Death of a Man

Story by Ryan Cheng

| SPRING 2020 ISSUE | FICTION

It’s completely dark. I’m in a stone room of indeterminate size. I can’t see it. I only hear the strikes of its legs against the stone of the room, scuttling towards me. It’s the sound of a million almost-nothings that nearly fade into the silence of the room, but quite distinctly don’t. Must I really fight this thing? Can I? 

Enough. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly. I focus my ears, trying to find where the creature is by its sound as it approaches me. Clack clack clack clack clack clack clack there! I skip to the side as the creature rushes past me, and reach out to feel it. My fingers trail on a cold, wet suit of chitin, cylindrical, like a millipede the height of my waist. It slides forwards under my hand, plate upon plate of hard armor. I recall many an afternoon spent mutilating insects as a child and shudder with a little excitement and terror at the same time. Now, to kill it. Clack clack clack clack clack clack clack Now! I stomp hard onto the creature, and grin as I feel its body slam onto the ground underneath my foot. A shiver of anticipation runs through me. I grin, like a wolf with its eyes on its next meal. I feel nothing but a raw, burning hunger. 

The sound of clacking becomes louder as the head of the creature rushes towards me again, and I leap to the side once more and kick low, aiming for its legs. I feel something give way and I laugh, a cruel, feral sound. I kick again, and I hear the snap of one of the creature’s legs breaking. I do it again and again, dodging the head when it rushes at me, then continuing to break its legs. My heart is light and free, singing on the wind of anticipation and excitement, of bloodlust. But even so, I feel a small doubt nagging at me, barely noticeable in the torrent of delight that is my mind. It remains ignored, for I feel an urge rushing up in me again, to break more, go further and grind the creature into dust and ashes. So I do. Crack. Crack. Crack. I laugh again with a savage joy, kicking and stomping and smashing, dancing to the rhythm of my prey. But the nagging continues, growing louder and louder over everything. And the nagging is a billion almost-nothings that roar like the unstoppable ocean.

I stop and listen. The sound comes from all around me. I am surrounded by the creature, long coils of it that stream into the room from a seemingly endless supply. I feel confusion. Have I not wounded it more than enough? Have I not littered the ground with its snapped-off legs and wetted the ground with its vital fluids? How can it still stand? And how is it so long? But I am certain of one thing. It is an insult. A challenge. This prey, this lowly creature, thinks to stand against me? Absurd. I stalk toward the nearest clacking sound, pounce, and kick the creature. It doesn’t budge. I howl and slam my fist into it. It doesn’t budge. White-hot pain lances into my forearm. Blood streams down my hand, dripping off of it and wetting the ground. And all of a sudden, I realize. I reach to the side with my left hand. It brushes cold chitin, coiling and flowing ever forwards like a river. I reach out with my right hand. It touches cold chitin, moving forth like time itself. I feel all around me and above me, and touch cold chitin. I have lost. 

What is this. What is this. What is this. What is this. The clacking of the creature’s innumerable legs against the stone floor echoes off of the cavern’s far off walls and rebounds to strike my ears like a thousand shells dropping into a muddy trench, over and over, over and over, over and over. I begin to shake. Every instinct in my body tells me to run, to flee, to escape from this creature. My eyes dart around in the darkness, looking for an exit I cannot see. But where is there to run to? So I sit.

Could I have won if I’d attacked its head first? I don’t know if this monstrosity even has a head. Perhaps if I’d been a little stronger… not a chance. I feel calm. This was inevitable. It was a fact of nature. A man cannot defeat the boundless ocean. But even so, I cannot bring myself to regret trying. The coils of the creature wrap around me. So is this how it ends, then?

No.

If my fight here has no meaning, and all I do will end in defeat, then I at least want to know. Know what it is that I have fought here today. I step onto the bottom-most layer of the thing. And I climb. Up, and up. Through a forest of thin leg and thick trunk and cold shell, until I feel the wind in the cavern run through my hair. I stand upon the ever-flowing trunk of the creature, and somehow hear the clacking of a thousand legs rushing towards me among a million. I sidestep, as if it is a dream, grab hold of the creature’s trunk, and hoist myself onto it. I feel in front of me and climb slowly to the front, inch by inch. Finally, I reach out, and touch a head of hair. I feel for the front. It’s not the face of an insect or a monstrosity, but a human.

“Goodbye,” it says.

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