A week has passed since the walls of the nest began to shake. Sleep deprived and nearly starved, Yume, Hypatia, and the spiders feel the last tremor before serene quiet. The sensation of still ground and stable footing is ecstatic.
“I-is it over?” Yume creaks out of her dry, cracked lips.
“For now, yes.” Weaver communicates.
Yume stumbles to her feet and runs over to a tiny trickle of water coming from a spout nearby, with Hypatia following close behind. They take turns gorging themselves with water and gasping between mouthfuls.
“Gah!” Hypatia shouts. “I didn’t think we were going to make it!”
Weaver perks up a bit “Our kind prides themselves on the quality of our homes. We are all aware of the power our webs possess.”
“Well, I’m glad it lasted!” Yume says.
“We have stored provisions for you, Hypatia. Perhaps you and Yume could share some of our reserves?” says Morphae.
Hypatia and Yume both nod excitedly and Morphae heads out of the room. Weaver and Mygal look towards the two with an intense stare. Mygal wastes no time and begins explaining.
“Hypatia…Yume…” He pauses, taking a moment to collect his thoughts. “Now that things are a bit stable we need to go over some things. When you broke Hypatia’s memory bond, it alerted The Chamber. Hypatia was the sole survivor of the ascension team. When The Chamber initiated its attack on the outsiders, they chose to keep Hypatia alive and alter her memory. This allowed them to spread false information about the pinnacle.”
Hypatia nods in agreement, ignoring Yume’s obvious look of judgement as they just found out that Hypatia wasn’t the only survivor.
He continues, “ That singular bond is why The Chamber chose to spare the remaining lives in the pit. The renewal of fear brought by the culling combined with Hypatia’s falsified memory erased the revolution. Hypatia’s new memory allowed them to return the pit to its previous state. A state of hatred for The Chamber, but no tempting information on their most prized possessions.”
Yume gives Hypatia a side eye and then meets Mygul’s stare. “Wouldn’t the culling spark an even larger revolution? The Chamber just came down and murdered innocent lives.”
Hypatia cuts Yume off. “Dear, we were utterly and completely defeated. All of our brothers and sisters that stormed the pinnacle with us gave their lives that day. When I came back, I was the only survivor of those directly involved.”
Yume nods in understanding. “I see. I didn’t realize it was that desolate.”
“You know, Yume, for someone who so many questions, it would benefit you to listen sometimes.” Hypatia snarks with a grin.
“I’m sorry! There’s always so much thrown at me, give me a break!” They both share a chuckle.
Mygal rejoins the conversation. “If you’ll allow me to finish my thought now.”
The two women nod in respect.
“It is likely that The Chamber has sent a much greater force then they did in the past. It was ages ago yes, but we Spiderkin never forget a vibration. Whatever ended above us moments ago was much stronger than the initial culling. Weaver, Morphae and I suspect that the surge of energy created by transforming the gift triggered a failsafe.”
“What sort of failsafe?” Asks Hypatia.
“After the events of the Constellation, The Chamber installed detectors across the pit. Essentially, these sense levels of energy being consumed or produced within a radius. Tampering with nodes both uses and creates a large amount of energy. What we did days ago was like a solar flare compared to a spark.”
“Do you think they know what we did?” Asks Yume.
“It’s impossible to know. As far as we are aware, they can only detect the level of energy.”
“That’s just a risk we’re going to have to take, Yume.” Says Hypatia.
Yume turns abruptly to Hypatia “Risk? What do you mean risk?”
“I didn’t have you bring that thing here for nothing. We have a job to do Yume. We are going to take this to the pinnacle and use it to end this. End all of this.”
“You’re crazy. No, you’re downright insane! We are just two people, Hypatia, TWO PEOPLE! You can’t be serious.”
“Oh no, I most certainly am. You don’t realize what this new node is capable of. Want me to show you?”
“Uhh…sure! But please, don’t make me enter a memory.”
