The Unmaker

“... Dahlia? Sweetie, you okay? What’s wrong? Another nightmare?”

“N-No… mom. There was just–”

“Another bug?”

“Mhm. It’s… over there.”

“Where?”

“There! Can’t y-you see it? It’s right there!”

“I can’t see it.”

“Mom! It’s right there! It’s on your head! Six black legs! Ew! It’s coming to get me!”

“Dahlia, Dahlia. Calm down. Deep breaths, heavy exhales-”

“No! Mom! Please, I can’t- it’s going to touch me! It’s going to–”

Someone brushed the bristles on her bracers with a finger and she shot awake, snapping upright with her nails digging into her patchwork blanket.

Where… am I?

Her face was sticky with sweat as she gasped for breath. When she looked nervously around, she found she was on a rickety metal bed surrounded by four walls made of thin tarp partitions. Dimly lit firefly cages were hung off hooks on wooden beams erected here and there, and she immediately recognised this giant infirmary-like hall.

She was in Alshifa’s Swarm Shelter, a nigh-indestructible building designed by the Great Makers from a century ago to withstand even the force of a falling star. Or was it a meteorite? She couldn’t quite remember right now, but she was pretty sure–

“Oh, thank the Great Makers you’re alive,” Issam breathed, putting his head in his hands as he sighed a great relief. His voice came as a surprise, so she whirled to her left to see him and his friends sitting on wooden stools next to her bed, all safe and sound. Only the twins bothered waving at her with cheery little smiles. Amula and Jerie were expressionless as Issam leaned forward and held her hands. “I thought… I was afraid you weren’t going to wake up for a long, long time. Amula here told me I should be out trying to rescue more people, but…”

Issam trailed off, staring solemnly around the tarp partitions that served as their little walls.

…

The sounds of the shelter weren’t lost on Dahlia. Soft, keening wails came from behind every tarp, and the cacophony of cries and groans and gagged screaming coming from those undergoing surgery without so much as a bottle of alcohol to keep them light-headed… she’d heard these sounds many, many times before. Her dad had been a doctor—the best in town—so she was more than familiar with what to expect from an emergency infirmary like this.

She’d never accepted her dad’s offer to pour her a cup of alcohol whenever she watched him work, but right about now, with her forearms stinging and aching as much as they were, she’d probably guzzle down an entire bottle without question.

Why are they hurting and itching so much, anyways? She clenched her jaw, scratching her bracers as she did. It’s like… it’s like they’re squeezing down on me, crushing my bones–

[It is as I said: equipping only Swarmsteel to increase your strength is not sustainable. The more powerful your Swarmsteel are, the higher your strain limit needs to be to endure the higher strain induced on your body,] Eria said, plucking the question from her mind as the little black bug appeared on her left shoulder.

She blinked.

Then she shivered from head to toe and hissed, scurrying off her cot and bumping into the tarp partitioner on her right. Someone immediately snapped at her to stay in her area. The twins immediately darted out their seats to see what was wrong, but Issam had already blurred over to grab her hands, brows furrowed.

“Dahlia? You alright? What’s wrong? Do you need a doc–”

“No, no, no! It’s fine!” she said, jerking her hands away as she continued scratching at her bracers, grimacing at the little bug dipping its head apologetically on her shoulder. “I was just… sorry. Disoriented. I couldn't tell the time in here and- I don’t know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

Issam didn’t look the least bit convinced, but with the twins stepping past him to help her back onto her bed, he was left with no other option but to peek over the surrounding partitioners to apologise for the ruckus he’d made.

While Issam did that, she glared discreetly at the little black bug on her shoulder.

You freaked me out.

I thought you said you couldn’t read my mind.

[I can read your surface thoughts now,] Eria responded quickly. [After your battle with the cricket, I have gained a slightly better understanding of you as a person. I am still unable to assign you your insect class, but the more battles we get into, the deeper my understanding of you will become. Eventually, I should be able to delve into your deeper memories. It is vital we are completely in sync in order to maximise your full potential with the Altered Swarmsteel System.]

She couldn’t say, without hesitation, that she liked the idea of Eria being able to hear her inner voice now, but… all things considered, it wasn’t that terrible a step to take in the direction of her getting stronger. If Eria being able to hear her inner voice meant she’d be getting faster responses in times of crises, then she’d gladly give up a little bit of privacy.

Al… right. I understand. But please don’t… um, start talking whenever you’re bored or–

“What are these things?” shorter-haired Ayla said, lifting her left bracer gently and squinting at the tiny bristles. “Is this a Swarmsteel? From school? I don’t remember seeing something like this in the armoury.”

“Because it’s not in the armoury, idiot,” longer-haired Aylee said, lifting her right bracer and frowning in the process. “It’s shoddy. Custom-made. I bet the Make-Whatever here made it herself.”

