The Earthborn Emissary

Chapter 6: Fly Away

 

Sneaking halfway across town turned out to me a much easier task than I’d expected it to be. Quinn knew all of the shortcuts, all of the shadowy places where people tended not to look. It also helped that it was early afternoon on Sunday, when everyone was at home. There were a couple of scares where I was sure someone had seen me, but either they hadn’t really seen anything, or my new form was so outlandish and bizarre that they assumed they were hallucinating. 

The most challenging part of getting to Miri’s house wasn’t even the risk of being seen, but the risk that I would injure myself while trying to walk. I used to love walking on my tiptoes when I was younger because it made me feel regal. It was somewhat more difficult to walk that way now that I physically couldn’t walk any other way. A bit like the difference between eating some delicious jello, and realizing you can eat nothing but jello for the next week because you’re going to have bowel surgery. Except for the rest of your natural existence.

There were a lot of other little things that I had to get used to as well, like how if the sun glared in my face, I had to close all eight eyes and not just two, or how I had to breathe through my mouth on account of not having a nose. When the wind hit me, there wasn’t the feel of body hair being blown around, but that was honestly a plus. Having four arms helped the one time I did fall over, having more limbs to spread my weight over when I got back up. 

After about half an hour, Quinn and I made it over to Miri’s house without me seriously injuring myself. Miri’s house was a lot bigger than mine, with two floors and a backyard that actually counted for something. Her dad was an aviation engineer, which I suppose is a job that pays really well. Once we got there, Quinn proceeded to completely ignore the well-kept front garden and slate pathway, instead circling around to the side gate.

“What are we doing here?” I whispered.

“Getting in,” Quinn whispered back. “We can’t just knock on the door, not with the way you are. We want to keep this a secret for now, right?”

“So we’re just going to sneak into Miri’s house? That’s very illegal!”

“Oh come on, she’s your girlfriend— for now at least. Don’t tell me you’ve never snuck in for boyfriend-girlfriend things. I know I have.”

The fact that he called it “boyfriend-girlfriend things” rubbed me the wrong way for some reason. “Just call it ‘sloppy makeout sessions’ like an adult,” I muttered. Quinn didn’t seem to notice me. 

“Then again, I’m gay and you only act like it,” Quinn said with a shrug. “I don’t know, maybe it’s just a gay thing?”

“How would I know if that’s a gay thing?” I said, my antennae curling. 

“I don’t know, okay? I’ve studied queer theory but I don’t think that was ever a part of it.” Quinn looked up at the wooden gate we had been standing in front of. “Now help me climb over this fence.”

With much flailing, heaving, and confusion as I tried to manage twice the number of limbs I was used to, I was able to help Quinn up and over the fence. He opened the gate from the other side, and I took my first few tepid steps onto Miri’s backyard. Quinn and I snuck in, past the vegetable garden and around the pool.

I can’t say I felt very good about snooping around in someone’s house without permission, girlfriend or not. At the same time, I could think of few other options, and I didn’t have the heart to say anything to Quinn out loud. Given my new appearance, I’d probably have to get used to staying out of sight. Unconsciously, I started to stim, rubbing my various outer mandibles together. 

We arrived at the white-painted back door to Miri’s house. Then we both stood there awkwardly.

“So what are we going to do?” I asked. 

Quinn opened his mouth to speak, took one look at me, then started pacing back and forth in silence. “I think you should stay back and avoid being seen at first. If whoever opens the door sees you immediately, they’re going to freak out. I think… I think the best option is for me to explain the situation a bit before you do the big reveal.”

“I…okay. Give me a second.” I was going to object to the idea that people would freak out just from seeing me, but he had a point. I went and hid behind a pillar, a much easier task now that I was skinny. 

Quinn knocked on the door. A few seconds later, it opened up, and Miri stuck out her head to talk. “Quinn, what the hell are you doing in my backyard? I told you not to sneak into my house again.”

Quinn shrugged. “I am very aware of your desires, but I’m afraid that in this situation it’s really for the common good. It’s kind of a Jeremy Bentham sort of deal.”

“That’s not what utilitarianism means and you know it,” said Miri. She rolled her eyes at Quinn, then asked, “So what are you here for?”

“So remember how I was going to go over to Alex’s house?” Quinn said. “Well, I found out what happened to him.”

