The Unmaker

“... Mister Biem! Mister Biem–”

“–that’s Instructor Biem to you, Ayla–”

“–we still haven’t found Dahlia! She’s the only one the seeker squad can’t find!”

“What do you mean you can’t find Dahlia? How far could she’ve run in five minutes? Issam even found Raya two minutes ago, and if we assume she hasn’t left the bounds of the training area–”

“The textile street’s completely crowded, Mister Biem! And she runs around here a lot, so she must know all the super secret hiding spots!”

“So?”

“So we give up! We’re tired! Can we get some water now–”

“No. This class isn’t ending until everyone is found, including Dahlia. I’m not leaving her out here by herself.”

“But, Mister Biem–”

“–that’s Instructor to you–”

“–Dahlia lives here! She’ll be fine even if we don’t manage to find her, right? She can just go right home if that’s the case!”

“... No student of mine will be left unaccounted for. Get Issam over here as well. Have everyone spread out. I want her found in the next ten minutes or you’re all getting extra lessons tomorrow after school.”

“But, Mister–”

“–that’s Instructor to you.”

- Conversation from Western Racha Street past

Seven in the morning.

Twelve hours since the Swarm cocoon crashed through the ceiling and one hour since Dahlia got the go-ahead from all four doctors of the shelter to open one of the emergency escape tunnels. It was a tight, claustrophobic squeeze in the back of the shelter, but supposedly the tunnels were built to run everywhere in a hundred-metre radius of the shelter—meaning, by the time the six of them poked their heads out into an abandoned building and gasped for breath, ‘sunlight’ was already pouring in through the broken windows.

… It’s golden.

So… bright.

‘Sunlight’, like she’d read in the textbooks, was something warm. Something to admire. Something that sparkled in her eyes and kept everyone locked in a trance for a good few minutes before Issam clapped his hands, jolting them back to reality.

It wasn’t wise to just stand around even if they were under a roof. Giant bugs could be afoot anywhere, so they’d chosen to crawl as far away as they could from the shelter, and they were well-dressed for a semi-lengthy expedition. Anticipating cold outside the shelter—as Alshifa usually was without any of the firefly lamps lit—the twins had made everyone wear long sleeves, tight-fitting trousers, keeping most of their skin wrapped under layers… but if Dahlia had known sunlight was so warm, she’d have stuck with her short-sleeved tunic and gypsy skirt.

“... Maybe it’d be better if we just leave our shawls here, huh?” Aylee muttered, speaking her thoughts as the twins removed their extra layers, tossing them off to the side. “Not like last night in the shelter was too cold, anyways. These will only slow us down if we have to break into a sprint. We’ll pick them up on our way back from the school and Dahlia’s house if we have to, yeah?”

Everyone agreed without making much of a fuss. Amula was the only one who didn’t start moving her hands, her eyes still staring blankly out at the great hole in the ceiling letting sunlight fall through, and Issam had to tap her shoulders a few times before she got to undressing.

Does she… hate the sun?

Dahlia frowned a little as they all hung their shawls on wooden rods by the walls, but decided asking what her senior was thinking probably wasn’t going to end in success—so she bit her tongue and forced herself to focus, following Issam’s lead out the creaky front door.

Out of the abandoned clothing store, she swivelled her head left and right and was able to immediately pinpoint their location: the Western Racha Street, where the roads were narrow and the stores were built low, but with a lot of textile-themed flair. Hand-sewn charms dangled from every doorway, large tapestries painted over with blue and red hung from every roof's edge, and drying clotheslines were strewn all across the street. It was the street where all the cheery-go-lucky tailors and seamstresses and patternmakers lived and worked, but…

Gulping, she tried not to look at the dark spots in the corner of her eyes as they crept along the sidewalks.

Her nose was keen enough to determine what the spots were—corpses, remains of children and elderly alike, staining the street in tens and hundreds of rancid-smelling lumps. It was just like with the street she’d crawled onto out of the sewers, and it was just like the Night Bazaar at the town square; the Swarm must've hit the textile street hard and fast. The unknowing and unaware must've had no time to even think about running to the shelter before they caught the attention of some grotesque bug, and… she didn't want to imagine the rest of it.

She would've been just like the lumps on the ground had Issam and the bug trader not been there for her.

If she could just tilt her chin up and ignore the lumps, she could maybe envision the textile street as it was just last night, when she'd been running as fast as she could towards the Night Bazaar—the seamstresses sitting on little stools outside their shops while yelling at her to slow down, the children from the Alshifa General School running around complaining about their pointless apprentice chores, and the old vagrant man she’d never learned the name of sitting just round the corner, always so kind to give her a piece of salted candy whenever she passed by.

