When I worked in the herpetology lab at my college, there was a fly strip hung up in the corner near the cricket cage. There would be hundreds of flies and gnats stuck to it at any moment, and I would always feel sad whenever I looked at it. We tend to underestimate the amount that invertebrates feel ‘pain’ the way that mammals do, and seeing the little black dots struggle on the flytrap made me think about how horrible of a way it would be to die.   

My legs tap against the ground as I creep closer to the chasm, so silent that not even the most sensitive hunter could pick up on my sound. Inch by inch I approach the edge of the cliffside, looking down into the maw of darkness below. I do not fear it, for I know I would survive even if I did manage to fall. One of the few advantages to being so light that the smallest of breezes can jostle me from my perch is that the force that binds all life to the ground poses little danger to me.

I pause for a moment, eight black eyes turned to the sky and relying on the illumination of the moon to judge my surroundings. I am having to make do with less than half the light I am used to at this time of night, as I have been taken far from my home and brought somewhere unfamiliar. I should have fled when I had the chance. The moment I felt the leaves I was nestled within begin to shake I should have leapt as far as I could. I should have let the wind carry me and found a new home. Perhaps I was afraid, or perhaps I was too attached to the canopy that I called home. The flower above me stretched its petals outward, sheets of soft, billowing leaves that enveloped yellow stalks. It gave off the most wondrous aroma the one time I had been brave enough to climb to its peak. The pollen puffs stuck to my legs that day, painting splotches of brightness onto my dark shell that nullified my camouflage and with it my primary defense. I retreated back to my den quickly, tearing at the pollen with my pedipalps until not a speck remained. I never returned to the stalks, but sometimes I still dream about the scent I experienced up there and wish I could work up the courage to climb back to the summit again.

Despite the fear it instilled in me, I considered the flower to be my friend. Whatever smell it gave off attracted many hungry gnats, wasps, and other flying bugs of their kind who drank vigorously from the fountain of nectar nestled within its core. Such a substance had no use to me, but I was grateful for it nonetheless because it lured in meals for me every day from sunrise to sunset. Every morning I would hide underneath a leaf and watch as a trail of juicy, winged treats approached, tiny wings buzzing with excitement at the meal the plant so generously offered for free. I would wait until they drank their fill, patiently adjusting my position as I crept along closer. It wasn’t until they poked their little heads in the air, nectar droplets still clinging to their proboscis, that I crouched down and prepared to jump. The insect would take off, tiny wings struggling to lift its bulging abdomen as it lazily flew away from the plant, content and satisfied and oh so vulnerable. It was then that I would strike, leaping into the air with a speed and strength that my prey could never hope to achieve, fangs lashing and legs stretching wide for the kill. My target wouldn’t have time to react before my fangs were in its thorax, piercing through its shell and into the meat below. My venom made short work of my catch, though it was hardly even necessary with how quick I was at dispatching the unfortunate bug. Juices would spurt from the puncture wounds my teeth left in its side and its little wings would give out one last twitch, then it was all over. My meal successfully ensnared, I would creep back to my den satisfied. It would be three days before I would have to eat again. Three days I would spend watching the bugs come and feast at my flower, unaware of how lucky they truly were. Then the sun would rise on the third day and I would set out again, patiently waiting for my next meal to flutter by.

That was until earlier today, when I felt a shadow looming over my home. It could only have been one of the colossi, an entity so much bigger than me that it felt unfathomable. I had seen many of them pass by my flower before, but they had always left after a few minutes at most. So, believing myself to be safe like I had all those times before, I hid. I nestled down in the stalk of the plant and waited, hoping that the creature wouldn’t linger too long. This time wasn’t like all the previous times, though. I felt the ground beneath me begin to shake as my home was ripped from the land that bound it. We were both lifted up high, so much higher than I had ever been before, and then we began to move. The land beneath me seemed eons away and I could do nothing but watch helplessly as the colossus took us far away from everything I’d ever known and understood. I was helpless before the strength of the creature that took me, and all I could do was hold tight to the stalk of my flower and feel the wind rush past my hairs, hoping that I wouldn’t be spotted or dislodged before I was returned to the ground.

