Ezekiel woke up to the feeling of something heavy landing on his body. Before he even opened his eyes he could feel whatever it was moving up his body. It took him a minute to process the feeling as he was feeling groggy from passing out, when he finally realised that something was on his chest he opened his eyes to see too many legs and fangs too close to his face for comfort, he jerked his arm in surprise knocking it off his chest.

  Quickly scrambling to his feet, heart pounding from waking up to what must be a nightmare. He couldn’t take his eyes off the spider in front of him. Being Australian, he was used to seeing his fair share of spiders both big and small. This spider was on a different scale even by Australian standards.

  The spider's body was about the size of a cat with legs that spread out making it almost 3 times bigger due to how long they were. It had fangs easily the length of his fingers. The spider was varying shades of grey and brown with an almost blue shimmer to them.

  The spider seemed to be watching him a little too intently for him to feel comfortable though it was hard to tell with the 8 eyes. He wasn’t sure he could easily squash this spider like the ones that invaded his home and as he took a step back the spider took several steps closer to him.

  Slowly turning his head, trying not to make any sudden moves, he tried to see if he could spot a decent sized stick or something to use as a makeshift weapon on the ground around him while keeping the spider in his sight. Not seeing anything that looked big enough or strong enough to help. Ezekiel slowly started slipping out of his backpack and took three slow steps back hoping the spider wouldn’t follow him.

  As he took the third step the spider started quickly advancing towards him. In disgust and self preservation Ezekiel swung his backpack around and down onto the spider. Unfortunately the spider had slowed just as he swung his bag so instead of getting the spider he only got 2 of its legs, causing it to awkwardly rear up baring its fangs at him threateningly.

  Not giving it another chance he quickly swung his pack, awkwardly hitting the spider's front half down and into the ground half squashing its head and another leg. Swinging his bag down again onto the spider's head properly. He was about to back away from it thinking the fight was over when he saw the unbroken legs twitch.

  “AHHH!” he yelled as he kept swinging his bag till the spider's body was completely crushed.

  “Gross!” he exclaimed, trying to wipe off some of the spider's blood from his face. Taking several steps back looking at what was left of the spider. Feeling a rush of adrenaline running through him at the close call with the spider “What the hell kind of spider was that?” he asked himself.

  Pulling out his phone to take a picture as evidence, the screen lit up before turning black. Trying again the screen flickered for a second before turning off completely. Knowing nobody would believe his story about a giant spider attacking him without some evidence he did a quick search of the forest around the path. Breaking off two decent looking branches from a tree.

  Approaching the remains of the spider, using the sharper end of both branches he managed to break off one of the spider's legs off its corpse. This would be his ‘trophy’ to prove to others that his giant spider was real. He briefly inspected both branches. Seeing the end of the branches covered with the spider's insides he hurled them into the bushes.

  Breaking another branch from a tree and dejectedly looking at the disgusting state his backpack was in, he opened it trying his best to avoid any of the spider guts on it and pulled out some rope to tie the leg onto his backpack. As he was tying the knots, he remembered eating tarantulas in Cambodia and he briefly considered what the spider would taste like. He wasn’t quite at the point where he was willing to try cooking and eating his ‘trophy’ or any of the remains, especially with a backpack with actual food to last him several days in it.

  Pulling his backpack on he briefly looked for his hat and not seeing it anywhere set off down the track once more, hoping his trip back down to his car and the rangers station wouldn’t involve anymore spiders.

  While he not quite power walked down the path he checked over his shoulder and his surroundings regularly trying to keep an eye out for another spider or something else that might decide he was a meal. He would need to warn the park rangers and anyone else he saw on his way down to the station and warn people of spiders like that being a possibility.

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  As he walked he started to notice more insects on the path and in the bushes around him. There were always bugs and spiders around, usually flies that would buzz around you while you were walking and other insects just flying or crawling around. He noticed them this time because there seemed to be much larger insects than he was used to, while not the size of the spider he woke up to, they were still noticeably bigger than he remembered some of these insects being. While these insects weren’t anywhere near the size of the spider there were enough around that were two or three times larger than he thought they should be.

