I Explore Urban Legends - Chapter 102: Charlotte's Web (Patreon)

Early that morning, a ray of sunlight slipped through a crack in the wooden wall and fell across Wilbur's face.

His eyelids fluttered, and he slowly woke from sleep.

After spending the whole night curled up, his arms and legs felt numb.

The bed of straw was warm enough, but it wasn't soft, and Wilbur still couldn't get used to sleeping on it.

He groggily sat up and rubbed his hands and feet. Once the stiffness eased a little, he looked around.

His companions were still asleep.

Wilbur counted them and realized that several more were missing.

He no longer knew when it had begun, but he had grown used to his companions quietly disappearing. He had also grown accustomed to life here, to the point that he was slowly forgetting what it felt like to sleep in a soft bed.

Creak!

The large wooden door swung open, and the sudden sunlight forced Wilbur to squeeze his eyes shut.

A figure in a black cloak entered. The only part of their body visible was one pale hand carrying a box.

The cloaked figure placed the box on the floor, then disappeared without a word as the door closed again.

The door wasn't actually locked, and there were no guards, yet not a single child had ever escaped.

Wilbur had once tried sneaking out. Beyond the building, however, there was nothing but forest, so all he could do was pick a direction and run.

Before long, his vision went black.

When he woke again, it was already the next day, and his entire body felt incredibly weak.

Several of the others had tried escaping as well. After repeated failures, no one attempted it anymore.

Wilbur struggled to his feet and joined a few other children in opening the box on the floor.

Inside was a lavish breakfast.

There were dozens of sandwiches in different flavors, a large bucket of milk, a thick stack of pancakes, and a bottle of maple syrup. It was far more food than the children could possibly need, yet no one dared to eat too much.

There had once been a chubby boy who ate nearly enough for five people every day.

A few days later, he disappeared.

Wilbur and several of the older children distributed the food among the younger ones.

With so little food actually being eaten, everyone was constantly weak.

When Wilbur first arrived, he had been the youngest child here.

Now he was the oldest.

He had a feeling that he would be the next to disappear.

"Child, what are you thinking about?"

A gentle female voice sounded beside his ear.

Wilbur turned his head and saw a spider perched on his shoulder.

He whispered, "Charlotte, I feel like I'm going to disappear soon too."

"No, child. I won't let you disappear. I'm going to get you out of here."

Charlotte spoke softly, trying to reassure him. She didn't want him to lose the will to survive.

"But I don't even remember what the outside is like anymore. All I remember is blinding sunlight and a forest I can never escape from."

Wilbur became emotional, and his voice rose enough to wake some of the other children.

"Are you talking to that spider again, Wilbur?"

One child walked over with concern.

"Maybe you should rest some more. You seem really tense."

The other children couldn't hear Charlotte's voice. They simply thought Wilbur was under too much stress.

"I'm fine. You guys should rest."

"Oh."

The child obediently returned to his bed of straw.

Wilbur was the oldest child there, and he had always tried to comfort the others, so they respected him.

After being trapped inside this wooden building for so long, none of the children had much stamina left.

Wilbur was no exception.

After moving around for only a short while, his whole body became sore and weak, so he returned to his place and lay down.

Charlotte came back to his side and whispered, "Child, never give up. Someone will rescue you."

Wilbur said nothing.

He simply stared at her in silence.

After being trapped in the same place for so long, he barely had the energy to react to anything anymore.

Charlotte grew anxious when she saw him like this, but she didn't know how to comfort him.

All she could do was scurry around the floor on her eight legs to catch his attention before climbing toward the ceiling.

Wilbur followed her movements with his eyes.

Only then did he notice the enormous web spread across the ceiling.

Woven clearly into it was his name.

Charlotte released a strand of silk from her abdomen and slowly lowered herself in front of him.

"Do you see it? That's your name."

Wilbur nodded.

"I'm going to spin webs outside, all the way to where people can find them. They'll follow the webs here and rescue you."

Hope returned to Wilbur's eyes.

But then he asked worriedly, "Won't spinning that many webs hurt you?"

Charlotte crawled onto Wilbur's face and gently touched his cheek.

"Child, spiders only live for a few months. The fact that you can understand me is a blessing from nature. You have to stay alive."

In truth, Charlotte had lied.

She wasn't an ordinary spider.

But she really didn't have much time left.

Several months ago, Charlotte had discovered this place and the children imprisoned here.

She wanted to save them, but almost all of her spiritual energy was gone. She didn't even dare reveal her true name.

Whenever the black-robed figures appeared, she could only hide far away.

All the tricks she had once relied on were meaningless in the face of overwhelming power.

Fortunately, a few days earlier, she had managed to contact an old friend.

That friend seemed to have recovered some of their strength, so Charlotte could only ask them to come and help.

Unfortunately, this place was buried deep in the forest.

Without something to guide them, they could search for months and still never find it.

Charlotte planned to exhaust every last trace of her spiritual energy, turn it into spider silk, and weave a trail through the forest to guide them here.

Thinking about this, she looked at Wilbur again.

He had only just finished eating, but his body was so weak that he had already fallen into a deep sleep again.

Charlotte didn't dare tell the children the real reason they were so weak.

Every night, the black-robed figures took them away.

Whenever they returned, part of the spiritual energy within their bodies had been drained.

Wilbur had survived for so long because his constitution was unusual.

He could sense the flow of spiritual energy exceptionally well, which also allowed him to recover more quickly.

But the black-robed figures hadn't treated him any differently because of his special constitution.

After being drained again and again for so long, even Wilbur was reaching his limit.

Whenever a child became too weak to eat, they disappeared forever.

With that thought in mind, Charlotte climbed onto the roof and began spinning a trail of webs toward the nearest town.

To make them noticeable, she wove the webs into the shape of arrows.

Doing so consumed a tremendous amount of her remaining spiritual energy.

By afternoon, Charlotte was utterly exhausted.

Her web-spinning grew slower and slower.

She began to wonder whether she could hold on until her old friend arrived.

Then she heard a gunshot echo from the distant town.

At last, an outsider had arrived in the silent little town.