She could see it all, still.

And when something went squelch under her boots—even though they were all trying their damndest to stick to the side of the street to avoid stepping on any lumps—she couldn’t stop herself from looking down.

It was a soft, gel-like, liquified hand, with all its colour sucked out the skin. Its flesh and blood must’ve been syphoned by an oversized moth, she immediately assumed, but it wasn’t the hand itself that made her flinch; it was the little silver ring still curled around its index finger that made bile rise up her throat and her hands shoot over her mouth.

Old man.

You… you didn’t—

“I remember, back when we were still third years at the Bug-Slaying School, that Instructor Biem used to make us play hide and seek around this street,” Issam said idly, as the twins gently moved her along and Amula nudged the liquified hand out of the way. Jerie didn’t speak, but he nodded slowly at Issam’s comment as the two boys walked side by side. “He’d always split the class into two teams: the hiders would have a five minute head start to find a solid location, and the seekers would have ten minutes to find everyone or earn a beatdown from Instructor Biem. The winning team would get to go home early while the losing team would have to do extra bug-slaying training—am I the only one who misses those third-year games he made us play?”

Amula grunted and crossed her arms behind her head, smirking with a gentle expression Dahlia had never seen on her before. “Ya know, ye and Raya were the only ones who enjoyed that stupid game. When me and Jerie were third years, Biem didn’t make us play around this street. We were at the northern slums where the firefly lamps were never lit and we had to wade through whole, thick walls of vines just to get bugs crawlin’ into our mouths. All of ye had it easy.”

“Hey, it was only easy for Issam and Raya,” Ayla said, chortling lightly as she whacked Aylee and Amula on the back. “They were always on the same team, so whether they were hiding or seeking, they’d always win no matter what—there’s no real fun to be had for the rest of us when all we get is a beatdown from Biem’s staff every time we played hide and seek.”

Issam turned to scowl at the twins. “It’s not my problem the two of you always start talking when it’s your turn to hide. You don’t exactly make it difficult for me when I’m the one seeking.”

“Yeah, but then you and Raya also hide in places we literally can’t get to,” Aylee muttered, as they passed a particularly tall firefly lamp and she pointed up at it. “It’s this one, right? Either you or Raya would just climb up there, stand in plain sight, and literally nobody can climb up to touch you. It’s a load of crap. And we couldn’t even use any of our Swarmsteel while we’re playing that game, too, so there’s just no way we could ever reach you.”

“You could’ve always just jumped at me if you climbed onto that roof over there.”

“You want us to jump at you? And fall?”

Issam shrugged. “Amula could do it. Right, Amula?”

Amula scoffed, narrowing her eyes at the firefly lamp they were leaving behind. “Of course. I ain’t that weak.”

“Speak for yourself. Only you could’ve done it. Nobody else is as physically capable as you are,” Ayla mocked, kicking the older girl in the back of her knees and laughing. “Heh. Yeah, I don’t have any good memories of that game. It’s completely stacked against normal people. I don’t think Raya and Issam have ever lost a single game–”

“Actually, there was that one time we lost,” Issam said, musing aloud with a finger on his chin. “It was… right around the end of our third year, I think. A bit under two years ago. It was when Dahlia finally started showing up to class again, and Instructor Biem wanted her to at least play the game once with everyone.”

“Once…?” Ayla and Aylee muttered at the same time, looking straight at her before they clicked their tongues in unison. Ayla’s eyes lit up. “Oh, that’s right! There was that one time Dahlia joined! That was–”

“The worst game of hide and seek we’ve ever played,” Aylee groaned, rubbing her eyes as she did. “It lasted, what, five hours? Well after the council sent the guards to tell Biem to call off the game and send us home? But Biem said he wouldn’t stop his ‘training’ until we found Dahlia, so they got into a little scuffle and–”

“Biem spent the night in a holdin’ cell,” Amula mumbled. The twins laughed and slapped the senior’s back. “I’ve heard this story before, but I was a fourth-year when that happened. So that’s how it went down, huh?”

Issam hummed softly, grinning back at all of them. “Dahlia really threw all of us for a spin back then. Even Raya and I couldn’t find her, and we were sure we knew all the ultra secret hiding spots. And you’d think at least Raya would be able to sniff her out with those freaky senses of his—in the end, was it the guard who found her or someone else? I don’t remember very clearly.”