Miri’s eyes went just a little wide. I cringed, realizing how much what she was about to see would break her heart. I wanted to run away, to flee into the woods and never speak to my sweetie ever, ever again. But I didn’t, because I’m a coward. 

“The way you say that makes it sound bad. Is Alex alright?”

“Well…” Quinn gave a quick glance back at my hiding space that Miri didn’t notice. “He isn’t sick anymore. We talked for a little while, in fact. The problem is that we don’t think he’s going to be safe with his parents for the time being.”

“Oh, that sucks,” said Miri. “I’m sorry to hear that. Alex can stay with me for as long as he wants, obviously. Where is he? Is he still having that problem with the venomous saliva or is that gone too?”

Quinn’s face went just a shade or two more pale. “Well, there’s the thing. We had to sneak into your backyard rather than just knock on the front door because, well… Alex looks a little different. The sickness was actually the early stages of some sort of metamorphosis?”

Miri raised one eyebrow at Quinn. “Okay, what did you take? Do you need me to sit for you?”

“No no no no no no no. I thought the same thing, but I haven’t taken anything since yesterday. Alex, why don’t you come out and show her what I’m talking about.”

I froze for just a moment, then anxiously stepped out from behind the pillar. My lower arms were clasped in front of my hips and I couldn’t bring myself to look Miri in the eye. “Hi, sweetie,” I said.

Miri let out a noise like a small dog getting stepped on as she jumped back into her house at the sight of me. There was just enough awkward silence for Quinn to give me a deeply apologetic look before she returned, this time hefting a large softcover math textbook, which she was holding in a pose that suggested she was about to throw it at my face.

I raised my arms to deflect it while screaming in the most girlish way imaginable. Quinn got between her and me, saying, “Woah woah hey! No need for violence!”

“What the fuck is that thing?” Miri hissed between clenched teeth. 

“That’s Alex,” Quinn said. “I told you he’s changed.”

I had had enough. I knew exactly what was going on. My new body was so disgusting, so unloveable, so hideous that even my own girlfriend reacted to it with violence. Quinn was probably just suppressing his absolute disgust at me to make me feel better. Nobody could possibly love me like this, which is what I deserved. 

My antennae went limp, hanging down over the sides of my head. It felt like I was suffocating as my breath started to come out in erratic bursts. Like I said before, I can’t really cry as an insect, but the soft, shrill keening that came out of my mouth in between desperate gulps of air got the idea across. For the second time in just as many hours, I sank to the floor, face pressed into my knees while my arms pulled my legs close to my chest.

Inside my head, the same phrase echoed back and forth over and over again. Nobody will ever love you again. It was, as far as I was concerned, a complete tautology. People would tolerate me, sure. Maybe even pity me. I imagined a scientist in a documentary, talking with pity in his voice about the bizarre case of Alex Sierra the bug boy. Look at how strange and grotesque he is, such a strange creation of science.  Nobody would sympathize with a monster like me. I looked like a porcelain doll with the jaws of a horror movie monster. Who could possibly ever care about something so disgusting?

Someone started stroking my scalp. The feeling of fingers running through my hair had always been one that relaxed me, and though I didn’t have hair anymore, I still had feeling up there. I tried to resist the cloying power of scalp massage, to burrow deeper into my self-loathing, but it was to no avail. My antennae perked up entirely against my will as I slowly looked up into Miri’s eyes. 

“Alex?” she asked. It was half a question of state and half a question of identity. 

“What do you want? I thought you said I was a ‘thing’.”

“I…I’m sorry, Alex,” she said. “There was no way for me to know it was you, and with everything that’s been going on I’m kind of tense. Can you find it in you to forgive me?”

Miri’s eyes were glossy with barely-restrained tears. I could never stay mad at her for long. And given how freaky I was, she had a reason to be on edge. “Okay. I forgive you.”

Miri planted a quick kiss on my forehead, right between my fifth and sixth eyes. “Let’s go inside before anyone starts asking questions.”

I stood up, gracefully this time, and followed her inside. Miri scouted ahead, and once she was sure the coast was clear, I was hurried through the house and into Miri’s upstairs bedroom. Yeah, that’s how big her family house was; they had an upstairs.

Once I was inside the very, very familiar room, I reclined on Miri’s bed while she closed and barricaded the door. Miri’s room was about as organized as her personality, the bed perfectly well-made even at whatever o’clock in the afternoon. I had a lot of good memories of various things we’d done here, and the all-around positive energy helped me calm down. 