Ayla’s eyes widened as she looked at Dahlia with newfound respect. “Really? You made these? When? How? Did you kill a giant insect all on your own? Man, and the two of us plus Issam were having trouble taking down even one by ourselves! How’d you do it?”

For her part, Dahlia was blinking and gulping hard, not particularly enjoying the physical contact. “I… um… I don’t know. They’re made from a giant cricket. The… the forelegs of a giant cave cricket are sensitive to small vibrations, so I just– I took them. Correct. So I can feel danger coming from afar.”

“Oh, so you really did make it yourself,” Aylee mumbled. “That’s quite impressive. How long did it–”

“Can you fix our moth mantles for us, then?” Ayla chirped, standing and whirling around to show off the glimmering silver scale mantle missing a few scales here and there; they must’ve been scraped off either by extremely fast movement or something extremely sharp. “We’ve been running ragged the past few hours trying to evacuate as many people as we can into the shelter, so our mantles are really not looking good. If we lose a few more scales, they’ll lose their main functionality completely, so we’d prefer to have them fixed before we go out again!”

Dahlia lowered her gaze, staring and mumbling at the ground. “I don’t know if… uh, I can do it. Or not. Uncertainty. I’m not very good with… fabrics and mantles.”

“Just try! We don’t have the replacement moth scales here since they’re still in the school’s armoury, but we’re planning on going there in a bit to get Amula and Jerie's Swarmsteel back! Will you fix our mantles for us, then?”

“I… maybe. Maybe I’ll fail. I’m not sure–”

“How are you feeling, Dahlia?” Issam said, shooing the twins away from her as he plopped down on his stool cross-legged, his whetstone mantis scythes folded behind his back. His warm smile immediately gave her the strength to look him in the eyes, and his were… bright. Sparkling sapphire. Full of hope, full of courage; they were nothing like her dull amber eyes. “We found you running from that wolf spider eight hours ago while we were trying to look for more survivors, but… I heard a bit from Ayla and Aylee? You killed a giant insect all on your own?”

Hearing Issam say it aloud made her feel a little bit strong, but all she could manage was a tiny nod, eyes squeezed shut.

“I killed… a cave cricket,” she whispered.

“A cave cricket?”

“Down in the sewers. After the bug trader… after he gave his life to protect me.”

Everyone’s faces darkened. She didn’t think the atmosphere in the shelter could get any gloomier, but it did.

“... Tell me what happened after we split up,” Issam said softly.

She looked worriedly down at Eria, but even without receiving a response, she knew she shouldn’t tell any of them about the ‘Altered Swarmsteel System’ that could talk in her head and allocate points to increase her strength.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Issam to listen, but there was no telling how the others—Amula and Jerie especially—would react knowing she had such a powerful Swarmsteel implanted in her spine.

Would I die if you leave my body?

[No,] Eria answered promptly. [I am capable of being transferred to another vessel without severely hurting you. All you need to do is will me to leave, and I will depart.]

But would they try to take you from me by force?

[Well. If you value your safety, it would be prudent not to disclose my existence to everyone for now,] Eria said. [Can you trust all of them to not rip me out of your neck the moment they know you have a system?]

…

She bit her lips and tried not to make her gulp too obvious. Issam alone she was willing to tell, but with everyone else sitting around her like this, she knew what she wanted to say and what she wanted to leave out.

So she took a deep breath and started talking.

It might’ve taken ten minutes, it might’ve taken twenty. She recounted everything that had happened to her after the hornet annihilated their carriage, sending both her and the bug trader down into the sewers. She recounted the bug trader’s death, the cave cricket’s arrival, and altered the story of how she killed it a little; there were lots of heavy crates dangling from the ceiling, so all she did was cut the ropes and had the crates crush it to death. Then she made bracers out of its forelegs before climbing her way up to the surface, where she eventually ran into Issam and the twins while being chased by a wolf spider.

She felt it was quite a smooth and logical story the way she told it, all things considered. She didn’t think she’d be able to lie to them so easily, but maybe they only looked convinced because she’d never been a big talker in the first place.

“... You did well.” Issam patted her head, sending her a small smile as the twins chatted with Amula and Jerie in the back. They were saying something about crickets, and supposedly about how hard it was to kill a giant one. “It’s… a shame the bug trader didn’t make it out of there alive, but without his sacrifice, we wouldn’t be here together like this. I must thank him again the next we meet.”

Dahlia pursed her lips. “There were other bugs down there when I left. Unlikely. His corpse is probably already–”

“But you still want to give him a proper funeral, don’t you?”

“...”

“We will go together once this is all over,” he said firmly, leaving no room for argument before shifting in his stool to make himself more comfortable. “Besides, the five of us weren’t planning on just sitting here waiting for something to happen. After you and the bug trader were sent flying off the railings, we managed to scramble into this shelter before the strongest of the Swarm could break through, but… we left a lot of people out there when we locked the doors twelve hours ago.”