“You just walked out, right?” Ayla asked, as she elbowed Dahlia before leaning in close. “Hey, just between the two of us, even though I know you never told anyone where you hid—where were you back then? What’s the spot? I was thinking of stealing Aylee’s mantle and hiding it somewhere she wouldn’t be able to find it, so it’d be really cool if–”

“It’s…”

Dahlia started, her mouth opening almost unconsciously as she was swept up in the flow of conversation, and it was only when everyone turned to stare at her again that she snapped wide awake.

Immediately, she felt like shying away from the centre of attention.

[I am curious, too,] Eria commented, the little black bug staring at her from her shoulder. [Where did you hide?]

She didn’t blink.

I wasn’t hiding.

[What do you mean?]

Heat flushed onto her cheeks. I didn’t know you couldn’t use Swarmsteel during the game, so in those five minutes I borrowed a few butterfly parts and made a camouflage mantle. Then I just… slept outside a store for a few hours.

Eria tilted its head. [I see you were already putting together Swarmsteel two years ago, then. You should just come clean and tell them the truth.]

Why?

[Because they have tried their best to keep your mind off the carnage in the streets, and now you are nearing the Great Alshifa Bridge leading into your school without having vomited once.]

…

“... It’s a secret,” she whispered back to Ayla, her ears burning red, and the shorter-haired twin reeled away before beginning a barrage of soft blows to her ribs. Aylee and Issam started pestering Ayla for the answer she received, while Amula and Jerie kept on walking steadily forward with their heads lowered—but Dahlia felt she could see the smallest of smirks tugging on Jerie’s lips, and a ‘don’t care’ expression on the side of Amula’s face.

They left the Western Racha Street behind them and began ascending the slope to the Bug-Slaying School.

[... You have strong allies.]

She closed her eyes slightly and ignored Ayla’s shakes, her heart beating a steady rhythm in her chest.

I know.

And so they climbed the rest of the slope with haste, with a bit of speed in their steps, slowing only when the soft earth beneath their feet turned into hard wood. The air was significantly colder up here, and even sunlight from the hole in the ceiling couldn’t reach in full—it basked only half the fortress-like school on the other side of the bridge in its swirly, diffused orange glow.

Built a solid fifty metres above the rest of the town, the Alshifa Bug-Slaying School was as imposing and frightening to look at as ever. The railings lining the edge of the cliffs were made of sharpened steel and surrounded the building on all sides. Fragrant plants and vegetation were nonexistent on the fields outside the front gate, the three-story castle-like building itself shaped from pure earthen-tone bricks. She remembered her dad saying it looked like a prison from afar when she first saw it, and that harmless comment had frightened her so much she refused to go to school alone every morning for the entire first year. She eventually got used to its appearance, but if there was one thing that hadn’t changed and one thing she was still afraid of, it was the Great Alshifa Bridge that everyone had to cross to get to the school’s front gate.

Since the school was built atop a separated hill that wasn’t directly connected to the slope they were on, the architects from a few decades ago had to build a sturdy wooden bridge just to let students walk across. At ten metres wide and thirty metres long, the bridge wasn’t really dangerous to traverse—there were railings and plenty of support pillars underneath to keep people from falling off—but Dahlia just couldn’t help but feel a little antsy whenever she had to cross it. That was once in the morning, once in the afternoon was enough for her, and if the metal nuts and bolts didn’t rattle beneath her feet she’d maybe have gotten over her fear a long time ago…alas, it was still the only feasible way to get to the school right now.

And, normally, there’d be a single Instructor standing guard at the end of the bridge to keep non-students out of the school.

Now, there was no Instructor.

“... Off to the side,” Issam whispered. “Hurry.”

They didn’t need telling twice. All of them darted behind a mound of crates before the bridge and stayed in cover, their hearts hammering resoundingly in their chests. Dahlia could hear them. Her bracers were brushing against Aylee’s back and Amula’s shoulders, and if that wasn’t enough, even Jerie—ever the stoic—looked the slightest bit worried peeking out at the thing sitting in the centre of the bridge.

It absolutely didn’t look like anything they could defeat with the weapons they had on hand.

[A giant… beetle,] Eria murmured, as the little black bug crept over the edge of the crates to steal a glance at the giant bug. [It may be sitting there dormant, but it would most certainly detect you if you were to approach it. Sneaking past it would not be an option.]

It was just as she’d feared, then.

She just knew their detour to the school’s armoury wouldn’t be an easy one.

“... Well, then,” Issam said, as he ducked back under cover to grimace at all of them. “Anyone have any idea on dislodging that thing from the bridge?”