The beetles were terrifyingly close now, the antenna pointed forward and were rubbing against my legs, seeming to sense what I was. The hissing increased, reaching a crescendo, strange. If I wasn’t so lost within myself I might have wondered why they were attacking in packs, that seemed like a distinctly un-beetle thing to do. But like everything else odd I had come across, I had chalked it up to being in some afterlife where nothing made sense.

But now that thought was broken.

I still had a scar.

If I had one scar I should have 2 scars.

I hadn’t even checked, the day had been so confusing, and a part of me didn’t want to accept that I had died, that my defiance hadn’t amounted to anything. That the small spark of defiance and courage was ultimately useless. Without even realizing it, accepting my death had broken me a little. I did want to live. But I had felt like a failure. I had accepted this worlds punishment as just.

If you die a coward you get sent to a place where you spend most of the time afraid. It made sense to me. But if I hadn’t died? I was almost too nervous to check, but I had to know.

With my left hand I lifted my shirt to check where Buzzcut’s knife should have penetrated. Trembling as I pulled back the folds of my filthy shirt.

No scar. I felt all around my abdomen. There was no scar, just skin.

Was I alive? Not just sort of alive in the afterlife, but alive alive? I needed time to process, but it was time I didn’t have because the beetles had finally had enough. Two of them reared back to strike at my legs, their knife-like mandibles prepared to pierce flesh.

I have been here before. Exactly here. And I had thought that my actions had brought me here. But, now I realized that wasn’t true. If I didn’t have a scar, then my actions had meant something, I hadn’t been a coward, too scared to face their own mortality. I had fought until I couldn’t. I hadn’t given up.

That spark, so small, the spark within me that had flared up last night. That spark that I thought I had lost completely.

That spark revived. That spark wanted to protect others. It wanted to see, to design, and to build beautiful things. It wanted to make people smile like I could make my family smile. Like I could make Kate smile when she couldn’t smile herself.

That spark grew. It wanted more. I wanted more. I wasn’t done, I couldn’t be done. I wanted to see more, I wanted to smile again. I wanted to see my sister and mom and tell them about the horrors I had faced so that we could laugh at it together.

The spark grew, truly igniting into a fire within.

I still had no idea what to do with a weapon. And I was still terrified.

But I was also tired. Not tired of existence as I was moments ago, but tired of being terrified. When I was about to be stabbed before, for a final moment I had found a deep clarity. It seemed so strange which is why it stuck out so much. That clarity had allowed me to unleash myself and fight with everything I had. I had hesitated with the pipe. I wouldn’t hesitate now. All my fears and doubts vanished. It was just me vs. the world. And it still was.

The beetles struck.

And I acted.

My spear, almost forgotten, was pivoted in a flash and aimed straight down the gullet of the first striking, while I pivoted my body to avoid the second. It happened so fast there’s no way I could’ve planned it, but I hadn’t planned anything. My body had merely acted on instincts and survival. There were no thoughts, only survival, only the goal of victory.

The striking beetle impaled its throat on my spear while the second one collided in front of me with the first. These had been the 2 flanking beetles, the two remaining ones were facing me straight on, and they paused for a second, a second to see what the human might do. A second too long. The human was full of fire and the human acted.

My first spear was dead, I released it from my grip once the first beetle had come to a stop. I stomped hard on the 2nd beetles head which was momentarily dazed from the collision. A moment too long.

There wasn’t just fire in my veins, but lightning. I needed to move. I needed a new spear. I turned my stomp down into a pivoting leap and launched myself between the grasps of the two in front of me. I could do this. I had to do this. I wouldn’t give up. I had survived then. I had survived. And I would keep surviving. Their heads turned as I slid between them, and despite my aim and speed, their mandibles caught my pants and leg. It didn’t stop me, but I did stumble as my pant leg was ripped up and part of my calf and shin received painful slashes.

Those mandibles were sharp, sharper than they looked, and they already looked sharp. Can’t stop, couldn’t stop. I’d fix it later, I had some ointment left. It would be fine.

