DISCLAIMER!: This is one of the original stories that I did years ago back in 2014 using the old Juniper Triplets template. Nothing has been changed up in it, so do keep that in mind. What transpires in this story doesn't reflect any of the current Juniverse stuff that is the basis of the Juniper Triplets Saga on this site. I'm merely re-posting it here so new readers can see one of the better stories from the old lore. Also, mandatory warning: This story features lots of spiders, so arachnophobes beware.

No promises, but this might get a rewrite/reboot in the modern Juniverse style, so this could also count as a small throwback if that rewrite happens.

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Through a small crack in the curtains, the warm sunlight trickled into the room, welcoming another morning. Three beds, each with its own little resident still sleeping inside, wrapping them in a cocoon of bedsheets and covers. In the bed to the furthest left, the covers slowly stirred. Pushing the covers aside, sitting up and rubbing the grogginess of sleep out of her emerald green eyes, Cleo broke the wrappings of her bed off her.

A small yawn escaped her lips as she climbed out of her bed. Sitting on the left side of her bed, she switched her still waiting alarm off. Cleo always awoke early at the weekends, she didn't know why, she claimed that it was the fact she had the whole day to do whatever she pleased which caused her to awake before Midday. At the corner of her eye, she spied a black shadow skitter away. She looked in the direction of the movement but saw nothing.

"Must be the light playing tricks on me. It could have been the curtain's shadow." She quietly said to herself.

Disregarding the bizarre phenomenon which had just occurred, she stood up and made her way to her wardrobe to get ready for another day. She picked out a pair of pink ribbon panties, a yellow floral pattern dress and a pair of white heart print socks. After she had finished changing out of her pink nightgown, she walked out of her room and headed towards the bathroom to finish her wake-up routine.

In the corners of her room, the black shadow remained. It skittered along the roof in pursuit of her.

In the bathroom, while Cleo was finishing up her routine by brushing her teeth she saw, in the corner of the bathroom just above the shower head, a Daddy Long-legs spider. She cringed at the sight a little, but determined it to be pointless unease, it was a distance from her and she would be able to see it if it moved towards her. She paid no attention to the same black shadow, which had been haunting her for this short amount of time, behind the shower curtain, she couldn't see it anyway.

Strangely, June, Cleo's Mother, hadn't called her to breakfast yet and Casey and Carrie, who were normally up before Cleo anyway, hadn't even showed a single sign of getting up.

"Mom and Dad are probably out shopping and Carrie and Casey will be up soon." She quietly calmed herself. "I should probably head down to breakfast now."

After spitting out the last remaining residue of toothpaste and rinsing her mouth, Cleo turned towards the door. In the quick movement she made, she saw a familiar black shadow behind the Shower curtain. It appeared to have a more defined form in the light of the sun. It looked like it had a large round body and...maybe...more than two legs? She shook her head to remove any thought of it.

"It's the shadow of the Daddy Long-Legs. It just looks bigger because the sun's on it." However, she didn't feel too confident about her assessment of the situation. Something was definitely off today. For one, the carpets feel softer than normal and they also feel slightly...sticky?

Cleo walked downstairs and into the kitchen. On the table, there was only one plate of food. One? Why just one? The plate was positioned where Cleo normally sits. Strange, had her Mother forgot to prepare breakfast for her sisters?

"I'm just over-thinking things, maybe their breakfast is in the Microwave. Mom knows that I'm an early riser at the weekends." Tentatively, she sat down at the table. Breakfast was, like normal for a Saturday, a full English breakfast of eggs, chips, sausage and beans. Cleo started eating the food. Everything on the plate seemed a little softer and more spongy than normal, this didn't stop Cleo from eating it though.

The black shadow was waiting outside the kitchen on the top of the open door. Eight legs then skittered towards the front door.

Cleo was half-way through eating her breakfast when she heard a hissing sound and a bang from the hallway. She jumped at the sudden noise and cautiously approached the origin of the strange sound. The hallway seemed normal but one thing was slightly off, there were small black shapes around the front door. Millions of tiny little black dots around the edges of the door frame. They seemed to be moving in a strange erratic pattern, like they were weaving something into the very foundation of the door. Cleo reached towards the door handle to turn it and see if the shadow would leave through the door. When she placed a hand on the door handle she turned it and pushed forwards.

The door wouldn't budge.

She tried again and again but to no avail. The strange black shapes made their way to the centre of the door. Cleo yelped and quickly pulled her hand back when she realised what they were.

They were spiders...

The spiders seemed to organise themselves into a pattern on the door. This pattern formed words, words which made Cleo shiver in fright.

"Going somewhere, Cleo?"

Cleo now noticed why everything seemed a little different. The door now turned into a large spider web with a basketball sized spider in the centre. Cleo screamed and fell backwards onto the floor. Was it a floor? It felt sticky and soft. This wasn't the tiled passageway, it was a spider web! Cleo's black shadow stalker returned and brought itself into the light of the sun on a strand of silk. It was a huge spider! It hissed at Cleo and waved its fangs in her direction. a green fluid was dripping out of them.

"No! No no no no NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Cleo screamed as she hastily forced herself to stand up. She retreated backwards looking for a means of escape. She looked into the kitchen where a huge mass of black eight legged demons resided. Something caught her eye as she scanned the table. The plate of half eaten food which she left was now a half eaten spider. Cleo gagged at the thought of what she had eaten. She doubled over and emptied it out on the webbed flooring.

