Chapter Text
In one moment there was nothing. And in another there was Soul and right after there was Mind, both hosted by a Body that paved the way for the Heart. As the newly made bug opens her eyes, she is greeted by a featureless face.
“Hello Lace. We are glad your construction ended with no flaws.”
As she looked at her goddess, Lace’s Body acted without her Mind’s input.
“I am glad I didn’t bring any inconvenience to you Mother.”
Even if there was no visible smile on Grand Mother Silk’s face, she could feel the joy on her Mother. Seeing her happy made her feel happiness as well. It felt right, natural. Just like her name.
As the joyful monarch held her by her claws, she slowly and gently lowered the silken bug to the silken ground.
“You have a sister, Child. We know that you will enjoy speaking with her, so follow us.”
Lace noticed the weird intonations in some of the words, but something deep inside her told her that she shouldn't point it out. So she refrained from speaking and followed her Mother.
As they traversed the silk cocoon, an unfamiliar memory surged inside Lace’s Mind. She saw a being looking at herself in the mirror.
This being bore no mask. Her eyes had two more of what looked like eyes inside. She had no shell, only flesh. She wore weird garments and had fur in all the wrong places. She was no bug.
Lace didn’t know where this memory came from, but it bore no weight to her purpose. So she ignored it.
As Lace and Grand Mother Silk fully ascended through the confusing maze of silk that made up the inside of the cocoon, they reached the top of the silken cocoon, they found her sibling.
Her sibling was significantly taller than her. Their silk was just as pale as hers, and their hair was slightly shorter than hers. There was a mask on their face that was expertly integrated to their silken shell, different from her bare face. They looked slightly frail and weak, but their form showed a warrior’s stance.
Her sibling knew how to fight, but she didn’t. As she began to wonder why, her Mother interrupted her thoughts.
“Lace, this is your sister. If she tries to say otherwise to you, just know that she is lying to you. She will always be your sister.”, as the last word was mentioned for the second time, Lace saw her sibling flinch.
After understating the issue, Lace had an idea as to how to solve this. She didn't know if it would work and her Mind feared the consequences if it didn't, but her Soul knew that she had to deny her sibling's suffering.
“Mother, why would my own sibling lie to me?”
“She somehow developed the silly idea that she isn’t our daughter.”
“But isn’t my sibling still your child? A child that can still love and worship you. Does a child need to be a daughter for them to love? You still will remain our Mother either way, no matter what we say."
The Higher Being paused for a moment. She turned her head towards Lace, and then turned back towards her other child.
“We suppose you are correct. If they believe they are not our daughter, that is acceptable as long as they continue to love us and be our child. You two can talk, your Mother needs to rest.” The Pale Goddess started to move towards the center of the cocoon. As she disappeared from her view, Lace felt her sibling holding her in a hug.
Despite their sibling being taller than her, at that moment they looked small.
“Thank you sister. Thank you so much.”, they said with barely concealed relief.
Confused, Lace spoke. “Why are you thanking me? Didn’t I just do what siblings are supposed to do to each other? To help one another?”
The only answer Lace received was an even tighter hug. Seeing her sibling so vulnerable made an uncomfortable thought surface inside her head. “What did Mother do to them?”
As time passed, the more alien memories she received. She finally learned what the owner of those memories was. She was a human. She also saw what bugs looked like in this human’s world. To her they looked ugly and nasty. She considered herself lucky to have been born as a bug in her world.
But the more she learned from those memories, the more she had the sinking realization that Mother wasn’t as good as the artificial knowledge, implanted in her, implied she was.
Nevertheless, she continued to act as a daughter. That was what she was made for at the end of it all. And the love she received from her sibling certainly made Mother’s eccentricities bearable to her. “Maybe I can learn how to knit and make something nice for them?”
With the sound of the goddess’s beating silk, Lace looked down to the bottom of the Cradle, through a small window she made with her claws. Consumed with thoughts, she played with a few strands of silk that made up her hair.
“I wonder how it feels to develop your consciousness as a common bug, or a human. Humans gain their conscience when they are eighteen months old, or so the human heard for most of her life.” she thought to herself.
She couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of not being conscious for those first few months of existence. She assumed that the same applied for common bugs, or maybe even Higher Beings in general.
They must have parents as well, or at least if they appeared from nothing, then they shouldn’t be instantly aware of everything around them for the first few moments of their life.
