Sha Doe: Reborn from Shadows & Silk
Chapter One: The River Styx
The night was too quiet.
A single car hummed over the cracked mountain road, its headlights cutting pale tunnels through the surrounding trees. The sky above was black, heavy with unfallen rain. In the back seat, an infant cried — like she could sense something was wrong.
A woman sat behind the wheel, her eyes glassy yet dry. Her hands trembled as she reached to lower the sounds of the radio. She began to hum, then she began to speak a melodic lullaby.
Hush now, don't cry…
The stars watch from the sky…
The moon keeps her promise above
The baby softened at the sound of her mother's voice, though the tears still glistened on her cheeks from the pale moonlight penetrating the dense clouds outside. The woman's own voice cracked as she sang, each note steadier than the last, as though pretending could make the world gentler — even now.
At the base of the road, the trees parted for a wide, dark river. The current flowed slow and black as oil in the darkened night. Fog rolled over it like breath from a giant's mouth. The woman parked near the river, cut the engine, and sat in silence for a few moments.
Then, with a motion that was careful — almost reverent — she stepped towards the back seat and unbuckled her daughter. The infant squirmed and mewled, but did not wail. She should be sleeping in her mother's arms, but the damp cold air was making her uncomfortable.
The woman kissed her once on the forehead, then gently wrapped her in a blanket, tucking her into a reed-woven basket.
She carried the basket to the edge of the water.
The lullaby returned, but now it was a whisper.
"Sleep sound through the storm,
The cold will turn warm,
Your dreams are the gentlest of gloves…"
She slowly let the basket go.
It drifted, pulled away from her hands. Even if she wanted her back, she was gone now.
Then she turned, walked back to the car, and started the engine once again.. for a moment she paused— silent, she sat expressionless. Then she began to drive forward towards the bank. As she felt the tires biting into the river rocks, her expression started to break as tears began to crawl down her face. Before she could break herself, she pressed the pedal to the floor of the vehicle.
The water swallowed her without protest. The headlights blinked once or twice beneath the surface before vanishing forever.
—
The infant floated.
The basket rocked gently, caught in the pull of the current. The baby's voice broke through again, this time louder — frightened. She didn't understand that the world had changed. Only that warmth was gone. Those arms no longer held her.
She screamed.
From the branches above the water, something watched as it all had unfolded.
At first, it was only two glowing red eyes. Then four. Then eight — all unblinking, all focused on a single point.
The basket bumped a jagged stone and tilted. Cold black water splashed in.
The baby tipped.
Then sank.
No more crying.
Just bubbles.
Just the silence of nature remained.
Until…
—
Long, black limbs slid into the water.
They were thin and sharp and quiet.
They curled around the tiny body like threads around a spool. One twitch and the infant was drawn up, still as silent as when she fell under the water.
A voice spoke — not in words others could know, but in a tone that could only be described as mourning.
"Oh… little one. She left you…. You were just a child."
"What an unforgivable sin"
The creature stepped forward into the moonlight. Its legs were too many. Its shape was not quite right. A spider — yes — but older, larger, stranger. Draped in shadow like it wore mourning veils.
She was an ancient creature. Something otherworldly. She was the Mother of Spiders, and though she had a deep-seated hate for humans almost as long as time itself, she was, above all, a mother.
She held the child closer, her fangs trembling.
"You didn't deserve this."
She bit — softly, not to take, but to give. A drop of venom, slow and precise, into the child's veins.
The infant's eyes fluttered. Then—
A gasp. A cough. A cry.
The silence disturbed once again.
The Spider Mother began to sing, mimicking the lullaby she had heard before — but twisted, reshaped into something strange and soft and wrong in all the right ways.
"Drift through the black,
No need to come back,
You're cradled in shadow and love…"
The infant was calm again.
The Spider Mother glanced down at the fraying scrap of fabric still tied around the child's wrist — a baby nameplate worn tattered by time and river.
Most of the letters were gone.
Only three remained.
S H A
"Sha… That's all that remains?"
"Then Sha you shall be."
She clicked softly, brushing one long leg against the child's tiny nose.
Sha giggled.
The world grew quiet again.
And in a forest, a girl who should have died… did not.
[To be continued…]