Bee had been told she was safe for as long as she could feel the city’s own heartbeat under her bare feet. The slow, slow thumping cadence reassured her even as the sky grew dark, the blue space overhead with its white-hot spark fading through orange and red, violet to black.


    Tattered scraps hung high above, draped between vast chrome arches that reminded the child of her mother’s teeth. Those leathery rags were a source of light now. Caught in the wind, they danced as they cast a dull sort of bioluminescence from nodules that patterned their torn surfaces.


    The child made her way back to the ditch, between starving buildings and towers that seemed to wilt further and further with each passing hour. Her progress was slow. She seemed to weigh too much for her slender legs to carry her, ankles hurting even when she stood still to catch her breath. To compensate, Bee propped herself up with her fragile wings, which bent and scratched against the harsh floor. The steel bowl that she held so close seemed a burden too much to bear, even as empty as it was.


    Bee fell to her knees at the bank, gasping as her smooth palms and knees found the calloused ground. She let herself slide down, bowl tumbling with her until she reached the tear she had made following her mother’s instruction. It slowly oozed warm water tapped from some damaged lymphatic gland near the surface. So thirsty, despite this being her third journey for water today, first she pressed her face to the wound and sucked from it. Then, swallowing her fill, the child sat back against the city’s flesh and let the wound drain into her bowl.


    The air grew chill, but the ground was warm enough to keep her comfortable. She repaid that by using a nail to pick at the slope, scratching at it until she could peel back more and more skin. Doing so exposed a raw, pink surface, and she continued until it spilt more thick red waters. Before long, Bee was pulling long ropes of skin and meat from the ground, bundling them up and throwing them aside.


    Then fear filled the air. It was a dizzy, sharp pheromone scent. The child shot to her feet, scrambling faster than she ever had. Scanning the dark, she saw that she was not alone. A freak was crouching in the night, sneezing his chemical messengers in an attempt to communicate.


    “I’m not a hound,” Bee said to the thing in the shadows. Then, swallowing back her lolling tongue again, she added, “I won’t hurt you.”


    He beetled out of the dark, black hide shimmering in the blue hues cast down from the biolights above. Bee could see that he had no mouth to speak of - at least nothing like hers - so she offered him her hand. The freak was hesitant in his approach, yet he took her hand, and they allowed each other close. She guided his fingers to the sensitive backs of her knees, for his squat form found that the easiest to reach, while he brought her hands to his shoulders. Bee found herself tapping away, sharing a silent language of touch and scent that she knew but didn’t know how she knew.


    “Who are you?” She asked without sound.


    “I’m Heych,” he answered with a chitinous touch, tickling her skin with the thick hairs on its tarsus.


    “I’m Bee,” she said, trying not to squirm. The freak seemed to be calming down. At least he had stopped belching out his fear as they shared voiceless words.


    “You’re young. Were you just shed?” Heych asked, confused. That shouldn’t have been possible.


    “No. Mother made me.”


    “The— The Vat-Mother made you?” His nervous twitch returned, a sour note hanging in the air.


    “Yes,” Bee said. The freak seemed lost for words. Finally, unable to stand the silence and the silence, Bee asked, “Who made you? Where did you come from?”


    “I was shed a long time ago. I lived here.”


    “I’ve not seen anyone else here.”


    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.


    “Everyone else is gone. They left when the city stopped walking. Or they died. I thought the Vat-Mother had died.”


    The freak seemed disappointed that her mother might still live. That hurt, but looking away, Bee tried not to let it show.


    “I didn’t know the city could walk,” Bee said.


    “It can’t, not anymore,” Heych explained, his movements suddenly feverish, desperate. “You should leave too. I’m leaving soon. I need to get enough food and water first — enough to make the crossing.”


    “Where are you crossing to?”


    “Another city. You look—” He began but didn’t finish, leaning to see her more clearly in the dark. Bee let him. After all, she had done the same. He just looked so different to her and her mother.


    “I don’t understand.”


    “It’s dark. You should hide. Will you be here tomorrow, Bee?”


    “Yes. I have to keep getting food and water too.”


    Heych released her, nodding its body. He quickly scuttled off.


    “I’ll see you tomorrow then!” Bee called after him, unsure if he could hear her.


    The child was alone in the dark again. Looking around, she needed a moment to collect herself after the strange encounter before returning to the ditch. With unsteady legs and a weak grip, she first gathered up the ropes of meat in her arms, the water coating it, congealing and darkening as it dried. Then, carefully, she balanced the overflowing bowl on top of the flesh before clambering from the ditch and heading back, trying her best not to spill.


    At the hall, the entranceway had fallen unresponsive. Even the trembling of the walls had stilled. The tremendous muscles of the hall had begun to peel from their tall ribs, and its chitinous plates had cracked apart with them. After looking for another way inside, Bee ducked through into one of these narrow cracks.


    No sooner had she entered than the offspring started chirping. The little animals, some maggoty and some legged, had emerged from the vat only a short while after she had. They couldn’t speak. As far as Bee could see, they couldn’t do much for themselves at all. Mother had told her that no one would blame her if she had to eat them. It was okay. It was how things could be, sometimes. But never had mother told her to do it, and she hadn’t. How could someone eat their little sisters? They crawled and lopped up to her. Bee cooed them a little hello before stepping over them and crossing the room to Mother.


    Mother hadn’t eaten a thing. She had carefully explained to Bee that she didn’t have the necessary organs for that, not anymore. Still, Bee had managed to get her to sup a little water. They had worked together for many hours with metal tools, Mother instructing and Bee carefully following. It was an amputation, piece by piece, separating the woman from the wall.


    Now Bee looked over her gasping parent, laying there against a pile of steel machinery and dead vat, having only made it metres from where she had once been intertwined with the rotting structure. Yet they had bought her a little time.


    “Are you okay, my sweet?”


    Bee nodded, awkwardly stepping over, careful not to get any of her dozen or so siblings underfoot. With one arm, she dropped the meat, to which the others squealed in delight and began to nibble and chew, crawling over each other to get just a bit of biomass for themselves. To her mother, she offered the bowl of water.


    “No. No, that’s for you, Bee,” Mother gasped. Her breathing had gotten worse. Her head hung back against the steely bank, neck limp.


    “You have to have something,” Bee argued, eyes flooding, but she knew whatever was happening to this place was taking her mother with it. Putting down the bowl, it too was left to her little sisters, who greedily sucked and splashed at the gift, nearly tipping it over and spilling its contents in their dumb hunger.


    “I need you to take care of yourself. Do it for me,” the Vat-Mother said.


    “I will.” A heartbeat rippled up beneath their feet, then another and another, before Bee asked, “What do I even do now?”


    “Come here.”


    She did, curling into her mother’s embrace again.


    “Everything’s dying. It’s not fair,” Bee cried out, tears stinging her eyes.


    “I know. I need you to remember how important you are. Never let anyone hurt you, Bee. You’ll need to leave this place. I won’t be able to go with you.”


    “Please!” Bee begged, choking on the pain inside her chest, all of her arms clinging desperately to the cold body of her mother.


    “I know,” the Vat-Mother whispered, holding her child close and stroking her hair. Tears touched her own empty sockets in turn as she said, “I know…”