I barely managed to stay on my feet as I tripped and stumbled back to the fire where I had left my small armory. I grabbed the nearest spear. Low durability. I would only get a few hits out of this, more if I was precise and they didn’t break it. The 2 came at me, I thought the beetle who’s head I had stepped on might get up, but my stomp had completely squashed him. Good, 2 down.

“They’re just bugs, Will. They’re just bugs.” I reassured myself through my sharp breaths. I was already panting, it had only been seconds, but important seconds, and I could feel it. I wasn’t done. I had decided long ago that I wasn’t done. And I couldn’t be done now, not now that I knew I had survived. I’d figure out the implications later though, the 2 remaining beetles were scuttling at me with terrifying speed.

I circled the fire, trying to force them to split up. I thought they might want to avoid the fire, and I was correct. They seemed hesitant once close to it, so I stayed close. It was my one ally in this fight, a neutral ally as it could just as easily burn me, but I’d take whatever help I could get.

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I kept circling and the one closest to me struck with alarming speed. I brought the spear between me and my foe, again hoping to impale it in a single strike like I had its friend, but my aim was less true this close to the fire, where the shifting shadows of night and the beetle’s midnight shell messed with my depth perception. I still blocked it successfully, diverting it left of me away from the fire, my spear skidding along its shell. I rotated with its movement, pushing the beetle with my spear, keeping it in front of me as I continued rotating to face the 2nd one. I didn’t want them getting behind me. A good thought, as the 2nd struck just as it came into view. I drew back, narrowly avoiding the mandibles snapping in front of me. Then stomped forward before it could withdraw, managing to catch the front of its watermelon sized head with my shoe and blasting it into the sand. I dug my heel into the mushed carapace, ensuring it was dead. Its legs continued to skitter frantically for a moment, but these seemed like death throes and I ignored them. My final quarry was held at bay with my spear, unable to get around the firm stalk, but I could feel its durability giving way. As if detecting it as well, it decided to go through, snipping the spear in two like a twig, the “snikt” of its mandibles rubbing against each other was truly unnerving. The spear head had been lodged in the ground when it snipped it, so I couldn’t retrieve it, only retaining the frayed handle.

I backtracked around the fire, attempting to get to my remaining spears. It seemed to sense this and circled around to cut me off. It was fast, and seemed properly pissed off and in a frenzy now. Its mandibles snapped in front of it in quick jerking movements that I had to continue to backtrack or sidestep to avoid.

Occasionally I got a hit in with my spear shaft, but without a point it was just a weak stick, and did only distracting damage. I kicked forward a few times to attempt to squash its abdomen, but this part was armored, and resisted my attempts. Perhaps if it stayed still I could jump on it and shatter it, but it was too fast for that. And it was careful to not overextend its bites, having seen what happened to 2 of its allies.

I had led it away from the fire at this point, and every attempt to return to it was blocked by the quick bug. I couldn’t keep this up, I’d slip up at some point, this one had seen all my tricks so far, and I wasn’t sure what to do. As a hail mary plan I tried to fake it out with a quick feint, leading one way and then sprinting the other.

It actually worked, I guess beetles didn’t play much basketball. But, it had been a while for me as well, and sand isn’t as firm as hardwood. My pushing foot lost traction and I slipped to the ground, catching myself with my hands and releasing my stick in the process.

The beetle had been momentarily duped, but it immediately struck again, and only a quick roll kept its mandible from skewering me. But I was still on the ground, this was its domain and it knew it. It began chomping at the air rapidly in front of me as I tried to right myself, effectively keeping me on the ground as I kept rolling to avoid it. I managed to get a side kick in, pushing it away, which gave me just enough time to get to my hands and knees before it was on me. I was out of options. So I did the only thing I could and brought my hands forward to hold it back.

By some miracle I missed the sharp edges and instead landed at the base of the mandibles, near where they connected to the beetle. It kept snipping at me, trying to get my face in its jaws, the tips of the bladed edges only inches in front of me. There was some saliva leaking from them and coming from its mouth as it snapped and shrieked at me. If I wasn’t trying to not die I might have puked again. It was truly horrifying being this close to a beetle of this size. Everything about them screamed danger and alien.