I honestly expected not to survive the trip. I thought that surely the colossus would spot me and crush me easily between its fingers, my life ended as quickly as the wing-flap of a dragonfly. Some kind of fortune had protected me, however. It made sure that I remained safe until the colossus lost interest in my plant and set us both down again. I’m not sure why it left now, of all times, but I could never fathom the mind of an entity so vast anyway. All attempts to rationalize their behavior before had ended in failure, so I just accepted the enormity of the gap between our two existences and was instead just grateful for the miracle that I was still alive. I was safe. For now at least.

I waited until the world was dark again to creep from my home. It has been several hours since the last shadow of the colossus passed me by, and I assumed that I was safe for now. As much as I loved my flower I had long since come to accept that I would have to abandon it. I didn’t want to, of course, but I needed to find my way home if I was to survive. For some reason the faithful plant hadn’t lured any other bugs nearby the entire time we’d been in this strange new place. I don’t know if it was because there were fewer creatures here overall or if it was because my flower had been uprooted. Either way, if I stayed here much longer I would surely starve to death, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.

Crawling out of the place that had been my home for almost my entire life, I gave my flower one last look. The brilliance of its petals had faded already in just the time since we’d been placed here. The once-bright leaves drooped to the side, half of them broken and the other half wilting to nothing with every passing second. There were several creases and tears on the plant that hadn’t been there before, and I knew that if I climbed up again to where the pollen was held that it would not hold the same scent it had before. My flower was dying. Even I, as different a being as I was, could understand that.

If we could communicate, I would have told it that it had been a wonderful home and that I was grateful towards it. I would tell it that it was beautiful, even now, and that I would remember it for as long as I lived.

But I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t tell it that, no matter how much I wanted to. So I turned around and leapt up onto the nearest wall, scuttling away.

So here I am now, standing at the edge of the chasm, confused and disoriented by all the new smells and textures in the place the colossus brought me to. I don’t know where I am or how to get home, and I feel the first aches of hunger starting to gnaw at me. How long has it been since I left my flower? It is moonlight again. At least I think it is. It’s hard to tell the time with how dim the light is in this place. If I’m right about it being nighttime, then that means that nearly a day has passed since I was taken. The entire time I’ve been here I haven’t seen a single other creature my size, either threat or food. Occasionally the thundering steps of the colossi shake the ground under my feet and I scuttle to the nearest dark spot to hide, but besides that nothing in here seems to be alive. No animals, no plants, not even the smallest scrap of dirt can be found here. It feels barren, a true wasteland devoid of enough resources for even the tiniest mite to live off of.

I can feel the blood inside me running dry, slowing down my movements and leaving me vulnerable for any hungry predators nearby, if there even are any to take advantage of my state. My eyesight is so much worse now that I almost miss the jump across the chasm, my front four legs barely gripping onto the edge as I pull myself up and scramble for the safety of solid ground. I’m so thirsty, so hungry. I don’t know how far I’ve traveled from my flower and I’m too far gone to try and return to it. If I’d known that this was the fate that awaited me I would have stayed with my plant, dying alongside it in a desert neither of us would ever see the outside of again. It would not have been a kinder ending, but at least I would have been home.

Then, out of the corner of my eyes, I spot you. My vision is so bad at this point that I almost miss your movement, but I could never mistake the tell-tale buzzing of your wings for anything else. A fly, weak and skinny and just as lost as I am, has found its way here. I don’t know how you got here and I don’t really care. All I can think about is how glad I am to see you, as morbid a thought as it is. I knew from the second I saw you that my only way out of here alive would be to kill you. I would have to turn you into another meal to keep me going for just a few more days like all the times before. I almost feel bad for what I must do, since we are both trapped in the same horrible situation, but if only one of us is going to make it out of this then I’d rather it be me. Besides, it’s not like I could help you anyway. Whatever it is that you need to survive is something that I cannot give you.

I creep closer, sticking to the shadows to avoid messing up my one chance at survival. My fangs flex outwards as if I imagine how it will feel for them to pierce your shell. I’ll make sure to end this quickly. Out of respect, of course. I’m sorry that it came to this, and I hope it won’t hurt too much.

You’ve clearly been here for a while, as your movements are sluggish and off-kilter. Even with the gift of flight you are no match for me. I’ve caught prey a hundred times faster than you from much further ranges. It would be impossible for me to miss right now.