Hypatia runs over to the glowing node on the ground and shoves it into her hand. It makes a loud CRACK and appears to have knocked some residue off its exterior, glowing brighter now. Hypatia looks down at it, and presses it down hard, trying to force it fully into the socket. It refuses to fully insert.
“Well, that’s as far as I can manage, this will have to do!” She says.
Branching veins of effervescent blue shoot up her arm and spread all across her body. She illuminates the room in a saturated blue light. She turns towards Yume with a huge smile.
“You think you have any fake memories?” She asks Yume
‘Uh no…I never got memory-hooked. At least not that I know of.”
“Oh, please.” Hypatia scoffs, “Everyone from The Rung gets hooked. I want you to focus on the last memory you have at your old job, whatever it was. The moment you failed your last test.”
“O-okay…Let me think…” Yume says, staring off in the distance with an intense focus.
Hypatia snaps her fingers and Yume feels a slight tingle in her head.
“What the hell…My head feels so weird…What did you do?” She asks.
“Think back to that memory, Yume. What do you see?”
Yume grabs her forehead, trying to fight off a sudden wave of dizziness.
“I…uh. Oh, I see now, I remember Junker explaining this a bit to me. When the Chamber representative listed off the names, nobody passed. Everyone failed their ascension date. I wasn’t alone in my defeat.”
Morphae walks back in to the room, with a platter full of non-perishable foods stuck to the side of one of his legs and chirps in excitement.
“Magnificent! So, our theory was correct.” He says.
“Indeed, it was! The node was originally meant to control others completely uncontested. Undying love and loyalty from anyone you desired. The power to control millions with the snap of a finger.”
“So what, now it can just get rid of fake memories?” Asks Yume.
“Much, much more than that, Yume. Just one piece of a large puzzle” Says Hypatia. “This function overrides the false information that The Chamber pumps into us. It breaks the bonds of their control.”
“How is this going to help us, Hypatia?”
Hypatia responds with another question. “How many people are there in The Rung now, would you say?”
“Shit, I have no idea. Millions and millions, maybe even billions.”
Hypatia smiles. “That’s right. Now how do you think they’d respond if suddenly they can’t be fooled anymore. Millions of people, angry, and ready to fight.”
Hypatia can see Yume’s eyes begin to glint with optimism.
“So it won’t just be us then?” Yume asks.
“No, darling. We will have all the help we could ever ask for. All at a snap of the finger.”
Weaver cuts her off. “It won’t be that easy, Hypatia. You’ll have to convince them to fight. Simply breaking their bonds won’t give them the desire to join you.”
“That’s right!” Replies Hypatia. “That’s why I’m going to leave the finger-snapping to Yume and I’ll come up with a way to convince them.”
“You’ll need to convince them rather quickly. I would imagine the response from above will be brisk and powerful.” Says Morphae.
“I just need to figure that out. I wish we had Adam here, he was always good at this sort of thing.” Hypatia sighs. “Well! We will also need to find a way up there. The lines we used for the last trip are either destroyed or still within The Rung. Any ideas?” She motions broadly towards the group.
Yume shrugs and the three spiders turn towards each other, sharing a collective contemplation. Weaver turns and faces Hypatia.
“We will take you.”
“Yay!” Hypatia exclaims.
“Do not confuse this for us helping you in battle. Once we drop you at the pinnacle, that is where our cooperation will end.”
“I understand, Weaver. I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve already done. That is above and beyond.” Hypatia says and bows her head slightly towards the spiders.
Yume turns to Hypatia “Are you sure we can do this?”
“I’ve never been surer of anything. This is it, Yume, this is our only shot. Are you sure you can do this? You’ve only shown me hesitation thus far. You’ll have to be decisive and determined. Is that something you think you can do?”
Yume’s posture folds inwards in a brief stab of embarrassment. She’s felt like her presence down here has been burdensome to those around her. Junker had to mend her, and she still ended up breaking his rules. Hypatia has cared for her and kept her safe throughout their journey thus far.
