The Unmaker

“... Why can’t I turn the needle back?” little Dahlia asks, sitting in her father’s lap as he puts on the finishing touches for her fiftieth pocket watch. Her fingers are fiddling with the dial; she doesn’t have the strength to rewind time. “Papa. Help… me… turn it–”

“You can’t turn the dial back,” her father says, whacking her hands off the dial as he begins chiselling the engravings on. “I made it so you can never adjust the time backwards. If you miss the time by a single minute, try for tomorrow and cycle through the next round.”

Little Dahlia looks back at her father, puzzled.

“But why can’t you make it so the dial turns back?”

“Because the gears I use click in place once they turn in one direction, so they can’t go back.”

“Then why don’t you use different gears?”

“Because nobody complains about having to turn another whole cycle. It teaches patience. It teaches precision. If you don’t want to waste time turning an extra cycle, be careful and make sure you wind the minute hand to where it needs to be.”

“But that’s not fun! If you can rewind time, it’ll be easier–”

“Life can only be seen backwards, but must be lived forward. That is why my watches cannot be rewound.”

Then he pauses for a moment to smile at her.

“No matter what mistakes you have made, you cannot give up; you must move forward,” he said. “Do you understand, Dahlia?”

“...”

Little Dahlia pouts, but nods begrudgingly.

“... But I’m complaining about it now.”

“You’re not a paying customer, so I’m not taking your complaints seriously.”

- Conversation from Sina Household past

Issam severed the metal bars the glider was hanging on, and then there was the sensation of weightlessness, a terrifying downwards lurch.

Dahlia had promised herself not to regret her decision, but she wasn’t like the twins with their moth mantles or Amula with her bombardier beetle boots; she was someone who had to grip the railings with both hands every time she travelled up and down the stairs to her house.

Her nails dug into her arms and a shiver raced through her the moment the glider dropped, and the world around her became a blur. The winds became physical, cutting into her cheeks. The undertown seemed miniscule beneath her, a toy model she could reach out and crush in an instant—but Issam pushed her down quickly, flat against the glider, and then they were soaring.

Oh no oh no oh no.

It’s going to break.

The ten-by-four metre glider was just big enough for all seven of them to lay flat on their stomachs without falling off, but ‘not falling off’ was all it was. The twins’ legs were dangling behind on both ends of the glider, Issam and Rayas heads were poking out at the front. Amula and Jerie were squished between the twins, and everyone’s hands were clenched so tightly onto the glider that they deformed the chitin tubules holding it together underneath.

As they plummeted the first ten metres down the cliffs—a near vertical fall that made all the blood rush away from Dahlia’s head—she squeezed her eyes shut. She screamed. Maybe the others screamed as well, but then someone whacked each of them on the heads to get them to stop clenching onto the wings so tightly.

That brief second where the wings were allowed to unfold properly made all the difference.

The tubules pushed out. Returned to formation. The whole thing reoriented itself and the winds gave it lift from below; Dahlia’s blood stopped draining from her head. She still refused to open her eyes, but by the gentle wind flutters and the nervous, insane cackles of the twins from both sides, she could tell they were gliding ‘properly’ now.

“... Haha! It worked? It worked! Great Makers! I can’t believe–”

“Let all of Alshifa know it was I who had faith in Dahlia this entire time! It was me! You non-believers, I told you all–”

“Can you guys shut the fuck up? You’re annoying. My back still hurts.”

“Yer the one who attacked us first, so shut up. I didn’t kick ye that hard. Also, yer technically our prisoner now, so don’t ye even dare dare to think about breaking this glider.”

“And kill all of us together? No thanks. I still have a score to settle with Issam.”

“With Issam? What about me and Ayla? You literally whacked us on the head with your spear and said–”

“You’re irrelevant, trickster. Fighting you is a waste of time. Now, beetle girl and cicada boy I don’t mind fighting as well, but–”

“Roll this guy off the glider. Get him outta here.”

“Got it, boss!”

