Joe Parma never wanted to leave his home. He glared out of the basement window, across what felt like endless snow covered terrain tapping his feet impatiently. He missed the choo choo of the trains, the massive traffic and whatever, the room smelt as though there were rotten carcasses in there. The basement was where Miss Anna ‘s adopted  son had slept before going to the front lines. She hated being reminded of him. She would cry and sniffle whenever the war was brought up. Joe was not ignorant and after striking one conversation about it he learnt to not talk to her about it again.

His first day of school had come and passed. The teacher was an annoying man called Mr  AbuBakr. He had found out Joe was a genius who was better than him in every subject . He sat at the front of the classroom, working through intense boredom with a shredded book and a barely functioning pen. His letters appeared as though someone who was a master had written them. He kept his head down all day not caring if anyone secretly despised him, he put sincere determination into his studies and ran at a pace of mock 25 the second the school bell rang. The days thundered by and Joe began to sketch out  a routine. His days were spent mesmerised at school , peering out of the window hoping one day he would be free and doing work around the house. She grew many different variations of vegetables  including lettuce, carrots and many other things that I don’t even know the name of . He caged the herds of cows before night fell, got their milk in the afternoon and fed a truckload of food to a  gargantuan cow that Miss Anna planned to devour next week. Soon, snow vanished from the village and spring came with an overload of green and heat.

Last thing before daylight  was cast over the small village, Joe sat aggravated before the one basement window, glaring at nothingness as the sun dipped down beneath the horizon. Nothing happened, except one strange reappearing thing. Every dusk at about 3am, Miss Anna goes to fetch a lantern, leaves our small house and follows a path into the Spiders den. It is a large house filled to the brim with massive tarantulas. He peers from his basement window,  tracking the glow of the lantern. What could she be doing? Why did she go there every night ? Joe didn’t have to wait that long. One night at the end of July, when the weather was good and not cloudy like always, she forced Joe to come with her. Joe paced onwards not knowing what was waiting for him. He was not ready to accept it but he was starting to like this simple life . 

The blinding moon glimmered down a shining beacon of light as stars spotted the silver sky but the Spider’s den, it was jet black . The lights in the street made shadows that Joe’s imagination thought would turn into a pack of hungry Gorgons that would turn you into stone. He charged after Mrs Anna .

She paused by a nest of tarantulas.Joe glared at the closest window. He could smell something rotting, it was definitely  a dead body . At that  moment, a pair of yellow eyes came out of the dark. Something roared loud , scary and long. A bone chilling roar like no other. Joe screamed. His eyes were fixed on a towering white figure. “Say hello to Hermes,” Mrs Anna exclaimed  “ he’s a white Liger.” “I found her as an infant lost in the fields. “ Hermes gave Joe a foul look and paced towards where  Joe stood chattering his teeth, stunned with fear.