The Unmaker

… Eight pilgrims, four children, and one man walk to the eastern lands. Sand dances across the endless dunes, gold and whimsical teases. The pilgrims say this is as far as they can bring the man and his children—any further into the desert and they will be rendered asunder by the wind god lay sleeping in its grave: Madamaron, the Destroyer, is a cruel and unforgiving deity. They say it will end the man and his children. The children beg to differ.

“Death will come to only one man today,” the pilgrims whisper as they leave hurriedly. The children laugh with their eyes closed.

That day, the ‘first’ Madamaron is slain, and the man wears its carcass across the desert.

For while a god cannot be killed, it can be unmade by those who believe in it.

And a bug is no god at all.

- Excerpt from ‘The Hasharana’, Chapter Four

[... Dahlia.]

[Dahlia.]

[Dahlia.]

[Hey, Dahlia.]

Issam’s voice startled her awake. Her body reacted. The skin on her wrists were irritated with burns and black lesions, and pain was the first thing she felt as she sat up straight from her bed; lungs grasping for scraps of sand-flavoured air, one hand raking at her itchy throat, another hand scratching a bump behind her ears, and the remaining two clawing into the satin bedsheet she’d been placed upon.

A cold bead of sweat trickled down her brows as her eyes swivelled, her lips twitched. Something was off. Something didn’t feel right. Was a human supposed to have four… arms? Breaking into a weary giggle, she ripped the bump behind her ears off and nudged the third black arm away, shoving it off to the side, but it rebounded just as quickly like a lever on a tensed-up paper band—then the third and fourth arms moved. Ten obsidian claws each twice the length of a normal human finger hovered before her throat, as though trying to wrap around her windpipe, but before she knew it her real arms snapped up to intercept. She caught the third and fourth arms.

Her real hands down to where her gauntlet had melded with her forearm were every bit as black, spiky, and gnarly as her extra hands.

…

Something was off. Something didn’t feel right. First, her eyes widened. Then some strange tension that’d been hanging in the air like a taut string snapped and she shot to the back of the bed, her bare feet kicking against the mattress so hard the sandstone room shuddered and the dim firefly cage set on the nightstand flickered; something in her throat cracked. Frustration. Anger. Guilt. A mix of all three, perhaps, but when her eyes suddenly welled with tears and everything she remembered from before she fell unconscious rushed into her head all at once, it was a lightning storm that choked her breath, threatening to engulf her from the inside out.

She broke down into choked, ugly sobs, and soon she began to scream.

Her third and fourth arms raged with her.

[Dahlia! Listen to me! Do not lose yourself now! Your body is–]

Her extra hands balled into fists and smashed down into the bed, breaking it in half. She fell. Onto her feet. Bug-hunting instinct took over, she couldn’t make herself lie down. Adrenaline burned in her veins, her body several magnitudes hotter, and she immediately pored over the dingy sandstone room with red water in her eyes. Her jaw was aching. Her teeth were aching. Her stomach was growling. It was red, pulsing like a fresh bruise. She needed food, and she needed it now.

[–still undergoing nymphal metamorphosis! You consumed the Mutant firefly, remember? You have been assigned your insect class and unlocked your mutation tree, remember? I need you to take–]

Her body was lighter than usual. Briefly she caught a glimpse of her bandaged biceps, shins, and chest, and only then did she realise she’d been stripped from the waist up. Strangely she didn’t feel chilly, the sandstone room was suffocating in heat—the majority of what filled the room were jars of honey and burlap sacks hung on the walls. There were other things, like a shoddy dresser and bolted-shut window flaps and shelves full of alien herb gourds, but all of them combined gave off a luxurious smell; it spoke of consumables, and things she could stuff into her mouth.

Ravenous.

Voracious appetite.

Her third and fourth arms moved first, dragging her feet forward.

[–deep breaths, Dahlia! Breathe! Deep breath, four seconds! Heavy exhale, four seconds! Do not lose yourself before I can finish suppressing your natural immune system–]

With a guttural scream, she spun and dragged one of her arms forward like she was throwing a punch. It came out faster than it felt. She’d just been trying to grab a gourd of water, but instead her chitin fist smashed through the gourd, through the wall, and a beam of sunlight burst through; she reeled back with a hiss and backed away from the light, two palms glued over her eyes. Pain. Hunger. Her legs swept through chair legs, her shoulders tipped over jars of medicinal herbs. She almost vomited the moment sunlight hit her skin. Pure warmth had a fouler taste on her skin than anything she’d expected, and just as she was about to retch, double over, and let her extra arms run wild on a carving flurry–

[Hey, Dahlia.]

