed as he was by the odd power she had, now certainly was not the time. She was apparently the one who could "feel" around their area, so he was dependent on her.

He felt her smaller hand squeeze his, barely making out her voice mention branches. He brought his phone up along with hers to reveal what was above them: a spider slightly larger than a pickup truck.

His natural impulse was to freak out, but her hand reminded him that there was an innocent person at risk. He squeezed her hand tightly, meeting her eyes. "Run!" He pulled her away to the left, just allowing them to get out of the way as the beast dropped on the ground they were standing a moment earlier.

They ran hastily, surrounded by darting paperclips, being chased by a large tarantula who was gaining on them. His mind was planning rapidly; dying in the stomach of a spider was at the top of his list of ways he would never want to die.