The Snake and the Spider (Erik)

[Amber Krasenski]

Amber perched on a plastic chair, picking restlessly at the peeling orange seat. Research labs were voluntary, but that didn't stop the queasy feeling of anxiety from gnawing at his stomach. He smiled awkwardly at the two college aged research assistants, typical enthusiasm replaced by nerves.

"And what was it you turn into again?" The adult of the trio, an older woman (elderly, Amber would have said) with dark skin and a dimpled smile, tapped her ballpoint pen against the clipboard held at face level.

"Spider," Amber whispered softly. Although he had been in attendance for several years now he still hadn't come to terms with his ability. Most shifters turned into cute animals. Like ferrets, or bunnies, or little canaries. And what did he get stuck with? A spider. "An orb spider."

The research facility had specifically requested the presence of shifters for today's lab, which cast a rather wide net. Shapeshifting was a common enough ability. However, it didn't appear as if many people had heeded this call.

A young girl, probably newly manifested, swung her legs furiously down at the end of the hall, chattering in hushed tones with one of the research assistants, and one of the teachers stretched languorously nearby. A few other students were scattered here and there, but the lab was still relatively empty given the prevalence of shapeshifting powers.

[Erik Stewart]

The lab assistant turned to him next. “And you?”

“Water moccasin,” Erik responded. He was sitting right next to Amber; he shot him a quick glance.

“That’s a snake?” The lab assistant had his pencil hovering just above the clipboard. Erik didn’t reply; only nodded. Only then did the assistant scratch onto his paper.

Erik, too, experienced a fair amount of resentment that he was not a rabbit, a dog, a cat – anything anyone would be happy to be. Instead, he was the serpent. The serpent was the first creature any child learned to fear; it was preached against in churches, reviled for its deceit, and hated for its lethal venom. It was a beast to be defeated by saints and heroes. It was many things, and none of them good: and Erik, who had grown up in a town of twenty-six people with the treasured white church upon the hill, who was the son of a madwoman, who was un-baptized and a non-believer, a sinner, and a sodomizer…it was no wonder to him and doubtless to many others that the hand of God had come down from the Heavens and transformed him, as surely as He had turned Edith into a pillar of salt.

The warnings of his mother, his father and his pastor had not been empty; the form he took, the guise of Lucifer, was no coincidence. At least to him it seemed so. Probably it did to them, too. Erik often wondered if they held sermons about him – they would hold long, somber sessions, and they’d claim him as an example of divine retribution.

That was why he’d been surprised when Amber confessed himself to be a spider. Erik wondered if Amber had done something, too. After all, a spider had hardly a better reputation than a snake.
I bet she’s a lesbian, he thought. He spent the next few seconds pondering to himself whether or not Amber did, in fact, ‘look’ like a lesbian.

It succeeded in making Erik more comfortable with him. Often, Erik felt distant from the rest of the students – they seemed so happy, so content to be meta…while he thought of it as a punishment, and treated it as such. Erik would not have spoken to Amber otherwise. He would have sat quiet and looked as his shoes.

Instead, he addressed him. “Y’ever done this before?”

[Amber Krasenski]

Amber ceased picking at the worn seat in order to fully concentrate on staring at Erik in wide eyed interest. He had overheard the answer the other shapeshifter had offered the researchers, and found it reassuring; someone else who turned into something fearful rather than something adorable.

"Yeah, once." He acknowledged. Because the other boy was asking, he assumed that this was his first time, and so he added, "it isn't too bad. It's a little like training, except sometimes they hook you up to machines to measure your heart and blood pressure and stuff."

The teacher was the first to be called back, and he nonchalantly pushed off the wall and followed the assistants down the corridor.

"How long've you been here?"

This question was intended to translate into I've never seen you before.

"I'm Amber. My trainer is Ms. Sayers, who's yours?

[Erik Stewart]

Erik watched the teacher as he walked off, envious of his nonchalance. He wondered what he transformed into.

He seemed a bit nervous when Amber answered him; he scratched a little too vigorously at the back of his neck and furrowed his brow. Machines that measured his heart and blood pressure? It sounded an awful lot like science experiments – something he had most feared when he first learned he was a meta. Who hadn’t heard of those gruesome and nasty trials? The metal cuffs to hold them down with? The needles and the scalpels?...It could’ve been true that Erik had just watched too many horror movies or had read too much sci-fi…but he had earnestly thought it to be his fate when he’d first come to Hammel.

Now Erik had come to his senses. No longer did he consider himself to be a victim of evil scientists…but still, hospital stuff like that made him skittish.

Erik’s blue eyes snapped back towards Amber’s face as he spoke. “Oh…” he said, “three years.”

It seemed like he wouldn’t say much after that, but Amber was persistent. He was asking him who his trainer was. Erik shook his head. “I…don’t have one,” he admitted. “Somethin’ about staff restriction…y’know…too many kids, not enough trainers.”

Erik shrugged. He didn’t particularly mind it, but it did mean that he was drastically behind when it came to his powers; he hardly ever accessed it (except to talk to DJ), and when he turned into a snake, his back hurt for weeks afterwards. It’d been nearly three weeks since he’d transformed at Oriel’s goading in the cafeteria. His bones still ached. Today was his means of checking it out – making sure that nothing was seriously wrong, since he didn’t know if this lingering pain was normal or not. Suppose he twisted something?

