The alarm on the cell-phone blared its daily music of greatest hits from the late 80s at 10AM, causing Daniel to leap out of bed, casting aside his bed covers in an attempt to reach over and turn off his alarm. After a few seconds of fumbling about to hit the "off" button, he finally found it.

It might have only been a few seconds, but he was pretty much awake now. No sense in snoozing. Grabbing some clean clothes from his dresser he walked to the bathroom down the hall. After taking a look in the mirror to see how his complexion had held up and how bad his bed hair was, he smirked to himself thinking of how he looked like a wind struck anime character with acne. Better than looking like one of his own cartoon sketches at least.

After completing his morning grooming rituals, he then proceeded to run and jump on his bed once then attempt a front flip off while yelling, "Parkor!" He landed with little grace and ended up slipping and falling backwards while trying to compensate for balance on the wooden floor. Yelling "parkour" never made him any more graceful or coordinated, but one day it might work.

Standing, he rubbed the small of his back with a pained groan. He then retrieved his only pair of sneakers with a joyful exclamation of, "Ah, this will do quite nicely!" He walked out of his room and took a left continuing to the rickety staircase. He hopped onto the rail and slid down, only wavering in his balance a few times.

With a satisfied plop, he landed on both feet in a solid stance. Much better than that front flip. After reaching the bottom, he entered the kitchen, retrieved a carton of eggs, and a pack of chicken ramen. As he turned the dial on the stove, he muttered, "So overcooked or undercooked today?"

As the burner warmed, he continued his preparations. To his displeasure, his fried eggs stuck to the bottom of the supposedly stick resistant pan. "I guess it's scrambled eggs today," he said.

He proceeded then to scramble his eggs and add salt and pepper. Scraping his eggs off the skillet onto his plate, he turned off the stove and grabbed his ramen from the microwave. He sat down on the faded burgundy couch, said a prayer of thanks, and then started to eat his eggs.

After a couple of relatively tasty bites his phone went off with the Wilhelm Scream, looking to see who it was, he grabbed his phone and chucked the phone across the room. "Nope!"

It continued to ring.

After a few seconds he sighed, walked over, picked up his phone and answered it. "Hello? Yeah, Uh-huh... sure... I can do that. OK, I'll be over right away!" Lowering the phone from his hear, he ended the call. He really didn't want to go to work on his day off. The next day off wouldn't show up for another ten days.

There was no sense moping about it though. Gulping down the rest of his breakfast, he changed into his work clothes. Standard black T shirt and black pants with skid resistant shoes. Typical for fast food workers with the obligatory apron and baseball cap to signify his "rank." As much as he hated it though, at least it paid the bills.

All in all, it was a dull day despite being busy with an ever present rush of crazed diners desperate for their double burgers and Big Slurps. By the time his half-shift finished, Daniel wanted nothing more than to go back home and crash in front of the TV and salvage what was left of his day off, but a text from a friend summoned him to the railroad tracks with "BAD NEWS, COME FAST."

Daniel hopped into his old black sedan and jetted downtown. He saw his friend, Chuck, standing by the old apartment with the chipped bricks.

"What's wrong, Chuck?" he called through the open window.

Chuck motioned for him to follow. "Don't suppose you're afraid of spiders?"

"What?" Daniel frowned. He jogged along toward his friend. This wasn't what he had expected.

"Spiders. You afraid of 'em."

"Don't really know. Don't really run into them."

"How could you not run into them? They're everywhere."

"Just haven't run into them."

"Well," Chuck said as they entered the apartment building. "You might find this freaky. Watch out for where you step."

This really didn't sound promising.

Chuck led him to a room with a faded slate-blue door. "You remember my neighbor, Chris? Well...I haven't seen him for a couple days. I keep knocking, but he just didn't come to the door. And his car hasn't left the parking lot. So...I found a way to open the door –"

"You picked the lock, didn't you," Daniel said.

Chuck shrugged. Normally he would have cracked some joke or another, but he pressed the door open slowly, his voice more guarded. "I got inside and I found this." The open door revealed a room covered in cobwebs, shattered glass at the side of the room, and a comforter tossed in front of the door. Spiders were everywhere, on the bed, in the corners, in the blankets. Small webs were woven about the corners and in the legs of a single chair beside the bathroom. But there was no sign of anyone having resided within the last forty-eight hours.

Daniel frowned. This felt strange. "Chuck, have you called the cops?"

"No, I called you."

Daniel reached over and closed the door. "Why would you call me and not the cops?"

"Don't trust 'em." "No offense intended but that was stupid. You really should have called them!"

Chuck shrugged. "You wanna call 'em?"

Daniel sighed. So much for a day off.