how


    was


    … I don’t have to do anything.


    “… You don’t have to do anything,” her mama said, caressing her face as she choked and gagged, spitting out wads of hairy legs and wings. “Focus. Breathe. Don’t stay on all fours. Sit up straight and tilt your head up so you can swallow better.”


    She did as she was told. She swallowed all of the hairy legs and stuck her fingers down her mouth, peeling a few wings off the bottom of her tongue. Her mama clapped and patted her head for a job well-done, but when her hands moved up to tug on her collar unconsciously, trying to loosen the cold ring of metal so she could swallow better–


    Her mama screamed, kicking her chest and sending her tumbling down the stairs into the cellar.


    “Dear!” her mama shrieked, raising a trembling finger and pointing down at her. “She’s losing it! She tried to kill me! She’s trying to break out–”


    “Hush, dear. You’re going to scare her. Just let her sit there and wait for her next meal, okay?” her papa mumbled, looking frantically out the window of their freezing little cabin, nails scratching and digging into his own skin. “They said the next parcel of those bugs was supposed to arrive two hours ago, but in this blizzard… maybe it’ll be another day or two before it arrives–”


    “What if it doesn’t come?” her mama asked, and she could tell even from the cellar; her mama’s face had to be ‘pale as snow’. “If they don’t deliver the fresh moths… then what will she eat? She’ll starve, right? And if she starves, she’ll go for–”The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    “She’s still got those month-old moth husks down there, right?” her papa said, massaging her mama’s shoulders as he peered down the stairs, scrunching his brows. “She can eat those for a while. Just because they’ve been dead for months and too small to eat back then doesn’t mean they have zero nutrition. Push comes to shove, she can just eat that.”


    “You’ll eat the moth husks if you get hungry, right?” her papa asked, smiling softly as he peered down at her. “You won’t knock on the cellar hatch and ask us for food, right?”


    She shook her head vehemently—of course she wasn’t going to ask for any ‘human’ food. She was just a human in name. She didn’t even have the right number of arms.


    For some reason, though, her mama didn’t believe her.


    “Lies!” her mama shrieked, jabbing an accusatory finger down at her. “She won’t eat the husks! She’ll starve herself intentionally, and then when she works up an appetite–”


    “Hush, dear. Why can’t you trust our own daughter?” her papa murmured. “She’ll do it right in front of you, okay? She’ll eat a husk for us.” Then he looked down at her, and she felt his gaze landing on a shrivelled husk of a moth half-buried in the dirt next to her. “You’ll calm your mama down, won’t you, Emilia? You’ll eat the moth in front of us to show you’re a big girl who can control yourself, right?”


    Shivering, trembling, she ran her claws through the dirt and scooped up the dried, shrivelled moth husk.


    She dangled it over her open mouth–


    Bug bug


    TASTY.


    sooo


    …


    the human half


    Not enough!


    Again!


    Again!


    Again!


    Until!


    I’m!


    Full–


    . All of you


    pantry?


    … I shouldn’t be here.