I originally wrote this story in October 2023, it’s been slightly refined since then, though most of it remains the same. I hope you like it and let me know what you think about it.
Was it yesterday? Or the day before? I cannot tell when this thing started, this feeling, this "pulse." I know it comes from my center, though, a small and constant pounding in my guts, but now it's reverberating all its way through my antennas. The worst thing is the imminent certainty of knowing what it means: I needed to set "her" free; her terrifying yet splendid image haunted me every time I closed my eyes. But how? How could I do such a thing if I am not free myself? It's bonkers!
I heard some noises approaching; even if they brought my doom, it felt good to hear something that was not this pulse for a change. The pulse increased.
"Your turn, you grass-eater!"—The guttural voice coming from the tunnel outside my cell interrupted my thoughts. I recognized its kind—it was a roach.
"So, no more shiny beetle guards in this part of the dungeons? Uh?" I said, as the lid of the hole I was being kept started to open.
"Quiet, jumpy boy. We need no beetles to deal with your kind." A dim light entered; it was so poor that it barely bothered me. The guy talking to me was large, and I knew his exoskeleton was strong; he was a wooden roach, as they were known in my home swamp. Two other regular roaches were with him, and they were pointing at me with sharp spears. I chuckled.
"What are you guys getting out of all this?" But I didn't need an explanation. Roaches were not good at fighting, which explained their weapons; they were just pawns of the beetles. I needed to make time.
"The prisoner will not speak," said the wooden roach, scanning me with his long antennas. "Wanna have another leg detached?" he asked as if he'd memorized the line.
I looked at my broken wing and realized these poor bastards could not tell the difference between limbs, probably not even their own. I remember a story my cousin told me once, that of an old roach that lived in their swamp; he'd escaped a salamander attack and lost his head. However, he still walked and tried to keep himself alive until, one day, his body starved to death.
"Come on! Get out!" Said another guard in a very sharp voice that reminded me of a cricket. It was so comical that I had to hold my laughter.
With slow movements, I got out of the hole, and once I stepped into the tunnel, I looked at both sides instantly. Just as I remembered, it was narrow, with other cells in the walls, but its ceiling was a bit high—almost high enough.
I hoped they would take me to the left, where I last saw her, but they started walking to the right.
"Move, you little green waste!" - Said the big guy, walking before me while his two companions stood behind me. And I started moving and realized I was better than I'd anticipated. So, I faked a limp.
"If you cannot walk, we'll crush you here and take your pieces to the camp."
"I am moving, can't you see?" I said.
These brutes were doing a good job for roaches, which meant that I would need to sweat a little if I wanted to escape, maybe even bleed. So, just before reaching the first corner, I stretched my legs, standing out a bit from my captors.
"Hey, stop it!" Said cricket-voice behind me, putting the edge of his spear on my wing shoulder.
"Sorry, I stepped on a shit. Should you guys keep your workspace clean?"
"Keep talking, and instead of a quick death by Arthur, we might take you to Gertrude," said the roach leader.
"Sir... don't, don't we need his, his... crushed body for the show?" Said the third roach behind me.
"A show? Gertrude? I thought you were walking me to get some fresh air," I said, trying to slow them.
"And you will, but first, Arthur will crush you; then we'll throw your body with the rest of the war prisoners and show them to your troops in the field so they know why they shouldn't mess with the beetles."
"What is Arthur exactly?" I said while scanning the ceiling, waiting for one additional inch of height.
"Titan Bug," said the cricket voice, as if he'd spit the words.
"Can I choose Gertrude, instead? Is she a butterfly?" I asked, trying to make room between the guard and my rear legs.
"Prettier than that, she's our eight-legged lovely executioner. We deliver her just our regular prisoners, the innocent ones, but we could make an exception with you if you don't quit babbling."
"Show it is, then! Let's meet our buddy Arthur," I said, recalling the hairy legs of the swamp spiders and the idea of slow death by having poison melt my guts. So I shut up and kept walking when I saw that extra inch I needed just a few steps ahead.
The pulse intensified inside me so much that I thought it was going to blow up my head. It was like a vibration, making my whole body feel in synchrony but also as if it was going to catch fire. I limped again, and when the cricket voice said, "Keep moving," I sent all my energy to the rear legs.
My long legs tensed and stopped for an instant. Then, with a cracking noise fueled by the pulse, they pulled me out of the ground.
"Hey!" He cried.
My jump took me higher than I anticipated. All these days, crouching in a tiny hole had left me a bit imprecise. Anyway, the guard's lance tore the rest of my wing, and my vision got blurry after hitting the ceiling with my head, but it did not matter; all I needed was to land behind him or at least on his back, which I did.