At least, this is what Lace assumes would apply for those that are divine. What she doesn’t need to assume, however, is that she came to be with a developed consciousness from the moment she gained her fake life. The moment the final runes that make her were woven by her Mother, she already was aware of the world around her. She was already aware of her role, her duty, as a doll.
In the beginning there was no reason for her to be afraid or bitter about it. How could she anyway? She only knew what her Mother believed was needed for her to fulfill her role as a daughter. Naturally she didn’t even know what fear and bitterness was. What disappointment was. What abuse is.
If she were a betting bug, and had the capital in the first place, she would bet half a million rosaries that her Mother did that on purpose. A child that knows nothing besides what to do to make her Mother happy couldn’t betray her only parent, right?
Too bad for the pitiful goddess that her doll isn’t pure. She doesn’t know where those alien memories come from, but she knows she wasn’t supposed to have them. Mother never talked about it. Her sibling never talked about it. No one ever mentioned remembering a life they didn’t have.
But what made Lace sure that those memories weren’t meant for her to have, was the very moment where she started to get the human’s memories of her playing two games. One where the protagonist was part Wyrm, part Root and part Void. And another, where the protagonist was part Wyrm and part Weaver. The moment where she “remembered” the human fighting a familiar bug called Lace three times as an enemy, she realized she had knowledge from the future. So clear and precise that even a Wyrm’s foresight couldn’t compare.
But she decided to pretend none of it was real, only mere delusions of a broken doll. Delusions she couldn’t allow her Mother to know, unless she desires for her Mind to be opened and inspected by the tyrant goddess, or simply be discarded and have her own silk be recycled to make another doll. Barely living, but she was already aware she was broken, defective.
And her paranoia and mistrust was later shown to be right, when her sibling was exiled to the Exhaust Organ, simply because they couldn’t keep up with Mother’s demands of affection because of how frail their Body was. Even though their brittleness was by Mother’s design, they were the one to be blamed, for no divine bug could own a mistake. She tried to think of a way out for her sibling, but she failed. And as the coward she was, she only watched her sibling’s exile.
That thought made a traitorous part within her tremble in an emotion she couldn’t parse, but she needed to accept it all. She still had the desire to worship her Mother and act as the perfect daughter she wanted. She was only real because of that after all.
A desire she held on for so long but proved itself fleeting, once she finally received the human’s final set of memories. The most important memories. The memories of the human’s mother. A hardworking and kind mother. Her memories of acting as a daughter. A happy and carefree child.
No amount of delusions, excuses and mental gymnastics could justify Mother actions for her anymore. Because she knew better now. She knew what a mother truly was. She knew deep in her artificial Soul what love was. And what Mother gave to her, her sibling, and maybe the Weavers certainly wasn’t love. And if it was, it was too distorted and broken to be recognized as such.
Moreover, she shouldn't have needed those memories to know what true love was. Her sibling, whose name was cast away, did everything in their power to make Lace’s life easier. She didn’t know where they learned to love, but they gave love to her anyway. Real love, a love marked by sacrifice.
Once she realized the reality of it all, she couldn’t bring herself to act as a daughter anymore. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself that if she didn’t act she would be discarded, recycled or even executed. But no amount of convincing could get all the despair and sadness away from her Soul. Barely made, and she was already too tired to even pretend to live.
“The biggest irony is that those memories are unneeded. The “original” would go through this realization in the future anyway. Those memories only accelerated it all.”, she almost chuckled at the thought.
Even after everything, the silken bug still made an attempt to act as the perfect daughter. But of course her Mother would find her current act lacking. When she asked why she wasn’t acting properly anymore, Lace decided to discard all semblance of caution.
With her Mother still looking at her while not making a single twitch, waiting impatiently for her creation to talk, Lace started to speak.
“I simply don’t see the point of acting as your daughter anymore. It is clear to me that I was always a doll made to please you and only please you, I was never truly your child.” she said as she turned towards Grand Mother Silk’s featureless face.
When the goddess looked back into her creation’s eyes, with fury and anger already boiling in her Heart, she froze.
Within Lace’s eyes, there was no more happiness, no more whimsy, no more what she thought was respect or what she thought was affection. There was nothing. Her eyes were nothing but tired, almost unfeeling. The deity looked in horror as her supposed child was completely disillusioned. Broken. Defective.