Someone held her shoulders.

From behind.

Two warm hands, but not… so warm.

She stopped her painful flailing, and her chest immediately felt tight as a dozen emotions suddenly burst forth—she whirled, eyes darting around the back of the room with dreamy exuberance.

Everything in her went taut—chest, throat, stomach—and she immediately threw her arms around Issam’s shoulders, sobbing into his neck and making a mess of herself. Frankly, she didn’t care. She couldn’t be bothered to think about it. The weight she’d been feeling disappeared as swiftly as it’d come into existence and she let out a crying gasp, blubbering whispers of joy as five more people appeared in the corner of her eyes: Ayla, Aylee, Amula, Jerie, and Raya. The twins were flanking the bolted window flaps, waving cheerily at her. Jerie was sitting cross-legged atop the dresser and playing a low tune with his cicada flute, his eyes closed as usual. Amula was bickering with Raya with their beetle boots and ant swordstaff poised, ready to strike each other at any time, but then she crossed eyes with them and they smirked back at her—this was a normal day, after all.

And they’d all gotten out of Alshifa safe and sound.

“... Hey,” she breathed, a shuddering, trembling word, as her arms tightened around Issam’s neck. Feeling warm drops on her cheeks, she realised she was crying—she could still feel, and therefore she was still human. “You… you gave me a fright. A-All of you. What’s up with that? The final? Bit? The firefly wasn’t th-that tough of an opponent, right? I knew we could… I knew we could do it! Together! All of us! We won!”

Issam’s ears twitched. She couldn’t see his face with her eyes squeezed shut, but she liked to think he was smiling.

He had to be.

[... Yes, Dahlia. We won,] Issam said, with hesitance, and she ignored the strange, strange metallic undertone in his voice. The others had stopped moving for a second as though they were frozen in place, but now they were all chattering again, casting nervous glances at her; they must’ve been worried about her. [Why don’t you… sit down first? Take a deep breath? You’re still dealing with the overload strain from having most of your Swarmsteel pried off your body, so until you settle down, you won’t heal.]

“Okay!”

She didn’t need to be told twice. While she was a bit reluctant to part with Issam so fast, she knew there was merit in his worry, in his words. Besides, her body was aching all over. Her bones felt like jumbled pieces, and whenever she tried to suck in a breath it was like liquid fire burning in her lungs. Calm down. Grasp air. Yes. The dizziness and the headache would subside soon enough, and once she was calmer she could look to satiate her stifled hunger–

The two little black nubs growing out her forehead tingled, and her heart thumped in her chest.

[... Footsteps,] Ayla whispered, her head whipping over to the front door.

[Three people,] Amula confirmed with a firm nod.

[Under the remains of the bed, girl!] Raya snapped.

And that was the end of the discussions. Issam and the twins hurried her onto her stomach while Jerie and Amula flew around the room, making a big show of tossing an empty burlap sack over their heads. Raya stood still as a lamppost right behind the door. Dahlia was halfway to backing under the collapsed bed when she noticed Issam and the twins weren’t crawling in with her, so her extra arms responded for her, snatching all three of their wrists with a pleading look in her eyes.

“What… are you doing?” she hissed. “Get in! With me! They’ll find you!”

Issam peeked down at her with his head horizontal, his smile soft beyond comparison. [Nobody will find me. Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself first, okay?]

“But–”

[We learned how to hide from you, remember?] Aylee said, flicking her forehead and making her let out a pained youch. [Back when we were still third-years, Instructor Biem made us play hide and seek a lot, yeah? Remember that time when we couldn't find you? It’s because you hid yourself in plain sight, right? With a butterfly mantle you made on the spot?]

“Y-Yeah?”

[We got this!] Ayla said, flicking her forehead again before letting out a small, small giggle. [We’ll be back. Promise. We’re just… gonna jump out the window and hide outside for a bit, okay?]

“... Okay,” she whispered back.