In this moment of introspection, she feels her self-pity suddenly shuts off from within. Perhaps she compartmentalized it and hid it deeper within herself or better yet, maybe she grew as a person. Whatever be the cause, she feels a familiar spark ignite within her. The same burning passion that ran through her veins as she fought off the GuideBots and escaped the hospital. She looks up at Hypatia, with wide eyes and a cold, expressionless face.
“I am willing to do whatever it takes. I’ve seen what they do to us. Hell, I’ve felt it personally” Yume lifts her bionic hand in the air. “I want to make them pay.”
“That’s the spirit!” Hypatia says, jumping over to Yume and embracing her in a hug.
Weaver looks around the room and then back towards the women. “We need to gather what supplies we can and prepare to scout out the pit. There may be leftover representatives on the ground.”
Yume and Hypatia follow Weaver and the rest around to various rooms, filling jugs full of fixer, water, and any left over food rations. Mygal takes Yume down a winding path leading to another storage room. The walls lining it are completely covered in nodes and the devices the constellation used to turn invisible.
“If you see a node that calls to you, now is the time to take it, otherwise these will go to citizens of The Rung.”
Yume looks down at her bracelet that is now barely hanging on to her starved body. She gasps at the realization that she’s had one meal in the last week. She must have lost twenty or twenty-five pounds.
She slides it off her wrist and examines the green node alongside all the other gems. She clutches that node and responds to Mygal.
“No, I think I’ll be just fine with this one.”
Mygal walks over to her and pulls the bracelet out of her hands to examine it.
“Oooh, yes. This green node here is some fine work indeed. What else are you harboring on this string?” He looks at the group of onyx-colored gems.
“Oh, those are fake. I think those are actual gems.” Yume says.
“You would be wrong, Yume. Well, partially, I should say. These aren’t nodes per say, but rather node attachments.”
“Well, what do they do then?” She asks.
“Place one at the end of your elbow or perhaps the cap of your knee.”
Yume pops one off of her bracelet and presses it lightly against her elbow, only for it to fall on the ground.
“What am I doing wrong here, man, help me out.” She says.
Mygal sticks it to the bottom of one leg and then presses it firmly into Yume’s kneecap until an audible POP is heard.
“YOW!” She yelps.
The gem pierces her bone and it violently spreads its metallic color across her entire leg. It expands and forms into sharp, sturdy armor. Yume lifts her leg up to see if it can still bend. The armor moves precisely as her joints bend to keep her body covered at all times.
“Whoa, this is crazy! Do you have more of these? Hypatia needs some for sure.” She asks.
“I am afraid we have only two of these available for her, but their power can spread across a greater area at the cost of less protection. She will be shielded to some degree.”
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“Ah, I see. Maybe I can convince her to take some of mine.”
“I don’t believe that’s a good usage of our resources, but you follow your heart, Yume.”
Yume scratches her head at that statement, starting to question his reasoning.
“Why shouldn’t I? Pat’s going to need as much protection as me up there.”
Mygal pauses, seemingly picking his words with care. “We will provide transportation to The Rung, what you and Hypatia accomplish past that is ultimately up to you. I shouldn’t meddle in this discussion further.”
Yume gets a look on her face, similar to when Junker tried convincing her to not to speak with Hypatia about her memories. When someone tries to coddle her or restrict information to protect her, it infuriates her.
“So, what, you think I need the armor more than her because I can’t hold my own? You think I need this to survive?” She scoffs. “I’m not just some incompetent child! I damn near gutted a GuideBot with a butterknife when it tried to kill me. I can do this!”
Yume huffs and turns around in anger. She storms out of the room, forgetting that Mygal can communicate telepathically. As she takes her first step up the path leading back to the main room, he speaks into her mind.
“You will need that armor because you will have to kill it.”
Chills run down Yume’s spine and she breaks out in a cold sweat. She stops herself mid-step and freezes in dread.
“What am I going to have to kill?” She asks.
“The man. You are going to have to kill the son of the king, Shingetsu.” He responds.
Yume begins scanning the room in frantic thought. Her mind races a thousand miles a second.