“Okay,” said Miri, leaning up against the shelf of science and math textbooks. “Why don’t you start from the beginning, tell me everything that happened.”

I told her everything that had happened since the last time we’d talked. Quinn interjected a few times with details I’d forgotten, but after a few minutes Miri had the whole story.

She nodded sagely. “Your parents are assholes.”

“I know, right?” I said. “They’ve had so many years and they never once thought to tell me that my life was going to get ruined by me turning into this?”

“It’s just like my mom,” said Quinn. “She didn’t warn me that guys were going to start being really hot, and yours didn’t warn you about how you were going to have to start being careful around insecticides. Parents always forget.”

I nodded. “I guess they do.”

“So what do you want to do, lovebug?” asked Miri.

I stifled a laugh.

Miri looked at me oddly. “What’s so funny?”

“Lovebug. You called me lovebug.”

Miri laughed a little too, quickly covering it with her hand. “Yeah, I guess I did. Never has a pet name been so accurate! Oh, oh, oh. Alex darling, would you mind giving an interview? I have a paper on insect biology due and I could really use a firsthand account!”

I don’t know if it was the nerves finally boiling over, or relief at the fact that my girlfriend could still joke around in a time like this, or just the fact that she’s really funny, but I started laughing. It was a full-on belly laugh, the type that hurts your stomach if you keep at it for too long. Then I noticed the look on Miri and Quinn’s faces. 

Miri looked confused and slightly offended; Quinn looked like he was about to be sick. I stopped laughing. 

“Um… what’s going on?” I asked. 

“The entire lower part of your face just unfolded like something out of a horror movie,” said Miri.

“You have another mouth. Inside of your mouth.” Quinn looked downright shell-shocked from the sight of it. 

I shrank back, suddenly embarrassed. Reaching up and feeling around my face, I adjusted my mandibles, pressing the lower ones together and holding the side-parts against my upper jaw. Eventually it formed into a semblance of a single human jaw. It probably made me look like a ventriloquist’s dummy, but if it made my friends more comfortable, it was worth it.

“Testing, testing,” I said, tentatively feeling the side of my jaw. “I guess I can still talk like this, that’s good. Is this better?”

“Yeah, much better,” said Quinn. Miri nodded along with him. 

“Do you actually have a paper about insect biology due?” I asked.

Miri nodded. “I spent the entire summer studying local insects out in the desert, remember?”

“Oh my god, that’s what you were doing!” I said. “I know you already told me at some point.” Suddenly, I had an idea. I jumped up to my feet, nearly leaving the floor from sheer excitement. “Does that mean you can tell me about, like, all of the weird body parts I have now?”

Miri leaned back like I was pushing her away with sheer manic energy. “Sure, I guess?”

“So what’s this thing on my back?” I asked. “Do I have a tail? I keep trying to look at it, but it’s behind me so I can’t see it very much.”

Miri sort of leaned around me, getting a look at the thing that had been making it hard to sit down without having to walk behind me. “Oh, that? That would be your abdomen. Most of your vital organs should be in there.”

“Oh.” My expression of unbridled excitement fell, my antennae drooping forwards. “So all of my vital organs are in my butt? It would have been cool if I had a tail.”

Miri shrugged. “Then again, you have moth antennae on a beetle body with a face like no insect I’ve ever seen before. Your abdomen containing all your vital organs is contingent on any of my biology knowledge still applying. You have six limbs and a carapace, so I assume it does.”

The fingers of my lower arms started twiddling and waving, as if the mention of their existence had drawn their attention. Or maybe I was just reminding myself of their existence. “Yeah, I guess I do. Erm, what do you mean by ‘beetle body’?”

Miri motioned vaguely at my torso. “You have elytra. Only beetles have elytra.”

“What’s an electra?” I asked.

“Elytra,” said Miri. “Turn around, I can show you what I mean.”

I turned around. Miri ran a finger down my back, which I had noticed was a bit more dome-shaped than before. “So that’s my elytra?”

“Yep, one left and one right. Could you open them for me?”

“Open them up?” I said, craning my neck around in an attempt to look at her. “I can’t open up my back!”

“Well, good thing that that isn’t your back, then. It’s more like an organic cloak.” Miri paused, then poked me right on top of my shoulders. “There should be a joint right there that you can move.”