The three of them gave her one last little nod before the door was kicked open. A flood of sunlight blinded her enough that she shirked further back into the darkness, and by the time she was able to see through the thin clouds of sand and dust hovering in the room, her friends had already disappeared.

Two pairs of reed-woven sandals stood in front of her, and while a part of her was absolutely enamoured with the beautiful buckles inlaid with precious amber, the other part of her realised she might be in a terrible situation right now. She didn’t know where she was. Well, she had to be on the surface, but she didn’t know the people who brought her up here, and if Issam and the others rushed her to hide maybe they didn’t know who their ‘rescuers’ were, either. Surface people. Potentially dangerous people. Clamping her hands over her mouth, her heart hammered an anxious rhythm against her ribs—the two people started talking to each other in an unfamiliar tongue.

“Al yamukui na dabhtah? Ea aysal kadaikal? An hi ay anfaak?” one man said, voice tight as he spun around in place, his feet pointed in the same direction as the small hole she’d punched in the wall. She felt she could almost see him pointing at the hole—why were her senses so keen today? “Knava? Vanish? An hi ay anfaak?”

“Krakan na aya, mister. No worries. She couldn’t have gone far,” the second person said, a fair and young lady’s voice. Something squirmed in the back of her neck, but she didn’t dare let a pained groan leak from her mouth. “Please, just sit still and wait outside with the rest of Sharaji. Tsihaa ihaaysa wa. I’ll find her and bring her to meet everyone soon.”

The man evidently crossed his arms as he grumbled, but he didn’t protest as they both left the room, one of them nearly tripping over a tipped-over sack of dirty moss lumps while the other hooked the door shut. As little as she’d wanted to hear, she couldn’t afford to ignore the hushed whispers and murmurs hanging right outside the room; she may have evaded their detection for now, but soon they’d fan out and realise she’d never left the room in the first place. In that case, she had to–

“Found youuu.”

A face peeked down at her from atop the broken bed, right as she let out a soft breath of relief, and the world around her disappeared—until only a void remained, with her and the inhuman face stuck in it.

Its features were a human’s everyday features, but the skin carried no comforting human glow—no flush in the cheeks, no crease under the brows, no colour apart from the same obsidian black of her claws on its full-chitin face. Its jawline was sharp. Angular. Its stretched diamond-shaped lenses for eyes were filled with small hexagonal compound cells that reflected her own face a hundred times over, a thousand times over; it perceived a thousand versions of her all at the same time, and were it not for the brush-like antennae jutting out its hardened forehead, she’d have immediately thought it the living devil here to devour her adolescent soul.

But she recognised it as the face of a Mutant moth, so instead it’d probably settle for sucking her brains out of a tube.

…

She heard her body screaming at her to fight. To sharpen her claws and send them flying at its face. That tingly feeling of drawing blood from the flesh of a damned insect would surely calm her and remind her she was a proud, proud bug hunter of the Alshifa undertown—but somehow she couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t move.

It was like her limbs were wrapped in taut, electrified wires, and if she tried to move she’d cut herself to pieces.

[... You have to move, Dahlia.]

I can’t.

The Mutant moth stared at her, its eyes a pure white void. She couldn’t brave the light; she’d lived in an undertown. She’d never stood under the sun.

[You have to look at it, Dahlia.]

I can’t.

It was too familiar. Too gut-wrenching to look at. It wasn’t the same as the sparkling, lightning-swirled face of the Mutant firefly, but the face of a human-imitating Mutant was terrifying all the same. Her muscles clammed up, her lungs refused to draw breath. She was still far too weak to resist, and her hands began to close into fists.

[Dahlia.]

I can’t.

She knew she had to breathe. She tried. Prying her lips open, puckering them as though trying to suck wheat balls through a straw, she immediately choked on a thin clump of sand and dust in the air. A wave of coarseness ran its way through her throat as she sputtered, coughing like her life depended on it. And her life did depend on it. She had to breathe now.

[Dahlia.]

I can’t.

She tried again. It was like trying to breathe underwater. She fought off the wave of panic threatening to engulf her and yet there was another, never ending, never relenting. It didn’t subside. What little strength she’d gained from hugging Issam had faded completely. Pained gasps and sobs tore out her throat as the moth reached a black chitin hand down, as though trying to touch her face. She screamed then and backed deeper and deeper into the shadows, shying away from the light; it was trying to eat her.