“Why me?” She babbles out. “Why do I have to be the one?”
Mygal slowly walks out of the room and tries to comfort her by nudging one of his legs against her arm. It’s not quite as successful as he’s hoping it would be, as his leg is covered in sharp bristles. Yume winces from the pain and gets irritated that he’s not answering her question.
“Hello? Why does it have to be me?!” She says, nearly shouting now.
Mygal attempts to move closer to her and comfort her again. She steps back abruptly, dodging his legs.
“I swear Mygal, don’t take another step. What is going on?!” She screams.
Mygal makes another move towards her, and she leaps backwards, bumping into Hypatia who has come down at the sound of all this mayhem. She holds onto Yume so that the two of them don’t fall over from the momentum. She locks eyes with Yume, then looks at Mygal, and then back to Yume.
A wave of realization washes over Hypatia’s face and her concerned expression turns to sorrow. She gently grabs Yume’s shoulders and turns her around to face her.
“Yume, there’s something that-“ Hypatia says, before getting cut off by Yume.
“What? What is it?! Why do I have to kill this person?” She blurts.
“Yume, you are his sibling. His twin to be more precise. You must kill him because you’re the only one capable of harnessing the cleansed node.”
Yume goes entirely limp and slips out of Hypatia’s grasp, falling to the floor. She tries to speak but all that’s surfacing is mumbled nonsense.
“I…Wha…I’m…” She says.
Hypatia leans down and tries to hold her, but she continues to babble.
“Wh-why? H-how am…I don’t understand…”
Hypatia rocks back and forth gently, trying to calm her down. It seems a futile effort at first, but gradually Yume regains the ability to communicate her thoughts through speech.
“How did I end up with my dad and mom then? Th-they’re not even my real parents?” she asks, tears welling up behind her darting eyes.
“Yume, as far as we’re all concerned, Yua and Adam are your parents. Regardless of how you came to them, know that they took you in with open arms. They love you, so, so much, don’t you dare go doubting that now.” Hypatia says.
“I just don’t understand.” She sniffles. “How can I be related to that thing, I can’t move objects with my mind? That child can do horrible things just by looking at people.”
“That’s right, you were not born with the same gifts of your brother.” Hypatia says, now gently stroking Yume’s hair. “ Once the king realized you were without powers, he banished you to the pit. The king sent a defenseless infant down the drainpipes. You washed up right beneath a drain near our headquarters. Your father was the one who ran to the noise of your screams.”
Yume, who’s now brighten up a bit at the story, interrupts her.
“You’re telling me I survived those god awful pipes twice now?”
Hypatia laughs “Yes! You are quite resilient. Your father wasn’t sure what to think of you at first. He and your mother only knew one thing at the time; that they would take care of you. So, they went and had a falsified node installed.”
“Wait, I thought that was later on?” Yume asks.
“No, no dear. Sorry, I guess it is a bit convoluted now that I think about it. This original node was given to you so that Yua and Adam could bring you safely into The Rung. They had to pull some serious maneuvers to make it look like you were born to Yua. The second time they tinkered with your node was when they gave you the node you have now.”
Yume is drowning in a whirlwind of confusion, sadness, betrayal, and most urgently, a fierce battle of unconditional love and hatred. The two conflicting feelings eventually deafen the rest of her emotions.
Her love, of course stemming from the fact that her parents chose her. They didn’t have her out of forced hormonal love by the hands of The Chamber, they stumbled upon her and took her in.
The hatred, which had started as but a slow burn of un-guided angst towards a faceless government, bloomed and then decayed into unbridled disgust at a father who would abandon a faulty child. This, of course, mixed with the disdain of her so-called sibling has created a potent vitriol.
The two feelings swirl and boil within her mind. Either side is unwilling to compromise and refuse to give any space to the other. Eventually the emotions enter a stalemate; a perfect chaotic harmony.
Yume’s face becomes entirely emotionless and her grip upon reality tightens to a comfortable level. For now, she let’s love speak its piece.
