The Dungeon Child

Anna took a deep sip from her cup of coffee, appreciating its calming taste and energizing sensation. Ordinarily, a coffee would be a terrible idea this early in the morning, but she suspected she wouldn't be getting any further sleep regardless.

She'd been waking up quite early as of late, with no reason for it that she could think of. Normally, she was a deep sleeper and could fall off her bed without so much as opening her eyes. Recently, though, she'd awoken to faint sounds coming from the walls, ceiling, and floor. It was impossible to tell where exactly the noise originated, but there was only of whatever it was inside the house. There was only one of it, she knew, because it only ever came from one direction at a time.

A pair of hands landed on her shoulders, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Leaning close enough for his breath to tickle her ear, Frank whispered, "Why are you awake?"

She pulled away, taking another sip and leaning against the kitchen counter to look at her husband. He'd had a good figure once, she recalled. There wasn't any of it left. A mysterious stain - in fact, a whole collection of them - covered his graying shirt. The sparse stubble on his chin hadn't been shaved in a while, and Anna had a feeling that he hadn't changed his basketball shorts in at least a month. "Something in the walls. Nothing too large, I don't think, but loud enough to keep me from sleeping."

He stumbled towards her unsteadily, and she realized to her disgust that he was drunk. "Well," he wheezed with a smirk, "We could make some noise and scare it off."

It was hardly a subtle hint, and she waved it away. "Frank, you need some hot milk. That'll sober you up."

His face wrinkled in an annoyed grimace. "I'm not drunk. I'm... I'm bein' intelligent. Don't ya love me?"

She sighed. "Of course I love you, Frank."

He rested an arm on her shoulder with a wide grin. "Then let's go to sleep. Or let's not go to sleep. Either way, I miss bein' in bed with yew."

Once again, Anna pulled away, and his expression darkened. "Thought you'd do that. Why don't ya wanna sleep wid me?" His eyes started to tear up, and he crouched next to the cabinets, blubbering, "I knew ye didn't love me anymore!"

Anna watched him with only a slight amount of sympathy in her eyes. She was getting tired of her husband's antics. Exhausted of them, in fact. She wasn't sure how much of his attitude she could take. The drinking, the endless TV marathon, that weird smell that hung around him.

When had he changed? She could remember when he woke up at six in the morning with a bright smile, ready to go to work. Could remember when he burst through the front door and swept her off her feet, excited to spend the rest of his life with her. Could remember when she got pregnant.

That... that was when he'd changed. The moment Frank's eyes met Jasons' black ones, he had decided that he would not tolerate his own son's existence. From that point onward, it'd been a neverending fencing match between Anna and Frank, over and over and over again, unable to convince the other that they were correct.

Patting his shoulder, she found that he'd fallen asleep on the ceramic floor. A string of drool was slowly dripping out of his mouth. Shaking her head, she stood up and retrieved a blanket from the living room, draping it over his still form.

With that done, she simply headed upstairs. If Frank was awake, and she was awake, then there was a good chance that Jason was awake as well. If that was the case, she wanted to see how he was doing. He'd been acting a little strange the past few days.

Well, she reconsidered, stranger than usual.

Jason was an enigma to her. On one hand, he clearly loved her and had displayed enormous emotional distress when his spider, Thesis, had died. It made her hand clench to think of Frank's decision to throw the pet out. It didn't matter how spooked he was by the arachnid, it'd been obvious to everyone with half an IQ point that Jason had loved that spider to death. To be honest, she was still holding a bit of a grudge against her husband on that regard.

But on the other hand, Jason could be - and often was - incredibly cold to other people, verging on outright rudeness. Other people confused him, she could tell. He just didn't know how to talk with them, how to deal with them, how to make friends with them.

But then there was Charlotte.

Charlotte Brown had come out of nowhere, at least from Anna's point of view. The young girl overflowed with optimism, positivity, and sheer joy. None of it was aimed in any particular direction, either - her zeal extended to every activity she did. She was so outgoing that it wasn't an option not to be friends with her. The polar opposite of Jason.

And yet somehow, they were friends. It warmed Anna's heart every time she saw them huddled together, whispering about whatever secrets children discussed in their own little group. If she was honest with herself, she was still a little dubious about Charlotte's brother, Dillon, but Jason was a remarkably good judge of character for a six-year-old.

Her train of thought was interrupted by voices, and she froze in the hallway where she stood. Ears straining, she slowly relaxed as she realized that there was only one person speaking. Stealthily creeping up to Jason's door, she put an eye to the crack in the door.

He was happily talking into his hands, palms upward, with a spider on each one. "...going to greatly enjoy living with each other. Theory, you and Thesis may be sisters. Unless of course Thesis decides to be a mentor or teacher, in which case her judgment overrules mine. The room hasn't changed all that much, Thesis, but I'd appreciate it if you could build some more of your webs around the ceiling fan. I've..." He trailed off, staring up at the ceiling. "I've missed seeing them."

Anna backed away from the door, mind racing. Thesis was back? How was that possible? Frank had tossed her out into the trash quite some time ago, and she didn't think spiders had an especially long lifetime. Even if Jason's pet had somehow known where to find him and managed to make her way back, wouldn't there have been predators? Hazards?

She relaxed as a revelation hit her.

The spider sitting in Jason's hand wasn't Thesis.

It couldn't have been Thesis.

It was some other spider that Jason had found and befriended, one that he'd elected to replace Thesis with. It made sense on a practical level - what six-year-old wouldn't rename their newest pet after a beloved former? No, Anna decided, this could not be Thesis. Jason was playing with a new spider he'd found.

She even managed to halfway convince herself that it was what really happened.