Chapter 1

My mother says my name like the beetles do. A harsh, tongue-heavy sound, almost like a click. Ki-ki-ki, the beetles say, clicking their rears against stone floors, speaking in tones no one but themselves can understand. Ki-ki-ki, my mother calls, a grotesque twin and equally as indecipherable. As a child, I would try to mimic the way she said it—try to move my tongue like how she did, to be as united in language as we were in blood. But the sound I would make was less like a click and more of a gargle; bubbling, wet, and wrong.

At some point, I gave up trying to sound like her. At another point, I gave up trying at all. For every word I said, for every connection I attempted to forge, all she ever returned to me was a click and destruction. This, from the woman who raised me. This, from my mother. My mother, who lost her words ten years ago and never bothered to search for them. My mother, and the shadow of a person she left behind.

My mother, the stranger.

Half my life she’s been this way. Distantly, I can recall a person who would kiss my head and tell me stories of the sky, of the sun, of an earth that was kinder; sorry stories which were passed down for generations, a dying attempt at preserving a foreign history.

What a waste. All that effort to remember—a legacy worth of words—and it was passed down to my mother, who wishes she were a beetle and talks no more.

It would be funny, in an awful sort of way, were it not so irritating, so isolating, so dangerous. But I force myself to focus on the irritating part, as I have done for almost as long as I can remember, because irritating is manageable. The others, less so.

For what must be the twelfth time during what is supposed to be a short walk home, I mentally weigh the silken bundle of rations in my hands against the one from last week, and the week before, and the week before that. I am found wanting. I should not—can not—say out loud that the bundle feels lighter, but I know my stomach feels like a bottomless cavity, unable to be filled. And I know I am not alone in thinking so.

I also know that when I return home, my mother will hold out her hands expectantly. She will take the bundle, shake her head like she always does at the poor quality silk, and click at me in a way that has never not felt accusatory. She seems to think that I delight in secreting away a bit for myself: her daughter, the thief. And while I am a thief, or at least I used to be, I never found delight in being one. Pocketing a handful of our rations, back before the bundles got too light for me to pass them off as small, was a matter of survival. Of necessity, not smug satisfaction, no matter what she may think. It is not my fault that my labor is harder than hers, that I need more than she does. Really, it is her fault for driving me to theft, if anything, what with her practice of splitting everything into even halves.

At least, I muse, it is no longer thirds.

As if that makes anything better.

The growing feeling in my stomach is of hollowness and hurt; a handful secreted away into my pocket was far more useful than a handful never given. It rankles, this lacking.

Still, I suppose that if anything, then at least my mother will be fine. She is used to splitting this meager portion size between us. I am the one who will be hungrier, so accustomed am I to my larger bounty, to my extra stash. My handful of salvation.

This is why, when I hear a familiar clicking sound, I pause. It is a beetle—a true one, not my mother—and I am hungry enough to make foolish decisions. Turning off the main path, I follow after the tantalizing sound. In my haste, the bundle full of beetle carcasses crunch and crush in my hands, so I force myself to slow down, or at least to lighten my grip.

Ki-ki, my snack says, guiding my way to it. Ki-ki-ki-ki.

The narrow tunnel is long and squat. I must hunch my aching back in order to fit; while not abnormal, it makes the position no less painful. Sound bounces and bends along the walls and ceiling, making the beetle sound both close and far away. After seventy paces, I begin to wonder if I am hallucinating the sound of the beetle. Then my hand, which had been tracing the wall of the cave tunnel, falls into the open air. My back clicks and pops as I straighten and I cannot help the way a beetle-like hiss escapes my mouth as the near-permanent pains in my neck and shoulders pull awkwardly. One site of pain sends another reeling; the tightness in my calves threatens to seize up and return me to the floor. The knobs of my spine prickle uncomfortably and I wish to curl into the position dead millipedes take on; arcing and stiff and unfeeling. The pain in my body, while familiar, is hot and sharp like it always is after a long day of work. It is practically unbearable at times.

Still, I must bear it, like we all do in the Below. What must be done is done; what mustn't ceases to exist. The work must be done, and so the pain will not stop me. Complaining does nothing, and so I do not. Simple, really.

Somewhere in the darkness of the cave, the beetle clicks to me again, a pattern of taps that mean something I will never know.

A more exciting person, one like Torr, would be convinced that the beetle was attempting to communicate. “Maybe,” he would say, giddy with a joy I cannot fathom, “it is telling us its secrets.” Torr would be convinced that with only a little more effort and a lot more time, he might one day learn the language of the beetles and share in their insectal confidence.

But what secrets are there to learn? The beetle as it is now would have only ever known the damp wetness of the Waiting Cave. Even if it somehow remembered past that, to a time back before its body hardened into a shell and sprouted legs, back to its larval body and stage of esteemed worth, then what would be the point in listening? It is pointless to know why our rations are getting smaller, just that they are. Nothing can, or could, or has ever been done anyway. No one is stupid enough to try. All there is to do is move on with one’s tasks and try our best to stay alive.

Far more likely than spilling its secrets, the beetle is probably searching for a mate or companion. If I were to say such a thing to Torr, in an attempt at pursuing logic and steering us away from pointless imaginings, he would snort in amusement. The sound would be paired with some snarky comment or another about how I must be quite a catch, then, by beetle standards. I would try not to be fond. Torr would somehow know regardless and be pleased. We would pretend our life was kind.

Or perhaps, instead of following some baser influences, the beetle is attempting to find a friend. A companion. Something to make the world less dark. I cannot fault it for such a wish. It is something about the everpresent darkness, I believe, or the fact that I do not know my workmates names after years of being side-by-side, that makes the loneliness just as heavy as the skyless reality that surrounds us.