“Pat, hearing this makes me realize how truly lucky I have been. What my mom and dad did saved my life. I can’t believe they would do all of this for some baby they found in the sewer.”
Hypatia looks at Yume with tears glinting in her eyes. “Yume, you weren’t just some baby though. Look what you’ve become now! If Adam or Yua were here now, they would be so proud. I just know it.”
Yume stands back up to her feet and grabs Hypatia’s hands to bring her up as well. Hypatia immediately embraces her in a tight hug.
“Well, I guess we’ll just have to go up there and ask them ourselves, won’t we?” Yume asks.
Hypatia sprouts a grin from cheek to cheek and nods. “Yes, yes we will dear! Why don’t we get a move on now and I’ll keep explaining on the move?”
Hypatia, Yume, and the spiders group up on the main level and pack all of their supplies and gear into satchels strapped to the legs, thorax, and rear of Mygal. Attached to the abdomens of Weaver and Morphae, are harnesses that Hypatia and Yume climb up into. Yume takes mount atop of Weaver, and Hypatia gets onto Morphae.
With the women on the spiders and their equipment safely stowed for transit, they begin ascending up the pathway leading to the surface. It’s not abruptly apparent at first, but Yume notices that sound is traveling almost entirely normally within the tunnel.
When she was first brought down here, she couldn’t hear even the web beneath Weaver’s feet crinkle, now she can hear each individual step form the spiders.
“Hey…Why isn’t the noise thingy working?” She asks.
Weaver responds. “Are you referring to our tunnel dampening? Trauma to its infrastructure was endured during the attack. Its form is still there, but its function is lost.”
“Ah, I see.” Yume responds, “How long will that take to fix?”
“Far too long to attempt. We will make do with what is left for the time being.”
They make their way up a few more of the turns and Yume looks towards Hypatia, who’s riding Morphae.
“Pat?” She asks.
“Yes, dear?”
“How come you were able to use that node? You said I was the only one able to wield it.”
Hypatia looks down towards her hand which has been shrouded beneath her robe for some time now. She peels back the sleeve and holds up her hand for Yume to see. Branching from her node-port are thick, black singe marks.
Yume audibly gasps at the sight.
“I couldn’t even get it in all the way. I wasn’t made to use something so powerful.” Says Hypatia.
“Are you okay, Pat? That looks pretty serious…”
“I am fine, Yume. Nothing a little fixer couldn’t take care of. I want you to understand something though, since you’re entirely in the loop now.”
“Go on…” Yume retorts.
“You aren’t going to really see the full power of that until you use it. Hell, not even I know what that is truly capable of. Your father and I had our theories, but only so much can be guessed.”
“What do you think it can do?” Yume asks.
“Well, one thing we we’re relatively certain of is that it’s a powerful weapon. Just because you cleanse a weapon, doesn’t mean it’s not a weapon anymore. The child made it abundantly clear what it was capable of, prior to us stealing it.”
“How would he know? He never even had it to begin with.”
“He and the king had a special bond. The child seemed to communicate with the king. According to the child, that node could give you the power to rip steel, produce enough light to blind a naked eye, and manifest eccentric blades.”
Yume is stunned. “That is absolutely horrifying. Sure, let’s just give a sociopath the power to control peoples’ minds and then make their body a weapon of mass destruction.”
Hypatia giggles. “Yes, it’s an awful combination. All the more reason to stop him before another node like that gets created.” She takes a breath, “When we get to the surface, we need to test what it’s capable of. Are you willing to do that?”
Yume looks down at her hands, which are still trembling a bit from the shock of the revelations. She clenches her fists together and feels the anger take more control over her mind.
“I am willing to do whatever it takes.”
“Good!” Hypatia excitedly pats onto Morphae’s abdomen and turns to face the direction they are heading.
Turn after winding turn, they eventually make it towards the entrance that they came in through. Tiny points of bright, red-light pierce though holes in the exit. It appears the trap door has been reduced to rubble and collapsed into the tunnel.
