It drops me, and I hit the floor with a resounding smack. The sound echoes back, washing over me and seeping terror into every muscle I have. I flip over, scrambling away from the hulking bug as its body pops like joints. A sickly brown light outlines it in the pitch black, lighting up a path towards it.
The staff nudges forward and rocks float away from us. A sparkle beams into my eye. I glance down at the armour I still have on. My heart beats as I acknowledge my two choices right now. I can only make one. One.
Charging the bug, I swing my right fist with all I have-!
It catches my fist in a pocket of glowing rock, pinning me still. The monster approaches, what remains of its armour jangling and falling apart further. Its magical grip tightens, pressing down into the joints of the armour. I withhold my groan and try to pull myself free, only to...
The bug chitters so close to me, making my body turn so very, very cold, "I told you that you will be mine."
"WHAT DO YOU WANT!?" I roar, reigniting my efforts to pull my arm out of the tightening rock-grip. The armour plating scrapes and scratches. But it holds.
"You." it chitters as it motions its staff downwards. My arm shoots me to the ground, and it shakes and crumbles. The living pebbles quiver over my body, locking it all up. The grainy feeling vanishes, the rocks fusing together into bigger ones. Its power cocoons me.
An explosion reaches all the way down to us, shaking the underground. This bug chitters louder and waves its staff. The walls shift and move, peeling away as if they're anything but solid rock of all kinds. It raises its free set of claws and I float in the air, rocks digging into my back, front and all my sides. However, it's all very much harmless.
The bug moves closer, stroking its splitting jaw. It comes closer to my eyes, giving me a closer view of the mandibles and their movements. Our eyes briefly meet and it returns to standing fully up. The grip on its staff adjusts, and its free hand moves out.
It runs along my trapped body, stopping at my neck and spreading around. It clenches, making me feel the near full envelopment of my neck. I choke, the strain too much to bear. But it scoffs, lightening its grip. My desperate pants take in what dusty air they can, the bug casually lifting me about otherwise.
"Hive... Relocation, maybe? Deeper underground, for now," it mutters and ponders with a chitter, its staff moving with a different intent. All this debris, tons upon tons of it. It all goes away so suddenly, like a deep breath on a dusty surface. A chamber instantly appears ahead of us.
I can't help but blink at the terrifying mystery of its magic and the sights it brings. We enter the chamber, the earth still parting ways and further revealing a tunnel. The bug reassures the grip on my body. The rock spreads to my neck, tightening up and evoking a want for freedom within.
"LET GO OF ME!" I roar as the bug drags me into the deep earth and its darkness. Each clattering step the bug takes makes me bounce. Arcane grip or not. My head empties of thoughts, leaving me with the sound of my breathing alone.
The sounds of the bugs are everywhere. I cannot fight back like I did before. Not like this. There's nothing I can do, not in this state, in these bindings!
I woke up in this mountain powerless and I return to it powerless...
The whispers turn to screams, bringing a new something to jog my brain into action. The screams of women. Pain-filled women mixed with the chatter of the bugs. It physically hurts to hear this noise. But, this staff-holding bug listens and sways as if this is all sweet music. It's relieved to hear such sounds.
Undwote, find me already, please. No depth is dark enough to hide me from you, is it? God of Death, take my life before the bugs bring me to my end. It will be an act of kindness. Anything to make the noise stop, please, Undwote, please! Anything, please...
"Soon." the bug chitters against my face. The mountain shifts and blocks out the noise. It's now quiet. Muffles still reach us, reach me, but it's quieter. So very thankfully-
"W-WOAH!" I let out, falling to the ground. The rock trapping me blows away into dust. I blink and follow the dusty shadow. Now dust?
My hand shifts to the ground, and I quiver in disgust at the slimy wetness covering the floor. I shift my weight to my armoured right side and stand up. Getting up just quick enough to avoid having the wetness soak my bottom too much. Surprisingly bright lights flash into existence and I cover my face.
Splitting a hand open by the fingers, I watch the bug step into the newly lit path. It turns to me, that brown light killing off what other light there is. This staff of its will not be denied its attention. Stone hits me from behind, pushing me towards the bug.
The monster raises a three-digit palm, my chest hits it. A wave of goosebumps travels around my body, looping and looping. The claw moves to my head, clasping my scalp. While not painful, it could not burn any less with its touch. I go along with whatever its strength demands of me, my fearful gaze otherwise trying to keep on it.
The armoured bug twists around, still in motion. Its head moves closer, inspecting me with a wide-open eye. Chitters are all too close to my ears for comfort. A noise builds up in its throat, a growl marked by a shift from chitters to snaps.
It throws me head first to the ground. I smack against the wet rock, whipping back up and to the ground again. I groan and push up with my arms. A brick-like foot squelches into the muck before me. I focus on it and frown at the odd change in colour.
This one's shell is pale like sandy clay, covered in darker spots of washed out brown. And around its ankles... My heart forgets to beat. Another chill shakes me up.
The bug is wearing a pair of rusty anklets, like the ones I have...