I was skeptical, but I tried willing the area Miri had pointed to to move. Sure enough, it did. The joint didn’t have much mobility, but it could open up swiftly, spreading out to either side of my torso, like a T-pose. The cool air of Miri’s room suddenly felt even more cold without the elytra covering my back.

Quinn, who was leaning against the wall at an angle where he could still see my back, suddenly gasped. “Woah. Shiny.”

“And there you go. Just like in order Coleoptera, under the elytra are the wings!”

The moment she said the word “wings” I realized that she was right, as the strange and confusing sensations resolved into actual body parts. My wings were about two and a half feet long and wider than my hand with the fingers spread, extending from my shoulder down to just above my hips. 

With a thought, I opened up my wings, spreading them out right below my elytra. I let out a little high-pitched gasp of wonder at it, and without even thinking I started flapping. Miri’s room was filled with a loud buzzing as my wings started to move, vibrating at incredible speed with just as much ease as if I were walking. The weight of my feet on the floor started to feel less and less, and if I just buzzed hard enough, I knew I could take off.

“Hey, woah! Don’t get ahead of yourself!” said Miri. “You probably shouldn’t start flying in a place with a low ceiling.

I wanted to ignore her warning, I really did. But then my better nature took hold again, and I slowly decelerated my wings until they stopped. With one last flick just to feel the cool air against my wings (and oh my god was it fun to be able to think the phrase my wings), I folded them against my back and covered them up with my elytra once more. 

“So, like, anything else you want to point out that I missed?” I asked.

“Gimme a second,” Miri said. She started humming a song in Hebrew, one that she always sang when she was trying to focus. I stood there awkwardly and let my girlfriend examine my back like a prize pony. “Wait a second…” she finally said. “Wait, that can’t be right… No way. No freaking way!”

“Uhh, sweetie? That’s not a good thing to hear when someone is examining your anatomy.” I turned around, seeing Miri almost bent double, presumably looking at something on my abdomen before I so rudely turned around on her. “What’s going on?”

Miri straightened up, running her hand through her hair. She muttered something under her breath, face growing increasingly flushed. I could see her cycling through ways to say what was on her mind over and over again. She closed her eyes, opened them again, took in a deep breath, averted her gaze from me, all in a few seconds. Then sighed, and relented.

“You have an egg-laying organ,” she said, wincing at her own words. 

“I have a what?”

“You have certain arrangements of… plates and soft tissues and other organic structures that… are used for laying eggs. Alex, you’re a girl bug.”

  Miri’s words hit me like a truck. I wasn’t outraged or even confused, just completely blown away, well beyond the refuge of most emotions. I looked down at my body, all slender curves and graceful lines, my narrow arms and tiny hands. I started to nervously click my mandibles again, tapping my right mandible while keeping my left one stationary in a thoroughly inhuman motion. 

“I’m a girl bug?” I said softly. 

Miri nodded. “I think so.”

“I had no idea. I mean, I don’t… feel like a girl bug?” I said, still looking at my hands in a way very reminiscent of Quinn on the weekends. “This body doesn’t have boobs or anything, so I didn’t really see it coming.”

Miri looked suddenly very disappointed at me. “Alex. Have you been drawing again? Bugs don’t have boobs.”

“We agreed not to talk about that!” I said, crossing my lower arms. “Besides, you yourself just said that you have no idea if traditional insect biology applies. I could very well have had boobs.”

“I don’t know what I expected from you…” said Miri, rubbing her eye. “But yeah, you’re very definitely a girl bug. At least body-wise.”

“You know this doesn’t mean you have to, like, be a girl, right?” said Quinn. “Sex and gender are different things, and with your current state—“

“I know!” I said, loud enough to make Quinn and Miri jump back. “Just give me a minute to process this. Do you have a mirror?”

Wordlessly, Miri opened up a door of her wardrobe to reveal a full-length mirror. I crept forward, still not quite ready to accept it all. As if it was the mirror’s fault for revealing it, and not my fault for existing. 

Most of the details were things I’d already gathered, either from looking down or from the tiny mirror in my room. But seeing my full reflection made me realize… there certainly were undeniably feminine aspects to my appearance. My hips flared out in a distinctly feminine way, though the two-foot-long oblong thing sticking out of my tailbone somewhat marred the image. My carapace formed something of an hourglass figure, and even my feet sort of looked like I was walking on high heels if you squinted. The weird part was, the whole picture looked almost appealing. Almost. 