“This is not a good sign” Says Weaver, who is now lowering his body to the floor so that Yume can hop off.
The two dismount their respective spiders and watch as they dig through the rubble, slowly breaching through to the surface. The light coming through now is bright and oppressive, reflecting off the strands of web strung about.
Once enough of the debris is torn away for the spiders to squeeze through, the group walks up onto the surface. The surface that Yume had come to know and love, has been obliterated.
Hypatia falls to her knees in disbelief. Her screams of agony softly echo off of the smoldering crater in front of her. The houses surrounding the trap door have been reduced to ash. The thriving botanical ecosystem has been wiped away.
Hanging above them is a bloodied moon piercing through a sky tainted with black smog. It illuminates the now alien landscape before them. It’s near impossible to get a sense of where things once were. The only identifiable landmark is the wall leading to The Rung.
Hypatia uses it as a reference and desperately runs straight ahead, and then to the right. She’s searching for something amongst all the craters and embers. She frantically digs through piles of rubble, snaking between pillars of smoke and dust.
Yume loses her for a moment behind a particularly thick plume. She speeds up in order to catch her, but it’s an intricate maze of smoke and rubble. Hypatia appears to have been completely lost, that is until Yume hears a cascade of debris fall near her.
She rushes over to the noise, behind a pile of embers. On the other side, Yume sees Hypatia digging her arms towards something beneath a wooden beam. She’s throwing hand full after hand full of loose material behind her. She keeps screaming something at the pile. Yume can’t make it out at first, but as she nears her, it becomes clear.
“I’m here, Junk!” She sobs, “I’m here, you’re safe!”
Yume’s eyes light up as she realizes pieces of the rubble around her look familiar. The foundation that once was his shop floor shattered into a thousand pieces. His operation table, chopped up and mangled. Yume starts to run towards Hypatia, to help her get him out. In the few steps before reaching them, Yume senses movement in her peripheral vision.
She stops in her tracks and can feel the tiny hairs on the back of her neck prick up. It wasn’t just the debris settling, it was something moving beneath it. There is a mound of debris a few feet from where Hypatia is, that is where the motion came from.
Yume fights her paralyzing fear and forces her head to look towards it. Another small movement form beneath it and a low grumble. Ever so slightly, she sees a few large insect legs poke through. She let’s her guard down immediately and runs over to the pile.
“Rosie?!” She shouts out and presses her ear towards the pile.
The pile begins to move again and then a bright red light pierces through the many cracks and holes of it.
“Rosie!” She shouts again, now with a bit of a smile coming over her face. “I know you’re in there, come on out!”
In an instant, the topmost layer of rubble shoots up in the air violently. Yume catches an initial glimpse at the creature beneath it, and sees some familiar legs, body segments, and the back of a head. The bright red light came from beacons attached to its head.
“I knew it was you, Rosie! I’m so glad you’re okay!” She yells out, now grinning ear-to-ear.
Yume runs right up to her and grabs onto a piece of her midsection. Rosie whips her head around to get a look at Yume. It’s peculiar, Rosie begins to examine her face. This isn’t something she had done to Yume since she first met her.
“You forget who I am?” She laughs “Maybe some rubble hit your head!”
Yume reaches up to her face to see if she’s injured. As her hand meets her head, Rosie lets out a deafening guttural screech. Yume falls back in horror as her beacon-eyes glow an even brighter, menacing red. The edges of each piece of armor on her face and legs light up in similar fashion.
Rosie lifts the first few sections of her legs and arches her body upwards, preparing a strike down towards Yume. Her pincers click in excitement, and she lets out another haunting screech. She lunges her body straight onto Yume in a split second. Yume rolls out of the way in the nick of time, and she tried to get back up to her feet.
Before she has the chance to pick herself off the ground, Rosie reaches out with her front legs and throws her back down. Rosie towers over her and growls a few inches from her face with enough force to cover her in spit.
Rosie has Yume’s limbs pinned to the ground aside from one of her arms. She isn’t able to budge at all, and is completely submitted under Rosie’s weight. She finally breaks her shocked silence and screams.