  As he continued down the track, keeping his head on a swivel to try and spot any danger he hadn’t thought to look up as something hit him directly on top of his head. He turned around quickly, stick raised ready to hit something and looking into the sky to see if he could spot anything. There weren’t many branches overhanging the path so he had a clear enough view of the sky overhead and couldn’t see anything.

  Looking down he noticed a round gray ball near his feet. It was roughly the size of a tennis ball and from how his head felt, quite hard. Looking around and not seeing anything strange he tapped it a couple times with his stick.

  When nothing happened he bent down to get a closer look at the ball which seemed to be segmented strangely. Poking it again with the stick he saw a crack appear and suddenly a multitude of thin legs came out as it unfolded. Without thinking Zeke stood up and swung the stick as hard as could, hitting the creature into the surrounding trees.

  The ball filled with legs hit a tree before falling to the ground, looking once more like a ball. Watching it and waiting for it to uncurl again, it couldn’t have been more than 5 seconds before the creature uncurled and getting his first proper look at it he realised it was a giant roly poly or pill bug. The bug, seemed unfazed by being hit by his stick, didn’t seem interested in him. It briefly waved its antennas around for a few seconds before it slowly started to walk away from him further into the forest.

  After watching the pill bug walk off into the bushes Ezekiel turned around and continued down the path making sure to look up as well this time. He had probably only walked a few metres before, despite keeping an eye on his surroundings something smacked him in the back of the head.

  Quickly spinning again he saw what he hoped was a different pill bug on the ground, rolled up as a grey ball. It looked a little bigger and darker than the previous pill bug, so he didn’t think it was the same bug as before. Hoping it wasn't the same pill bug and that this one would be just as uninterested in him, he hit it softly off the path and into the plants beside the path with his stick.

  Being slightly suspicious of the bug he watched it unroll and instead of going into the bushes this one walked back across the path. This one showed as little interest in him as the previous one had. In case they had somehow learnt to fly or fling themselves through the air to attack people he kept watching till it was well out of sight in the bushes.

  Glancing around a final time he hadn’t gone more than two steps when something hit his backpack which felt much bigger than the pill bugs and he could feel that it was moving about as it hit him.

  Dropping his pack as quickly as he could he spun around to see a giant bull ant the length of his forearm. He had been bitten often as a kid by these ants when he tried collecting them or happened to play near their nest accidentally and knowing how painful their bites could be, he didn’t give it a chance to try and bite him and swung his stick down multiple times till it stopped moving. Ezekiel once again felt a rush like he did when killing the spider, not quite as strong but still noticeable. This was a bit concerning to him as usually he was the type to try and avoid killing any animal or bug where possible and to feel the way he did after killing them. This made him wonder if maybe he had hit his head when he fell earlier and caused himself some sort of brain damage. Especially considering all the giant bugs he was seeing, it would explain a lot if he had happened to fall and hit his head.

  Knowing either way answers and questions could be found and asked at the rangers station he decided to wait questioning his health till then.

  Inspecting his backpack to ensure it wasn’t damaged by the ant, he inspected both his stick and the ant. Seeing his stick had held up well and wasn’t too covered in ant he decided to keep it instead of replacing it trusting it to once more do what he needed it to.

  Taking a deep breath he yelled “Is someone out there? Stop throwing bugs at me and come out! I know these bugs can’t fly, and this isn’t funny, show yourself!”

  Laughter rang out from the trees just off the path to his right. Being determined to catch whoever was messing with him, he ran into the forest to confront whoever was doing this. Seeing small movement between the trees and bushes, he ran after whoever it was throwing bugs at him. Hoping no other large bugs or spiders would cross his path while pursuing this person he ran deeper into the forest after them.