For some reason you seem to be attracted to some kind of sheet about a foot away from me. It hangs down from above like a leaf would, but it’s not like any plant I’ve ever seen. It’s a hideous, dull shade of grime, like a mockery of wonders such as sunshine and the stalks of my flower. It repels me, but for some reason you seem fascinated by it. You fly in loops around it for a few times as if examining it, your faceted eyes reflecting the small amount of moonlight we get in this wasteland. Then, after a few seconds of hesitation, you land on it.

That’s when I make my move.

I pounce with the strength of a creature a hundred times my size, front legs outstretched to ensnare you the moment I land. I can practically feel the crunch of my fangs piercing through your abdomen already. I can already taste your juices in my mouth. I’m starving.

But I miscalculated. Maybe it was a lack of skill on my part that made it so that I was simply unable to make a jump like that in an unfamiliar location. Maybe it was the thirst starting to take its toll on my mind, keeping me from accurately assessing the depth between us. Maybe I just messed up. Whatever the reason, I’m unable to catch you with my frenzied leap, instead landing a few centimeters away on the same yellow leaf as you did.

Immediately your wings begin to flap wildly as you attempt to flee from the predator less than an inch away from you. Except something is wrong. No matter how hard you try to escape, no matter how fast those little wings of yours buzz, you are unable to lift off of the grimy sheet into the air. The force of your struggle is enough to lift the surface under us just slightly, less than the length of a wing. It’s nowhere near enough to free you from me, and as I narrow my line of sight in preparation to jump again I thank whatever force of luck has spared me in this moment and trapped you with me.

Then I am unable to lift my legs from the ground and I freeze. You stop trying to flee, either because you’ve tired yourself out or because you’ve realized the same thing I have. Whatever it is that’s binding you to this hideous sheet has trapped me here too. Only a few paces away, just barely not enough for us to touch each other, we are ensnared by the same force.

The grimy sheet is coated in some kind of sticky substance, like the nectar of my flower except far more viscous and grotesque. It sticks to my legs, tearing at the hairs on my body and threatening to rip them from their base if I move too much. My pedipalps twitch as the anxiety takes hold of me, and I attempt to rip at the substance that binds me to the ground to no avail. All that I succeed in doing is spreading the slime around further, tangling me up even worse than before. I begin to panic. Can you blame me? It wasn’t the smart thing to do, but I am terrified. I try my best to rip myself from this damn thing, slashing and scissoring at the substance with my fangs in a fit of futility until every last inch of my body is bound pathetically to its surface. I’m a mess. I’m in worse shape than you are, if I’m being honest. At least you had the common sense to stop struggling when you realized it was useless. All that I did was make things worse for myself.

It’s not until I’m too weak to move that I’m able to take note of more features of this cursed sheet. Specifically, I realize that it gives off some kind of horrid, rotting smell. It’s the same fetid scent of a corpse left too long out in the open without being disposed of, like a twisted version of my flower’s scent. It’s then that I realize why it was that you were so interested in the sheet to begin with. It’s because it smelled like food to you, didn’t it? It lured you here. Then you lured me here.

It trapped us both here.

There is nothing that we can do except look at each other. My dark eyes stare into your bright ones, a silent conversation between foes taking place in only a few seconds. We understand the situation quite well. We are both stuck in the same hopeless situation, unable to escape or fight back. If this continues for much longer, we will both be dead. If we escape, then only one of us can survive.

For now, though, there is nothing to do but look at each other.

I had taken notice of how weak you looked when I was trying to hunt you as my prey, but it’s more obvious to me than ever now that I’m right next to you. You’re the skinniest fly I’ve ever laid eyes on, barely enough to qualify as a meal. I wonder how long you’ve been trapped here. I wonder how much longer you have left.

One of your wings, the one still unbound by the sheet, is torn at the edge. It’s not enough to inhibit your ability to fly, but it tells me that you’ve been injured before. Did you sustain the injury in a fight? Was it with one of my kind? Did it hurt?

All of these questions run through my mind, but I am unable to speak any of them out loud. We are two different kinds, two different beings. It is impossible for us to communicate in a way the other would understand. Perhaps if you were like me, then we could…

I banish the thought. If you were like me then I wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with. I wouldn’t have attempted to hunt you in the first place. If only you were like me. Maybe we both could be saved.

