Adam stood still as the burrowers scraped out shallow graves. Their mandibles clicked methodically, mud piling under their trembling legs. Fourteen bodies. Fourteen.
Each body looked too small, too fragile, as if sleep had simply overtaken them. But the stillness told the truth. He could barely keep his breaths steady. Each inhale stabbed his ribs. Another leg lost, one mandible fractured, carapace split. His body hurt everywhere, but the pain inside his chest was worse.
When the last shovelful of earth fell over the final ant, he clenched his jaw. This is wrong, his mind hissed. They are mana. They should be returned to the Core. To be recycled. Nothing more than scraps for the core.
And yet, his heart rebelled. His legs felt like they were sinking in tar as he whispered, "No… bury them here."
The ants obeyed without protest. No one blamed him. No one cried out. That only made the pain worse.
Adam lowered his head, trying to shut it all out, but the silence betrayed him. His mind dragged him back to his world once more.
He could feel it again. The tug at his sleeve. Her small hand warm and insistent.
"Adam!" Her little voice was bright, chirping like a sparrow. "Ice cream, ice cream! Please?"
He remembered how his own voice cracked from laughter. "Alright, alright. But don't tell Mom."
They walked together, her skipping, him feigning annoyance but smiling anyway. The air smelled of grass and exhaust. The truck's jingle was tinny, cheerful, cruelly cheerful.
She pressed her face against the side of the truck, breath fogging the painted pictures. "Strawberry! I want strawberry!"
"Two cones," Adam said, voice warm, chest light.
When the man handed them over, the cold sweetness numbed his fingers. His sister squealed, biting hers too quickly, pink dripping down her chin.
He turned to fish for coins in his pocket. He searched all over him for it. It was if fate played a cruel joke against him, as in that moment.
He looked back and she was gone.
"...Huh?" His voice had gone hollow.
He spun, heart lurching. Panic clawed at his throat.
The screech came next. Tires, sharp and shrill, tearing the air apart.
Adam's head whipped toward the sound, and he saw her. Halfway across the street, playfully skipping as she walked, cone slipping from her hand. Her eyes wide, frozen.
The van's roar drowned everything.
His scream ripped out, raw, cracked, tearing his throat. "NOOO!"
The impact was deafening. A dull, sickening thud. Her body flung, then crumpled on the pavement. The cone burst beside her, strawberry smeared across the black road like blood.
Adam fell to his knees, lungs burning, vision swimming. His hands reached out, trembling, useless. He had done nothing. He had only watched. The demons he had once chained deep down have broken from their cages and resurfaced once again, hungry for revenge.
The cavern air hung heavy with damp and the iron tang of old blood. Shadows clung to the walls, restless, twitching with the faint drip of water somewhere unseen. Adam sat hunched, his mandibles slack, every breath dragged rough through his chest.
"Troubled?" His voice rasped like stone ground against stone. Yet Adam didn't respond, it felt like the moth already knew the answer.
The moth came towards him before taking a graceful seat beside him. His wings, once vibrant, were now frayed curtains trembling at the edges. Antennae shook as if straining to feel a breeze long gone. A scar, pale and deep, split his thorax like a forgotten canyon.
"I am Mophis," he said, voice low, weary but clear. "And what may I call you…?"
"Adam."
The name lingered in the air, brittle as glass. Mophis repeated it under his breath, shaping it as if binding it to memory.
"Adam. Strange, to meet one such as you here. Ants… I didn't know your kind came this far east."
Adam forced a humorless hiss of air; more ache than laughter. "Neither did I."
For the briefest moment, Mophis's mandibles twitched into a ghost of a smile. "I should thank you. Without you, my men and I… we would have been sold, or starved, or worse.... slaves." His wide, many-faceted eyes flicked to the moths gathered nearby, ragged wings curled around their diminished frames. "I have seen much, Adam. But nothing like what you did today. It reminded me of soldiers I once saw in the southern cities."
Adam tilted his head. His mandibles clicked weakly, more shudder than sound. "Cities?"
"Yes." Mophis's voice softened, touched by memory. "I was sent south to trade. Woven silks, resin vials, dustglass. Things nobles crave. Just across a few caves, there is a city of hollow stone towers, markets that blaze with firelight even under night's shroud."
The words felt unreal to Adam. Towers. Markets. Ever since he came here is life has been nothing but filled with relentless fighting and a deepening agony that only slumber could soothe. Could such places truly breathe beyond his darkness?
"I thought it would be simple," Mophis said, wings shifting with a dry whisper. "Weeks there, weeks back. We had a substantial force of guards at our side, wings sharp, claws keened. Or so we thought. The wilds never forgive. We were ambushed. The dark poured over us, faster than we could've imagined. My guards fell screaming. The rest of us dragged here, left to rot. Every day, a gamble whether you woke again unharmed." His voice faltered, chains clinking faintly as he shifted. Then he steadied. "And then you came. So yes, Adam. Thank you. You and your men gave us freedom when I thought I would never taste it again."