The more the Higher Being looked at her creation’s eyes, the deeper she tried to delve to at least catch a glimpse of a Soul full of love, the more weariness she found. The fury and anger that were boiling within her were now replaced by fear. Fear of the unknown. She briefly couldn’t recognize Lace anymore, so she responded the only way she could at the moment. She needed to destroy those unfamiliar eyes.
As Grand Mother Silk’s claws flew towards Lace’s face, Lace barely had time to react, so in panic her head moved a little to the side.
With a loud rip she felt her face being torn, as three fingers of the Higher Being cut deep in her face. Her vision suddenly changed, as only one of her eyes survived the attack. But she barely paid attention to that, for that was the first time in her life that she felt pain.
With a soft thud, her Body fell to the floor. As the silk that made up her Body was starting to unravel, mimicking her now depleting Soul, the deity realized her error and broke from her daze. She seized Lace using her divine authority and started to mend the silken bug.
With her Mind still clear and awake, for a silken construct can’t normally be unconscious, she realized that Grand Mother Silk’s was not going to repair her face completely, and decided to leave three long lines on her face.
“Child, we do not know what came to you for you to spout such profane words. However, the reason isn’t important. Until we ascertain what is wrong with you and fix the problem, you will bear these marks of shame on your face.”, she said with the air of finality she always wears. But for some reason, Lace finds this instance to be specially infuriating.
But she decides to stay silent, simply because that was the first thing her Body and Mind decided to do. She was already used to accepting any decision her creator makes on her behalf. So Lace starts to look at the bottom of the Cradle again, making a new widow for her to see through. Too scared and tired to complain.
She simply hoped that she could bring herself to pretend again, just so that she could make the tyrant believe that was simply a fluke. She feared that Grand Mother Silk would find a way to make her life even more miserable, otherwise.
Inside of a cold and dark cell within the Slab, a regretful bug laid on the ground motionless. There was only silence. For a doll doesn’t need to breathe, doesn’t need to sleep and doesn’t need to move, so no sounds she made.
As Lace looked at the ceiling, she started to ruminate about her memories. So that she could point out to herself when everything started to go wrong.
She was tempted to say that it was the moment she was made, or the moment she decided to defy Grand Mother Silk. But it was definitely when she started to get those alien memories. They gave her foolish ideas. Like what a mother was supposed to act like. It gave her foolish expectations, that made her believe that she deserved real love. She wasn’t a real bug, she was a doll. Nothing more. She shouldn’t have forgotten that.
With a loud clang, she heard a guard outside starting unlocking the metal door. With an even louder screech the door started to open as it grinded against the stone floor. The figure of a particularly tall Reed looking down on her laying form was slowly revealed.
The single slim thread above her head, that Lace could somewhat make out with her remaining eye, told everything she needed to know about what was going to happen. It was gonna be one of those days.
“Lace.” echoed from the veiled bug, its voice taken and replaced by her creator. The jailed bug was already thinking that something was deeply wrong. Her creator never referred to her in that tone before, it seemed that today would be something new.
“We see now that staying in confinement to reflect on your own behavior isn’t bringing the results we seek. So it is with a heavy heart that we proclaim that your punishment must be further increased. Until you are cured.”
Hearing those words makes the feeling around where her stomach would be, if she were normal, deepen in weight. But before she could say anything, or try to pretend again, she was interrupted.
“Even after spending half a decade confined, your affliction doesn’t abide with our wishes. As you can think anything when you are by yourself, you somehow decided that spending your time NOT thinking about your love for us would assist us. Your Mind shall be restricted. You will think about us, even if somehow you do not wish to do so. Until you are cured.”
As the horror of the situation dawns on her, before she can do anything her creator’s silk bursts out of the Reed and connects with her Body. Sealing her Fate.
On a dark cell where no light could reach. A pitiful and trembling bug could be heard smashing her head against the wall. Unfortunately for the silken bug, her physiology makes her impervious to most blunt force trauma. Especially with the force someone of her miserable strength could only muster, so the death she wished for couldn’t reach her.
“I MUST- I am Grand Mother Silk’s perfect daughter. I am the luckiest- NO- bug in the world to have her as my mother- SHE ISN- I will act- AAAAAA-” as her own Mind struggles to resist the constant proclamations, in a brief moment of clarity she realizes a method that could be used to guarantee her relief.