I was still a beetle. A weird, disgusting beetle-person that should never have existed to begin with. Even the wings, the only part of me that was somewhat exciting, were still wrong and inhuman and I shouldn’t have them at all. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t make the image in the mirror stop following my commands. I couldn’t make it not me. I was calm about it, by this point, the disgust having settled down into the bottom of my guts… which were supposedly in my abdomen anyway. The disgust sat there, like a coiled snake, cold and patient, content to sit lazily in there without striking. 

Just then, someone knocked on the door. After a pause, a voice started speaking muffled Mandarin through the door. I didn’t know what she was saying, but I recognized the voice as Miri’s aunt, who lived with the family.

Miri responded, also in Mandarin. I froze, not sure if an elderly Chinese woman was about to walk in on a naked bug girl in her niece’s room. 

After a quick back-and-forth, Miri suddenly realized that there were other people in the room. “Oh, um. She heard us talking and is offering to reheat some leftover potstickers. Not sure if we want that, on account of the whole… you know…”

“I haven’t eaten in three days,” I said immediately. “Let her make food.”

Miri’s aunt made these potstickers by hand, and even though the process of being frozen and reheated as leftovers degraded the taste somewhat, it was like saying that a makeout session with your girlfriend is slightly less fun if her hands are cold. I immediately regretted coming up with that metaphor, seeing as how I was never going to have one of those again. I mean, I didn’t have lips, let alone sex appeal.

Miri finished the conversation with a few more sentences in Mandarin, then turned to me. “That was a quick response. I guess undergoing complete metamorphosis is a calorie-intensive activity.”

“Of course it is, and now I’m starving,” I said. “So, like, why am I a girl bug?”

“No clue,” said Miri. “My knowledge of actual insects stops there. Also, beetles aren’t bugs and you’re definitely a beetle.”

“You know, it’s really good to have you here, Miri,” said Quinn. “The fact that my best friend is specifically a giant talking humanoid beetle and not just any bug makes it so much better.”

“She’s just trying to help,” I said.

“I know,” Quinn said. “It’s just not useful to be pedantic when we’re dealing with a situation like this. Ever heard of adjusting deck chairs on the Titanic?”

Miri raised an eyebrow doubtfully at Quinn. “I think it’s going a bit far to compare Alex’s situation to the Titanic. All things considered, he’s taking it really well. Especially the girl part. I mean, if I turned into a guy bug I’d be freaking out.”

I shrugged. “You know me. I’ve always been comfortable with my gender nonconformity and stuff. I guess being able to lay eggs is just another layer of that.”

“Are you sure you aren’t bi?” Quinn asked.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Miri and I said in unison.

Quinn put up his hands in a “I didn’t do it, officer” pose. “Just checking,” he said.

Just then, Miri’s aunt knocked on the door. Drawing upon my newfound insect instincts, I immediately crawled under the bed. The looks of shock and confusion on Miri and Quinn’s faces only told me how brilliant of a plan this was. I gave Miri a reassuring quadruple thumbs up, and she cracked the door open just enough for her aunt to pass through the plate of reheated potstickers. 

The taste of Miri’s aunt’s spectacular cooking almost settled the three of us back into our old rhythms from when we’d hang out before. Though in this case, the conversation was less “How’s your art class going, Alex?” and more “So what’s it like controlling four arms at once, Alex?”

The conversation really helped me distract myself from the fact that I had to re-learn how to eat. I’m not going to go into detail about the process. It was embarrassing, disgusting, somewhat pathetic. I kept all four of my hands over my mouth whenever I was trying it, and even still I caught glances of confusion and disgust  from both Miri and Quinn. After several failed attempts, I figured out how to properly use both the inner and outer mandibles in conjunction with all the rasping parts and that spiked bit at the bottom to... you get the idea. Even better, my sense of taste had not changed; the potstickers were still delicious. My fear that I’d end up on a diet of grass and leaves was assuaged.

“So what do we do now?” said Miri, just as I was polishing off the last of her aunt’s cooking. 

“Maybe it’s time that we all head back and have a talk with your moms,” said Quinn. “We’ll be sure to back you up, and with all three of us behind you, I’m sure that—“

I didn’t like where he was going with that, so I blurted out, “I want to go outside and see how fast I can fly!”