“Stop touching me, bitch. You wanna go right now? I can toss all of you off this glider if I really want to, but that won’t be fun at all–”

“Jerie, shatter this guy’s eardrums.”

“Thweeet!”

“Ow, what– Jerie, not that loud. Yer gonna kill the rest of us if ye keep playing like that–”

“Thweet!

“Thweet!

“Thweet!”

[... They are quite the lively bunch,] Eria observed, as everyone continued rambling and squabbling and trying to knock Raya off the glider without getting themselves knocked off in the process. [You should open your eyes and take charge. This is your glider, after all. You should get a say in deciding who gets to stay on.]

She bit her tongue and squeezed her eyes even harder. I can’t.

[A bug-slayer cannot be afraid of heights, Dahlia. Statistically speaking, there will come a time in the far future where practically a third of all your hunts will be conducted mid-air, due to the inherent unfair nature of most powerful giant insects possessing wings and thus a natural high ground advantage—you must learn to jump high, fight high, and then fall high.]

Mid-air fights in Alshifa?

That won’t ever happen.

This is an underground cavern.

Once this is all over–

Someone gripped her hand and pried it off the glider, making her heart drop.

Fear.

Panic.

She was only clenching onto the glider with one hand. She needed her other hand–

“Look, Dahlia,” Issam said, as she heard him scooting back so he was sitting cross-legged next to her; they were gliding so slowly the winds weren’t knocking him off. “There’s nothing to be worried about. The Swarm back there isn’t chasing us. I don’t think they can spot us thirty metres up in the air, so… why don’t you open your eyes and take a look? I doubt we’ll ever get a sight of Alshifa like this ever again.”

…

She hesitated. Her heart continued beating hard notes against her ribs. She had to force her body to calm its breathing, but when that was done to no avail and she mustered the strength in her neck to shake her head—Issam flicked her forehead hard, making her snap her eyes wide open to scowl at him.

“Hey!” she snapped

“Made you look,” he countered.

Her breaths were still coming out quick and unsteady, but it was only now that she noticed the faint rays of light coming from her left, falling softly, gently onto her skin.

The light tickled her. It raised the bristles on her bracers. Her eyes couldn’t help themselves; while they were still half-scowling, they sparkled with the lights of childlike curiosity she’d not carried in her eyes since the day she first learned how to make a pocket watch from her father—so she turned the entire rest of her body to the left, taking in Alshifa from a bird’s eye view.

From twenty metres above, the undertown was utterly resplendent with the earthen-tiled roofs glimmering under sunlight. Though the streets were barren and colossal insects wandered aimlessly around, the Bug-Slaying School behind them dominated the south, the council hall watchtower dominated the west, and the wilted, golden fields of firefly-grown wheat swayed like waves in the east. They weren’t gliding particularly fast, but the winds that funnelled through the chasm in the ceiling was enough to nudge them slightly east, over the golden fields.

She glimpsed in the corner of her eyes stone farmhouses and fancy manors, small parks and demolished stores, the lakeside quarters completely overrun by a horde of giant ants—seeing the ants reminded her they weren’t on a sightseeing trip, but if Instructor Biem had brought the entire class out on a round-town trip like this a year ago, maybe she’d have… maybe she’d have more fun going to school back then.

But seeing Alshifa like this now was all fine and well, too.

It’s… pretty.

[It certainly is,] Eria mused. [If you had an insect class with wing mutations, you would be able to see this whenever you want, too.]

Slowly but surely, the iron grip of fear began to loosen its hold around her heart. It was almost imperceptible—a single finger relaxing, then another, and then another, as slowly she allowed only Issam to hold onto her as her free hand let go of the glider. Her breathing slowed further until each exhale blended with the sound of the wind playing with her hair, flowing through it.

There was terror and tranquillity in equal parts to be found so high up, and… if she could help it, she wanted to focus on the latter.

“... Wanna steer the glider, Dahlia?” Issam asked, guiding her forward on her stomach and grinning as he did. “If possible, we’ll fly as close as we can to your house so we can pick up your dad directly, but I don’t know how to land this thing. If you know a safe spot we can kinda land in at the base of your hill, in the Old District, then you should probably–”

[Duck.]