The twins stopped chatting. Jerie opened a single eye to look glumly down at the floor. Amula exhaled lightly through her nose, and Issam continued after lifting his chin a little—but Dahlia caught it. That flicker of weakness, that moment of hesitation; it was yet another new expression she’d never seen before among the catalogue of Issam’s expressions she remembered in her head.

She didn’t have to imagine very hard to know what all of them might be feeling, weighing down on their shoulders.

She’d left the bug trader down there as well.

“... Since the Swarm stopped banging on the doors ten hours ago, we’ve sent out pheromones flares only humans can detect to tell survivors to come here,” Issam said, wiping his nose and pointing up at the windows on the second floor of the hall; all of thems were sealed shut and boarded up with wooden planks. “But even after an hour of waiting, nobody came. We think maybe the giant insects are giving off their own pheromones that mask the smell of the evacuation flare, so the three of us—me and the twins—have been going out periodically to bring in survivors ourselves. Including you, we’ve rescued five new people. That puts the total population inside this shelter at three hundred and eighteen people.”

Three hundred and eighteen.

Last she remembered, there were well over three thousand townsfolk in Alshifa.

Three thousand people… and only ten percent survived the first twelve hours, she thought glumly. That’s–

[An unusually high percentage of survivors for a Swarm invasion, yes,] Eria said idly. [Most Swarm invasions on small and unprepared towns end with a ninety-eight percent fatality rate. I surmise that ten percent survived in Alshifa only because someone in this shelter had taken charge and ensured the survivors did not devolve into chaos.]

[Your ‘friends’ are very impressive in that regard.]

She blinked.

Ten percent is ‘unusually high’?

[When you consider the speed at which most Swarm invasions occur, ten percent is far too high for a small town like Alshifa.]

[Now, the question is–]

“Who’s… taking charge of the shelter right now?” she asked aloud, before shying away from the five pairs of eyes homing in on her all at the same time—but she didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Issam dipped his head slowly, clearing his throat.

“Nobody’s taken charge, really,” he said. “Of the three hundred and eighteen people here, none are from the council and none are from the guards. None of the Bug-Slaying School Instructors are here, too. Most are people who lived around the shelter, so they got here first and set up the partitioners before we even stumbled in. As far as I know—as far as I’ve checked, at least—the only ones in here who have any combat training are the six of us fifth-years from the Bug-Slaying School, as well as thirty or so first to fourth years all sitting around in the back right now.”

Dahlia’s face blanched. “There’s no Instructors here?”

“None whatsoever. They must be trying to suppress the Swarm outside, but we don’t have any means of communication with them.”

“And… no guards, either? Nobody on the council?”

“We have four doctors here. They’re not on the council, but seeing as most everybody here needs medical attention, they’re the closest people we have to emergency leaders.”

Her questions seemed to have brought down the mood even further, and Issam’s eyes were especially sunken. He was giving her a ghost of a smile, but it was a feint meant to distract her from the grim reality—help from outside was most certainly not going to arrive anytime soon, if it was even going to arrive at all. Dahlia had seen it herself when she’d climbed out of the sewers. The rivers of blood, the sky’s silence, the giant hole in the ceiling and the way moonlight fell so softly down into the town; the three hundred and eighteen people in this shelter could already be all that was left of Alshifa.

In that case… in that case…

Despite the pain and itching in her forearms, she swung her legs off the bed and swallowed a massive gulp while she was at it. She’d not gotten the best eight hours of sleep, but it wasn’t like she’d been sleeping particularly well the past two years anyways. What was most important was that her muscles felt a bit light, a bit rested; she could see herself being able to walk from one end of the town to another without having to sit down even once.

O…kay.

It’s only been eight hours since I fell asleep, right?

[Correct.]

Her stomach was growling lightly, but at least nourishment didn’t seem to be a problem for the shelter, seeing as there were jars of dried food lining the walls by the giant steel gates. If she asked nicely, she was almost sure the nice old man standing guard by them would give her at least a single loaf of bread and a half-filled water gourd on her way out–

“Where are ye goin’?” Amula snapped, snatching her wrist the moment she tried walking off to the front gates. The older girl’s eyes were strikingly sharp, her spiky hair tied up in an unusual little bun behind her head. “We just saved ye, brought ye back here, and now yer just gonna leave? To where? The hell are ye tryin’ to do?”

“I have to get my dad,” she said, biting her lips and trying to slip her wrist out of Amula’s grip. “He’s not here, isn’t he? I know. Certainty. If he were here as one of the doctors, the partitions wouldn’t be set up like this. He doesn’t like square sections. He’d have made triangles because it’s his favourite–”

“We’ve already sent out the evacuation pheromone flare.” Issam jumped to his feet and slipped between the two of them, separating their hands with a single chop before snatching Dahlia’s for himself. His eyes pierced into her face, firm and unwavering. “Your dad will smell it. Out of everyone in this town, I’m sure he knows what the plan is in case a Swarm invasion happens. He’s a doctor, after all. He’s most likely already on his way.”