“...Or we can do that,” Quinn muttered.

We snuck downstairs once more, Miri having to quickly distract her aunt while Quinn and I slipped out through the back. Miri followed us a minute later, and we found a corner of the Hewitts’ huge yard where we’d be unlikely to be seen. I stood in the center of a small grassy section, while Miri and Quinn hugged the shrubbery up against the fence.

I opened up my elytra, planted my feet firmly, did a shoulder stretch, did another shoulder stretch but now with the other set of shoulders, took a deep breath in, cracked my knuckles, and finally caught on to the fact that I was over-preparing and needed to just get on with it. My wings flicked open effortlessly and just as quickly started to flap. The loud hum of my wings carving through the air started up in earnest, growing louder as I flapped them harder and harder. There was a strange lightness to my body, as I was pulled up off the ground by my shoulders. But it wasn’t enough, and I stayed firmly married to the ground, chained by gravity.

Eventually I stopped trying, slowing my wings to a stop. There were muscles I hadn’t even had before that were already becoming sore.

“Are you okay?” asked Quinn. 

My antennae hung over my eyes. “No, I’m fine. I just couldn’t get off the ground. I really tried.”

“Maybe you need to practice more?” Miri said, gently. “You haven’t had a chance to exercise your wing muscles before today. Baby birds can’t fly all at once either.”

“Maybe? I was hoping I could fly at least. That’d be the one good thing that’s happened to me today, you know?”

Miri nodded, understanding.

“Are you sure that you can fly?” Quinn asked. “You might be looking all svelte and stuff, but you’re still bigger than anything I’ve ever seen fly. Those wings could be vestigial.”

I brushed aside my antenna, looking down. “I guess so.”

Miri shook her head. “That’s not how vestigial organs work. If they didn’t serve any purpose at all, evolution would get rid of them like legs on a whale.”

“No, it’s okay sweetie,” I said. “He’s right. I mean, it’s pretty cool that I have wings, anyway. Very fashionable.”

I decided to try one more time. Miri clearly didn’t want me to give up, and to a degree I didn’t want to either. If Foo Fighters had taught me anything, it was going to be a difficult process of learning, and getting to fly at the end was a big payoff, if it worked. 

Loosening up my back, twisting around, trying not to hear the weird sound of my belly-plates rubbing against each other, touching my toes, and the works, I tried one more time, opening up my elytra and giving it my all. It went pretty much the same as the last time; apparently there was a hard limit on how fast my wings would go, and it wasn’t that much faster than how they moved when I wasn’t putting any extra effort in at all. 

Getting frustrated, I gave myself a little boost. I hopped up using just my ankles, like a kid trying to reach the top shelf. But with most of my weight negated by the updraft from my wings, and my muscles suddenly finding their life’s calling as a set of loaded springs, I shot up into the air, over three feet with only a slight exertion.

Shocked, I nearly froze, landing like a chunk of lead and staring wide-eyed at Miri and Quinn, who had roughly the same expression back at me. “I think I just figured out what my wings are for,” I said.

I jumped again, this time putting my all into it, and shot up into the air, my feet several inches above the top of Quinn’s head. This time I remembered to keep flapping on the way down, and I landed gently and painlessly on the grass. 

“I believe the technical term for what we’ve just witnessed here is ‘having serious hops’,” said Quinn. “I’m glad your parents added some kangaroo DNA to the vat they grew — Alex, what are you doing with your face?”

“I’m smiling! This is a smile,” I said, pointing at my face. “You can tell because my antennae are sticking up like this!”

Quinn chuckled. “Yeah, I actually kind of see it. Jokes aside… I’m glad you’re happy about yourself.”

“Mhmm. Same with me. You know I love seeing you happy,” said Miri, looking down.

“Let’s see how far I can go!” I said, and jumped up again.

The next several minutes were spent with me leaping all over Miri’s backyard, throwing all care to the wind. I jumped right over Miri’s head a few times, and leapt right from one side of her pool to the other side without breaking a sweat. Once or twice, when I tried taking a running start, I had to use my wings to slow myself down in mid-air to avoid soaring right over the fence and into the neighbor’s yard. Not that that would have been a problem; I could have just jumped right back over the fence in a jiffy.