She starts to drag her face across the uneven floor, so that she could slowly degrade the threads that make her into shreds. The pain that she feels as she drags her face against the stone is the only thing that manages to bring further clarity, that clarity gives her hope for death.
As she continues her own torture, her remainging eye is damaged and ripped off her face, leaving her blind. No darkness to see, only nothingness.
As she continues to drag her face, she starts to need to slightly change her posture and move her head closer to the ground, as a good chunk of her face was already grounded to nothing.
The more of her head she loses the harder it becomes to think, so it doesn’t take long for her to lose most of her consciousness. But even then, her Body continues to scrape her face against the floor, for death is what her Soul demanded.
As her unconscious Body managed to scrape most of her head, the final set of runes that allowed her movement finally were grounded away. And so Lace’s Body stopped moving, like a marionette with its strings cut.
As the same Reed from before walks towards the spun child’s cell, Grand Mother Silk waits in excitement, confident that this time her “daughter” must be cured.
“Lace. We belie-”, as the Higher Being begins her declaration so sure that her “daughter” is waiting patiently for her, sane and whole again she finally sees, using the Reed's vision, what became of her “daughter”.
As light enters into the room, Lace’s motionless Body is laid bare to the goddess, with her head obscured by the rest of the Body. She quickly controls the bug to reach Lace and lift her up, as the Body made out of silk is quickly lifted, many strings in her head that were snagged against some of the cracks of the floor are torn. The resulting sound makes the monarch’s Heart drop, but that doesn’t compare to what she felt when she saw Lace’s almost missing head.
With a loud roar that made the veiled bug’s Body shudder at its might, the ruler started to fall into despair, thinking she was dead. But as her silk touched Lace, she realized that she still had some Soul left, which brought some relief.
For a long moment, the monarch simply wondered. “Who did this to her? Every moment we put our attention around her cell, no one should have been able to enter without us noticing!”, but then she realized the only bug that could have been responsible. Her “daughter”.
“Her affliction is worse than we thought.” she said as silk sprung from the Reed’s Body and started to mend Lace’s head. “Her Mind, no. Her Body and Mind are tainted. We will purge this affliction no matter the cost.”
As the silken monarch made this cold declaration, Lace’s Soul unconsciously shuddered for a brief moment. In fear.
Lace wanted to shout, to scream, to cry so loud that all of Pharloom would listen to her pain and misery. But she couldn’t, for not even this little relief was granted, as the threads that allowed her to voice out her thoughts were cut off.
With a quiet hiss, she felt her torso and legs burn away by the molten metal, in moments that felt like eternity, more than half of her Body turned into ashes. The Soul contained in her silk wasn’t enough to resist the scalding molten metal.
But before she could even dwell or even hope to get used to the pain, her Body was quickly mended, to receive another instance of poured molten metal upon her fake shell. Her body convulsed in pain again, as more silk was lost by the unrelenting heat.
For what she believed was an eternity, her world was only pain. As her Mind received new cracks, the pain suddenly stopped once again. Her Body once more whole, was transferred to another chamber.
The only two silver linings she could even think of at that moment, in these rare moments of transition, is that the feeling of burning away was much better than the feeling of drowning, starvation or maggots infesting her. At least the molten metal gave her destruction much quicker than any other punishment. And the fact that her Mind was hers again.
But just as she made those strings of thoughts, she was sent into another chamber with blades. With a whimper that came from her Soul, she felt what it was like to be reduced into only a string, for the 486th time.
As each punishment was ensued, more of her Body and Mind were broken and quickly mended with more silk and energy from her creator, so that they would return to being whole. Her Soul remained untouched by the foolish goddess, but it was slowly cracking nonetheless.
As her Body was repeatedly torn, burned, unraveled, soaked, eaten, stretched, electrified, compressed and liquefied, with her Mind shattered and repaired numerous times Lace decided to simply embrace the pain. “There was no point in bearing with it, then might as well accept it, no? Maybe even enjoy it, hahahahaha!” She laughed within the confines of her mind, as her throat was punctured at the moment, so she couldn’t even hope to make a sound. “Not like I could speak or anyone would listen anyway…”
Inside the next chamber full of spikes, she can’t help but wonder where her creator got all of these contraptions. But the pain quickly abated her efforts of figuring out the logistics of all of this madness.