Or maybe it is clicking just to click—that is what my mother does, at least.

In spite of my better sensibilities, I lower myself onto the rough stone, setting the bundle beside me. The off-branch I am in must be rarely visited for the ground to have not already been worn smooth by countless feet. The floor of the main cave is practically slippery in comparison.

With baited breath, I tap my nail once, twice, against the rough stone beneath me. Tud-tud. In beetle-language I am attempting to say, Oh, really? Tell me more, to whatever secrets it might be sharing. The beetle must hear a sound that is disappointingly human though, because no clicks answer back.

Despite the beetle no longer being interested in me, I continue to tap my nail against the ground in aimless patterns. I was not here to communicate with it anyway. I don’t even know why I tried. I think I am stalling. I know I am hungry. What I do not know is what to do.

If I eat the beetle, then I will have broken a law. No person shall eat beyond their rations. But, I will also have eaten.

If I do not eat the beetle, then I will need to return it to whence it came. Any escaped cattle must be returned to an overseer posthaste. My chances of whether or not that goes well will depend on which overseer I run into first.

I am also lying about being indecisive, but that is not important since my decision is made for me with the sound of footsteps.

Remembering how easily sound carried down the tunnel, I hold my breath and silently beg for the beetle to embrace the disappointment I fed it earlier. It must not draw attention to us now.

If we can just remain unfound, I think, then I will return the beetle and take whatever punishment I deserve. I will be good. I will not be annoyed at my mother’s clicking. No harm has been done. I promise.

But the underground knows better. The cold, stone halls of the Below know better. The beetle must know it, too, considering it taps the hard shell of its rear against the ground twice in a way I know is meant to be mocking.

Ki-ko, it must be saying, stupidly pleased to have caught me in such a position. Hungry, hungry Kiko. In trouble again.

The distortion of sound makes it impossible to know how close the footsteps truly are, but they must be getting closer. Attempting to find an excuse for my behavior is an action that I know will end in failure, considering it always has, but one I cannot keep myself from trying anyway. Maybe I happened to stumble upon the escaped beetle and was just about to catch it, with no malicious intentions attached. Do not worry, kind overseer. There was only one! I swear I did nothing wrong. Or maybe I was surveying this off-branch of the main cave for some other assignment, nevermind that I am only an ore-miner and nothing more. Possibly I got lost, though only fools use that excuse.

There is no real point in making excuses, no point in wasting time trying to craft one, other than being able to tell myself I tried. The way things are about to go is simple: I will be found with a beetle I cannot bring myself to kill and I will be reprimanded accordingly. It will hurt in one way or another. I will move on.

So, I stand.

My frantically racing heart is practically all I can hear, distracting me from the footsteps. This is perhaps why it takes me so long to realize that the person’s gait is not as steady as I initially thought it to be. Consistent, yes, but not steady. Not like a miner’s aching march, or the way the overseers all walk in the same indecipherable and painlessly quick tempo, but something different. Something familiar.

One foot steps confidently, putting down all of its weight with a certainty that is rare from anyone but the best of the Below. The other scuffles, drags, makes a funny little scraping sound. There are few people who have the liberty of being imperfect. I hope I know who it is.

The person turns the final corner and enters my not-so-secret place. For a moment, the only sound is the occasional clicking of the beetle that lured me here and our twin breaths; the heartbeat in my ears and the sound of dry hands brushing together. Not my hands. But his.

“How is work?” my visitor asks, words soaked in a poorly hidden hesitancy.

“Rocky,” I respond, offering up our agreed upon answer, just like how his was ‘buggy.’ My shoulders sink in relief. It will be alright.

Today, I am lucky. Today, it is Torr who finds me.

Somewhere in the cave, near the entrance I had drifted away from, Torr lets out a snort. I can tell, even without seeing him, that his posture is much the same as mine.

“Always-reliable rocky,” he says, a weary humor entering his voice.

“And never-reliable buggy,” I muse, thinking of our steadily decreasing ration sizes.

There is a scratching sound, like nails against short hair, and I know Torr is feeling awkward. “It will increase again,” he offers, though the words lie unconvincing between us. “It was just a bad season. That’s all. You know how it is.”

I don’t, I don’t say. I don’t know how it is.

“Anyway,” Torr continues, “we should get out of here. Before... Well. Before.”

He’s right.

Using the sound of the beetle’s legs on the rocky ground, I am able to locate it quickly. I scoop the bug up with one hand and cover it with the other, forming a little cage. It would just be for a minute or so, just to keep it safe, but I make sure to keep my hands loose so I don’t crush the thing.

“Got it. What is next?” I ask quietly.

“We’ll bring it straight back to the Waiting Cave,” he decides. “It will be okay. I work there, I can get us in. It won’t be a problem. We aren’t doing anything wrong.”

“But what if we get caught?” I have to ask the question. I know what my own answer is, and I know Torr’s, too, but I need to hear him say it.

Torr starts to say something, sighs harshly, then stops. The sound of silk gliding against silk tells me that Torr is making some gesture or another, probably something that means, I do not know or There is no point in wondering.

I have my answer.

About the Author

When thinking of Sun Chasers and its conception, it began with one simple question: what would it be like to see the sun for the first time, after a lifetime without? My first thought was that it would breathtaking and amazing. My second thought was that it would actually suck, and the third was wondering about what type of world a person would have to live in to never see the sun. The piece I have submitted is part of a much larger novel that I am still in the beginning stages of writing, though I have planned out much of the story. The goal of this first chapter is to begin to shape the world in the reader's mind, and be able to bring to life a desolate, cold, and lonely world.

Instagram: @cracklebred

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