“I’m Erik.” He’d almost forgot to introduce himself. He hesitated for a beat. “So…you’re a spider.” Erik offered him just a ghost of a smile; it hung on his face like a tentative peace offering. “I hate t’say it, but…I’m not a big fan of spiders.”

[Amber Krasenski]

Amber's eyes widened at the admission that Erik didn't have a trainer. "But you can't graduate without training!"

There were stories about students remaining at Hammel well into adulthood because they still hadn't achieved control over their powers. He had heard that this had happened to Dr. Campbell, though he had never verified this fact despite his curiosity.

"Or are you just really good?"

Although shifting was painful, it was one of the easier powers to control. If there was a dear of qualified trainers of course the school would assign them to students with more difficult powers first; the psychics, or those with more destructive abilities.

But three years? How had they not met before now? Amber couldn't recall Erik being in any of his classes, even though must have been. But he had the appearance of someone skilled in deflecting attention, and Amber was prone to passing notes and chatting and generally not paying attention to his surroundings.

A grimace of displeasure crossed his lips at Erik's second confession. "Yeah, nobody much cares for spiders. Even I don't care for them. Only Sam Rixon likes them, but he's weird."

And had possibly addled his brain from too much pot smoking.

[Erik Stewart]

Erik felt heat rise into his cheeks when Amber expressed surprise at his admission. Erik wasn’t sure if not having a trainer was something to be embarrassed about or not, but he was well aware that he was behind, in both training and his studies.

“Nah, I ain’t any good,” he mumbled.

He hadn’t really thought of his future. Some people had ambitions or dreams to follow, not him; ‘the future’ seemed as distant as storybooks or fantasy – an idle thought but not something to worry about. Erik had enough trouble with the present as it was. It seemed silly to put more on his plate. And if he had to stay a few extra years, so what? Were the people back home aching at his absence? He doubted it.

Anyway, he felt sorry for saying shit about spiders when he saw Amber’s grimace. He related to the other boy well in that regard. Erik felt a twinge of sympathy. “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinkin’…y’probably get that a lot, right? It’s not like I was sayin’ anythin’ special.” He didn’t know who Sam Rixon was. “But, y’know, not many people like snakes either. So…”

It was times like these that he realized how much he didn’t know about communication. He thought maybe he wanted to be friends with Amber, and get to know him, but all that left was a vague sense of frustration. There were a lot of pauses and hesitations as he spoke.

“So…I kinda know how that is. People are scared of ‘em, too…maybe not as much as spiders, but…well, I’d’ve liked t’be a dog or somethin’. It doesn’t say shit ‘bout dogs in the Bible. And my parents are real religious and - ”

Erik thought he might’ve been rambling.

“Anyway,” he said, though he did not go on.

[Amber Krasenski]

Hands clasped together in a subconscious gesture of intense observance as Erik stumbled out an apology, along with a wistful declaration that a dog would've been a better animal to shift into.

"It's okay." This was intended as reassurance; Amber was, indeed, used to negative reactions when people found out his power. "Once another student accused me of trying to eat her, just because she turns into a ladybug."

This accusation was absurd.

Mostly.

Actually, he couldn't guarantee that spider instincts wouldn't have taken over had they both been in shifted form, but that was what training was for. Right? Anyway, he would have tried not to eat her, which had to count for something.

He felt a twinge of sympathy when Erik mentioned his family's feelings about his power, along with a swelling of relief that at least he hadn't had to deal with familial disapproval. It wasn't uncommon for recruitment to Hammel to include estrangement from family and loved ones, but it was still a tragedy.

"My family is Jewish, and they don't mind I turn into a spider. But I still think a different power would be better."

There was a lull in their conversation as the teacher emerged from the lab, passing the rest of the volunteers. The girl at the end of the rows was escorted back in his place, and then Amber resumed speaking.

"So...you going on the camping trip?"

That was a happier topic than their powers, or so he assumed.

[Erik Stewart]

He considered turning into a ladybug, or a spider. As much as he liked snakes, reptiles, and horror movies, he still couldn’t handle a tiny spider. Still, it got a little different now the he knew it was something people turned into…it was like looking in at himself from a different perspective: fearful of his ability and a little in awe.

But he wouldn’t have liked the ladybug thing. Not a bit. At least as a serpent, he commanded a bit of respect…not even lions and wolves dared contend with a snake’s venom.

“I never met a Jew,” he mentioned, then shrugged his shoulders.

Erik spent the lull in conversation watching the girl get up and close the door behind her. He was still nervous…he felt a bit like he was going to the dentist. They’d surely make him transform, and he was beginning to think this was a bad idea; his back still ached from his last experience, and he wondered if doing it again would throw it out or something. But he did not get up.

Erik perked up again. “Oh, uh…I don’t know. Maybe. I like goin’ campin’ and shit, but, I don’t know many people. And I hear you gotta sleep in a cabin room with twelve other guys…I’m never gonna get over that.” He knew that his rat snake, DJ, would have loved to be outside the school again – a dorm room wasn’t very fitting for a creature like him. “I think I will, though. Just t’fish. And maybe, I can work on transforming there, ‘cause I don’t got a trainer, y’know. No one would freak out when they’re campin’ ‘cause snakes are just part of the deal.”

He paused, then turned to look at him. “What about you?”