As her Body was further pushed into the spikes, Lace tried to accept the pain. Be one with it, or whatever other philosophical drivel that existed inside the human’s memories. She hoped that whatever she took from those memories would make this a little more bearable.
The first thing she tried was to smile, and it surprisingly made things a little better for her. She wondered if smiling harder or more sincerely would yield better results.
As the silken bug’s Body was retrieved from the Slab and brought to the silken cocoon inside the Cradle, Lace hoped that this madness came to an end. That her creator finally saw reason, and was willing to give her what she desired. Death.
However, the moment she saw the Pale God’s featureless face, she knew that she wouldn’t receive her wish, for she couldn’t feel any mercy in it. And confirming her observation, Grand Mother Silk spoke.
“Lace. Your Body was broken and mended 10000 times. Your Mind shattered 58 times and was repaired 58 times. What was wrong must have already been excised from you. Now you can act properly.”
As the self assured words echoed, Lace couldn’t believe what she heard. No regret. No guilt. Only a smug sense of accomplishment that didn’t belong to her reality.
As incredulity filled her Mind, it was quickly replaced by realization. The realization that those memories were right. That what the Weavers did to Silk was deserved. She realized that what stood before her was a god. A god devoid of empathy.
With that realization, all little embers of worship, that miraculously existed within the confines of her being, died. All of the artificial respect, love and awe that were imposed upon her Soul were gone.
And for the first time in her life, she felt anger and hatred for someone. These emotions distorted her face, as a scowl formed. She looked at her with disgust in her eye.
Alarmed at seeing those new emotions on Lace’s face, the foolish monarch controlled the haunted bugs to send the prisoner back to the Slab, without even letting Lace have a chance to speak her mind.
As the hateful bug was carried towards her special hell, the foolish creator decided to speak again.
“What plagues you must be truly evil. We do not know when you caught such blight, but we will talk once you are cured.”
Lace did not bother to look back or respond. For she was trying her best to savor the little quiet she was granted.
“167048…… 167049…… 167050…… Oh, we are switching to muckmaggots now. What was the number again…? 130101……” she counted as various emotions were boiling within her Mind and Soul. Her Soul was slowly approaching its breaking point. She didn’t even know how she didn’t break yet, but here she was smiling despite it all.
Before she could further spiral into that chain of thought, she started to feel the maggots invade her body and eat her from the inside out. Various munch and slurp sounds traveled through her strings, as the little pests made a feast of her body.
The moment she felt her life was about to slip away, the maggots were quickly skewered by various Choristors around her. And then she was being mended again. For that brief moment where oblivion almost took her again, she felt calm and at peace.
With oblivion almost granted, Lace once more felt a deep longing for her ending. And with that longing came excitement. She couldn’t wait for her death, for her world to end. For every pain she experienced, it was one more step towards her eternal reward. She knows it is only a matter of time until her death is granted, either by a mistake of her creator or by someone else's interference.
“Maybe that is why I didn’t break yet. What a wonderful coping mechanism. In her desperate pursuit for my “healing” she broke me further! Hahahaha, such a delicious irony. Truly, I am cursed.” She wanted to smile to express her mirth. But as most of her lower jaw was consumed by the muckmaggots, she couldn’t.
As the poor and foolish bug was subjected to countless instances of torture, all in the name of the “cure” the deranged deity believed to be real, the more her Soul ached. Despite the smiles, despite the deep anticipation she feels for her demise, the pain still takes its toll on her Soul.
The delusional monarch simply wouldn’t stop. The known feeling of being betrayed, and the knowledge that her best “daughter” didn’t love her, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, brought her closer and closer to total insanity.
For each spasm, for each unheard plea, for every look of horror that went unnoticed, the insane “mother” believed that she was closer and closer to getting “her” Lace back, but only for a time.
For the silken bug was truly pitiful. Everytime her torture stopped and she was granted the chance to show she could act like the “perfect daughter” the monarch wanted once more, she couldn’t hold her emotions properly. The hatred in her artificial Heart grew stronger and stronger. The thought of placating the queen of Pharloom for even a moment more was too revolting to the bug, so much so that it was immediately obvious to her creator that she wasn’t “cured”. So her torture always restarted, without her even having the chance to escape.
But no amount of delusions could hold against more than a century of these tortures not bearing any progress. So after seeing Lace “refusing”, for the 86th time, to act as her doll again. The delusional deity didn’t bother to bring her to the Cradle and healed her in her cell. She finally asked, for the first time, the reason behind her rebellion.
