Soft Chitin

I woke up wrong. Not the usual wrong ~ not an alarm, not a stiff neck, not the sour taste of another day I didn't want. This wrong had weight.

My arms weren't arms. They were long, jointed, hooked at the ends like knives someone had forgotten to sheathe. When I tried to push myself up, one scythe dug into soft wood and stuck. I yanked. Bark peeled. My body lurched sideways and I rolled into leaf litter that smelled like wet iron and rot.

Violet mist hung between the trees. The canopy was so thick it turned daylight into something bruised. Dead leaves stuck to my underside. I had an underside. I had too many legs. I flexed each one in order and watched the delay between intent and motion. Half a second. Sometimes more. That lag would get me killed if I ignored it.

For three seconds I just catalogued.
Eyes: compound. Field of view too wide. Depth weird.
Mouth: wrong. Mandibles. Something wet behind them.
Chest: hard plates. Soft seams where plates met ~ I was soft there. Fresh.
Hunger: immediate. Not stomach-growl hunger. A clock.

Text drew itself across my vision without permission.

[SYSTEM]
Vessel claimed: Nestling Mantis (Monster)
Soul imprint: Human ~ incomplete
True Name: Mantara
Designation: UNBOUND
Level: 1
Hunger Clock: 48%

Mantara. The name the Goddess gave me. Mine now. I tested it once in whatever counted as a throat and got a click instead of a word. Fine. Names didn't need sound to work.

"Okay," I thought, and the thought arrived with a faint echo, like my old voice standing one step behind me. "New body. Forest. System interface. Don't waste time screaming."

I didn't scream. Screaming wouldn't recalibrate motor control.

I tried to stand again, slower. Six legs. Weight forward on the scythes felt natural and also useless ~ every micro-adjustment overshot. I took one step and stabbed my own foot-analogue into a root. Pain was sharp, clean, useful. I filed it: left raptorial overcommits when rushed. Second step: shorter. Third: plant before shift. I still looked drunk. Drunk was better than broken.

Hunger Clock: 46%. Dropping.

Movement nearby ~ not sound first. Vibration through the litter into my legs. A beetle the size of my old fist crawled over a fallen branch, glossy and stupidly confident. Threat marker flickered.

[Sense]
Target: Forest Scarab ~ Lv.1
Threat: Low

Low was good. Low was lunch.

I moved. Or I tried to. The strike I pictured was clean ~ scythe in, scythe out, problem solved. What happened was a sideways lurch, a miss that carved a groove in wood, and the beetle bolting. I chased. Chasing on this chassis was a joke. Legs tangled. I face-planted into moss hard enough to make the System flash a Shell warning.

Hunger Clock: 41%.

I stopped moving like a person. People run. People reach. This body waited.

I climbed the branch the ugly way ~ hooks, pull, pause, hooks ~ until I was above the beetle's path. Stillness happened by accident when my joints locked from inexperience. The System liked it anyway.

[Skill Acquired] Stillness
Base rank: 1
Racial affinity (Mantis / Unbound): +3
Effective rank: 4
Ambush Rating: charging…

Four. Humans didn't get that. I already knew they wouldn't. Skill points sat in the corner of my vision: 4. I didn't spend them yet. Data first. Spending blind was how humans stayed average.

The beetle came back under me, dumb enough to trust the same route. Ambush Rating ticked up while I held. My scythes shook from the effort of not correcting. When the marker peaked, I dropped.

This time the left hook caught. Not clean, but enough to do the job. I pinned it and tore into the beetle using a predatory instinct I didn't know I had, and ichor flooded a mouth that wasn't mine and also was. The taste was not as bad as I was expecting, but that's irrelevant. Calories were the point. I kept eating until the twitching stopped, then checked the notification that popped up into my vision.

[Kill] Forest Scarab ~ Lv.1
XP gained.
[Skill Acquired] Scythe Hook
Base rank: 1 → Effective rank: 4 (+3 affinity)
Skill points available: 4

"Cheating on day one," the Echo noted. "Good."

I ate until the Clock climbed past sixty, then forced myself to stop. Bingeing felt like a door I shouldn't open yet. Will was a stat. I could feel it holding the line. If it slipped, I suspected I would keep killing without me being aware of anything. I don't like not being in control. I wonder if that's what comes from this new body.

I got XP but no level up yet. I should check how much there is to the next level. Status.

Nestling Mantis ~ Lv.1 ~ Mantara
Might 4 | Agility 6 | Shell 3
Sense 5 | Will 4 | Insight 7
Skill points: 4

Insight looks like my edge right now, but I will need to put points in all of these eventually. I don't think I'll spend anything right now. I'll hold onto these for a good moment. Four points were leverage. Leverage for a sticky situation, or for when I find a safe place to lay down.

When I could walk ten steps without stabbing myself, I surveyed. Red Orchard Hollow, if the Goddess had told me right ~ black trunks weeping dark sap, leaf litter deep enough to hide a Nestling, a thin black stream cutting deep into the forest. I think I will call this place Ichor Run. I think it'll be a good landmark to keep in mind. I marked three escape routes and one dead end I would not use again.

Near the stream bank I found husks. Not beetle. Mantis. Old. Brittle. Split along the back the way a molt splits ~ except some were cracked wrong, stabbed, burned at the edges. Egg casings nearby, empty, crushed into the mud like someone had made sure. No living scent like mine in the air. No vibration of another Nestling.

I stood over the dead nest and did the math. Either my kind migrated… or my kind ended.

Neither changed the immediate goal. Survive. Feed. Learn the chassis. Don't Frenzy. History could wait until I had reach and height and a reason to care who wiped the board.

Hunger Clock: 58%. Night thickened the violet mist.

I chose a ledge under an arch of fallen wood and practiced folding my scythes close so I wouldn't cut myself in my sleep. Sleep was partial. Sense stayed half-on. Every drip of sap registered. Beetles got a Threat tag and a dismissal.

When I woke, I stretched each leg one at a time, then both scythes, slow and full. The lag between thinking and moving was still there, but shorter than yesterday. This body was starting to feel a little more like mine.

Before the Clock forced another hunt, I ran one more drill.
Step, plant, Stillness, strike. Miss.
Step, plant, Stillness, strike. Graze.
Step, plant, Stillness, strike. Pin.
I repeated it until the miss rate dropped enough to call it a plan instead of luck. Not mastery, just getting a hold of the trajectory.

[Local Notice]
You are alone in known Mantid signature range.
Species census: 1

Alone. Useful. No rivals to manage. No kin to protect. Just Mantara, soft-chitin, Level 1, learning how not to waste a kill.

I clicked once into the mist ~ not a name, not a prayer ~ and went hunting again before the Clock could make the choice for me.

The hunt went nowhere. Everything near the stream had learned my scent by midday, and every tremor I chased was gone before I got close. By dusk my legs ached and the Clock had kept sliding. I climbed back to my ledge with nothing, folded my scythes in, and let Sense keep watch while the rest of me slept.