I didn’t know where its weak spots were and didn’t have enough leverage to try to squish its head between my hands. Desperate, I tried a different approach.

The base of the beetle's mandibles weren’t sharp like the ends, so I shifted my grip so I was holding these. The beetle fought back mightily, it was surprisingly strong for its size, but I held with everything I had, able to gain a bit more leverage now that I had actual hand holds. Pushing it back worked only enough to keep it from cutting my face up, so I tried something else.

I pulled. I pulled on the grip I held with my right hand, while my left kept the beetle in place. I pulled and pulled, trying to gain the beetle’s potent weapon for myself. It resisted and I pulled. We stayed locked in there, my teeth bared and brow furrowed as I fought with everything I had against a nightmare. Then something finally gave.

With a disgusting popping sound, I ripped the mandible I held in my right hand completely out of the beetle’s face. The beetle loosed a pained squeal as the fleshy strands were pulled from its face along with the sharp mandible. It was like the metal of a pencil with no eraser left trying to erase. My whole body shivered, but I wasn’t through yet. I firmed up my grip on my new weapon, then stabbed up and under the beetle, just behind its head into its body, burying its own mandible as deep as I could. Its screams became more frantic, and it tried to pull back, skittering frantically with its back legs. But I had it, I had it by the mandible in its body, and the mandible in my left hand. I pulled with my left hand now, keeping it locked with my right, and after a moment pulled the second mandible from it. With its second mandible in my hand, I ran it along my right arm to the beetle’s neck, then sliced upward with everything I had. It cut terrifyingly easy. The blade went all the way through and out, and the head of my foe stopped squealing and fell in front of me, as a disgusting thick green fluid spilled out onto the sand from its body. Like the others, its legs continued struggling for a minute on their own, but eventually the body stopped moving and came to a rest in my hands.

It was dead. But I was still in fight or flight. I stayed there just long enough to confirm it was dead before jumping up to my feet, wary of any other beetles, both mandibles still gripped tightly in my hands. My breath came in sharp intakes, and I couldn’t seem to get enough, but I was standing and I was alive.

I did it. I couldn’t believe it. Moments ago I had been dead. But I had fought back and actually beaten the nightmares.

Or so I thought.

True, the four who had entered were all dead. But the beetle’s squeals had attracted more of its kind, I could see red dotted shapes moving toward the opening to my clearing. Like warning bells in the night, they came. I raced to the fire, standing in front of it this time, I couldn’t have my vision affected by the light, so I kept it at my back. My spears were close, I saw that I had left Pain Stick with them as well, and the mandibles were sharp and held fiercely in my hands. My durability sense didn’t seem to work on the mandibles, I guess yanking them from a body didn’t count as crafting, but they felt solid, there hadn’t been any give when I had impaled their owner. Hopefully they will continue to last.

The fire crackled behind me, its calm flickering ambience a sharp contrast to the horrors forming from the shadows in front of me. Shadowy red-spotted beetles materialized from the night into my clearing, encroaching, claiming, trespassing. The light of the moons made their forms even more indistinct, causing strange overlapping shadows, almost bolstering their numbers.

My lone shadow stretched out to impede them, deforming near the end until it barely resembled a human. They regarded me, and I regarded them. There seemed to be more than a dozen of them, though the entry to my clearing only permitted 3 to stand side by side. Only one of me.

They hissed, and despite myself, I yelled. Nothing coherent, I just yelled and growled to defy the looming horror that waited in the back of my mind. The deep tones of my shouts fought the high-pitches of their chittering hisses.

I breathed out, finally catching my breath. My lungs at last catching up with the situation.

Promise me you’ll come back. She had said.

“I promise, Kate.” I growled, the lightning within now a storm. If I could be brought here, then I can leave.

The beetles shot forward, skittering forward like the shadows of death. I crouched, arms outstretched, gripping my impromptu weapons fiercely, and let them come.