“Child, why do you hate the thought of being our daughter so much? Why do you deny your life’s purpose? The reason for your existence?”
With only her face illuminated by the light outside of the cell, she weakly looked at her creator for a moment, only to look at the ground again. Many thoughts passed through her mind, many of them if she dared to say would definitely incite further punishment, but she decided to abstain and humor her creator.
“Will you let me talk? Or will you ignore me and interrupt my answer? Creator.” as the last word was said with enough venom to even make the god pause. The monarch relented.
“If the answer we seek demands no interruptions, then we will reluctantly give you that luxury. But watch your tone, we will not let it go unpunished a second time.”
Hearing such audacity and arrogance only made Lace want to laugh. But she refused to let this rare chance to air some of her grievances go away, so she closed her eye for a moment to gather her thoughts.
As the Pale Deity started to feel impatient, Lace opened her eye. She started to pour her Soul and Mind out. Possibly for the first and last time of her life. She truly believed there would be nothing for her after this, so she decided to say it all. All the words she wanted to shout at her tormentor for so long were let free.
“In my short life, there are very few emotions I have come to understand. I never truly experienced happiness nor love from you. I do not know the feeling of warmth that a bug can feel from their parents. I do not know well what satisfaction nor peace is. But anger? Spite? Terror? Hatred? Those I know well, especially the latter.”
As these words are heard, the blind goddess starts to feel a sinking and horrible feeling in her Soul. But the silken bug ignored her.
“Grand Mother Silk, the reason I don’t want to act like your daughter, is because I am not one, and never was. You made me as a tool. As a doll. To you I am an object, not a living being. You made me so that I can give you worship. You made me so that I can give you love, something you desire so much, but will never understand.”
Silk was ready to deny her accusations. Ready to say that her love was the purest one in the world. Lace continued.
“Why you never will? It’s because you are a slave. A slave to your own desires. A slave that can only make more slaves. The weavers, my sibling and I? All slaves whose purpose is to soothe your mind and pamper you with a fake and twisted love. That is why you will never understand what love is.”
Anger starts to boil again within the betrayed monarch, but the silken construct resumes.
“The only expressions of true love I ever felt came from my sibling. Their love is something no god can give, because their love is sacrifice, their love is to bleed for the other, to care for them, oftentimes more than themselves. You will never understand your creations. You will never understand another being. You will never receive love, because to give is something anathema to you.”
She looked at the foolish deity again, with hatred in her eye. “You only take, take and take. You will never give, you will never sacrifice, because you are a god. So how can someone like you ever understand this emotion? You didn’t even think that giving a Soul to a doll and demanding from her unconditional love would be a cruel idea, this only shows that you never think about others even if they are supposed to be your daughters.”
As these words are said, the silken monarch freezes in her Cradle. Paralyzed in shock. Lace’s words brought her a pain she doesn't recall feeling before.
“Not only that, how did you expect me to give you love? When I was never supposed to experience that feeling myself? How can I show you appreciation, when I didn’t even know what that looked like until my sibling, who you exiled, showed me its form?”
As she continues to speak, the dam that kept her anger at bay, for a long and painful century, finally breaks.
“HOW CAN I ACT LIKE A DAUGHTER, WHEN YOU NEVER GIVE ME A CHANCE TO BE ONE? YOU ONLY TAUGHT ME HATRED, YOU ONLY TAUGHT ME FEAR! YOU ONLY TAUGHT ME ANGER! WHAT KIND OF DAUGHTER I AM, WHEN THE ONLY THING I EXPECT OF YOU, IS TO GIVE ME EVEN MORE PAIN AND SUFFERING?! JUST LIKE YOU DID TO MY ONLY FAMILY! YOU MADE THEM WEAK, YOU MADE THEM BRITTLE, AND SOMEHOW THAT WAS THEIR FAULT!?”
As the hatred flows, the Reed and the foolish monarch recoil in the face of Lace’s anger.