“You said it’s been twelve hours since you guys bolted the shelter gates shut, right? Then why isn’t he here already? ”

“Because–”

“Because something happened and he needs my help!” she said, as she kept on walking, struggling to drag Issam along with her. “So… let… go! I won’t let him stay there! I need to know… that my dad… is still safe!”

“It’s dangerous out there!” Issam snapped back, and the suddenness of his raised voice made her jump a little. How long had it been since she heard him sounding angry? Back when they were kids? “There’s another reason why I haven’t left the shelter to bring in more survivors after I brought you back, and that’s because the bugs that are still crawling out there aren’t bugs I can handle! The weaker ones I’ve already killed with Ayla and Aylee’s help, but every single giant bug out there right now will kill us. Even… even I can tell.”

“...”

Eria whistled. [The boy is sharp. He would make a decent bug-slayer on the surface–]

“Then I won’t fight,” she said, twisting her forearm so the bristles on her bracers scratched his palm, making him let go with a quiet hiss. “I’ll sneak my way to my dad. Quiet. Then I’ll bring him back here, and then… and then I can help you guys all you want, okay? I promise I’ll make myself useful, but only after I get my dad back.

“So please.

“Let me go.”

Issam’s face was unreadable. She could see Jerie carefully wrapping the wooden flute in his lap with a towel, hear the twins whispering something in each other’s ears, and Amula glaring at her as though trying to test her resolve, but only Issam’s face alone remained a mystery to her.

Was he angry at her for being selfish?

Was he disappointed in her?

When had her one and only ‘friend’ gone and grown up with a face she couldn’t decipher at all?

… Why did we really become friends in the first place, anyways?

It can’t just be because we lived near each other.

Someone bright like you shouldn’t be hanging out with someone dreary like me–

“We’ll go with you, then,” Issam said, all of a sudden, his face cleared of any hesitation as he turned to nod at everyone. The twins hopped onto their feet without question, Jerie stuffed his wooden flute into the back of his waistband, and Amula rose slowly with her eyes closed, though her brows were still clearly locked in a scowl. The twins in particular didn’t waste any time standing in the back. While Issam and the rest of them stretched their limbs and picked up empty satchels, the twins went ahead to ask the old man by the gates for a few pickings of food and water gourds; evidently, they weren’t planning on leaving the shelter unprepared.

It was Dahlia’s turn to stand completely still, her frown pure and bereft of any hidden meanings.

“But… why?” she breathed. “You have things to do here, right? People… you can help other people. You’re strong. You don’t have to–”

“We’re not helpin’ ye for ye, alright?” Amula muttered, as she caught a satchel full of bread from the twins and slung it over her shoulders. She didn’t look at Dahlia as she continued, “Issam has his mantis whetstone scythes and the twins have their moth mantles–”

The twins turned Amula’s way as they trudged back, frowning briefly. “Why do you two take yours off every single day after training, anyways?” Ayla grumbled. “We’re fifth-years. We can carry them even outside of school–”

“But mine and Jerie’s are still in the armoury,” Amula finished, hitting Ayla over the head with a fist and flicking Aylee’s forehead as she did. “Without our Swarmsteel, we won’t make it all the way to the northern end of Alshifa where yer dad’s staying. We need them back. So, we’ll make a little detour to the school before we head north, just like we’d been plannin’ on doing even before Issam picked ye up.”

Eria shrugged on her shoulders. [The shorter-haired twin did mention returning to the school to pick up the seniors’ Swarmsteel earlier. You should consider accepting their offer. It is significantly safer for you to travel as a group than as an individual.]

Dahlia was still inclined to decline their offer—if they recovered their Swarmsteel, she feared they might insist on immediately returning to the shelter to protect the rest of the townsfolk—but Issam finally ran out of patience.

He grabbed her by the hand and led her towards the front door, a bit of smugness hiding underneath the flush of a smile he sent back at her.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” he said. “We’ll escort you to your dad and get him here. He’s a doctor, no? The shelter could use another one.”

…

She tried to say something, to tell Issam off, to throw a tantrum or make a fuss or do anything she could do within her ken of reason to not drag someone else into her troubles—but Issam’s hand was so, so warm once again, and even trying to shake her head felt like an insurmountable task.

Why couldn’t she say anything?

Why couldn’t she stop him from leading her out the front door, the twins, Jerie, and Amula in tow?

… You’re always dragging me around, aren’t you?

Really.

Why do you… care so much?

And Issam, unlike Eria, couldn’t hear the little voice in her head.

[Perhaps it is because he, too, has very quiet wings.]