Chapter 15 – Molt
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Chapter 15 - Molt

My dawnlight adventure felt more like a dream despite the restful void that filled me while I slept. If not for remnants of the fake, mud bug I'd crafted to distract real-mom bug, I could've convinced myself I imagined the whole thing. But visions of Pembrick loomed in the shadows. He was real. All that actually happened.

And my little body ached. Once, I trudged two miles to the nearest supermarket in a gale, using an umbrella to shelter my head, just to say I could. Another time, I lost track of the distance with a loop from grandma's nursing home to the store and back on the Fourth of July. Neither trek proved anything, except that I could make raw wounds on my feet and leave myself bedridden for days. This already felt worse.

It had to be my punishment from the King, from roach god, or whatever doled out justice here. Riva noticed my discomfort before anyone else, even real-mom bug, and began running her legs along my back like a trained masseuse. A series of loud pops echoed through me from my wobbly base to the tips of my antenna. Surely everyone in the entire area heard that.

Back in college, I nearly strangled myself with my textbooks in a tangled shoulder bag because I had to sprint to a final I'd somehow forgotten. With half my face numb weeks later, our family doctor recommended a therapeutic massage, despite mom's scornful protests.

The office they sent me to was full of New Age aromatherapy along with crystals and mood lighting. It was the first time a woman's hands touched my bare neck. All I could think was how much my joints were cracking. She let me talk about anything and everything. With my brow pressed against the face rest, I nasally slurred out a dozen things on my mind from the weather to college roommate complaints to film continuity. I never once brought up mom, though I apologized several times without reason.

When it was done, I sat there with the lingering, tingling heat of wiped away oil and the melancholy that I had my life to return to. For days, mom snipped and scoffed at me as the aches and weight reasserted their usual places back in my joints. Within a week, my face was numb again. It would take months before I felt normal.

Sana soon joined Riva with real-mom bug beside. I pulled back some legs, even though it left me in wheezing agony. Despite my doubts about Pembrick, it was still hard to forget. Young Sana stole Pembrick's leaf bed. Allegedly. I expected there was more to the story. but I couldn't ask Sana or anyone else about it. They would know.

If Sana worried about my flinching from her, she didn't show it on her features. She just joined Riva and real-mom bug in tenderly caressing me.

"I wish the King would let me take the pain from you for myself, my precious little one."

"Big sis is here. Just hang on. Your first time is tough but you'll get through it. Take deep breaths now and remember, no matter what you feel, it'll be okay."

Riva looked like she wanted to say something, but she just sat by my side. I couldn't care what Flax and Tula were up to. Father lingered but let real-mom bug get close.

Silt had to be somewhere nearby and Citrine and others but ohhhhhh...it was coming. Something was coming. It felt...it felt like...ohhh...

That...it....AAAAAAAAAA!...Goddddddd...

Everything went...went rigid. It felt like...like someone had a vice around my guts and was just turning and turning. A slimy, gooey, stretchy sensation flooded my body. In my head, I expected a peel like a rough sunburn, but this was like sloughing off my skin and bones and other parts I was sure I needed.

And the worst part. The worst part was I'd stopped breathing. Not even a wheeze of air passed through me. I was being smothered. Like holding your breath on the toilet as you squeeze yourself through a tight sack that used to be your body as your lungs get ripped in half.

Nature wouldn't even let me cry as the suffocation kept going. No one touched me but I could hear scrambled words of unrelenting encouragement. Stay strong, Grete. It'll be over before you know it, little one. You got this! D-don't think about it, just think about nice things.

I wanted to vomit, but I couldn't tell if I even had a mouth anymore. Passing out surely happened at some point when it felt like I was rooted in the rough, gooey vice. My back split open but instead of an uncapped tube of toothpaste, it felt like worming a drawstring through a waistband. Minute piled on top of aching minute without a breath of relief. This was right? Flares of panic made me want to rip everything apart that my body wasn't already shredding.

If this was life and only my first in this fast and bitter life then just crush me and let me try somewhere else. I don't want this. I don't please help please me out let me breathe let me stop break tap out a break please a moment something I can't I can't it's too much sorry every bug I squished that you had to do this is so much no pain but feel feeling crushing pressing going on and not stopping and going let me breathe please I can't those this so much I it never ends better ends never need need an end let me out LET ME OUT!

I wouldn't believe anything shorter than a day had passed. Every eternity was a moment and every every every every every AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaa

Oh Hod, oh god, King, anything. I finally, after no breath, I could breathe. I could finally breathe, and I took frantic, deep, crazed gulps as everyone around congratulated me. I couldn't care, I just wanted to breathe forever and fill me my full my fill my lungs. My back and body felt so different, it felt like moisturizer had covered everything with sweaty gloves and sleek, unfinished skin. Everything was that wet glue paper and felt so brittle.

Looking down, I was as white as snow, a terrifying spotlight in the night. My own milk light. It was hard to tell how much I had changed in size and I didn't care to know. Just standing still and living without agony felt better than all the praise, grooming, sweets, and gifts I could imagine.

I had done it. First step in bug puberty on steroids complete. Zits, hair, smells, and messes in bed any day of the week. Gingerly turning in place, I inspected the shell left behind in the mud. Sana and Silt took it away. If only I could use it like a dummy instead of little lumps of mud. But not like I could even try again in this state.

Citrine fawned over my color like I was a pale pearl she could wear around her neck while Riva definitely assured me that I would feel myself again by sunrise. Silt mime-cuddled an imaginary version of me several times bigger so he wouldn't harm my delicate body. Sana shared fragmentary tales of brilliant, shimmering bugs that danced and loved in the milk light, casting a complimentary glow just like mine. I recognized them as fireflies but she shared no Shashelm name for them.

Flax and Tula spooked the boys and didn't bother with me but I could see my gift still slipped around Flax's leg.

I would get it back, one way or another.

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