Chapter 13 - Outside

I grew up in a time when everything urged kids to run off and meet mutant creatures in the sewers or delight in getting lost in the big city because magic and adventure waited around the corner. When I went out with dad, following the air-shattering yells was all I needed to get back. Mom rarely lost sight of me and, if she did, it turned out she still knew where to find me.

But once, just once, she completely lost me. It was at a defunct department chain with a basement toy section. Clothes after clothes, that I didn't even like, bored me past all reason. Roaming around a display with a dancing monkey, I marveled at books that colored themselves with a pen dipped in water. It took several minutes before mom's absence sunk in.

With clenched hands, I checked everywhere. Plenty of ladies had hair like mom but their eyes were pleasant and relaxed. After scanning several aisles with a heady sense of confusion, I jumped over to the video game display in Electronics. Delighting in each monochrome adventure despite being bound to a crippling reset timer, it took a long while for the freedom to make my heart race and cause trembles to grip my legs.

Hunting down each aisle, I darted my head until it came to rest on mom's orderly, dark perm. She talked to a lady I recognized as one of her clients and projected the appearance of warmth. Slowly, I stepped back behind the row. No reason to cut my fun short so soon.

It took several more minutes before she was done and a calm but piercing question flicked through the air like a spear, "Dillon?"

Clutching my mouth and covering my breath, I dribbled out a quick snicker that I knew she couldn't have heard. Only the sound of her heels echoed across the tile. Waiting to see what she did, my joy was interrupted by the stark announcement, "Dillon Manus Murphy."

No more hiding. She knew I was there, and I was in trouble.

Would going outside after Flax's green sweet be worse than that? This family had lost children. Real-mom and father doted on me, as though I could make up for those others. Whenever movement practice left me unable to stand, real-mom groomed me as I tried to keep from falling asleep in the middle of the night.

She recounted tales of her eldest sister, also named Sana, who used to be able to cling to the crest of any slope, despite the pleas and efforts of her mother and her younger self. Whether inspired by her aunt or just made of the same strawberry-horseradish stuff, Sana delighted in the reminder and scaled the wall to its apex.

Real-mom bug patiently waited for Sana to have her fun, while silently monitoring the rest of us for some similar sign of adventurous spirit. She clearly feared for Anise and Lapis, as they unconsciously made little loops. Flax and Citrine, rapt spectators of their eldest sister's antics, also merited a look. Tula's echo of Flax's attention received less concern. Cowering, nervous Riva earned a sympathetic, motherly touch on the antenna. Bored, cinnamony Silt was too busy wringing every cuddle out of me to care. Father comforted real-mom bug. And those yellow-bellied brothers buried themselves in the mud for protection, lest Sana land on their heads.

And, no matter what happened, someone, somewhere kept their eyes on me, whether within their vast dome of sight or with a direct, focused gaze. No way I could just wander off at any time of night. I'd have to try in burning day when I was supposed to be asleep.

Several mornings of groggy observation gave me a clear sense of when. Real-mom bug put the boys to bed last with a dollop of milk each. She checked me right before them but a mound of mud with the arch of my back might be enough to bring her guard down.

During the active night, I learned how to vault over the uneven mud, legs darting for the next patch of reliable ground. The pain that washed away my energy cast doubt on whether I even cared to win. But every time Flax dappled dew on her face with my shift, the fire within flashed through my fleet feet. Little larva lump dump this!

One thing I neglected though was an oncoming stiffness like clothes too new or short for me. My first instar. Since I would be as pale as the milk light, it might be dangerous to risk a journey like that. It was already more dangerous than my mind wanted to grasp. If I...if something happened to me again, where might I end up this time?

I had to show Flax and myself that I could do this. Anise and Lapis could still lap me if they really wanted to, but I felt good enough to dart away from danger. A guarded series of questions gave me enough details about the green sweet. It was a leaf with feathered edges and a bold, alluring aroma. That was all I knew, and it would have to do.

Settling down near daybreak, I slipped out of Silt's grip like a rogue teddy bear. He whimpered and twitched till I slipped a warm, squishy hunk of sediment in my place. Sana nearly cleaved me with a protective leg brought across my path but kept snoozing. Real-mom cuddled her boys with Riva resting nearby. For an instant, I thought she saw me. If she did, Riva made no sound to alert anyone else.

Creeping to the juncture, at the edge of everything I'd ever known, I told myself it would be so easy to turn around, to return to real-mom bug’s side, and go back to sleep.

With shaking legs, I stepped and scurried forward.

The tunnel widened and spread out with dizzying pathways. Swift, wandering Shashelm I'd never met darted past, regarding me as much as a stone or a smear on the ground.

Caverns swarming with others spiraled around me. Most slept, forming a dense landscape of ridged backs. Though I had no sign or direction of where I was supposed to go and was too fearful to ask, I followed a faint, flowing warmth.

Past pockets of moss and slim, slippery streams, I fought with the unfamiliar terrain until I felt like I was advancing upwards to some central point. Dodging quick lines of caravans that ignored me, I pushed onward until...

I stood before a towering, tangled grass forest. Outside. I was actually outside!

So many wonders, mysteries, and morning-mottled sights overflowed in my meager mind. I vaguely-remembered that roaches, or whatever the Shashelm were supposed to be, had distributed brain parts all over their body. But, even if all of those nooks and crannies could take in a mountain of information, then it would still be too much for me. It was like slipping out of the narrow shapes of a department store and finding some unknown, primeval landscape beyond.

Rising up, as far as I could stretch, no sign of the green sweet showed itself. Catching hints of towering daisies, the size of raised swimming pools of color, I leaned forward. Before I could cross the threshold, something violently cast me back into the darkness.

"Do you wish to die?! I can bring you a swift one!"

Turned over on my back, I flailed and fumbled with mud streaking my face like clinging tears. "No! Please please! I'm sorry! Don't eat me! Please!"

Overhead, looming like father, a figure wore a Bombomori robe. Compared to my frail scrap of a shift, it could've blanketed me several times over. The hood enveloped the figure's head, with only the edges of their antenna searching the air.

Squeezing me so tightly that I feared I might break, they harshly interrogated me, "Name! Family!"

Fearing more that they would actually eat me than my late-morning adventure would be discovered, I blurted out, "Mudwell! Mudwell! I'm Grete Mudwell! Youngest daughter! I'm just a few days old! Please! Have mercy!"

Slowly, it loosened its grip but not enough to let me get free. What once was fervor, stilled. Heaving a long, robe-ruffling breath, it asked calmly, "...Daughter of Mirela and Dragan Mudwell?"

Oh, if only I knew their names. Plaintively, I begged that I was too young to ask but fumbled, "M-my siblings are Sana Silt Anise Lapis Flax Tula two...scared brothers Citrine and Riva! They'll miss me and and..."

Bending back, the hooded figure gave a snort and remarked coldly, "...Really? They'll miss you? How long will it take till they forget you were ever there?"

I had no words for that, just continued begging and stammering. With a push of legs, the hood dropped away to reveal a face no different than any other Shashelm but...I could sense a trace of something on the air. Something familiar.

Still uncomfortably close, they curled up a leg and harshly pronounced, "I'm Pembrick Mudwell."