I see myself reflected in your faceted eyes a hundred times over, and I wonder if you’re thinking the same things about me. I wonder if you see me as a monster. You must hate me, don’t you? It wouldn’t make a difference if you did, but it’s hard to see myself like this. I’m just trying to survive, same as you. If there was a world where we could both live, where we could both continue on forever with no fear of the colossi or starvation, then of course I would choose it. I don’t wish for the death of any living thing. But I am just one being, and so are you. And so we continue to fight each other until we both find ourselves bound to the ground, together.

I do not know how much time passes. I haven’t registered the progression of the moon since I found myself stuck here. That all changes when I see the first glimmers of sunshine glimmer through whatever land the colossi took me to that blocks out most of the sky’s lights. All of a sudden this situation feels real in a way it hadn’t before. For the first time, I truly register that I might die here of thirst or hunger, whatever takes me first.

I think you see the way my pedipalps begin to twitch faster than they had before, wasting more of my precious energy to an instinctive expression of my fear that I can’t control. Your wings twitch, and I cannot tell if this is another pointless attempt to fly away from me or if it’s meant to be an offer of sympathy. I think I would prefer it if it was the latter, not that it would matter all that much. I just don’t want to be alone right now.

The sun’s warm rays illuminate our bodies little by little, your shiny shell gleaming with shades I rarely saw even out in the flower field. Glossy patterns of light and dark blend together into a spectrum of hues, a display to rival even my flower. I had never noticed before how pretty your kind truly is. All that I ever felt when I saw one of you was hunger, maybe a bit of excitement. Ironic that I’m unable to appreciate your life until I’m on the brink of losing my own.

I think about myself now that you can see me fully in the sun’s rays. I must look so hideous to you. A dull, hairy monster with eyes as dark as the void that reflects your terrified form on their surface. To those like you, those eyes were the last thing they’d ever seen. They were a symbol of death, of incoming destruction.

I look into your eyes and I cannot see the parts of you hidden underneath. All I can see is myself, a strange tint overshadowing everything except those eight black dots. I look away again.

The time continues to pass, as much as I wish it would all just stop. The sticky substance has torn off over half of my hairs at this point. They stick to the sheet below, and with it disappears most of my sense of touch. I feel like I am losing myself, piece by piece. I begin to wonder if the loss of sensation is from the exhaustion permeating every part of me or from the burning grip of thirst finally taking its toll on me. I don’t know if I have slept at all since I was trapped here. If I have, it hasn’t helped with the pain at all. It’s just been steadily getting worse, over time. An inevitable march to death that leaves my body behind.

At some point I find that there’s nothing for me to do except look at you and imagine what your life had been like before today. Your kind is more comprehensible to me than the colossi, but we’re still a thousand worlds away. You seem to be drawn to the smell of death, attracted by rot and decay in a way I can never be. I am attracted to life, vibrancy, the sound of a beating wing or a blur of motion in the corner of my vision. Between the two of us, the things I love may sound more appealing. Then you consider what I do with the life that I find and suddenly my existence is much more monstrous than yours. It’s funny, isn’t it? That the one who chases death has done less harm than the one who hides in the shadow of a flower all day. What does a carcass smell like to you? Is it what you’re smelling right now as we die here, together? Is it pleasant?

It’s night again. I’m left alone with you in the dark, the moon our only witness. I don’t expect us to make it through the night.

I imagine you flying through the air, freer than I’ve ever been, unburdened by the weight of dehydration or fatigue. You zip from place to place, sharp eyes taking in more of the world than I ever could. You hide under a fallen leaf when a bird comes near, waiting until it’s gone before crawling out. You rub your two front legs together and take off again, chasing a smell on the breeze. You dash past a valley filled with flowers, a canvass of hues that any bee or butterfly would have been elated to see, but you do not stop. Instead you find yourself drawn to a scent wafting from the distant wind, the sweet haze of rot hitting your senses and making you take a swift dive into the field. You dart past the flowers and into the grass below, coming across the corpse of an unfortunate shrew. You do not know what killed it. You do not care. As the shrew breathed its last it gave to you a gift unmatched in value to your tiny world. It gave you food, a place of momentary peace, and the strength to keep on living. You’re grateful towards it, honoring its memory with your joy before your tube-like mouth pierces the softening glaze of its flesh.