I find the strength to blink once and then some more. I slowly get up, seemingly forgetting what it really is I am looking at. Barely anything registers in my senses. All I can do is stare back at the dark-eyed creature.
It snaps its jaws at me, making me flinch. My head goes down timidly, my gaze returning to the jewellery. Why does it... Why is it wearing something from my home?
More chitters fill the room with the footsteps to follow them. In only another blink, I am surrounded by more bugs. All of them are alike the one still in front. My eyes dash across their legs, the ones I can see. Each of them has a pair. All of them bear the mark of a Grounder from Tobaballe...
"The bug that opens up..." I realise quietly, my fate clear if that emerald light never saved me. Rattling metal precedes a claw taking a hold of my neck. The thickness of its back does very little to stop the pressure. I rise into the air, its stale offense brushing harshly against me.
The monster presents me to the lights above. It walks me ahead, leaving me only to guess as to why the roof is rising. I plummet. I panic all the way to the ground. Scrambling up, I look around.
"What is this... Some kind of... Fighting pit...?" I slowly realise as my head beats back all the panic. Of all the times to have memories coming back to me, recollections of back alley animal fights fill my mind's eye. Trained rodents fighting for their lives as giants cheered. I am now the former, I guess.
"Kill him," the armoured bug orders from on up high, its magic's glow disturbing the chamber lights again. The ground bubbles with boiling ferocity, muck flying about everywhere. Keeping my arms close, I step away and back, facing the noise all the while. A patterned bug leaps down and rises to its full height without a care.
It roars, claws thrown open and wide!
I keep backing up as it charges me. I dive just before it touches me, its claws going to the wall instead. The monster twitches and turns, its clutches reaching for my closest boot. I kick away at it erratically, all manner of unsavoury noises exerting my throat.
My fingers dig deep and I call on my mysterious strength. I throw myself as far away as I can, spinning along the muck with no control. Spinning and spinning, I struggle to figure out where the bug is charging me from. It vanishes, reappears, vanishes, reappears!?
The monster grabs onto me first, roaring once again. It hoists me along the muck, sliding me under the gap in its legs. Claws latch onto my head, a slight pressure appearing, clearly detailing the strain. The beast growls, its thumb-claws moving over my closing eyes and finishing the process. Its tips angle, and they press down.
I can feel the points press against my eyelids. Each moment of nothing registers in my head, in my heart. Each one louder than the other, so much louder than before! I find myself... Calm. I am calm in a pit ran by monsters that want me dead.
The weakness of the monster settles in. My strength is all the more apparent. I tremble and shake. The fear flushes from my system.
My blood reaches the boil point, "GET. YOUR. DAMN CLAWS OFF OF ME!"
I slap away at the air, intent on returning the favour. I find its head and scatter my fingers across it. Like it did with me, I find the beast's eyes. My thumbs firmly plant themselves on the slimy surfaces, each roar of the beast almost like a confidence-filling cheer.
My thumbs dig in deep. Warmth runs out onto my skin, carrying on onto my hands. I dig deeper. The monster cries and I howl as my digits find a solid surface on the inside of its damnable bug skull. I pull outwards.
Cracks fill the air and then a wet snap!
Blood splatters over me. Gasping for air, although I do not need to, I chuck the pieces of bug skull away. I keep breathing, its corpse covering me with more blood. I finally wipe my face clean.
Shoving the body clean off, I punch the ground on my way up to my feet. I take two wide steps away, my body pulsing with energy. Familiar and freshly awakened only mere days ago. The shaking won't stop, it won't stop...
I look down at the dead bug, an odd form to its ruined head- A human skull.
"So that was what was going to happen to me..." I repeat to myself, the fact of my avoided fate hurting all the more for some reason. My eyes shift to the anklets on the monster. Iishar and everyone else are dead. The bugs got to them. They turned them into more of them!?
Heiya and her father killed them all and nearly me, too. By bringing us here, near here... It doesn't matter. Everyone is dead. I am all that is alive and left of the expedition.
"Impressive, Newly Born." the armoured bug remarks, taking my attention all for itself. A free claw strokes the tips of its mandibles. Its staff lights up once again. The enslaved mountain obeys. Tunnels snap open on all sides, an army of roars in the darkness of each of them. Each sound rams into me, weakening my already shaky footing.
Something splats next to me and I twitch around. Another item splats and then something hits me. I fall into the muck, a rain of lost and looted gear falling about. There's no way this is all from the escape. Has it swallowed our old camp!?
Corpses still wearing their armour smack around. The old sledge smashes apart even more, casting aside all manner of shrapnel. Weapons clatter and an odd sight rattles in the dark. A small glowing container.
Rushing for it, I snatch it up. Holding it close to my heart, I think of Heiya's Father and the words he used. I think of them fondly for the last and only time. This is the thing he called protection. A good luck charm. I can use a lot of that right now... Too much of it.
"Protect me, little insect..." I mutter, tightly clenching it and shifting my view away. Something comes swinging into the light, the form of a roaring monster!