"This is a bad dream, this is a bad, dream, this is a bad dream!" Kept running through Cleo's mind. "Wake up now, Cleo. WAKE UP!"

The spider in the hallway now dropped onto the floor and skittered after Cleo. She quickly turned and headed back up the...stairs? The stairs were gone, in their place lay a large number of spiders skittering around the webs. She heard the hiss of her pursuer and, swallowing her fear, ran up the spiders.

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

The exoskeleton of the spiders cracked under Cleo's weight, bathing her foot in their internal organs. The landing was in her sight.

Clink, clink, clink, clink. Hisssss! Snap, snap!

Her pursuer was right behind her, hissing and snapping its fangs in an attempt at biting her heel. Cleo made it to the landing which was now, like the rest of the house, a giant spider web. Cleo wished this web of torment and fear would end soon. She could barely move because of how scared she was. Spiders lined the landing, milling about and weaving more traps for Cleo and boosts for her relentless assailant. She quickly ran to her room and slammed the door behind her. She heard a squeal of pain and a loud crunch as her spider assassin was crushed between the door and its frame. She was safe at last.

Or so she thought.

Her room was one huge web as well. In each corner rested a spider the size of a St. Bernard Dog hissing and clinking their fangs at her.

"When will this end?!" Cleo cried out as tears started falling down her face. There was no escape now. She pinched her arm in an attempt at waking herself up. She felt the pain, but no pull back to reality. She fell to the floor in defeat, paralysed with fear.

"Disappear. Disappear. Leave me alone. Go away. Wake up. Wake up."

Thud!

Something fell on the floor in front of Cleo. She opened her eyes, think this couldn't get any worse, when she was greeted by the largest spider she had ever seen., It was about six feet tall and six feet long. It snapped its fangs at Cleo and edged closer. Cleo was terrified by this abomination, this spawn from hell itself. This must be a demon spider, one fashioned from the very core of fear and hatred towards the Arachnid family. Cleo couldn't move, her body was locked into place, her heart was pounding as fast as it could. The spider turned and then everything went black.

Cleo finally thought that the nightmare had ended. Until...

When light had returned to Cleo's eyes, she found she couldn't move any part of her body. It felt like her limbs had been super-glued together. She struggled in a vain attempt at shattering the shackles and bonds which held her. She looked down and saw that she was wrapped in a Spider's Cocoon. In front of her was the Hell Spawn Spider, snapping its fangs and making green liquid fall from them. Cleo's struggling became more frantic now until she felt a sting in her leg. The spider had bitten her. All strength drained from her body and she felt hot and feverish. The spider then raised one of its eight legs until it stood just above Cleo's chest. She screamed as loud as she could and then.

Schink!

The leg thrust through her chest. Cleo felt the blinding pain of the wound. She screamed again.

"Kyaaaaaaaa!"

Cleo was finally in her own bed again. The dark of night thick throughout the room

"Cleo, you okay there?" A voice said, half asleep, from the bed which Casey should be sleeping in. "Had a bad dream or something?"

Upon hearing it a second time, she knew it was Casey's voice. Cleo couldn't hold back the tears.

"It was just a dream, Sis. No need to cry over it. Now go back to sleep, okay?" Casey said as she turned over to go back to sleep.

Cleo hid herself under her covers and found that her bedsheets were sodden. Her waist was also warm and clammy.

"First that nightmare, and now this?" Cleo realised that the dream had more of an adverse affect on her than she thought. "I can't sleep in this. And I don't think that Mom or Dad would be too happy if I stripped my bed right now. Nothing else for it, I'll have to see if they'll let me sleep with them, like last time."

The only other time which Cleo had a similar event like the one which just transpired was back when she was six years old. She had a nightmare about dolls after reading a book detailing a Japanese myth that dolls gain their own soul after being with a family for over 100 years. She's never had dolls since then, especially the traditional Button-eyed ones, as she thinks that they already have a soul trapped in them due to their lack of eyes, which are sometimes considered a portal for a soul to escape from.

She changed out of her soaked panties and nightdress and placed them on her bed.

"Mom'll want all the washing together."

She went to the bathroom, carrying a torch to light her way and reveal any spider which may be residing in the shadows. She was scared but she knew it had to be done. When she got in the Bathroom, she turned the light on and proceeded to clean herself up and remove any more urine which may still be inside her. She flushed the toilet, turned the light off and went back to her room to put on a clean pair of panties and a clean nightdress. She headed to her parents room.

She knocked on the door and opened it slowly. Timothy, Cleo's father, was the one to turn the bedside light on.

"What is it, sweetie?" He asked.

"I had a bad dream." Cleo answered, the evidence of her statement clear in the red marks by the sides of her eyes.

"Well, it was just a dream. So go back to sleep." June stated.

"I can't." Cleo answered.

"Why not?" June replied, slightly agitated at the disturbance.

"I, I had an accident." Cleo said, head hung in shame. "Can I sleep with you. I've cleaned myself up, just not my bed yet. Please?"

"Alright. But don't make any noise." June gave in to Cleo's pleading eyes.

"Thanks, Mom" Cleo replied, a smile on her face.

"Don't make this a habit, okay? You're too old for this now."

 

And thus the spider's web has been spun,
a silken nightmare of fangs and fear.
But, to no end, shall Cleo still run,
and the spiders shall continue, their goal still clear.
With this, my tale is done,
but that is not the end of Cleo's suffering, no, not here.

Beware the skittering legs.