[Dahlia! Remember! Deep breath, four seconds! Heavy exhale, four seconds–]

“I can’t! I can’t! I can’t do it!

“Stop talking!

“Shut up!

“I can’t… I can’t do it!”

As fear and desperation mixed together in her chest and reached its all-time peak, she let out a scream and slammed her forehead into the ground, tucking herself into the dark as if that’d protect her from the hand reaching for her. If she couldn’t see anything, nothing could happen to her—was that the sort of logic she’d been taught to believe in? Was that the cowardly sort of display she’d been taught to demonstrate in the face of an enemy trying to take her life?

…

But knowing was only half the battle, and at the end of the day, she couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t stop shaking.

She couldn’t stop grinding her forehead into the ground, trying to stop her splitting headache.

And the hand that’d been on its way to touch her face stopped just short, instead placing a small round plate in front of her before retracting like a child chickening out of sticking their arm into a hornet’s nest.

“... You'd call me cruel if I pried all your Swarmsteel off you without giving you medicine to deal with the aftermath,” the moth said, a fair lady's voice, and Dahlia realised it was the same lady that'd spoken earlier with the man. She must've been a third person, then—had she jumped onto the bed the moment they entered the room so Dahlia wouldn't notice her? “I know you're hungry. However many levels of attributes you lost because I removed your Swarmsteel is surely wracking your body right about now, and it's been… two weeks since I picked you up. Eat. It'll make you feel better.”

Eria wriggled in the back of her neck, as though signalling her to be cautious, but even without looking she could tell there was something fleshy sitting on the plate in front of her; it was some sort of sweet, glazed dumplings in a stacked bundle of four, its smell nourishing, its ‘taste’ on her skin mouth-watering.

With her stomach still in knots, she didn't hesitate to grab the food offered and stuffed the first dumpling into her mouth. It was… strangely tender. But also chewy on the skin. She'd never quite tasted anything like it before. The closest comparison was when she'd chewed on a blob of raw tree sap from the Sarowan Garden, but there was a tangy sweetness to the dumpling that made it easy to swallow—her remaining three hands immediately reached for the others, her throat crying for something watery to wash down the grainy sand.

Just as well, by the time she cleaned her plate like a stray hound would lick even the smallest strands of meat off a bone, her head was no longer pounding.

The shaking in her fingers hadn't stopped. Her throat was still taut. Her chest was still heaving for breath, but… she could breathe, now.

[... Interesting.]

[She fed you-]

Don't… say it. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and immediately winced, pulling her knuckles away to see she'd cut her lips with her own sharp chitin; even her own blood looked appetising to her. I… I know what she fed me.

It's some sort of processed insect… flesh, right?

[... I am also detecting a strange signal from her.]

[I believe that, like you, she has an-]

“I don’t mean to give you a panic attack again, but the Sharaji townsfolk out there want answers about you and where you came from,” the moth said casually, two bare feet kicking back and forth over the broken bed. “It’s not every day that massive ravines open up across the desert to reveal giant undertowns nobody even knew existed, after all. They knew cocoons soared across the sky and landed in the desert some time ago, but they didn’t think they’d find someone still alive after all is said and done—you were the one who killed the Mutant firefly I was hunting down, right?”

…

She didn’t even want to think about the firefly. If she closed her eyes now she felt she’d still be able to see the flashes of lightning, the arcing bolts of unbridled destruction, and hear the booms of a cavern in collapse; it wasn’t something she wanted to remember whatsoever.

The moth didn’t press her about it. Instead, the kicking feet stopped and the lady hopped off the bed, pivoting so her toes were pointed straight at Dahlia.

“I, too, want to know what happened!” the moth said, in a high-pitched and cheery voice. “I’m not from here. If I let the Sharaji townsfolk have their way, they’d have already tied you up and left you out in the desert to dry. They think you’re a bad omen; a ‘Disciple of Madaramon’, they call you. You’ll bring misfortune with those black chitin limbs of yours… a completely normal trait for those of the Hemiptera class of insects, but a terrible augury for the unlearned. They will exile you if you can’t go out there and explain to them what happened that led to you looking like that.

