The Fall of a Hero

I found a writing prompt saying to make a story including a stolen ring, a fear of spiders, and a sinister stranger. It started out with the intent of being serious, but not so much after I finished.

Alyssa Wood

            Randall weaved his way through the crowd with ease. He saw a woman with dark brown hair in a tame bun and one of those brown pinstripe lady suits with a skirt. He never cared much about fashion, so he never bothered to learn the names of things. Fashion was not how he made money. He hurried through the crowd and bumped into the woman, who hardly seemed to notice. He made a quick turn into a small shop, and looked at what he had: her wallet, which was full of credit cards, about $30 in cash, and a dark ring.

            He studied the ring. It looked expensive. The band was black and covered with bright diamonds (hopefully real) and a large, square black diamond in the center. It looked like an engagement ring, but why was it in her wallet instead of on her hand? Enough time had passed that the woman was probably pretty far down the road, so Randall put the wallet in his pocket and left. He half thought about selling the ring before he went back home; things of sentimental value were usually reported to the police quickly. But there was something about it that made him want to keep it for just a while longer.

            He arrived at his dirty apartment at about noon, only having stopped to grab some cheap grease burger for lunch, and opened the door to the familiar scent of trash. He had been meaning to clean his apartment for about a month or so now, but with his busy schedule of picking pockets and playing games, he hadn’t had time. He threw the wrapper from his burger onto the floor and went to sit down at the computer, but stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what he believed to be the world’s biggest spider on his computer chair.

            It was about the size of a quarter, and was all black. It also froze upon seeing Randall, who was now slowly backing up to the table where the can of Raid sat. When he felt the edge of the table press against his thigh, he reached his hand back on the table to feel around for the can. He felt nothing. The spider had not moved the whole time he searched for the can, so Randall took a chance and whipped around, saw the can, and grabbed it in the battle position. By the time he turned around, the spider was gone. He tried to look on the carpet for it, but there was too much trash for him to see.

            He did not get on his computer that day. Instead, he sprayed his bedroom doorway with Raid, and stayed there on his phone for the rest of the day, leaving only to microwave some leftovers around 7 and run back into his room. At about 11, his phone died, but since the charger was by the computer, he decided he’d wait until morning to deal with it. It was still pretty early for him, but since he had nothing else to do, he lay in his bed and slept.

            He woke up at 3:21 a.m. when he felt a sharp pain in his cheek. He saw a dark figure in front of him, and it yelled in a feminine voice, “Where is it!?!”

            It took Randall a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark, and a moment more to recognize the woman’s face as the woman he had pick-pocketed earlier that day. In all the time that it took, the woman had grown impatient with the silence, pulled out a gun, and shouted, “I asked you a f*****g question!”

            “I-Where’s what?” even with his heart pounding, he was still half asleep, and struggling to remember what he had taken from this woman that could be so important.

            “The f*****g ring you stole!” she moved around to the bedside table he had in front of the window and started searching through the drawers.

            S**t. After the whole spider thing, he couldn’t remember what he had done with her stuff. He wanted to give it back to her (or, at least, he didn’t want to die), but he couldn’t think of where he put it.

            She flicked on the light and yelled, “That ring is not yours to have! You can’t handle it!”

            What the f**k was she talking about? It seemed like just a normal engagement ring. She looked around the floor now, still standing in front of the open window, when suddenly her eyes widened and she let out a blood curdling scream. Crawling across the line of Raid was the same spider Randall had seen earlier that day. The woman shot her gun on the floor 6 times, missing it every time. The spider continued to scurry closer to the woman, and she backed up more and more. Randall sat in his bed, stunned, as the spider jumped toward the woman, making her jump back and out the window.

            Randall hurried out of bed and looked down on the pavement where a pool of blood slowly began to form around the woman’s head. He looked down at the spider, whose scurry now became a stumble. Randall went to the ground and examined the spider, who had now fallen from his 8 hairy feet. The spider seemed to be looking at Randall, who said in disbelief, “You… saved my life…”

            The spider closed his eyes, and Randall thought it was dead, until the spider said, in a raspy male voice. ”Destroy… the ring…”

            The spider let out one final, raspy breath. Even though he was still terrified about all that had just occurred, a tear fell from his eye for his fallen friend. He sat for a while, then saw a glint of light under his bed. The ring! He glared at it, blaming it for the death of this brave little soldier. He grabbed the spider, and went to the living room with a look of determination on his face. He grabbed the lighter fluid he had used for his grill and poured it all over the bed and the floors. He set the poor spider on the bed and covered him with a tiny American flag he had gotten at a Memorial Day parade that past week. We walked out of the room and grabbed his book of matches, lit one, and threw it into the room. He turned and walked away as the flames began to rise. He left his apartment and continued to walk. He fell asleep outside a coffee shop 5 miles from his apartment.

            He was woken up by two policemen. They arrested him for arson and fleeing the scene of a crime. He didn’t care. He did what was right. The neighbor who had seen him set the fire was afraid to look at him, but he just smiled. He was charged for 7 counts of murder of humans, but after that night, no one could ever charge him for the murder of another spider.

Author's Note

This is the first full story I've written in a while, and I'm mainly trying to find out what styles I'm good at, but any criticism is very much appreciated! Keep in mind that it isn't supposed to be serious.