The spiderman whispered 

let me sing you a lullaby. 

I was afraid of him. For the past few months, he had appeared at the foot of my bed, smiling and unwelcome. I called him spiderman because the black irises of his eyes appeared to be cracked in a web-like pattern, like black plates smashed to the floor. He wore nothing, at least from the shoulders-up, and his hair was buzzed short. I had no idea where he came from. He never ventured past the bed, just watched me from afar, giggling when I tried to hide under the covers. 

My friends said he was a sleep-paralysis demon. I think he was just a demon. I couldn’t sleep with him watching me. And eventually I lost those friends, because they didn’t believe me. Let me sing you a lullaby the demon would say. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, a sliver of light from the streetlamps outside escaped the crack in the curtains, illuminating his spider-web eyes. They gleamed monstrously as he sang me the same song, over and over. And it was beautiful. 

His mellifluous words washed over me, threatening and seductive. He sang of dark times, of ancient loves and losses, with a guttural unseen pain straining to break through the surface.

Even when I closed my eyes, I would still see him there, singing to me. I’d tremble in anger, saying anything to make him go away. 

Leave me alone I’d cry. 

But he’d always ignore my pleas. Sweet dreams, my dear. 

After a few weeks of restless nights, I simply begged to understand him. 

What do you want from me? 

He’d smile, baring sharp fangs: 

You’re the only one who understands. 

I didn’t know what he meant by that. All I understood was that he was not human. Every night, after my candles died out and it was just us two in the darkness, he would mutter twisted incantations I couldn’t understand. I prayed and prayed for it to rain, to wash away this spiderman. Like the itsy bitsy spider, drowning, crying for help. I wanted the thundering rain to overpower his voice so he would know what it meant to be powerless. But the rain never came. 

One chilly night, he didn’t sing to me. He just watched me jealously, before reaching his hands over the bed, his blackened fingertips gliding over the bedsheets. 

I kicked at his hands and scrambled as far away from him as I could. He backed off, insulted and sour, and even a little hurt. He averted his spider-eyes, and wouldn’t look at me. Sing me a song I said. But for the rest of the week he was silent. 

I discovered the only thing worse than a leering demon singing to me at night was being alone with my dreadful thoughts, and having a witness to the pain I could cause myself.

After a few nights, it became unbearable to watch him sulk. I had been losing the color in my skin, my eyes dull and my body weary after weeks of no rest. I was starting to look like him. So on the last night of our acquaintance, after the flame on my candle exhaled its last breath, I searched for his monstrous face in the darkness. His eyes met mine and we both shuddered as if struck by the same jolt of electricity. Perhaps he had finally forgiven me. Slowly, I removed the blanket covering my shivering body, and crawled toward him. On the edge of the bed, I saw him in full, and finally understood him. 

He was small. Large for a nightmare, perhaps, but pitiful for a monster. And he was lonely, just like me. I saw it in his defiant pose, in his despairing eyes. There was no room in this modern world for the old gods, for monsters and demons. No one was afraid of the dark anymore, and thus, he had been cast aside, forgotten. Purposeless. 

I slid off the bed and reached for him. He sat still, as if holding his breath. I think I looked monstrous to him, and I reveled in the momentary power of it. 

When we were mere inches apart, I whispered 

I understand you now. 

Then I have no more songs to sing, he sighed. 

I reached my face towards his, and the fear in my heart died as our cold lips met. I held his soft face in my hands as if I could consume him. 

Leaning back, he gave every last pulse of his grotesque spirit to me. I gulped it all down as if to quench some ancient, primal thirst. And he gave in to my embrace, his body rotting in my arms. Gleaming tight flesh, giving way to sweet meat and wet bones, his cartilage melting through my fingers. His lips turned to liquid honey in my mouth. I got a last glimpse at his beautiful spider-eyes before they too dissolved into the puddle of what used to be him. I was covered in his remains, filthy, but satisfied. His lullaby echoed and faded in my head, and then it was quiet. I realized it was raining outside. 

Finally. 

Now I stand outside in the rain, in the dead of night, letting the sky wash him off of me. Later I will let my bed swallow me up, and return to dreamland, as if seeing some long-lost lover. 

Somehow, victory feels a lot like heartbreak. Who will sing me lullabies now?