Members
The eyeless spider yearns for sight.
Shared under Share alike with credit via 파이오니어 (Pioneer)
Here is a spider with no eyes.
The spider lived on a tattered web — a hole-ridden net woven clumsily by its sightless builder.
Other spiders mocked this eyeless spider.
They couldn't help but mock it.
The web had holes large enough for big insects to pass through easily, and its body, starved from days without a catch, was desperately thin.
The eyeless spider jabbed at its own flat face with its legs — hoping that maybe, if it poked a hole, eyes would grow.
Thanks to that, the flat face bearing only fangs became grotesque, covered in deep, crater-like wounds.
Its futile efforts to grow eyes only made it an even bigger laughingstock among the other spiders.
The eyeless spider's hunting skills were the worst among all the spiders in the area.
On days it barely managed to catch even a single gnat, it was a feast day for the eyeless spider.
And today was one of those rare lucky days.
A gnat had been caught in the hole-riddled web, fluttering its thin wings!
The eyeless spider bounced with joy.
It quickly spun silk and wrapped the prey round and round before it could escape, shaping it into a neat bundle like a polished grain of rice.
The rule was never to eat a hard-won catch all at once, but to savor it slowly.
The eyeless spider placed the silk-wrapped gnat in the corner of its home and waved its front legs happily.
It was the little dance it did whenever it was in a good mood.
Having carefully preserved its catch, the eyeless spider fell asleep beside it.
Other spiders watched from afar.
[You want to steal its catch?]
[Yeah. I stole from it a few times before — it spent all day circling that hole-ridden home of its trying to find the missing food.]
[Oh man, that must have been hilarious!]
The spiders hatched a plan to torment the poor eyeless spider once again.
The plan was simple: steal the food while the eyeless spider sleeps!
The spider who boasted about having stolen before took the lead and headed for the hole-ridden web.
The eyeless spider seemed not to expect anyone would steal its food and was sleeping like the dead.
A pathetic creature with dull senses — it apparently couldn't even detect someone climbing onto its web.
Snickering, the spider carefully approached the gnat on the web.
It was wrapped so thickly in silk that the original form was barely visible.
The spider plunged its fangs into the thick silk cocoon containing the gnat. The cocoon was so thick that the fangs barely penetrated.
The spider poured in digestive fluid, dissolved the gnat inside the cocoon, then sucked up the liquid.
[Imagine waking up to find nothing but an empty shell — it'll be so confused, right?]
The spider cackled, imagining the eyeless spider waking up in bewilderment.
Just then — a sudden cry from its friend.
[Hey, watch out!]
CRUNCH!
While it was eating, someone's fangs suddenly drove into its body from behind.
It was the eyeless spider — the one they thought was asleep.
The eye sockets it had forcibly carved into its face felt like they were staring right at it.
The sunken eye sockets were utterly terrifying.
A bottomless abyss lurked within them.
[W-weren't you asleep??]
Before the intruder could fight back, the eyeless spider swiftly spun silk and wrapped the spider's body tight.
[Stop, stop!! I'm sorry!]
[I made eye sockets, but there are no eyes. Without eyes, I can't see ahead.]
[I'm sorry! Let me go! I'll leave quietly if you let me go!]
The captured spider rolled its eyes searching for its friend. But the friend who had come along was already gone.
[I was stupid to think eyes would just grow on their own. I need to transplant new ones. Then maybe you'll all acknowledge me.]
[AAAARGH!!!]
The eyeless spider tore out the captured spider's eyes with its fangs and front legs. Groping its own face with its forelegs, the eyeless spider tried fitting the separated eyes into its own eye sockets.
[I still can't see....... Are there not enough eyes?]
After plucking every eye from the captured spider, the eyeless spider stuffed them all into its own sockets.
[I think I can see something. But it's not clear....... I must need more eyes......]
Stab, stab, stab, stab!
The spider jabbed at its own face with its front legs.
It carved new wounds into its face, creating fresh eye sockets.
The eyeless spider killed more spiders and filled the new sockets.
Sometimes it even stuffed the eyes of mosquitoes and gnats into its sockets.
But still, it could not see.
The spider wept in frustration — though among its countless eyes, not a single one could shed tears.
The eyeless spider grew its body larger by consuming its fellow spiders.
Now this spider had become the spider with the most eyes of them all.
The spider with the most eyes still could not see.
Instead, it gained the most sensitive reflexes and the most agile body of any spider — yet it still yearned for eyes that could actually see.
That night too, the spider broke into tearless sobs and fell asleep.
The many-eyed spider dreamed for the first time in its life.
Having never seen anything in its life, even in the dream, nothing was visible.
But through this dream, the spider saw for the very first time.
The first thing it saw was a very bright light.
An immense and infinite energy was shining warmly upon it.
The luminous figure spoke to it.
[Thirsty creature who has devoured countless of your own kind — do you wish to see?]
The spider was so overwhelmed by the power radiating from the being that it could say nothing. Only its eight legs could barely twitch.
[I will give you what you desire. What you needed was never the countless stolen eyes from other creatures, but a single true eye — your own eye. Makaraka.]
When the luminous figure gestured, a real eye grew among the countless fake ones.
All the fake eyes connected to the real one, and through the dead eyes that had been lifeless, it could now see.
The blurry vision sharpened, and the luminous being's form became clearer. But its exact features remained unknowable.
[The sin of devouring your own kind is great, Makaraka. From now on, atone by helping other lives grow.]
Makaraka — the spider that had gained a name.
Makaraka awoke from sleep and opened its eyes.
It could see the world.
It could see the world clearly.
The first thing Makaraka did was repair its tattered web.