-eroism- | Insect Prison Remake -v1.0-

And the worst part? As Sess retreated into the amber shadows, her chitin gown clicking a slow, seductive rhythm, Kaelen realized he was no longer afraid.

He remembered now. The old prison had been about bars and silence. This one… this one was about intimacy. About being known . Insect Prison Remake -v1.0- -Eroism-

He was in a cube. Ten meters each side. The walls weren't metal or stone, but a translucent, amber-hued resin. Embedded within them, frozen in eternal rigor, were insects. Not ordinary ones. These were specimens with too many joints, eyes like cut gems, wings that seemed to fold through dimensions. A praying mantis the size of his forearm, its scythes locked in a perpetual strike. A wasp with an ovipositor like a jeweled stinger, poised inches from a paralyzed, humanoid larva. And the worst part

“Warden. Curator. Muse.” She tilted her head, a gesture both human and insectile. “The old system failed because it punished the body. We punish the… flavor of the soul. You are emotionally redundant, Kaelen. You feel the same things, in the same order, for the same reasons. Boring. We are going to breed new responses into you.” The old prison had been about bars and silence

Kaelen looked up. A face leaned down from the amber gloom. It was beautiful in the way a polished skull is beautiful. Features of a woman, but the eyes were compound, fracturing his reflection into a thousand tiny, screaming Kaelens. Her hair was not hair, but filament-thin antennae. She wore a gown of woven chitin that clicked softly as she descended, her movements a series of precise, predatory angles.

The light was the first thing to go. Not a dimming, but a surgical removal. Kaelen woke not to darkness, but to a hum . A low, resonant thrum that vibrated through the polished floor beneath his cheek. He pushed himself up, the air thick and sweet, like overripe fruit left too long in the sun.

And that was the first sin of his new life.