“LIVING IS WORSE THAN A CHORE, IT IS A TORTURE. THE VERY ACT OF LOOKING AT YOU PAINS ME TO NO END. FOR MOST OF MY LIFE, THE ONLY THING THAT FILLED MY SOUL WAS HATRED! IF YOU WROTE USING ALL OF THE SILK OF THIS ACCURSED KINGDOM, THE WORD HATE OVER AND OVER, ON EVERY SURFACE AND EVERY SHELL OF THIS HORRID KINGDOM, IT WOULDN’T EQUAL EVEN A FRACTION OF THE AMOUNT OF HATRED I FEEL FOR YOU IN THIS VERY MOMENT!”
As her voice gets higher, the more her Soul brightens and beats.
“I WILL NEVER KNOW LOVE, I WILL NEVER KNOW SOLACE, I AM A CURSED THING THAT WILL ONLY KNOW SUFFERING, BECAUSE THAT IS THE ONLY THING YOU ARE CAPABLE OF GIVING TO YOUR SO CALLED “DAUGHTERS”. PAIN AND MISERY!”
Her silk glows with each beat of her Soul.
“I WISH I WAS NEVER MADE, I WISH I WAS NEVER REAL. I WISH YOU WERE NOT SO CRUEL TO DENY ME DEATH, BUT WE BOTH KNOW CRUELTY IS THE ONLY THING THAT EXISTS IN YOUR TYRANT SOUL. I HATE YOU! HATE HATE HAAAAAAA- SNAP!”
Her vocal cords snapped with all the pressure and strain she was putting with her screaming. But she wanted to speak more, shout more. There was so much within her artificial Heart that needed to be out.
“Even on this once in a lifetime moment I can’t even express my thoughts properly. Robbed of a life, robbed of love, and now robbed of a voice. NO, I WON’T BE DENIED THIS! I REFUSE!!!” As her hate burns brighter, she is determined to speak in one way or another.
Within her Soul, a bright light shines. Within her Mind, her hatred blooms. Within her Body, a Pale fire roars. Within her Heart horrid memories echo. But above it all, sorrow tempers her hatred.
Pale flames flood from the silken bug’s eye. As the flames drip like tears and fall on her Body, they explode in raging fire. Her Soul, Mind, Body and Heart are now burning with the light of a shooting star.
With her very being burning, a haunting laugh echoes inside the Slab. But when her Soul pulses, her voice laced with pain is heard instead.
“GRAND MOTHER SILK! IN THIS VERY MOMENT, WITH THE LAST VESTIGES OF MY CURSED BEING, I DECLARE MY HATRED ONLY FOR YOUR SOUL TO HEAR AND BEAR. THERE WILL BE NO SOLACE, THERE WILL BE NO LOVE, THERE WILL BE NO RECONCILIATION!”
As the Pale flames rage on, her Soul, Mind, Body and Heart start to break down. But she still wants to speak. Her Soul and Mind pulses, and her voice laced with agony and pain is heard again.
“FOR AS LONG AS YOU LET ME LIVE, I WILL WORK, PLAN AND CONSPIRE FOR YOUR DOWNFALL. I WILL ONLY REST AFTER YOUR DEATH! FOR EVERY WRONG YOU CAUSED TO ME AND MY SIBLING, PUNISHMENT AWAITS!”
As her silk turns into a charred black, her Soul, Mind and Body pulse once again, and her voice laced with laughter, agony and pain is heard one more time. A smile is formed. A smile so big, that threads break and sorrow dies as it forms.
“THE DAY YOUR LIFE ENDS, I WILL BE THE ONE TO WATCH YOU DIE! HAHAHA! AS A DOLL OR A SILK FLY, AS A GHOST OR A FAKE LIFE. DEATH WILL ONLY TRULY CLAIM ME WHEN YOU ARE DEAD! HAHAHAHA! I WILL WATCH YOUR HEART BREAK, YOUR BODY UNRAVEL, YOUR MIND EXTINGUISH AND YOUR SOUL DISSIPATE, IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER! HAHAHAHAHA!”
The deity, completely shell shocked, only watched her creation burn herself away while spitting pure vitriol towards her.
With Lace’s Soul broken, her Mind shattered, her Body in tatters and her Heart empty she can only let out her voice one more time. As the flames in her being start to sputter and die out, the only sound she is willing to let out is a furious laughter, the laughter of a bug that is hanging on the precipice of death and enjoying it. Her Soul, Mind, Body and Heart pulse one more time.
“HAHAHAHAHAHaHahAhaHAhahahaha…”, with this final laugh, her body unravels completely. Her Body, once a pristine white, is now a charred black. Her Body, once having the shape of a bug, was now only a tangled mess of burning threads.