The warning signs were there. The flicker of harsh blue on her left, completely dominating the golden rays of sunlight for a brief second, before there it was again—a tingle on her bristles, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end.

Normal giant insects may not be able to see them, gliding so slowly over the undertown, but slow movement only meant it was all the easier for the lightning hornet to aim at them.

She noticed the lightning first, slamming her body down to make the glider lurch, but Amula and Raya were quick to notice too. They rolled over to the right to make the glider tumble, and the lightning javelin pierced through the underside of the left wing with a hefty bang, a bone-shuddering explosion.

It wasn’t done yet.

While the glider completely lost its balance and the twins started screaming, Jerie started playing his flute in a panic, the lightning hornet—little more than a small blue dot in the far distance—threw another javelin at them. It tore across the air, screaming all the way. This one hit them centre mass, and the whole glider shattered into pieces twenty metres above the ground.

Fall.

… That’s a pond down there!

We can land in it!

If it wasn’t for Eria injecting adrenaline straight into her veins, she wouldn’t be able to shout and point directly down at the giant glass building they were about to fall through—the Sarowan Garden, the only building in the entire undertown designed to grow and harvest ‘exotic’ vegetables they couldn’t grow out in the open. She could spot the glimmers of a pond right underneath the metal-reinforced glass; it’d be an impossibly tight landing, but they had to do it. They had to land there. It was the only way they could survive the fall, and without hesitation, Amula grabbed her wrist before kicking off her chestplate with an explosive leap downwards.

Her breath was kicked right out of her as Amula went ahead of all of them first, plummeting straight through the reinforced glass so none of them would be cut up by the shards.

[Impressive.]

[Her quick thinking abilities are top-notch as well.]

Dahlia didn’t have the time to feel impressed, though. She was a swirl of flails and motion as she plunged feet-first into the deep, cold pond; weeds tickled her shins and her nose felt like it’d burst with water, but she managed to stay conscious. She managed to keep all her bones intact.

Frantically then she clawed for the surface, and it wasn’t like when she’d first fallen into the sewers just yesterday with the bug trader—she found her way rather quickly this time with her bristles vibrating in the direction of air. Gasps for air rang out around her all at the same time, and while she tread water with little kicks, paddling slowly to the soft grass shore, she did a headcount to see if everyone was here.

The twins were holding onto each other a bit behind her, Jerie was already being pulled on shore by Amula, and Issam was trudging out of the pond with Raya draped across his shoulders like a sack of eggplants. She breathed a sigh of relief. Amula was the only one sporting a dozen small cuts across her body—owing to literally kicking through an entire glass ceiling, no doubt—but they didn’t look deep enough to leave any lasting scars.

Good.

I’m… tired, though.

And the same could be said for everyone. Issam tossed Raya forward and crumbled like a sack of eggplants himself, the twins lay half-submerged in the pond as they hugged each other on the shore, and only faint melodic notes were dribbling out of Jerie’s cicada flute. Amula was the only one strong enough to at least fall ceremoniously, dipping into a cross-legged seat, and by the time Dahlia managed to crawl out of the pond herself—they all sighed, eyes blearily open and staring at the giant sunlit hole in the ceiling.

[All of you should rest for the remainder of the day.] Eria nodded slowly, appearing on the grass right next to her head. [You have fought enough. Tend to your wounds, chew on your bread, and finish the rest of your journey tomorrow.]

[As long as you do not make too much noise, the Swarm will not find you here.]

She chewed her lips and kept on staring at the hole in the ceiling.

… And that lightning hornet?

[What of it?]

With that range, with that accuracy, with that power… that’s an oriental hornet, right?

Can we ever hope to defeat a bug like that?

[...]

Eria didn’t answer her immediately.

And she decided, in the end, that maybe she didn’t really want to hear the answer.

[... First and foremost, you must rest,] Eria said. [There are quite a few beetle and robber fly parts scattered about this garden, so I am curious to see what you will make of them.]