In that way, we both thrive off of death, don’t we? We’re both killers, the only difference is that one of us waits until the dirty work is done for them and the other takes a more proactive approach.

I am shaken from my thoughts by the weak twitching of your wings. I notice that perhaps the glimmer of your eyes is less vibrant than before. Either that, or my own sight is beginning to fade. I try to dismiss the mental journey I just took, forcing it down to the depths where it belongs. At the end of the day, I don’t know you. I will never know you. I can speculate and theorize all I want, but it won’t make a difference. We’ll still just be two lonely souls dying in a wasteland. Alone together at the end in a way we never could be before. This time, though, there will be nobody to take advantage of our decay. There will be no life to extend at the cost of our own. We will disappear, and with us we will take all that we have ever known. Which, in the end, is really very little.

The sticky substance holding us to the leaf has begun to dry at the edges, forming an unpleasant crust that sticks to my body and cracks whenever I try to move. The hairs of mine that were torn off earlier in the day have shriveled and dried, leaving no sign that they were once attached to a living being. A part of me wonders if I have already died and hadn’t noticed, so difficult my movements have become. I can feel the blood within me beginning to clot, clogging up my vascular system and causing a faint grinding noise whenever my legs twitch. Looking over in your direction, I can see that you’ve long since given up. A piece of your broken wing has torn off and stuck to the leaf, and the last of your legs that isn’t trapped is bent at an unnatural angle. The blood inside you has begun to dry too, hasn’t it? The life force inside us is giving in. All there is now is to wait for the inevitable. And so the hours passed, burdened only by the thoughts I cannot say out loud.

My despair is only broken when something else catches my attention. Something has changed in the wasteland, something that I never expected to see again. It’s faint at first, then grows brighter over time. Before I know it, familiar rays of light are shining down upon us again, warming our frail bodies with the arrival of the morning sun. It’s hard to see from here, as the force of the wasteland that blocks out most of the sky keeps all but the smallest sliver of light from making it through to us, but it’s still the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen.

All the sunrises I’ve experience before, the hundreds of days where I saw the light cascade down through morning dew and dotted leaves above me, all the days where I saw the sky emblazoned with shades you could never imagine, none of them even compared to what it was like seeing the tiniest of rays pierce through the darkness with you. I turn all my eyes towards it, the first time in hours that I’ve taken my sight off of you.

Do you see it? Can you see it? We made it. For only a little bit longer, only long enough to see this last sunrise together, but we made it. Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it the most wonderful thing you’ve ever seen?

I look back to you, hoping that we can have this moment together in the end. Will you still have the energy to flap your wings? If I tried to reach towards you, would you reach back?

You lay still, the light glistening off the curve of your eyes and reflecting back at me. You don’t move to recognize either me or the sun. You just continue to lay there, silent.

Come on, friend. We made it. Look back at me. You have so many eyes, friend. How is it that none of them are meeting mine?

I reach forward, the sheet’s secretions tearing hairs from my shell with a horrible crunching sound as I stretch my leg as far as it will go. You don’t move to reach back to me. That’s okay, though. I just have to make it a little bit further.

I am finally able to make it. In the same way I failed back when we first got stuck all that time ago, the tip of my leg finally touches yours. It doesn’t feel like anything anymore, as all but a few of the sensory hairs have been torn from my body. Still, I don’t pull away. I keep on holding your frail, broken leg as the light spills onto our tiny, insignificant bodies. My vision is so blurry now that I can only perceive you as a few spots of black and white. Still, I can’t stop looking at you.

You’re still here, aren’t you? I’m not the last one left, am I? I didn’t outlast you, did I?

…Did I?

The rumble of a thousand colossi couldn’t tear me from this moment. I could be nothing but hardened blood and an empty shell and I would still keep reaching for you. Our bodies will freeze like this, remaining in contact until we are both nothing but dust. I can barely even feel pain anymore. All that’s left is my deteriorating vision and the broken shell that holds me. In and out I dip, feeling several times like I might fall asleep. Then I’ll snap back and all that’s left is me and the fading sight of you. All that’s left is you, until you’re nothing but a hazy blur.

I’m sorry, friend.

I wish this story had a different ending.

I want to see you again, in a world that’s kinder than this one.