“No need to be so worried, though!

“I’m here to help you out!

“And I won’t let them hurt you!”

Clouds of hovering sand shifted. Movement. Dahlia held her breath and remained clenching her fists, biting her lips, one hand reaching inside her skirt pocket for a piece of candy she couldn’t find—and it was only when her stomach growled for more food that she gulped, steeling her nerves and exhaling heavily to steady herself.

She knew it.

She couldn’t stay in the dark forever, cowering as though she were still back in Alshifa.

Maybe… walking outside in the sun, even just a little, would make her head a bit less hazy.

The moth took a step back as her extra fists unclenched first, clawing through the sandstone flooring to drag her upper body out from under the bed. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the rug carpet she’d been laying on prevented her bare chest and stomach from being chafed as she crawled out. Her cheeks were flushed a light shade of pink as she pushed off the ground, two arms crossed over her chest, but thankfully the moth was already prepared with a zigzag-striped beige shawl she could drape around the shoulders. It wasn’t the comfiest, but it looked pretty and it covered her just fine.

While she fidgeted with her shawl and tried to figure out how to make it wrap around her two extra arms—jutting out a bit behind and above her waist—she stole a furtive glance at the lady in front of her and came to the logical conclusion, the one she should’ve concluded from the very beginning: no Mutant could possibly take off their face.

The moth head was just a mask, and with it tucked tightly under her elbow, Dahlia could see the girl for what she really was. An ordinary human, that was; they were about the same height, but in stark contrast to Dahlia’s short, darker, and curlier hair, hers was long, white as snow, and tied in a thick braid past her nape. She wore an oversized two-piece cloak made of gilded red and gold fabric that covered her entirely from the neck down, shrouding her actual proportions underneath, but by the looks of her four normal-sized hands—all red and black chitin, two jutting out her back like Dahlia’s own—she was probably Dahlia’s size. A bit more muscular in all likelihood. Her face was freckled with black chitin scales dotting her cheeks, her reddish-golden eyes were sharp like daggers, and her teeth, too; while she may not be a Mutant who devoured human flesh for sustenance, she definitely looked like she could chow through even the toughest and gamiest of muscles.

And her face was also… Dahlia’s.

Apart from the crimson eyes and jagged teeth, her face was an exact replica of Dahlia’s own.

… I’m just losing it.

Blink it away.

She’ll look a bit different… after a while.

She forced herself to focus on something else. The cloak. The pretty, oversized cloak. It was a shade of gilded, whirlwind-patterned red and gold that seemed to shine, and for a moment when she was beckoned to follow the girl out the front door with a little wave, she completely ignored it in favour of staring at the hand-stitched emblem on the girl’s left shoulder.

Two hands overlapping each other, thumbs crossing like antennae, index and middle finger pointing straight out like butterfly wings—where had she seen this emblem before?

It was familiar.

She had seen it before.

In Alshifa, in one of her dad’s tomes that he used to establish first communications with her mom—it had to mean something.

What was it again?

What was that word?

“... I am Alice Mandarina of the ‘Hashara’—the continent’s strongest independent bug-slaying organisation. So very pleased to meet you,” the girl said, dipping into a small bow with all four hands lifting the hems of her cloak; then she looked up and grinned, sharpened teeth bared, and Dahlia felt a shudder running down her spine.

She’d seen this gaze before, the blade-like eyes of a predator finding joy in toying with its prey.

The Mutant firefly had looked at Raya the same way.

[A Hasharana, huh?] Eria muttered. [That is, indeed, the emblem of the wandering bug slayers. She has an Altered Swarmsteel System too. I can say this with a hundred percent certainty: you can trust her for the time being.]

She fidgeted where she stood, looking nervously around the room where her friends were nowhere to be seen.

In any case, if she wanted to look for them, she couldn’t be stuck in the room under the bed.

“... Shall we go and have a tour of the town, Dahlia?”

Dahlia whipped her head straight forward at the mention of her name, and when she did Alice had already closed the distance, their faces uncomfortably close; she swallowed a gulp and took a step back, but the Hasharana only grabbed her wrist before beginning to drag her out the room.

Alice was much, much stronger than she looked.

And still her face looked exactly identical to Dahlia’s.

… What species of moth are you, exactly?