Adam lowered his gaze. His chest felt hollow, raw. Freedom. The similes. The words coiled in him like digging claws. Even though the atmosphere was begining to fill with cheers and signs of celebration as the moths gathered around each other. It felt to him as if he has done nothing but let the ants down. It feels as if he would soon have to bear the deaths of those close. Norkk, Brill, Sirtt, Mira and Zell. The thought slashed through him like glass dragged across flesh.
Mophis's voice fell to a shadowed murmur. "We go to war not because we crave the clash of steel, but because silence at the gates devours all we cherish. For every mile we claim, a brother is left behind, his name a stone on the road we march. Victory demands a price, Adam. It takes the martyrs and leaves the living to remember. If you must answer the drum, know your hands will be heavy with blood."
The words wrapped the cavern in stillness. Then, softer, Mophis added: "They say these words belonged to Morthius, the great legend. He sold his soul his one and only purpose; survival of his kind and those that will come after him, like those that did before him, at no matter the cost. He led the resistance when the old masters bled them dry. Even slew his own people, those too twisted by greed to save. Yet he carried guilt until his death, filled with remorse till his final days, mourning those he could not bring back. He is the reason I draw breath now. And so, we honor him, and the truth he left us: survival demands sacrifice."
Mophis's eyes softened, distant now. "You remind me of him. Of Morthius." He tilted his head back; his gaze fixed on the cavern's ceiling. He closed his eyes reminiscing about a fragment of memory that lay embedded in the back of his mind. His voice grew quiet, trembling with the rhythm of memory. "I once had a table carved of white bark. Servants poured nectar into crystal vials. My daughter, bright-eyed, clambered into my lap; my son grinned beside her. My wife at my side, her touch warm as silk. That was my life."
His voice broke. His claws trembled as the scene in his memory shifted.
"I tried my best.... arms extended towards the fire, wailing, begging as if wishing and praying that their hands would meet mine and that I would drag them out of the ravaging flames into my warm embrace... Yet, that moment never came, I was dragged by the guards, worthless, powerless tears fell on the floor as the soldiers carried me into a carriage so we could flee. Such a sudden and brutal ambush, every second of it still pulsed deeply from my mind. Never letting me forget my mistakes. And so now... I live only for my people... For Morthius." Tears enveloped his face as they flowed down his cheeks.
The cavern echoed with silence after his heavy, suffocating words.
For the first time, Adam felt something twist inside him. It was no longer loneliness or pain. It was relatable. For the first time since he has been thrown into this world, he feels as if someone truly understands his sorrows and troubles. Mophis bore the same scars carved into him. Loss. Guilt. The endless void of regret. Adam was not alone in that darkness.
"Leadership is not mercy, Adam," Mophis whispered. "It is sacrifice. If you wish to protect them, you must be willing to pay the cost."
The words pierced deeper than wounds ever could. Adam's mandibles quivered involuntarily.
Mophis studied him for a moment, then asked quietly, "Do you have a queen?"
Adam's breath caught. The truth clawed at him. The queen was the heart of every colony. To admit they had none was just a cause for suspicion. Yet he chose honesty. "No. We do not."
"I see." Mophis's tone held no judgment, only understanding. "Then it must weigh heavily on you, carrying this burden alone." His antennae twitched faintly. "Why not join us? We would welcome you with open arms. Our Queen will be delighted to have you in our kingdom. You would find kinship among my people. Perhaps even something more."
Adam's eyes turned toward his colony. Ants moved with diligence, carrying, building, striving. His heart clenched. Perhaps Mophis spoke truth. Perhaps that was what he needed, someone who knew the same abyss that he fell into. Yet, the sight of his ants grounded him.
"I think I have found myself a home," Adam said softly. "Here." Though the ants felt nothing more than kids, though all he has ever done is fight. Even though how his days go by with nothing but despair. He could still call it home.
Mophis inclined his head slowly. "Then so be it. If that is where your heart leads you, I will not pull it away. But I promise you this, our queen will hear of your deeds. You will be rewarded. And until then—" He reached into a tattered pouch and drew forth a small vial, glass glowing faintly yellow. Inside, the liquid shimmered like liquid sunlight.
Adam's eyes widened.
"I want you to have this," Mophis said, pressing it forward, "is a miracle potion. It heals all. Wings torn, bones shattered, flesh ripped—it binds them whole in breaths. I once carried it for my own, but you… you need it more."
Adam stared at the vial, light flickering across his carapace. The gift stunned him, heavy with weight he could not yet name. He tried to act humble and sincere, he wanted to deny such expensive gift, yet the words never left his mouth. He accepted them into his arms before drinking the strange yellow vile without much thought.
...The moth grinned as he gulped down the last sip of the vile. And immediately a burning sensation spreads across Adam's body as he drops down in pain.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"