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<sub>*Image made by me using Canva*</sub>
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I watched carefully as they hovered around it, examining as much as they could from a distance before gathering courage and going in. 
Immediately I saw it, a being only talked about in ghost stories, he dropped from out of nowhere into the hole.
I heard 2 crunches and a short scream.
It crawled out of the hole, looked around with its eight beady eyes and then locked on my hiding space.
I didn't need a second warning, I took off, running to the safety of the nest.
***

"I saw it, I tell you." I insisted on retelling my fellow soldier roaches of the events of last night.
"He dropped right in and gobbled em up." I tried using my legs to show the image of him dropping into the hole, but there's only so much you can do with roach legs.
"Who went into the hole?" Marcus, a pudgy German roach, asked, sipping his beer.
"The keeper of the hole, the guard of utopia, the Spider Wolf." I answered him with all seriousness.
## "A Myth!!!"
A random drunkard shouted in sleep bringing a round of laughter through the bar.
"I believe you Michael." I heard Ralph say through his barely reduced glass and I smiled at him.
"Thanks bro." I replied back.

### "Michael!!!"
Adeline, the Captain Soldier Roach called my name and immediately everyone sobered up.
She burst through the door and we all stood to give a salute-at least most of us. Some leaned slightly to the left, while one at the back fell on his back and couldn't stand up, no one moved to help though, not when the Captain was in her angry mood, known to cut a soldier's head off if further annoyed. (not usually killable but a pain to grow back.)
"Michael Squitch!" She asked/demanded again.
"Ma yes ma." I replied instantly, roaches in my front making way for her to see me clearly, and also to avoid any stray bullets.
"Well you look healthy", she started walking briskly to me.
"Urrm thanks." I reply nervously, willing my wings to not even think of flying off.
"More than I can say of the death row inmates we found near the floorboard." She said, staring at me straight in the eye.
"I believe death row inmates aren't meant to look healthy Ma." I say in cold sweat. 

One blasted roach made the mistake of laughing but a side eye from her and he swallowed it deep like another gulp of beer.
"You were meant to escort them to their death, chopping their head off, peaceful and practical. Instead you made them part of your experiments."
"I was there Ma and I can testify their deaths were instant, no time for them to register the pain." I try to explain.
"They were mummified and all their juices have been sucked out you fool." She said, hitting and cracking a table in a single blow.
"They still died, Ma. The Spider Wolf finished them off." I say joyfully that at least my discovery had been announced by the most valid person around.
"You're missing the point here", she replied with a straight face.
"What if he wasn't real? That means you just let 3 death row prisoners go scot-free?" 
"I believed he was real, sometimes you just need to believe Capt'n." 
She sighed..
"I see, well believe this, You're of the force." She announced with an air of finality while leaving the bar.
As her door shut, I heard a voice from the back of the bar, -"I don't believe it."
***
"Where are you going Michael?" Ralph asks running after me. 
I crawled out of the pub under the sink, straight to the parlour and the hole.
"What are we doing here?" I hear Ralph ask from behind my hiding spot.
"Shhhh" I tell him, watching for my next delivery.
"I'm going into the hole." I answer after some silence.
"What? That's crazy." He began 
"You said you were there when the inmate's went in, you know what happened to them, so why go in?" He asked.
"Because I have to know." I answer truthfully.
"Know what?" He asks again.
"Know what we don't." I reply, "We only stay in a particular room of the house, not moving anywhere, aren't any of you curious about this hole, this loose floorboard as the two legs call it?"
"No, I can't say I am." Ralph says nervously.
"Well I am." I reply, focusing on the hole.
"What if it is actually a hidden passageway."
"To where?" Ralph asks amused
"I don't know." I answer irritated
"Okay okay, so how do you plan on getting into this passageway?"
Finally I saw 3 roaches walking towards the hole, with a smile I looked at Ralph and answered "I negotiate."
I walked towards the hole, leaving Ralph in my hiding spot and approached the Russian cockroaches.
"You sure this is place?" The head roach Dimitri wreck asked me. Wanted for 13 counts of robberies, 5 of assaults, 7 of murder and many more 'no-evidence' crimes.
"It is, the treasure is inside the hole, a full carcass." I reply, looking at the other 2, his wife and only son. Other hardened criminals that should be gutted and drowned in [DE](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diatomaceous_earth). 
"Why you no get carcass?" Dimitri asked me. 
"I don't really care for things like that, I ventured in, looking for a lost passageway but saw it blocking the path and so, I called you cause I know how much your family loves meat.
"Let's go get it papa." The son replies, literally bouncing at the thought of the rotting meat.
Dimitri looked at me for some seconds but eventually greed overtook reason and they dived in.
10 seconds later, they began shouting.
> "What is this?" "I'm stuck." 

It dropped in with such velocity that the wind almost carried me in with it.
I heard 3 cracks and then I jumped in, realizing how dark the hole was.
I saw the spider, with thick black hair on a thread-like substance between the walls of the hole.
I landed on the walls and immediately the slider crawled to me.
"Wait!!!" I shouted, raising my hands up.
"I'm not an enemy." 
"I'm the friend who has been sending food for you, I just need to pass the hole."

The wolf spider made a smile, showing it's   ravenously sharp teeth. 
> I really appreciate all you've done mate, but as far as you've entered the hole you'll not be able to leave. Captain's orders.

"Captain??", I asked. "Who's your Captain?"

I heard the flutter of wings and was face to face with the Captain.

"Ralph?"