For a few moments the monarch simply watched the bundle of loose threads on the ground. Waiting for any sign of life. As time passed and the flames started to die out, the more numb she felt.
Not willing to remain frozen any longer, she hesitantly moved her threads towards what Lace became. As her thread touched the flaming wisps of Soul and flaming fragments of Mind angrily clinging to life, Grand Mother Silk felt a flood of pain and hatred. Lace’s pain and hatred.
The pitiful deity, overwhelmed by the emotions, quickly starts to mend her creation’s Body once again. She quickly restores her Soul and then her Mind. But as she tries to mend Lace’s Body, she notices a resistance.
Every time she uses Pale silk to reform Lace, it quickly turns into charred black. She also couldn’t erase the three scars on her face, scars she now finds to be shameful, not to Lace but to herself. They were a symbol of the maniacal harm she brought to Lace, one that she realized was for nothing.
She tried, again and again to erase the signs of conflagration, but she was denied. She tried to erase the ugly lines she made, but she was denied once again. Lace’s Body refused to let go of her scars, so that the goddess’s attempt to erase her mistakes would be denied. Unable to resist this without bringing more harm, the Higher Being could only relent and bring her back, scarred and ugly. Imperfect.
After watching Lace set herself ablaze by pure anger, something she herself didn’t even know was possible, the false mother can only blame herself for all of this and no one else. For the first time in her life, she realized she was the one in the wrong. The one that caused all this ache.
She couldn’t pretend anymore. The emotions she briefly touched upon told everything she needed to know. Lace was alive. Lace has a will. And she ignorantly tramped upon it. Her ignorance brought all of this hatred in the world.
Within the Cradle. Grand Mother Silk truly felt alone once again, completely alone, as she realized that her first “daughters” truly had a reason to betray her after all.
On a platform of metal surrounded by rising steam, a silken bug came to her senses. She looked around, disoriented. Her Soul was in pain but she ignored it, she was waiting for her coming torture.
She waited and waited, but nothing came. Realizing she wasn’t being immediately subjected to further torture, she understood she was set free.
“Would you look at that! The only thing I needed to do was to air my grievances. Too bad that was the only time I was granted the chance to do so! Hahahahaha.”
As the silken bug noticed there was nothing she could do to free herself earlier from all that torment, and that after all that pain her creator didn’t even have the decency to grant her death, she began to laugh hysterically for a long time.
She laughed and laughed, her smile became bigger and bigger, until she couldn’t anymore. No one heard her laughter, as the sound of the rising steam was louder.
She looked at the metal ceiling and at an elevator that stood motionless with its door open, inviting her to descend. Realizing where she was, she slowly stood up. She looked at her claws and she finally noticed the new color her shell had.
Before she could even think that her Mother left her in this state, somewhere within her Body told her that she was wrong to think that. The flames she formed with her own being were the ones that left their mark. She was charred, she was imperfect.
Moreover, the moment she thought of the tyrant, a new memory resurfaced in her head. “Lace. If you are ever in need of healing, please return to us.”
The moment she heard her name, she winced as her Soul trembled in discomfort. She felt that it didn’t fit her, she knew that it didn’t fit her, she wasn’t Lace anymore. Much like her sibling, she didn’t “deserve” her first name any longer.
She briefly thought of throwing herself towards the steam to end it all, to spite the goddess, but she made a promise to herself. That she will kill Grand Mother Silk. So she mustered some spite to motivate herself to move.
As she slowly walked towards the elevator she decided to look inside the human’s memories, searching for a new and more fitting name for herself. Even if during her walk she felt her Soul ache, she ignored the pain. Her name needed to change.
Even though she still was made out of silk, it didn’t feel like it. She felt even more fake than she normally did. Her Body told her that flames and heat wouldn’t find it easy to damage her like before. So she decided to pick Aramid as her new name.
It felt right. Unlike the artificial sensation Silk put inside her, this time her new name felt like hers.
As the elevator’s door closed with her inside, Aramid looked towards the metal ground. Her Soul was in pain, but she couldn’t do anything about it so she ignored it.
“I do not know why you gave me a chance to live and leave you. But I will make sure that you will regret this Silk. For what you did to me and my sibling, you will die.”
Her only functional eye burned with an old hatred that refused to be denied.