“Hypatia! Help me!” She yells out beneath Rosie.
Hypatia looks up from her digging and immediately jumps to her feet.
“R-Rosie…? Is that you?” She says.
Hypatia walks over to the two of them, very cautiously. She examines Rosie for a moment and then speaks again.
“Rosie, dear, what’s gotten in to you? Don’t you rem-“
Rosie abruptly turns to Hypatia and cuts her off with a loud scream. Hypatia gets a look of pure focus, before nodding in understanding.
“Yume, do not move a muscle until you understand what it is I am asking you to do.”
In fear of nodding back to her being considered moving a muscle, Yume just blankly stares as a response.
“In a singular, swift motion, I need you to place the secret into your hand. You got that?”
Yume continues her deadpan stare.
“Then make a motion with it, whatever feels natural. Could be a wave, a snap, hell, even a slap if you so dare. Just make it intentional.”
Without even blinking, Yume reaches down towards her other wrist where her bracelet rests and snaps the purified node off the chain. She pops it into her hand and the force of its insertion makes her body limp. After a few convulsions the same splintering light she saw on Hypatia earlier spreads up her arm and over her chest.
She looks down at her hand and has a moment of panic. What the hell is a natural motion? She asks herself. She gets stuck on it for a moment and then feels the pressure of her predicament force her hand into a peace sign.
“Are you fucking serious, Yume?” Hypatia chuckles and points at her hand.
“I-I didn’t know what to-“
Before she can finish her sentence, a small, flat surface on Rosie’s head crackles and pops open, sending a stream of sparks out of it. Rosie’s body begins to shake and she moves her legs to support herself better, giving Yume the chance to slip out from beneath her.
Rosie collapses onto the ground and the flaming hatch on her head sputters out and then shuts. Rosie lets a hefty sigh out and then uses a leg to scratch the top of her head. When she feels the singe marks and hot metal, she lets out a pained chirp, as if she didn’t know where it came from.
“I panicked, okay? I didn’t know what else to use!” Yume pleads.
Hypatia laughs again, “ Oh, dear, you don’t have to justify it to me! I guess some of us are born with style and some are born with…whatever you have.” Hypatia turns to her, both hands making peace-signs.
“Oh, come on! Please tell me that’s not set in stone. That can’t be the thing I have to do now!”
Hypatia laughs even harder now, almost wheezing, “I’m sorry, that’s just what you’ll have to do every time you use it! There’s no changing it now.”
Yume, sweat beading down her face, goes to plead again and then goes stone-face with realization striking her.
“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?”
Hypatia wipes the tears away from her face. “Yeah, I am.”
Rosie begins to look and feel herself again. She shakes the dust off her legs and cleans her pincers with her mouth. She looks over at Yume and Hypatia with a look reminiscent of a dog with its tail between its legs. Hypatia and Yume walk up to her and give her a little scratch. She bows her head and indulges them with a purr.
“Well, I’m glad one of them is fixed. How about you come over here and give me a hand with Junker?” Hypatia asks Yume.
“Oh, yes, sorry!” She says and they both rush over to the spot Hypatia was digging at.
Beneath a pile of snarled rebar and chunks of concrete is a silhouette of Junker. Ragged and beat up, it’s hard to tell exactly how bad his condition is. Hypatia goes to move a piece of concrete and Junker yelps out in pain.
There is a piece of rebar extending from the concrete stuck through Junkers thigh. Hypatia moves a different piece and he howls again. A separate piece is piercing through his arm and into the side of his chest.
Yume and Hypatia stop trying to dig for a moment and get a better look at him. They dig away some of the smaller pieces around him and allow some light to reach his body.
He is entirely motionless but works up what little energy he has left to swing his head towards the two of them. He grunts in agony and grabs one of the pieces of rebar with his free hand to steady the now mobile debris. With tears gently washing away dust off his face he speaks to them.
“Please…I beg you. Just let me die.”