It was fun, really fun. For the first time since I’d transformed, I almost felt like being a beetle-girl was a bonus rather than a disability. I felt like I could have fun with this. Quinn also looked like he was watching a performance, egging me on to jump higher, soar further, even trying to convince me to do a flip. Miri looked less certain. She clapped when it was called for, called me lovebug, but there was something off with her. 

“Hey, Alex, you think you can get up to the roof of the house?” Quinn shouted while I was catching my breath. Even with wing assistance, bouncing around the place was still exhausting. Even still, the part of me that’s an idiot with no self control snapped to attention. Miri’s house was only two stories tall, and had plenty of little decorative ledges and outcroppings to catch myself on if I fell. I’d never jumped quite that high, but with enough of a running start it wasn’t impossible…

“Wait, Alex, what are you doing, no, please don’t…” said Miri, eyes suddenly going wide. It was too late.

I dashed across the yard, and a few feet before I slammed right into the wall, I crouched and leapt, wings straining to get even higher. I stretched out my hand, reaching for the edge of the roof as I went higher than I ever had before. For a moment I thought that I was going to miss and go crashing back down to earth, but at the last second my very fingertips caught on the edge of the roof. My wings were still flapping, and my momentum carried me into the wall, meaning that I was quickly able to hold myself up with all four arms grabbing on various parts of the wall. Some awkward scuttling later and I was up on the roof. 

“I love being an insect!” I said, leaning out over the edge of the roof.

Miri was still looking at me like I was trying to surf on a cruise ship. Quinn, meanwhile, was clapping.

“I don’t think anyone has ever said that phrase before!” Miri shouted. “Congratulations. Could you come down, now?”

“Oh come on, let him have his fun,” said Quinn. “That’s probably the highest he’s ever been, in more ways than one.”

Miri shook her head, more to herself than in response to anyone. “Alex, stay safe. And try to be quiet, I don’t want my aunt to think we have raccoons or something.”

I quickly skittered all over the roof, exploring the whole thing with wonder normally reserved for new boxes of art pencils or new seasons of Hunter X Hunter. The wind felt nice, the tiles were warm, and there was absolutely nothing of interest up there. Still, it was nice having a bit of privacy. As the rush from all the jumping wore off, my thoughts inevitably turned back to what had happened before my metamorphosis, and earlier that day.

I was glad that my parents were still alive and apparently unharmed after the spectrademon attack at my house. Even with everything that had happened, I couldn’t possibly have felt anything good about them getting hurt. What am I going to do when I have to go back?

There was no question that I was going to have to go back eventually, and chances were that Stephanie and Amanda were looking for me while I messed around on the roof. Running off with Quinn had been a delaying maneuver, a way to make my parents “future Alex’s” problem to deal with. When future Alex became present Alex, would I be able to face them again? Would I be able to show my porcelain-pale face and tell them that this bug was their son, and ask why they had never told me before?

Worse still was the possibility that there might be more spectrademons out there. If they could turn invisible, they could be anywhere, lying in wait for me. And now that I’d gone full insect, they’d almost certainly be able to recognize me. Speaking of being recognized, how am I going to go back to school?

The image of putting on a backpack and some sort of four-sleeved shirt and going back to school made half of me want to laugh and the other half want to curl into a ball and die. I settled on treating it as black comedy, and smiled a little, until I remembered the kinds of reactions I got when I smiled and suppressed it. 

Clearly, I had a lot to think about. I settled into a comfortable position, on my stomach with my upper chest and shoulders hanging out over the edge of the roof. I started gently stimming with my antennae, waving them around in the cool air as I watched the sidewalk. 

Someone walked up the driveway to the front door of the house. It took me a second to get a good look at him, mostly because I wasn’t paying much attention. He was tall and athletic, but not built, with dark sunglasses covering his eyes and coppery skin with prominent veins. For a second I thought he was wearing some kind of tracksuit, like a Russian gangster, but at the second glance I realized it was some sort of spandex suit. It didn’t look like anything I’d seen before. He nervously adjusted his shoulder bag and scratched at his shaved scalp, looking at something off to his right side. I followed his gaze, and noticed a telltale shimmer in the air. 

I nearly jumped back, and within a few seconds later I had crawled to the other side of the roof. Quinn was still there, pacing around in the grass, but Miri was nowhere to be seen.

“Quinn, you have to get Miri and go, now! They found me! The spectrademons found me!”