Nest of Spiders

Yet again, Animal Jam decides to create a new animal. It'll probably be forgotten in a matter of weeks, probably under two months. The craze begins, and then it ceases to exist in general. Well, I'll tell you about one of the secrets of Animal Jam and one of their scrapped projects.

My name is not important right now, but call me "User," if you really want to actually mention me. I remain anonymous to this day, simply on the web. A while back I left coding school because I had a lot of other things to work on. My mother had been sick for a month in the hospital, and my dad... he doesn't stay with us anymore. When I was younger, my mom and dad got divorced. Me and my little sister went with our mother, losing our nice car, house and the majority of our stuff. Dad's been arrested three times, and I don't see him as a fatherly figure.

After I left coding school, I decided to play around with some of my knowledge. I had recently found my old computer stored in the attic for all those years, and I'm stunned that it even works. But whatever, I was glad to see that old computer boot up. I browsed the web some, checking in on the news and then stumbled across my history records.

I didn't do much except for studying and playing games. I wasn't into any "bad" things on the web, and I never understood what a fandom was, never really being in one. One of my favorite games in the past was Animal Jam. I had joined when the Beta Days had begun. One of my friends urged me to check it out despite it being a kid's game. I had a liking to it, lecturing the silly kids about conduct and all. I seemed to be quite smart in this game. I didn't care about rares- I just wore a headdress around, which didn't mean much until it was removed, and lectured kids.

When I finally found the paper with my username and password on it, I logged in. In front of me was the same monkey I always played with, a familiar sight. A blue monkey with a white underside with no pattern. I checked my inventory since it had nothing on. My username was displayed on the nametag rather than the name, which I forgot over time. I was too lazy to actually display animal names. I still had that old headdress sitting around with a few other crappy items.

I played around a bit, ate a sandwich and bought some stuff for the fun of it, running out of gems quickly. The real fun began here. I did play around with some stuff I would not like to reveal, since people are gonna try to do it themselves. I goofed around with a lot of things.

I finally reached some of the files after a bit of playing around. I changed the headdress' colors to gray and white, which everyone was packing around me, flipping out. As I dug in the files, I found an odd folder.

"do not view"

I clicked it anyway. I felt like a rebel, the rebel I always was. There were a few pictures, some of them just white and some having a blurry figure in the middle with lines poking out of its sides, four on each side. I saw a few more white images until I came across an image that stood out.

It was probably an animal that would've came out in-game, and what was it?

A spider. It was a spider, and it looked terrifying.

It had eight legs and eight eyes, which were black and beady. Its body was fully a dark gray color, the presumably default look. It had hair on its abdomen, which were described in black strands. I went out of that and found some downloadable files, which I did install into my computer.

I logged back onto Animal Jam, and the blue monkey didn't pop up. Instead, it was that spider again, slightly bouncing like all other animals did, as if they were breathing. Instantly, everyone began to freak out.

"OMG A SPIDER!!"

"SO SCARY"

"HOW DID HE GET THAT?????"

"OMG!!!! I NEED A PIC!!!!!"

I stood in the crowd, jammers begging me to step out. I laughed and sat back as everyone flocked around my spider. I turned the animal names on and went into my den.

"Spooky Spider" was its name. Funny. I assumed this animal would be released during Halloween or some time in October. I went back out to the map, but saw another destination labeled "Spiders' Nest".

I clicked on it, and the loading screen popped up. Almost instantly, I was teleported into a dark room. It lighted up to reveal spider webs everywhere up against trees, rocks, buildings, and the best of all, you could climb on them. I moved my spider up to a tall building, which went up pretty high. There was a sale sigh and if you clicked on it, you'd have a few items to choose from. They were very cheap, costing up to 50 gems. They all had a tab on them that said "SPIDERS ONLY!" above it.

Just to test it, I bought one of the items, a "web scarf." Obviously, it was a scarf made out of webs, as the name suggests. I scaled up the building higher- and there were two more sales stands. One of them was a den, which was the "Web Hollow," which was big and had a few rooms. The other was furniture, mostly webs, a few spider eggs and other stuff. I didn't take interest.

As I went up, the world cut to white. A box appeared, and the following text was listed:

"What are you doing here? Don't put your nose where it doesn't belong, or you'll find some things you don't like."

After the text went away, the world came back. I kept on going up, which got foggier. When I reached the top, it was clear. Another box popped up above my spider.

"DON'T." There was a ladder of webs that went up in the sky, glowing green clouds around it. Like the person I am- a rebel- I went up. I reached the top pretty quick, a box with the words "SALE!" on it. I clicked it, seeing the item. There was no way to X out though...

"EXIT" was the item. It was a big red X, the title "SPIDERS ONLY" above it. I couldn't log out or close the game to uninstall the files, so I had no other choice but to buy it.

It was on the abdomen of my spider. The thing was I couldn't move, and the X slowly got bigger. It seemed to suck my animal into it, the X glowing lightly. I was logged off after a minute or two, but I swore I saw some words pop up.

I really wasn't scared, but rather mad that I couldn't play as the spider. I still had the den, but no other items. My headdress vanished, and my animal was gone. Whenever I log on, the only place I go to is the den I have. I'm always stuck there because my animal is replaced with a ball of webs. I guess that was a big waste of time...