"You morons, he was faking!" Said the leader, but it was too late for them. I jumped again in the opposite direction.
Roaches were fast runners, especially under confined paths like this tunnel. Still, they were no match against a highly trained jumper like me. I kept moving, leaving the clumsy noise of their legs and wings far behind.
The lighting was no better, but I was undoing the path the big beetle used to take me to my cell. I'm not sure how many jumps I made, but with every bio-beat of my system, my legs took me closer to where I wanted. Hopefully, she would still be there.
At last, I reached the chamber, which was bigger than I remembered. Several folks were trapped there; many were soldiers from "our side," they were marked with the blue tint, just like me. While others were merely camp folks, like a poor earthworm two blue beetles were tying up with a grass rope.
"Who are you?" Said one of them.
"Get him. He's a prisoner, don't you see?" Said the other one, who looked older.
The two walked towards me, but I jumped again before they could catch me. I left them confused; they had me in front of them, and I was gone in less than a second. Not to brag about it, but jumping was my specialty.
"What happened?" Said the young one.
"You lost him?" Said the other one.
"You lost him, too! You're next to me!"
I landed behind them, just over the prisoner I was looking for, a tall, fine Mantis with all legs tied up, including her fangs and claws. Needless to say, she looked like she was praying.
"Excuse me," I whispered to her head, "I will set you free. We are escaping."
So I started eating the rope in her mouth, but then I felt her antennas touching my head. They were pointing to her claws.
"Of course," I said, "why didn't I think of it before?"
"He's up there!" Said the old blue beetle, "Get him!"
I ate as fast as I could. The ropes were not my favorite grass; they were sour and dry, which I hated, but it was no time to be picky. The beetles moved over the prisoners quickly, but just at the moment the young guard reached us, the rope broke, and the mantis' claws extended free.
"Argh!" Cried out the young beetle. The Mantis grabbed him from the middle and lifted him. The old blue beetle froze behind him.
"Crack!" The sound of broken exoskeletons and crunchy guts tearing up was a horrible thing to hear. Still, little did I know I would soon associate that noise with freedom. The shiny blue body fell into two halves on the ground. The old beetle turned around and ran.
I was now eating the ropes of her mouth again, and with my last bite, a sort of kiss happened. She turned and stared at me.
"Oh my!" I said.
For a second, I thought she had a pretty mouth until I spotted her fangs, and I was positive that if she kissed me back, I would lose my whole face. But then, the same pulse I felt back in my cell started again, and I swear I could hear it in her body despite those indecipherable eyes. She stared at me as if feeling the same.
"Hop on my back," she said, calm, as if she had been waiting all this time for this moment. The Mantis broke the ropes holding her legs with a single touch of her sharp claws and started to walk.
"Let's go to the right! We'll reach the entry there," I said.
She shook her head.
"No, that entry is swarming with beetles, giant horned beetles. Not even I will be able to crush them all."
"So?"
"To the left, I need to get closer to the swamp."
"The swamp?" I protested, but a turmoil of legs, wings, and screams interrupted us.
"Help! Help! Go back, you morons, we need help!" The old blue beetle groaned while being pushed back to us by the three running roaches from which I escaped.
"We can beat two prisoners!" Said one roach, whom I recognized as the one who threatened me with Gertrude.
My new escape partner kept walking towards them, even when the three lances pointed at us.
"Slash!" A swing of her claw severed the ends of all three weapons. Only the beetle seemed to notice what had just happened because he tried to roll between the three brute roaches, who were now trying to feel the severed spears with their antennas.
"Scrat!"
Another swing sliced one of the roaches from top to bottom. The two halves of the roach attempted to keep walking and got lost behind us. The leader roach groaned again.
"What's wrong with you? I'll do it myself!" He jumped toward us, extending his wings.
Mantis trapped him with both claws, then, with a quick move of her fangs, made his head disappear. This noise was not very loud, but it will remain in my head forever. She then threw the body behind, who also kept running as if nothing had happened. I gave it a look and thought of the old roach of the swamp, headless and destined to starve.
The last one seemed to understand something was wrong because he tried to turn around, but the old beetle got in his way as he rolled to escape ahead of us. Mantis chopped this last one with both claws into small pieces.
"Hold on," she said, extending her wings and hovering through the tunnel.
The ride was much faster than I anticipated; we reached the old beetle quickly, and the Mantis cut him just like she did with his partner. I couldn't help but gasp in horror at the carnage my new friend was leaving behind.
"My apologies, but I had to," she said in a disturbing and polite tone, "we don't want Titan bugs after us. Do we?"
The story continues…