The Unmaker

“... Papa! Play with me!” little Dahlia says, bouncing up and down as she points out the window. Today is a not-so-cold day, which would be a perfect day for all of them to go out on a miniature picnic. Alas, her father is tired. He has spent the entire night drowning himself in his books, and he has no energy to spare for little Dahlia.

“Go out with your friends,” he murmurs, as he raises his head from the living room desk and rubs his eyes. Little Dahlia pouts and clenches her fists, but he pats her head and nudges her out the front door anyways, waving at her. “It’s a good day today—don’t waste it being stuck inside this dreary little cabin.”

“... Okay!”

He watches her run off to the edge of the hill, disappearing down the stairs. He’s not entirely sure who she hangs out with. Maybe the children from the orphanage right downstairs? It would only be fitting, that the child of an orphan would mingle once more with the new orphans of this generation; he isn’t particularly worried about the kind of people she will play with in the future.

His wife steps out of the bedroom and leans against the doorway, smiling weakly.

“She’s nine already. She doesn’t need to play with us anymore,” she says, sounding forlorn, and he jumps to his feet with worry pooling in his eyes. He helps her back to the bed, but when he tries to rest her head on a pillow she pushes his hand away.

The little black insect claw that’d replaced her left pinky scratched his wrist and he winced, reeling away slightly.

“... Oh. Sorry,” she mumbled, face gaunt and ghoulish as she stares out the window. He argues it’s not her fault and tries to get her to rest on the pillow again, but she shakes her head adamantly, lips pursed. “I don’t… feel like I can sleep anymore.”

His face darkens as he squeezes her hands. “And what does that mean?”

“My body physically can't fall asleep anymore.”

“...”

“I’m always starving, too,” she says, as she rubs her stomach and grins at him cheekily. “You never bring me insects to eat anymore, so I’ve been resorting to catching anything I can find around the house recently. They don’t taste nearly as good as the strong, muscular ones you can find in the Bazaar, but–”

“Last night, I injected high concentrations of your blood into mine.”

She holds her tongue.

He is silent.

He looks away for a second–

Then she slaps him, and her black insect claw cuts sharply across his cheek; it doesn’t hurt a single bit.

“... What?” she growls, as she grabs him by his collar and pulls him closer. He shows her no expression. “You… you what? Why’d you do that? Do you even know what’ll happen if you do that? What if you–”

“That’s the point,” he murmurs. “If I get the same compulsion as you, I’ll be able to study it better. I can document my own experiences in my journal. I’ll also be able to conduct tests on myself easier than I can with you, so I’d say it’s a worthwhile risk to take. I’m healthier than you, anyways, so I can actually walk myself to another doctor if I ever need help–”

“And what about Dahlia?

“Are you going to experiment on her as well?”

“... Of course not.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two dead grasshoppers—he’d caught them last night in the Bazaar and cut their heads off with his scalpel.

She gulps and licks her lips at the sight of the bugs.

“I’ll find a cure to this, and Dahlia will never have to know,” he says, as she suddenly snaps at one of the grasshoppers with her teeth and he pulls it back, flicking her forehead. “I’m still going to hold you back from eating insects, but… once a month. Once a month, we’ll each eat one insect together, and then we’ll starve ourselves for the rest of the month. No human food. No bread, no water. This way Dahlia gets more food to eat, and we also train our jaws to forget the motion of eating. We won’t eat until we’re cured.”

“... And if you don’t find a cure? What will we–”

“I’ll find it.

“I promise.

“When have I not delivered on my promises?”

He hands one of the grasshoppers to her, and she takes it gingerly with both hands, eyes watering.

She nods, and she trusts him.

She believes in him.

So now he must live up to his promise, and that will have to begin with… this.

“... Does it always look so gnarly in your eyes?” he says, recoiling with obvious disgust as he gets a closer look at the decapitated grasshopper. She laughs and bumps foreheads with him, pressing forward so she could feel his heat better.

“Dummy,” she whispers. “Don’t cut off the heads next time. They’re the best part of the grasshopper.”

He curls his lips. “They look revolting. I don’t want the eyes and stuff.”

“Well, the head’s usually where I start. Just this once, though, let’s go with... the legs. Just bite them off like you’re pruning branches on a tree.”

“And they'll taste good?”

“Um… maybe?” She shrugs, and moves to clink their grasshoppers together as though they are bottles of alcohol. “On the count of three, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“Oh, and don’t spit it out halfway. Finish it–”

“One.”

He starts with the right legs, she starts with the left legs. He immediately wants to vomit. The chitin cuts his tongue, the muscles spasm as though the legs had minds of their own—he immediately doubles over to try to regurgitate his ‘food’, but she clamps a hand over his mouth and forces him to swallow.

He musters his courage and does exactly that.

“... How was it?” she asks, a weary smirk on her face as she flicks his forehead. “Not so bad after all, right?”

He licks his teeth and makes a sour face, holding up the rest of the grasshopper.

“... I’ll find a cure.

"I'll get our lives back.

“I promise.”

- Scene from Sina Household past